Malê Rising

[Admiral Matt]

Benign? It seems like Jonathan established it is anything but. It seems to me that Russia has suffered worse circumstances than OTL, at least by this point (four years into the war).

Relatively.

No Germans on any real integral Russian territory, which in turn means Russia doesn't abdicate sovereignty over core provinces and then have to try to win them back. As well as there being no bases for "Whites" to mobilize in, and a relatively inclusive government that is dramatically limiting their numbers to begin with.

 

[Mefisto]

Given a Russia with neither Brest-Litovsk nor a full Civil War, yeah, probably. The Poles wouldn't have a power vacuum to move into, and Curzon was near the ethnic frontier. I do think Poland has a real chance at Eastern Galicia, though, if Austria does lose its grip as seems likely. Russia could handle it, but given its internal issues I'd bet on the Poles.

The Poles would like it. Firstly they would cite the claims that this region was part of Polish Kingdom since XIV century by right of inheritance and conquest. Then there is Lemberg/Lwów - a city very important to Polish culture (Polish School of Math comes from there). Then there is a simple arithmetic - more territory, more people - more power for the reestablished kingdom (exactly the same factor which triggered its conquest by Casimir the Great). And the last reason - together with Romania it would split Russia from Austria and would give the Germans link with Black Sea.

That seems very probable. The scientific comprehension might be a little fast given what they could handle at the time, but yeah - basically solid.

I doubt if anybody would even think about the virus which destroys immunity to other deseases. It is something like meta-thinking. The scientists would observe that the tuberculosis and flu are beginning more nasty and would probably link them with Africa but this would be all. Well the syphilis was enough widespread at this time that it would mask the AIDS. There would be also malnutrition factor.
In OTL AIDS only manifested because some persons from certain community started to exhibit unusual combination of deseases which were not so prominent in society well fed and having access to advanced medicine.
In TTL we are talking about a society which does not have even basic antibiotics and the knowledge about immunology is primitive. When there was the role of T-cells discovered?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

But I can see Bornu wanting control/dominance/influence in the 'Kingdom of the Arabs' and Britain wanting a link between Sierra Leone and the 'Nigeria' block.

Would Britain be willing to give Gambia to France in return for concessions elsewhere? With it being surrounded by Senegal its more trouble than its worth.

And has anything happened in Madagascar during the war? Its strategic position suggests that France would want to keep control there.

I don't think a land connection between the Niger colonies and Sierra Leone would be that important - Britain can always supply Sierra Leone by sea, and there won't be much the French can do to stop it. More likely, they'll want some kind of buffer between the Niger bloc and French West Africa, and they may well agree to trade the Gambia (which fell to France during the first weeks of the war) for such concessions.

Madagascar didn't see any fighting during the war; however, Germany or Britain might want it for the same strategic reasons. France will keep its smaller colonies in the region (the Comoros and Île de la Réunion) and might give up Madagascar in exchange for keeping more of West Africa or a reduction in its war indemnity.

On West Africa, we already know that Mali remain French as an earlier litterary post (which includes the biography of a Malian woman author) mentions the independence of Department of French Mali if I remember correctly.

Correct, although the province in question is only the southern half of OTL Mali.

Anyway, the French could be willing to give up many things, colonies, unification of Germany, basically all that led France to war, but any piece of national territory, it would never be accepted. But if I was a British diplomat, I would justly use this very fact to get everything I want in other regions of the world.

Also correct. There will actually be a strange alliance between Britain and France on this issue, because the British don't want Germany to get too big and want France to remain strong in order to keep a balance of power. But the British will demand a price for their help.

Without boots on the ground, the compromise will be made at the peace table, by which time the peak of centripetal forces will have subsided in Russia. Given the mood of the moment is something along the lines of "Germany is where the Germans are," I'd expect such a compromise to entail the Hanseatic Ports rather than the provinces themselves. Defining anything special about the Baltic Provinces is against German interests, remember. It means Baltic nationalism, which actually means a decline in the role of ethnic Germans (and Scandinavians) living there.

Fair point. Maybe a quasi-independent duchy of Courland, which would keep Russia from having a border with Germany, along with autonomy and extraterritorial concessions in the Latvian and Estonian port cities?

I do think Poland has a real chance at Eastern Galicia, though, if Austria does lose its grip as seems likely. Russia could handle it, but given its internal issues I'd bet on the Poles.

The Poles would like it. Firstly they would cite the claims that this region was part of Polish Kingdom since XIV century by right of inheritance and conquest. Then there is Lemberg/Lwów - a city very important to Polish culture (Polish School of Math comes from there). Then there is a simple arithmetic - more territory, more people - more power for the reestablished kingdom (exactly the same factor which triggered its conquest by Casimir the Great). And the last reason - together with Romania it would split Russia from Austria and would give the Germans link with Black Sea.

