Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Also, all three parts of the FAR Alliance have some pretty major cases of internal distress going on, from what I can tell. That, at least, should make it a bit easier for the others.
It's does not seem that the other side is much better. One of the sparking conflicts was realated to large internal distress in the OE. And the Irish question is nowhere near to be solved.
wolf_brother
Banned
Berlin at least looks stable, for the moment, but a lot of that depends on how far the establishment tries to push wartime measures; on the other hand, considering the military & industrial might of over half of Europe will be pouring lead onto the Germans, I think the Junkers will be able to get away with quite a lot. IMHO Germany has the most to lose, internal stability-wise, after the war, when or lose, when the democrats start to push back.
Also, FAR alliance, I like that. It sounds like something some American newspaper would use a headline that would catch on, at least on that side of the Atlantic. Of course that would make the other side BOG (a thinly veiled reference to trench warfare, perhaps).
Also, FAR alliance, I like that. It sounds like something some American newspaper would use a headline that would catch on, at least on that side of the Atlantic. Of course that would make the other side BOG (a thinly veiled reference to trench warfare, perhaps).
Things would seem to slant in favor of the Anglo-German-Ottoman alliance because for this war there's not going to be any clean battlefield victories but instead attrition and I think that favors the Brits and friends:
Austrians: without either the Brits of the Germans to provide financial help I can see their economy giving out and they have problems with internal divisions.
British: unless there's an unlikely defeat nobody can touch the RN and they can probably defend their colonies from the French and provide money to the other members.
French: their main danger is their economy giving out. If they can't land a knock-out blow on Germany almost all of their trade will be cut off and they'll be bleeding money horrifically, with the Brits attacking them instead of financing them as in OTL.
Germans: their main danger is running out of warm bodies. They'll be outnumbered and being attacked from all directions. However they'll have enough money and industry and the technology at this time (they have plenty of machine guns and are even worse at breaking through trenches than in our WW I) heavily favors the defender.
Ottomans: sprawling and being attacked on three fronts and internal problems. Ouch. Still trench warfare favors the defender...
Russians: A not-1905 revolution. We've also had hints of Central Asian rebellions.
So prediction: unless the Ottomans and Germans can be hurt quick (which the hints we've had so far would point towards "no") time is on the Anglo/German/Ottoman side as their opposition will buckle from running out of money and internal problems. Which, of course, should result in some desperate blood-drenched last pushes against the North Germans before they start buckling under the strain of industrialized warfare.
Austrians: without either the Brits of the Germans to provide financial help I can see their economy giving out and they have problems with internal divisions.
British: unless there's an unlikely defeat nobody can touch the RN and they can probably defend their colonies from the French and provide money to the other members.
French: their main danger is their economy giving out. If they can't land a knock-out blow on Germany almost all of their trade will be cut off and they'll be bleeding money horrifically, with the Brits attacking them instead of financing them as in OTL.
Germans: their main danger is running out of warm bodies. They'll be outnumbered and being attacked from all directions. However they'll have enough money and industry and the technology at this time (they have plenty of machine guns and are even worse at breaking through trenches than in our WW I) heavily favors the defender.
Ottomans: sprawling and being attacked on three fronts and internal problems. Ouch. Still trench warfare favors the defender...
Russians: A not-1905 revolution. We've also had hints of Central Asian rebellions.
So prediction: unless the Ottomans and Germans can be hurt quick (which the hints we've had so far would point towards "no") time is on the Anglo/German/Ottoman side as their opposition will buckle from running out of money and internal problems. Which, of course, should result in some desperate blood-drenched last pushes against the North Germans before they start buckling under the strain of industrialized warfare.
Seems reasonable to me. The only wild card is US intervention on the FAR side, but I can see little reason for it.
As for the Ottomans, they'll start fighting on FOUR fronts. There's also Crimea. Not to mention all sort of complications that may arise in the Red Sea, what with Russian Eritrea facing Ottoman Yemen. And possibly Persia down the line. Won't be easy for them.
Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
US gets mad at Great Britain because of their blockade of France, and Germany because of the ATL analogues of the Zimmerman Telegram and Lusitania sinking.
Why the hell would Germany ITTL do anything remotely resembling to any of the two? The nearest thing I see is the military intervention in Grao Parà.
Though I can see the blockade of France pissing off the US noticeably.
(Venezuelan position may be interesting here. If the US ever seriously consider intervention, I'd bet it would be something involving either Venezuela or Cuba in some way.)
wolf_brother
Banned
IMHO the US would be a more natural fit to the BOG than with FAR, culturally, economically, and considering it's the French who are sniffing around in the US' backyard (again). I'm sure Washington doesn't give a fig about the other five B's, but goddamit, when are the Frenchies going to learn that you just can't invade any Latin American country and set up shop with your own pet bannaistan corporate clusterfuck. That's America's pasttime! 
We've already met Smuts in post 1206, as the commander of a Sotho sepoy company in Matabeleland. He's an ATL sibling - you'll notice, among other things, that his middle name is different - and his personality and career path aren't the same as OTL, but he'll definitely have a future in British imperial politics.
Right now, he's absolutely delighted to be among Malê troops who use Boer commando tactics (although they call them by some silly Spanish name), which makes him more receptive to them - and to their commander - than he might be otherwise. He and Usman will have a rather unlikely friendship, especially since Usman's role as quasi-mentor will strain his racial notions to the breaking point, but it might grow to be a strong one.
Paulo the Younger and Ibrahim are certainly safer than they'd be in the trenches, but they aren't out of danger - even familiar forms of warfare can get people killed, and they'll still need luck and skill to survive. I have said that this story will involve six generations of Abacars, though, and thus far we've only seen three.
A number of factors came together to put Usman where he is. His mother's death has left him without the stomach for politics, he needs a few wilderness years to regroup, and as you say, he's his father's son and isn't willing to sit in the capital while other people fight. There's a need for the kind of warfare the Malê have learned to fight, and he volunteered to command them.
His British commission - which, as Smuts says, could only happen in Africa - exists to give him rank over other colonial irregulars, in light of the fact that he and his troops know the country best. Right now, he considers it a technicality, but it might become important later.
His political ideas will develop during the war, BTW. He's already returning to some of his old notions of blending cultures, and although we know that his emerging federalist ideas will fail on an imperial scale, they'll become an enduring presence in West African and (via Smuts) Southern African politics.
That, pretty much. British Southern Africa is a long way from any major French threat, and due to the recruitment of sepoys from the Zulus, Sotho and Xhosa, it has a substantial troop surplus. Those troops - especially the Sotho regiments which are skilled at ambush, scouting and back-country fighting - are needed in West Africa and (to a much lesser extent) Tanganyika, so many of them have been dispatched there.
I think it will be possible to keep Portugal neutral, especially since the concessions it could gain from Britain and North Germany in return for not fighting rival what it could gain if it joined the French side. The BOG alliance will be desperate to keep Portugal from opening another front, so they'll agree to much of the Portuguese wish list, while if Portugal chose to be maximalist and join the war, it would face long odds against the superior Anglo-German forces.
Hell, there's also a chance of keeping the Boers neutral or, in the Orange Free State's case, maybe even more than that. There may be some fighting in southern Africa eventually, but for the time being, it will be a quiet region and a source of troops for other theaters.
They could also be the GOBs, if the American press doesn't like them. But I think I'll go with FARs and BOGs. Whenever a new country joins the war, the yellow press will refer to it as "going over to the FAR side" or "being BOGged down."
All these are fair points. I think we're agreed that there are several factors favoring the BOG alliance: naval superiority, greater industrial capacity, somewhat better (albeit far from perfect) internal cohesion and broader imperial depth.
But on the other hand, the FARs have at least two countervailing advantages: they have greater strategic depth, and They Have Reserves.
In terms of metropolitan populations, France would have about 38 million people at this time (Senegal and Algeria are integral provinces, but I'm not counting them yet), Austria-Hungary 40 million, and the Russian Empire 115 to 120 million (accounting for territorial losses in the Caucasus, greater Muslim emigration, and natural increase between 1893 and the OTL census year of 1897). Britain, including Ireland, has about 37 million and the North German Confederation 40 million (using German Empire census figures of 1891 with Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg subtracted). The Ottoman population is harder to figure, given that census figures are unreliable, but in light of the smaller-than-OTL territorial losses in the Balkans, the corresponding gains in the Caucasus and the immigration of Jews and Muslims from the Russian Empire, my guess is 33 million.
This means that - counting metropolitan population alone - the FAR alliance has close to 200 million people, while the BOGs have about 110 million. In fact, the imbalance is even worse, because Britain's land forces are very small at the start of the war, and it will take time to train and equip a large army. The FAR powers might be less industrialized, but they can put rifles in many more people's hands, and they can also try to balance their less efficient building programs by throwing more workers at them.
The BOGs can recoup some of this disadvantage via colonial empires and alliances. We'll call Bavaria a wash because as many Bavarians will be fighting on the BOG side as the FAR side. Brazil, Siam and Romania are on the FAR side from the beginning - that's about 20 million people - and at a guess, the French colonial empire totals about 60 million (extrapolating backward from 113 million in 1938 OTL; France's African empire in TTL is smaller, but the missing parts weren't very populous in the 1890s). But the NDB has an African empire of 10 million or so, and Britain has the Canadian and Australasian dominions at 9 million, African colonies and princely states totaling about 35 million, and India with 280 million. This gives the BOGs a potentially enormous pool of colonial resources and manpower. But Britain will have to rely on volunteers in its colonies - it can't institute conscription in India or Africa without encountering huge trouble - and France, which offers citizenship to colonial troops and their families, is more efficient at recruiting manpower from its empire than Britain is.
The bottom line is that the BOGs will be heavily outnumbered and, to a considerable extent, dependent on their colonies. This could put them in a precarious economic and military position despite their greater industrial development, and will also hinder any attempt to go on the offensive after blunting the initial assault.
So what I'd anticipate is that the FARs' initial strategy will be to hold the Ottomans at bay and attempt to overwhelm the North Germans with sheer numbers before the British can ramp up their military capacity. There will be a "race to the sea" (or on the Western front, a race to the Benelux border) as in OTL, with the FARs trying to outflank the NDB lines before the Germans can entrench themselves. That won't work, given that I've already said the war will last four and a half years, but the question is how badly the NDB will have been bled in the meantime, and how much industrial capacity it will have lost.
Once things devolve to a trench warfare stalemate in Europe and to a four-front defensive nightmare for the Ottomans, both sides will start looking for game-changers - bringing new allies into the war, developing new weapons and tactics, instituting crash building programs. This is where the BOGs' superior economies, industries and naval forces will come into play, although the FARs' superior numbers will still be important, and if they don't pursue chimeras like trying to match the Anglo-German fleet, they might be able to pursue alternative (albeit less efficient) weapons programs that could at least moderate the odds.
And if none of that works, it will eventually become apparent that the losing side will be the first one whose political system breaks under the strain. That's when the war will get really nasty - Daztur's prediction of "desperate blood-drenched last pushes" may well materialize, as will widespread incitement of each side's minorities by the opposing alliance.
IMHO the US would be a more natural fit to the BOG than with FAR, culturally, economically, and considering it's the French who are sniffing around in the US' backyard (again). I'm sure Washington doesn't give a fig about the other five B's, but goddamit, when are the Frenchies going to learn that you just can't invade any Latin American country and set up shop with your own pet bannaistan corporate clusterfuck. That's America's pasttime!