Fair enough. The link between territory and strength does break down in an industrial democracy - a new province full of people who (a) don't like you, and (b) vote, can be a weakness rather than a strength. But statesmen of this time are only beginning to figure that out, and the Polish leadership would probably want as big a country as possible to give them bargaining power against the Germans. So Poland would go for Eastern Galicia and would probably get it - in TTL, my Galitizianer ancestors would become Polish after all.

I doubt if anybody would even think about the virus which destroys immunity to other deseases. It is something like meta-thinking. The scientists would observe that the tuberculosis and flu are beginning more nasty and would probably link them with Africa but this would be all. Well the syphilis was enough widespread at this time that it would mask the AIDS. There would be also malnutrition factor.

In OTL AIDS only manifested because some persons from certain community started to exhibit unusual combination of deseases which were not so prominent in society well fed and having access to advanced medicine.

In TTL we are talking about a society which does not have even basic antibiotics and the knowledge about immunology is primitive. When there was the role of T-cells discovered?

T-cells weren't discovered until the 1950s IIRC, but don't quote me on that. They certainly wouldn't be known in the early 1900s - antibodies were known at that time, so there was some notion that an immune system existed, but people wouldn't know about T-cells or about the possibility that a virus might act on them.

I agree that the reaction to HIV in the early 20th century would be nine parts guesswork. But there would be some factors that would lead at least partway to the right guess. For one thing, the people who suffer from high incidences of wasting disease will include both people who spent time in the Congo and their sexual partners, so the doctors would probably figure out that the disease is sexually transmitted. And because, in many cases, the sexual relations occurred years before the onset of tuberculosis, they'd know that the TB isn't the result of direct contagion.

They wouldn't be able to isolate HIV or learn the exact mechanism by which it works - that would be decades beyond the state of medical knowledge at the time. But the idea of disease weakening the body and making it more vulnerable to other diseases would be nothing new. They might call it "the hidden disease" - or maybe they'd hypothesize at first that it's a long-incubating version of TB and call it "the hidden tuberculosis."

I guess this would at least limit any tendency to quarantine HIV patients, because doctors of this time would have no way to test for asymptomatic HIV and thus no idea who to quarantine. By the time the patients become symptomatic, they'll need to go to the hospital anyway. On the other hand, it will be very hard to control the infection rate. I wonder what peak infection would be in Europe, India and West Africa - on the one hand, the high-risk sexual behaviors common in southern Africa aren't prevalent there, but on the other hand, they won't have the screening and treatment resources available in the present day, and will have to rely on education and prophylactics. Would we see 10 or even 20 percent infection rates in the general population before the virus is isolated in the 1950s-60s, or would it stay at OTL West African levels of 2 to 5 percent?

 

[Faeelin]

Hrm.

Should France really lose anything? It's still in Northern Italy, it's still in the Rhineland... it's lost some colonial territory, but it's also advanced into some, right?

Edit: I suppose France could make concessions to keep its allies afloat...

 

[iori]

Hrm.

Should Fance really lose anything? It's still in Northern Italy, it's still in the Rhineland... it's lost some colonial territory, but it's also advanced into some, right?

Maybe a Status Quo Ante with an agreement for both North Germany and France to form a demilitarized zone on their mututal border?

 

[Faeelin]

Maybe a Status Quo Ante with an agreement for both North Germany and France to form a demilitarized zone on their mututal border?

It occurred to me that it's a shame we've already decided austria will collapse. *Benes, or his 1895 equivalent, would probably be worried about replacing Vienna with Berlin, and a Danubian Federation would be an ideal test ground for post-Westphalian sovereignty.

 

[iori]

It occurred to me that it's a shame we've already decided austria will collapse. *Benes, or his 1895 equivalent, would probably be worried about replacing Vienna with Berlin, and a Danubian Federation would be an ideal test ground for post-Westphalian sovereignty.

Indeed, it'd also lead to less unpleasantness down the road.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Should France really lose anything? It's still in Northern Italy, it's still in the Rhineland... it's lost some colonial territory, but it's also advanced into some, right?

Edit: I suppose France could make concessions to keep its allies afloat...

They may also give up colonies to offset part of the war indemnity - they'll be interested in keeping that as low as possible in order to help with the postwar reconstruction.

In any event, France does hold part of northern Italy and the Rhineland, and has that to bargain with, but the only foreign colonial territories it still holds are the Gambia and parts of Ubangi-Shari and the Congo. They won't lose anywhere near their whole empire at the peace table, but they'll lose something.