I don't see anything like the Zimmerman telegram happening in TTL - the North Germans would have no need for it - and as long as Spain and Portugal stay neutral, a naval blockade of France might not bother the United Statesthat much, because it could trade with France via Iberian ports. Of course, if the BOGs get desperate enough to start blockading neutral ports, or if the Iberian states join the war, things might be different, but as wolf_brother says, it would take a lot to shift American cultural and economic affinity away from the BOGs.
The Latin America factor could cut both ways, though - France is backing Brazil, but Britain and the NDB are propping up the Grão Pará government, so both alliances could be accused of setting up South American bananastans. The United States' rubber interests are all in Grão Pará, so the BOGs might be more likely to interfere with them (by accident or otherwise) in a way that will annoy the American ruling class. And if the war spreads to the Caribbean, all bets are off.
I tend to think that the United States participating on either side is a wild card, and if they do jump in, it will more likely be on the BOG side than otherwise, but there are factors that could pull them the other way.
Two likely butterflies:
First, this probably means that German culture and language won't be brutally suppressed like it was OTL due to WWI. With the US unlikely to join the war, the anti-German programs of OTL never materialize.
Also, I'd love to see the reactions in Canada to the declaration of war on France, especially in relation to Quebec. It's very easy to see the Canadians panicking and enacting strict anti-French laws, which in turn stir up the Quebecois population against them. Might we see a more militant Quebecois independence movement in the future, especially if there's a Round II against France at some point? It's certain to be ugly.
First, this probably means that German culture and language won't be brutally suppressed like it was OTL due to WWI. With the US unlikely to join the war, the anti-German programs of OTL never materialize.
Also, I'd love to see the reactions in Canada to the declaration of war on France, especially in relation to Quebec. It's very easy to see the Canadians panicking and enacting strict anti-French laws, which in turn stir up the Quebecois population against them. Might we see a more militant Quebecois independence movement in the future, especially if there's a Round II against France at some point? It's certain to be ugly.
On the other hand, I can hope, in my usual cockeyed optimist mode, that the oligarchs of Germany are politically sophisticated enough to realize they need the support of the masses, and astute enough to cultivate bottom-up patriotism among the more populist (in a good sense, not the contemporary French sense
) parties and movements. OTL, German Social Democrats were quite willing, in the majority anyway, to put Germany first--with the hope that post-war, they'd gain respect and authority. If the Junkers or other leading aristocrats can put forth leaders that recognize that tendency has helped North Germany in the past, indeed this is what has brought the Bavarian people in on their side just now, then Germany might avoid this rupture.If they are too stupid to take this opportunity to weld together a more liberal German patriotism, then I hope they choke on Red revolution after the war!
I like it too. I suppose the most innocuous permutation of the three letters for the latter is GBO--it puts Britain second, but then in English the first two letters are "GB" which can be read as "Great Britain." Properly speaking we should use the letters each country would name itself with--then we'd have DBO, assuming the Arabic or Persian letter the Ottomans use for themselves corresponds to a Latin "O". I presume the Ottomans do call themselves that?
And not all foreign press would want to use the most flattering permutation!
BGO can probably be read as something nasty...On the other side, FAR looks pretty neutral to me, negative connotations and positive being mild and cancelling each other out.
I'm going with FAR and GBO unless something else looks better or is canonized.
Assuming Austria-Hungary is essentially as in OTL circa 1893, they are in poor shape; however I'd think that the stronger France they are allied with will have been and be of some help to them. The Austrians have to carry their share of the load of the attack on Germany, which will be painful for them. Otherwise they front on the Ottomans, who are stronger than OTL but still probably an enemy they can contemplate fighting. They'll suffer from British raids and support of the Ottomans, but the Ottomans of course are distracted by being attacked by the Russians too, and even the French on some of their more distant reaches.
But how much like OTL is this timeline's Austrian Empire? I have some notions for a program that might have strengthened Austria, even to the point of butterflying away the adoption of the Dual Monarchy in 1867 (OTL) which would among other things simplify naming the entity!