It occurred to me that it's a shame we've already decided austria will collapse. *Benes, or his 1895 equivalent, would probably be worried about replacing Vienna with Berlin, and a Danubian Federation would be an ideal test ground for post-Westphalian sovereignty.

Indeed, it'd also lead to less unpleasantness down the road.

The trouble with a Danubian Federation from the point of view of a Czech nationalist is that it would mean replacing Vienna with Vienna, or worse yet, with Budapest. Given Austria's track record in Bohemia during the late 19th century, and especially after imposing martial law during the first year of the war, the Czechs won't trust Austria to act as an equal partner. And although they're leery of Berlin, the Germans supported them during the war and have promised an independent Czech kingdom, so for the time being, they'll dance with the ones that brung 'em.

This isn't to say that there won't be conflict later, of course, and central European federalism can't be ruled out as an outcome of such conflict, especially if Austria stays independent of Germany and eventually makes common cause with the Czechs and Slovenes (and maybe the Slovaks and Hungarians too) in order to counterbalance German power.

 

[Shevek23]

Hrm.

Should France really lose anything? It's still in Northern Italy, it's still in the Rhineland... it's lost some colonial territory, but it's also advanced into some, right?

Edit: I suppose France could make concessions to keep its allies afloat...

I'd think that there would be some sentiment on the BOG side for putting "war guilt" on the FAR side. Jonathan's writing style tended to mask, for me, the depth of the horror of this war; he had to tell us bluntly how much worse it was than OTL Great War for me to appreciate that.

Of the main FAR powers, Russia has undergone a revolutionary transformation and is presumably already asking for terms under Tolstoy. It would be hard to blame Narodnik Russia for the crimes of Tsar Nicholas. They are losing territory sufficient to form several very large European nations. Austria-Hungary has also lost territory on a smaller but substantial scale already, equal to a couple medium-sized European nation, and seems teetering on the verge of collapse.

BTW if King/Confederation President Wilhelm really is bound and determined to seize all of German Austria as well as the middle Catholic German realms, he's a fool and may wind up undermining his position both as chief of the German confederation and at the peace table. Despite the ethnic unity (except of course for gobbling up Bohemia!) he'd achieve--ITTL ethnic/racial categories have not evolved to have the same status as they had by this point, and still more by the 1910's, OTL. Religious categories remain more important than OTL. He's already shifting the religious balance of the Confederation by gobbling up Baden and Bavaria--and I'd have to look for a map to see if there were third and fourth and fifth independent Catholic principalities there that we've been overlooking completely. Baden and Bavaria's populations have demonstrated, with a strong vote by feet and guns, that they want into the Confederation. But I doubt German Austrians do. He'd be swallowing just the sort of poison pill Jonathan has confirmed the Ottomans are smart enough to avoid.

But by the logic of indemnity and war guilt, Germany certainly deserves something; they suffered horribly, massive losses of men and terrible devastation on their borders.

France on the other hand--has suffered a major loss of men too, and sweeping defeats in the colonies--but her European territory is intact, her armies stand on very wide swathes of foreign soil. She sits very pretty, when Jules Verne suddenly shows up waving the white truce flag.

I have to think someone on the BOG side, especially a German someone, is going to insist that France pay a price, of the same nature or a large alternate one in compensation, comparable to what Russia and Austria has paid. Perhaps this is how Wilhelm gets hold of Austria--he threatens the French with something devastating then grudgingly agrees to back off in return for French support in the formation of a comprehensive German Empire.

Empire--he's jonesing for the title of Emperor, to hold his head up higher when he hobnobs with Victoria and the Ottoman Sultan. He may also be angling for real powers that are more sweeping and direct than his claims as a mere President of a federation.

I'd be quite pleased if the twit fails--if the Empire never forms, or it does but then within a decade or so enough Germans decide they've had quite enough of his Imperial pretensions and his forgetfulness of the sacrifices other categories of Germans made for his super-crown, and depose him and reorganize the thing as a Confederation again. This time where the President doesn't always come from Prussia, and real power is spread out more federally. That would among other things go a long way toward consoling the Czechs and Austrians, as well as any Poles and other minorities trapped in the borders.

On the other hand, except for AL, there aren't really many plausible territorial losses that make any sense to inflict on France.

And surely they will get some credit for being the first to ask for terms.

It occurred to me that it's a shame we've already decided austria will collapse. *Benes, or his 1895 equivalent, would probably be worried about replacing Vienna with Berlin, and a Danubian Federation would be an ideal test ground for post-Westphalian sovereignty.

Indeed, it'd also lead to less unpleasantness down the road.

This seems like a good place to clarify something I've been letting slip for some pages of commentary now--I didn't suggest "Catholic Nationalism" for the Hapsburgs so much as "Catholic Marxism!" That is, that the Hapsburg monarch and administration would adopt policies based on Marx's dialectical materialistic analysis, on the theory that his thinking is valid regarding the dynamics of capitalism and material productive enterprise, but "baptized" by an explicit submission to Catholic orthodoxy and commitment to pre-empting populist revolution by revamping the royal-noble orders to efficient service in the interest of maintaining their hierarchal authority.

When I suggested it I was just putting out this pipe-dream of mine, and I was thinking of it as measures a healthy, unstressed Hapsburg regime might take sometime in the 19th century to be stronger and less beset by insurgency in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Jonathan went another way with it and so Austria was as weak and rickety as OTL going into the war, and one blow away from total collapse as it seems to be ending.

Now would be a hell of a time to try to come across as some kind of wise philosopher-kings. Post-war--it seems doubtful the realm will exist at all, or the dynasty will have anyplace to reign from, however small. Again no chance.

The window on that possibility if it ever was one has closed as far as I can see.

"Catholic Nationalism" on the other hand--I want nothing to do with it, it sounds awfully grim. And perhaps just how the Hapsburgs will rule any truncated territory they do manage to hold.

 

[Badshah]

I think that Wilhelm overstepping his bounds is totally within character.

 

[Admiral Matt]

The trouble with a Danubian Federation from the point of view of a Czech nationalist is that it would mean replacing Vienna with Vienna, or worse yet, with Budapest. Given Austria's track record in Bohemia during the late 19th century, and especially after imposing martial law during the first year of the war, the Czechs won't trust Austria to act as an equal partner. And although they're leery of Berlin, the Germans supported them during the war and have promised an independent Czech kingdom, so for the time being, they'll dance with the ones that brung 'em.

This isn't to say that there won't be conflict later, of course, and central European federalism can't be ruled out as an outcome of such conflict, especially if Austria stays independent of Germany and eventually makes common cause with the Czechs and Slovenes (and maybe the Slovaks and Hungarians too) in order to counterbalance German power.

For the first you do have a point - it may be far too late to talk federation. It'd almost have to be imposed from the outside. But I don't think there's a realistic prospect of a common cause against Germany later. The trade barriers about to go up will wreck the economy of non-Ottoman central Europe for a generation. Without a common market, they'll all end up tying themselves to Germany's economy piecemeal.

Not that there couldn't be a central European federal dealy. It could certainly exist - it'd just hinge on Germany.

 

[Scientist Shan]

What's going to happen to the International Congo.

I can see both Britain and Germany wanting it to complete their colonial blocks.

And its certainly an area which is lacking in 'proper' governance.

Could this be an area where France can play one enemy off against the other?

 

[Jord839]

"Catholic Nationalism" on the other hand--I want nothing to do with it, it sounds awfully grim. And perhaps just how the Hapsburgs will rule any truncated territory they do manage to hold.

I should apologize for that terminology. I was looking for a short-hand term for what I half remembered you discussing before. Specifically, for a re-making of the state's identity which tries to circumvent ethnic nationalist problems in what remains of the Empire by pushing for a more statist/religionist or alternatively a regionalist identity. That could come about in several ways, either the Hapsburgs can push it hard to preserve a totalitarian control, or it could be less an invention of Hapsburg "wise philosopher kings", but more middle class and elite reformers looking for some way to preserve the country in the troubled times ahead. It could be combined with the *Christian Democracy movement that Jonathan's mentioned a couple times will come about in reaction to the Ultramontanes and overbearing influence on politics that might not be as offensive to the old guard.

We can hold out some unrealistic hope that more humanistic forces would embrace a more compassionate approach to other faiths and the downtrodden, but again, with Austria in the state it's in I can see quite a lot of different scenarios happening.

Either way, what happens in Austria and the Balkans seems to me like prime material to set up the post-Westphalian order, either as a promising sign of shared sovereignty and autonomy working, or as a cautionary tale of the dangers of nationalistic violence. I'm hoping for the former, but bracing myself for the latter.

They might actually lose more in southeast Asia, where the BOG victory was overwhelming and they have no bargaining power. The wild card is Cochin-China, where many Vietnamese have French citizenship under the Latin right, and which may become a princely state under British domination but with considerable French influence. Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia are gone with the wind.

I should have been more clear. I was including the SE Asian colonies under that Pacific title. I figured a large part of that will be gone, but the Latin Right might keep parts of Vietnam in.

The three absolutely non-negotiable items for France are Senegal, Gabon and the Algerian littoral. Everything else will be on the table. They won't lose all of it, though - in West Africa, they may actually get back much of what the British have occupied. The next update will give some of the reason why.