Perhaps even if my own notion, which I think I'll post for general criticism below this post, is a pipe dream, still there's a chance this iteration of the Hapsburg Empire is somewhat stronger than OTL.
Against that hope, there's Jonathan predicting the Empire will indeed crumble as a result of this war.
Well, even if they sweep all before them in Germany the RN presumably still has them pretty much cut off from overseas trade from day one. How can they support their dependencies in Africa? Quick dashes of convoys over to Algeria and then overland through the Sahara?
What about Brazil? Indochina? They seem suicidal to enter this war--unless they do think they can move goods overseas and give the RN a serious run for its money.If they can do well in southern Germany they can link up with AH overland, but that's a pretty poor substitute for sea trade, and would be even if AH were well developed itself. The fact that from there the Hapsburgs share a large border with Russia is even less help since even if the Hapsburg lands are more developed than OTL, Russia generally isn't.
But how are they doing in Germany anyway? The flashpoint in Europe for the war, the last straw, was Bavaria rising up--in favor of joining the North Germans. So, what about the other southern German states to the west of Bavaria? If public sentiment was so strongly pan-German in Bavaria, can any of the Southwest German states be out of step and have an actually pro-French, pro-Austrian majority?
If not, if those states were essentially in the same boat as Bavaria--at best the southwest German realms might possibly enjoy a better sentimental relationship between public and monarch that explains why they didn't join the Confederation first, but if the monarchs value that good public opinion they will hardly want to aid the French in attacking fellow Germans.
So, the French forces presumably are formidable indeed, because not only can they take the war into the Northern Confederation's territory, they can also sweep aside the combined power of the southwest states and have only a tattered remnant of the Bavarian crown loyalists on their side. If the French are transiting south German territory to fight North Germans, it is by means of conquering those lands too and holding down a hostile populace.
When this was was first sketched out months ago, I figured the south Germans would be more pro-French, presumably due to Catholic ties combined with astute French foreign policy that benefited significant southern German constituencies and diluted pan-German sentiment there considerably. Since that is not the case, France is in effect making war on all of Germany, with no German allies (west of Austria) to speak of. It's a very different situation from what I imagined. Even bearing in mind that this "Germany" is a "geographic expression" that is much less armed and organized than OTL, it's still a daunting challenge to try and beat it.
A France capable of such a feat is amazingly strong, and perhaps is capable of holding out autarkically for some time.
And apparently they have the sentimental attachments of all the South Germans too; for France and Austria to keep the peace there will be draining.
Actually I don't think either the Austrian or Russian fronts will bog down into trench war nearly as much as the German front. OTL the Eastern Front was a lot more mobile than the Western.
The British will presumably dispatch expeditionary forces to help shore up the weakest points of the Ottoman lines and the RN will bottle up what naval force the Austrians can muster and either keep the Russian Black Sea forces in port or sink them at sea. I would expect that on the whole the divergences of this timeline (worse Russian persecution of non-Russians, stronger Ottoman state with a better economy and more broad-based loyalties, plus Islamic radicalism in various forms filtering into Central Asia) will put the Russians on a back foot in the Caucasus.
The Russians are also vulnerable to the British and their client-allies, the Japanese, threatening to take away their whole Pacific coast and undermine their hegemony over Mongolia.
So yes, the question is, can Germany hold out and keep a core region clear of war devastation enough for her industrial potential to come into play, and can Britain dispatch enough expeditionary force to help the Germans hold, while at the same time doing the same for her colonial holdings and the Ottoman borders?
The fact that the British can often draw upon their colonial peoples for forces and resources, rather than having to spend resources to keep them in line, is a help; the French clearly will enjoy the same kind of support in their West Africa anyway.
The Ottoman Crimeans are in a bad bad place. However I think whatever good seaborne help can do them will be forthcoming in short order, via the Straits, and if the Russian Black Sea Fleet tries to stop such aid, it will be sunk. It's a question of logistics, whether it is possible to bring in enough ammo and food by sea to enable the line to hold; if it can, then it will bog down a lot of Russian force that might be missed in the Balkans or the east.