Wow, that's actually a much better result for them in North Africa than I was expecting.

Austria's predicament is that, unlike the other FARs, it is now facing an existential struggle. Nobody's talking about conquering France or Russia, but Wilhelm wants Austria as part of his empire. Franz Joseph may be willing to give up almost anything to keep Austria independent, or alternatively, he may just continue the fight until the war-weary Germans offer honorable terms. Austria, devastated as it is, may end up as the last FAR to quit the war.

In terms of the empire, Bohemia and Galicia are already gone, and it won't be practical to keep Eastern Galicia without contiguity. They'll lose Trentino too, although maybe not South Tyrol. The Slovenes and Dalmatians might be persuaded to stay, but they're spooked by the possibility that Austria might decide to join Germany one day and take them along. Maybe Franz Joseph can work out a deal in which he becomes King of Carniola and Dalmatia, but both are fully independent kingdoms with their own foreign policy. Or maybe he'll decide that he's already had too much of that with Hungary, and just let them go. Nothing's etched in stone yet - I have tentative plans, but they may change.

I figured that Galicia and the Italian territories would be gone, and I had forgotten that Bohemia was already on the German's side and not still heavily contested.

As much as there is resentment between the remaining groups, I'm wondering how much the rest of the world around them might keep them together (in the short term at least). The Austrians are broken and angry at the minorities and Hungarians, but I'd think they'd be far more resentful of the North Germans and Ottomans at this point. Austria's just fought an exhausting war to maintain its influence in southern Germany and lost thousands of its soldiers to North Germans in doing so, plus the Prussians will not be eager to absorb Austria directly into the Confederation where it could be a threat to their power over the smaller members even if they could overcome the resentment. Austrian entry could eventually happen, but right now it doesn't seem on the cards. The resentment needs to fade and the Prussians need to get knocked down a peg politically to accept an internal rival like that.

For Dalmatia and Slovenia, it depends on how Italy views them and how they view the Ottoman-order Balkans. Does Italy still hold irridentist claims there ITTL? Some good promises from the Hapsburgs and a healthy dose of fear could keep them with the devil they know for a while if there is. Hungary might see it as the only way to keep their own minority territories. An independent Hungary is master of its own house, but there would then be plenty of neighbors who wouldn't mind breaking the windows and stealing some stuff later since nobody else is gonna help them.

Unfortunately, AH is going to be one place where a "stab in the back" myth could do quite well. Both their allies pulled out of the war and will come out with almost all core territory intact, but AH could be carved to almost nothing or destroyed as a polity altogether and left to the vultures around it. Many will not be happy with that, especially if they keep fighting for a while.

The last thing the Ottomans want is more restive minorities. They want to make gains in Muslim, and particularly Turkic, regions; they'll leave A-H alone.

They might not want a piece themselves, but I doubt they'd be adverse to carving some independent territories off if they see a chance.

And Russia won't have to fight to keep the Korean alliance - Korea is practically begging it to stay.

In this case, I meant that the BOGs need to placate allied Japan, which would imply concessions in Korea, but the Russians, Koreans and Chinese who are winning there, Tsarist or no, will have something to say about that.

Well, we don't know which team Anastasia will be playing for by that time. The autobiography suggests that, when she finds out what her father did during the war, it will be a very unpleasant revelation.

I just meant they'll still have power somewhere, not that they'd be the same old dynasty of before. That'll be fun to see development of.

Brazil won't lose out - you'll find out how. It will be another post-Westphalian data point.

Now I have no idea where that could be going, but it sounds interesting.

One option would be for him to stay in Spain, at least for the time being. It might be dangerous for him to return to the Vatican even if the Italian government is willing to make a deal - there are many Italians who have scores to settle. This may be an issue that gets deferred, especially if Italy is still dealing with Papal Legion remnants in Venetia.

If I had to hazard a guess for a plausible scenario, this Pope remains in exile in Spain until death and come papal selection time a Vatican City agreement is set up to finally resolve the issue, especially if a more moderate pope is chosen.

The peasant-herder-religious republics which have emerged in the eastern Congo basin may be more likely than the Great Lakes states to join Tippu Tip's alliance, if he can credibly protect them from being reabsorbed into International Congo. As you said, the Congo's going to be a mess, and anyone who can stay out of it will move heaven and earth to do so.

They would be incredibly smart to do so and I hope some of them manage it in that case.

They've actually managed to make Armenia their client as well, because the Tsar thoroughly alienated it during the war, and they and the British have installed a friendly government in Persia. They'll have to share Turkestan, though - they'll have a lot of influence there, but so will Russia and Britain, and the Turkestanis themselves have a strong independent streak.