The biggest worry for the Ottomans has to be their European frontiers; the problem there is the infamously schizophrenic loyalties of the Balkan peoples. No matter where you draw the lines both sides are rotten with sympathizers for the other side; combine that with the possibility AH is better armed and more politically and economically solid than OTL and has whatever support the French can spare and the Ottomans have a problem, of a scale I don't think the British can do more than give token aid for.
Of course if AH is as weak as OTL it may be the Austrians who have the problem!
At this point in the timeline I see little reason for the USA to get entangled in the war on either side, unless the Spanish throw themselves in on the FAR side; a British invitation to the Yanks to help themselves to Cuba and Puerto Rico might be irresistible then. If Spain leaned the other way a French invitation would not have the same effect as the Yanks can't afford to alienate Britain. I can't imagine any contingency that would draw the US in on the French side at this point.
While the Monroe Doctrine applies in principle in South America, in practice Washington was much less likely to take any kind of action regarding affairs south of the Caribbean; I don't see us getting entangled in the Amazon wars, though we might if things spill over northward. Only if and when the USA starts becoming a hegemon with with truly global pretensions would we try incorporating South America into 'our backyard.' In the 1890s we'd be more likely to get worked up about things in the Pacific than in South America.
As I said in my post above, when we started to anticipate this war many months ago, I figured Catholic south Germany would be a lot more alienated from North-German dominated panGermanism than has turned out to be the case here; specifically that French leadership and diplomacy built up a credible de facto south German confederation, affiliated with both France and Austria, that had enough popular support to secure the numerous dynasties there.
With Bavaria clearly shifting its allegiance northward, the military problem for France and Austria is much starker. The South Germans are not allies, they are hostile conquered people, this is draining and distracting.
If I could retcon one thing about this timeline's development, it would be this. France has, relative to OTL, traded the alliance of mighty Great Britain (at a time too, when Britain was relatively mightier) for weak Austria's; I thought it might make sense if Germany were much weaker and the South German states and peoples also weighed in on France's side.
So Second Empire France must deem itself powerful indeed, to fight with the south Germans on the wrong side.
In some ways your Great War is more like WWII than WWI, in that there are many separate theaters of war; the GBO side is more apt to see it as all one war than the FAR but even among them only the British are directly involved in all of them. Brazil and Siam respectively are major factors along with their European allies in their separate South American and Southeast Asian theaters. Romania is very interesting in the context of the eastern wing of the European war, which is actually another theater too; it means FARR (now, with added Rumanians!
) is pressing very hard against Istanbul itself, and threatening to close the Straits to GBO, which the British can't allow to happen, so their committment to help on that front and give what relief they can to Crimea, and attack the Russian Black Sea fleet sooner rather than later, is guaranteed. I'd have to reread the posts on the later developments of the Ottomans in Europe but IIRC Bulgaria is an Ottoman protectorate, or autonomous subject territory, either way I don't think the Bulgarians are strong Ottoman loyalists, so that's a weak frontier. Behind them Thrace is strongly Islamic and Jewish IIRC, so they'll give a strong final defense of the Straits, but that's a mighty thin line to hold. I daresay though the Sultan will be able to draw in a lot of force from throughout the Sultanate to redouble the defense of Constantinople and the Muslim foothold on Europe and if Britain develops a surplus of available mobile Colonial troops, the Muslim ones will gladly join if necessary by then.
Unless Britain is reeling on the edge of apparent collapse, the Iberian nations would be fools to join the FAR side. Fools they might be; it seems most likely to me though they stay neutral.