D'oh. Just as I was reading this I remembered the comment in that update about how the incredibly feudal style set-up would open it to Russian and British interests as well. My bad.

So the Iranian generals actually did lose out then? Things seemed to be salvageable for their situation. I guess the collapse of Russia forced them into too difficult of a position to keep fighting.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I'd think that there would be some sentiment on the BOG side for putting "war guilt" on the FAR side. Jonathan's writing style tended to mask, for me, the depth of the horror of this war; he had to tell us bluntly how much worse it was than OTL Great War for me to appreciate that.

That was my fault, I guess, for telling the story of the war through small-scale vignettes and writing the annual "scholarly" updates in, well, an academic style. I've mentioned heavy casualties, privation and brutality, and some of the updates have shown life in the trenches, but I have no taste for writing scenes of mass slaughter, so we haven't seen this war's *Somme or *Isonzo up close and personal, or Russian families starving under the lash. Maybe that was dishonest of me.

But yes, it's worse than our Great War, both because the medical and logistical systems are twenty years less advanced and because the war involves nearly the whole world. Wikipedia gives 10 million military and 7 million civilian deaths for World War I in OTL; double that for TTL's Great War, with the scale weighted more toward civilians. The colonial empires, in particular, lost more than in OTL; for instance, more than a million Indian soldiers died rather than 75,000, and the internal unrest also caused a great many civilian deaths. The Congo lost a third of its population.

But in any event, I think you're right about war guilt playing a part in the negotiations. I doubt there'll be an explicit war-guilt clause as at Versailles - the FARs are in a strong enough position to resist such a clause being imposed - but there will be an undercurrent of desire to punish among the BOGs. This will be especially strong in Germany, which will contrast the damage done to its territory during years of battle and occupation with the fact that the French and Russian homelands are unscathed.

This will be balanced against practical considerations, of course, including the BOGs' exhaustion, Britain's desire to maintain a balance of power, and even the United States wanting to make sure that the FARs can pay off their war bonds. All things considered, the FARs will get off much lighter than the Central Powers at Versailles. But they'll probably have to give up more than a strict bargaining analysis would dictate.

BTW if King/Confederation President Wilhelm really is bound and determined to seize all of German Austria as well as the middle Catholic German realms, he's a fool and may wind up undermining his position both as chief of the German confederation and at the peace table.

As Badshah says, overreaching would be very much in Wilhelm's character (TTL's Wilhelm isn't that much different from OTL's, and while the war has chastened him somewhat, he also wants revenge). Note, though, that the fact that he wants Austria doesn't mean he'll get it. Carinthia, Styria and the Tyrol are a hell of a place to have to fight in, and neither the British nor the Ottomans will back him that far.

He's already shifting the religious balance of the Confederation by gobbling up Baden and Bavaria--and I'd have to look for a map to see if there were third and fourth and fifth independent Catholic principalities there that we've been overlooking completely.

There's Württemberg, but I believe it wasn't as Catholic as the others; the Catholic Encyclopedia gives it a Protestant majority in 1910, as opposed to substantial Catholic majorities in Bavaria and Baden. I doubt the 1890s figures would be very different.

Empire--he's jonesing for the title of Emperor, to hold his head up higher when he hobnobs with Victoria and the Ottoman Sultan. He may also be angling for real powers that are more sweeping and direct than his claims as a mere President of a federation.

Which is another weak point. He can't just declare himself Emperor - he has to get the title from someone, and as in OTL, that someone will be the Reichstag. And in TTL, the postwar Reichstag will be full of southern German revolutionaries and pissed-off industrial workers, and it isn't about to give him the crown for free. He really, really wants that title, but he isn't going to like the price he has to pay for it.

This seems like a good place to clarify something I've been letting slip for some pages of commentary now--I didn't suggest "Catholic Nationalism" for the Hapsburgs so much as "Catholic Marxism!" That is, that the Hapsburg monarch and administration would adopt policies based on Marx's dialectical materialistic analysis, on the theory that his thinking is valid regarding the dynamics of capitalism and material productive enterprise, but "baptized" by an explicit submission to Catholic orthodoxy and commitment to pre-empting populist revolution by revamping the royal-noble orders to efficient service in the interest of maintaining their hierarchal authority.

I'm not so sure the door would be closed on such things. Granted, the Habsburgs probably have neither the power nor the inclination to rule this way, but some 20th-century political movement might, especially if there are still significant numbers of minorities in Austria and a unifying factor is thought necessary. I'm not ruling this in, mind, but it isn't necessarily out either.

For the first you do have a point - it may be far too late to talk federation. It'd almost have to be imposed from the outside. But I don't think there's a realistic prospect of a common cause against Germany later. The trade barriers about to go up will wreck the economy of non-Ottoman central Europe for a generation. Without a common market, they'll all end up tying themselves to Germany's economy piecemeal.

Well, they may be part of a common market, but it will be the Zollverein, so that would bring things back to Germany as the basis for any ultimate federation.

What's going to happen to the International Congo.

There will be a lot of complications, starting with the fact that International Congo is still a legally existing entity which, technically, has an administration. That's part of how Dietmar Köhler has maintained a facade of legality for his warlordism - his appointment as provincial governor of South Kivu has never been revoked.

Granted, the titular head of International Congo is King Leopold of Belgium, and the BOGs won't be in the mood to do him any favors. But there are several other neutral countries that have interests in the Congo and will want to keep some kind of international framework in which they have a say. There will be drastic territorial changes, but the odds are that the international mandate will continue to exist on paper, and that it will make efforts to restore order and implement reforms... difficult.

As much as there is resentment between the remaining groups, I'm wondering how much the rest of the world around them might keep them together (in the short term at least). The Austrians are broken and angry at the minorities and Hungarians, but I'd think they'd be far more resentful of the North Germans and Ottomans at this point.

This is probably so, and they'd also distinguish between loyal and disloyal minorities. The Slovenes and Croats have stayed loyal to the end, as have many of the Jews (who don't have a nationalist movement to join and who would rather be part of a multicultural Habsburg empire than a patchwork of ethnic nation-states). A lot of the prewar bickering between these ethnic groups may seem silly afterward.

For Dalmatia and Slovenia, it depends on how Italy views them and how they view the Ottoman-order Balkans. Does Italy still hold irridentist claims there ITTL? Some good promises from the Hapsburgs and a healthy dose of fear could keep them with the devil they know for a while if there is.

Italy has claims, but is in no shape to even begin to enforce them. I suspect the Slovenes and Dalmatians would be afraid of Italy in the long term, but they'd also be afraid of being part of an Austrian state that's dominantly German and which isn't balanced by the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians. They'd be friendly to Austria, and as I've mentioned, they may even work out a personal union in which Franz Joseph is their king, but I think they'd want independence if that's what all the other minorities are doing.

They might not want a piece themselves, but I doubt they'd be adverse to carving some independent territories off if they see a chance.

Fair enough - they'd certainly rather deal with several small countries on their border, even if some of them are unfriendly, than a big empire that has designs on their territory.

If I had to hazard a guess for a plausible scenario, this Pope remains in exile in Spain until death and come papal selection time a Vatican City agreement is set up to finally resolve the issue, especially if a more moderate pope is chosen.

That could well happen - tensions will have cooled by then, and Italy will be more willing to take a chance on a new pope, especially if the cardinals have been persuaded to elect someone conciliatory.

So the Iranian generals actually did lose out then? Things seemed to be salvageable for their situation. I guess the collapse of Russia forced them into too difficult of a position to keep fighting.

They had to make a deal, which was more on Anglo-Turkish terms than otherwise.

Update hopefully tomorrow - the current deadline convergence finally seems to be ending.

 

[Deleted member 14881]

What would the Ottomans want in a peace treaty Jonathan?

 

[Scientist Shan]

And if the FARs had won?

Jonathan

What would the FARs had done if they'd won?

Now this might seem a pointless theoretical question but IOTL there was certainly claims among the Entente countries that Germany was aiming at enormous territorial gains and world domination (and with some justification when you consider the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).

Likewise in another timeline on this site (I forget which) it was the revelation of secret world conquest plans of a Second Empire France which prompted the entry of Britain and the USA into that timeline's 'Great war'.

So did Leclair make any pronouncements of France's aims which the BOGs might now hold against it?

 

[Scientist Shan]

Fair enough - they'd certainly rather deal with several small countries on their border, even if some of them are unfriendly, than a big empire that has designs on their territory.

Russia and the Ottomans have been fighting a major war every 20 years or so for over 200 years.

Are their leaders able to even visualise a lasting peace let alone bring one about.

Or will they continue with their power play scheming in the Balkans, Caucasus, Turkestan and now in the Horn of Africa and Arabia?

 

[Shevek23]

Russia and the Ottomans have been fighting a major war every 20 years or so for over 200 years.

Are their leaders able to even visualise a lasting peace let alone bring one about.

Or will they continue with their power play scheming in the Balkans, Caucasus, Turkestan and now in the Horn of Africa and Arabia?

But that was Romanov Tsarist Russia. All of a sudden Russia is a Narodnik Christian Socialist federation. Meanwhile the Ottoman Sultanate is less a military government claiming to rule over all Islam and more of a federal union of stronger local more or less democratic governments united by a more democratically accountable central Sultan's state, that does a lot more for the realm than fight on its borders or to put down unrest within it. If we can depend on Tolstoy to guide his Narodnik followers (and the more or less opportunistic other brands of leftist reformist revolutionaries, and keeping the conservative remnant who haven't followed Nicholas into exile attached on patriotic grounds) to tolerance and mutual understandings based on common ground of some Muslim communities within Russia, then they can negotiate amicably enough with Muslims outside Russia--especially since the Sultanate has been as noticed modernized in a ramshackle way. Narodnik Russia and the Belloist Sultanate are going to see eye to eye and find many common interests, since both are regimes ruling underdeveloped but rapidly developing diverse peoples that add up to quite a lot of potential power.

It might not work out so neatly as I once offhand suggested as a possibility, a Moscow-Constantinople alliance, but anyway the old causes of the perennial clashes are removed or much diluted.

If Russian-Ottoman amity develops fast enough it might scare both sets of their former European allies quite a lot. Well, I hope both Britain and France take it calmly. And that the Germans are satiated by suddenly acquiring hegemony over most of eastern Europe. But if it goes that way, suddenly Europe (if we see Russia as being on the border of Europe, mostly in Asia--and the Ottoman state too has an important foothold in Europe but is centered elsewhere, with the capital literally on the border of Europe and Asia) is in a much less commanding position worldwide. Especially if the Chinese do line up with Russia.

 

[Hnau]

No Germans on any real integral Russian territory, which in turn means Russia doesn't abdicate sovereignty over core provinces and then have to try to win them back. As well as there being no bases for "Whites" to mobilize in, and a relatively inclusive government that is dramatically limiting their numbers to begin with.

Given a Russia with neither Brest-Litovsk nor a full Civil War, yeah, probably. The Poles wouldn't have a power vacuum to move into, and Curzon was near the ethnic frontier. I do think Poland has a real chance at Eastern Galicia, though, if Austria does lose its grip as seems likely. Russia could handle it, but given its internal issues I'd bet on the Poles.

I'd dispute the mention about the Curzon Line being near the ethnic frontier. There were millions of Poles beyond that line, and for that matter many Poles in the Baltic countries. And I think I'm imagining Russia ITTL going much more to pieces than you are. Above and beyond the devastation experienced in OTL, Russia has also experienced a Stalin-like crash industrialization program, much more political repression, has had to fight a whole new front in Central Asia, and has fought four years of trench warfare instead of three.

 

[Shevek23]

I'd dispute the mention about the Curzon Line being near the ethnic frontier. There were millions of Poles beyond that line, and for that matter many Poles in the Baltic countries. And I think I'm imagining Russia ITTL going much more to pieces than you are. Above and beyond the devastation experienced in OTL, Russia has also experienced a Stalin-like crash industrialization program, much more political repression, has had to fight a whole new front in Central Asia, and has fought four years of trench warfare instead of three.

But most of Russia's problems you list here are in the past now. The key is Tolstoy negotiating an equitable peace with the Ottomans, and with Muslims who might either remain Russian citizens or secede, but possibly amicably. The trouble with just letting Central Asia go is that a lot of Russians have settled there, and also Jonathan told us some time ago, the Muslim Central Asians are not nearly as hostile to the Russians as I was assuming. Tolstoy and other Russian radicals have taken some inspiration from Islamic reformism as it has filtered into Russia, and can offer in good faith fair terms for Muslim Russian citizens to live under--hopefully this applies to Jews too. Or, if the Central Asian rebellion has gotten to the point that the people there will not return to Russia, then Tolstoy can let them go with a blessing, and have some grounds to think Russians settled there who chose to remain will be all right.

The trauma of industrialization is largely in the past and I gather has raised the level achieved, despite war-related disruptions, to a higher level than OTL by the same time. Of course I presume industrialization under the Tsar involved unacceptably bad living and working conditions for the workers and therefore the outputs will drop as these workers quit (or just don't return from their army service, going back to the land instead). To revive the industry will involve luring them back, presumably by better conditions that will take time to achieve and weaken the position of Russian products on the world markets.

We might well wonder just how long Tolstoy will remain "vozhd" and what kind of leadership will succeed him. He may be discredited and fail. But I don't think he's facing a worse situation that the Bolsheviks were when Lenin inaugurated NEP; it looks a lot better. It depends on how likely old-style Russian chauvinists are to regain power and how aggressive Russia wants to be. I think for quite some time Russia will be happy to be peaceful, Narodnik style, and prosperous on a peasant basis. And for some time they should be confident they will be left in peace, on those terms. So Tolstoy has a chance to build up a legacy of success.