For Spain to come in actively on Britain's side might be a boon to the GBOs, if by then there are enough surplus troops in British and Ottoman forces (don't know how well it could play to have Muslim forces deploying in Spain though
) to stage an attack on France over the Pyrenees. I know, I know--it's hell to attack over those mountains. The trick would be to pull a diplomatic coup and a coup of secret troop movements so that the British-Ottoman (if any)-Spanish(if any) forces are on the ridgeline, holding the critical passes, before the French realize the threat, and can sweep down the slopes enough to hold high ground from which they can fight their way down into south France.This is most farfetched and likely to backfire and the Spanish probably have no interest in assisting it. Otherwise Spanish belligerence against France has little benefit to the GBO side beyond denying them a trading channel and maybe some resources.
But Spain might wish to join that side, if it looks like it is winning anyway, to guarantee her own colonial possessions. If Spain is on the GBO side I don't think any Yanks will dream of adventures at Spanish expense.
Vice versa, if Spain foolishly joins FAR, perhaps in a flush moment when France looks to be winning and offers the Spanish Gibraltar and a freer hand in northwest Africa, her overseas islands are forfeit, and the Carribean islands and possibly the Philippines might be sufficient incentive for the Yanks to throw in with GBO. American anti-Imperialists will still be against it though and even these temptations might not be enough for canny Washington politicians who will consider that the British won't be content to just let the Americans focus on grabbing these spoils--some of the US mobilization will be expected , quid pro quo, to get sent to hot battles all around the world and of course all trade with FAR stopped for the duration.
I really don't think we'd come in on the FAR side in any contingency; neutrality and no opportunistic land grabs looks like the likeliest American stance.
I might be forgetting something major but I don't think the US ever did more than grumble about anything happening in South America until the Great Depression and WWII OTL, and even after that war, our hegemony there was pretty much of the same character as our global pretensions--we'd intervene covertly, and huff and puff against stubborn opponents there, and take any opportunity to cut them down with plausible deniability, but places like Brazil were no more (if no less!
) seen as "ours" to play with than Indonesia or Pakistan. Before WWII, South America was seen as falling under British hegemony de facto, and when we took that over we were doing it on the scale of the whole globe.So yes, if things start getting bloody north of South America, that might draw us in, but more likely even then we'd check and see if the winning side was going to be truly hostile to us before getting too excited. Pre-war the Caribbean was a quilt of European imperial holdings after all, it might not matter too much to us if these changed hands. Interventions on the mainland, particularly in Mexico, would certainly get our attention, as would any shenanigans involving Cuba. If Spain joined FAR we might attack Cuba without bothering to make any committments to the GBO alliance, to pre-empt the possibility of France building Cuba up into a strong base. But I think the main intent and effect of the US potential threat to either side would be, to deter all parties from using the northern half of the Western hemisphere as a proxy battlefield. Keeping the peace would be the easiest compromise in US domestic politics and probably a welcome simplification to the warring alliances.
No. While the Québecois have incredibly little interest in dying for British imperialism, they have very little interst in France. O, sure there will be some who try to use that as a rallying cry, but they will have very little influence.
No, the big problem will be conscription, as otl in both wars.
Now for something different...
In the FAR alliance, Austria is the weak link. If it has evolved just as OTL, it would seem like madness for them to agree to go to war against both North Germany and Britain. In context the North Germans might not be an immediate problem for them even if they do share borders because the French attack apparently fell on the North Germans like a hammer. But even though ITTL they don't have to worry about the Russians (who gave AH a nasty plastering OTL) they do have the stronger Ottomans, supported by Britain.
Meanwhile I've noted that I think it's very strange the French would go to war against North Germany without any southern German allies.
As it happens, I have a notion for how it could be that Austria is not as weak as OTL in this timeline.
It involves the possibility that sufficiently strong and visionary leadership by the Hapsburgs and allied nobles, particularly involving a more visionary Roman Catholic Church, might strengthen the Empire's political unity, reinforce its economic development, and defuse to an extent the ethnic and class schisms that OTL fragmented it completely.
Specifically I have the notion that in the middle of the 19th century, some of the Hapsburgs and their supportive bureacrats and intelligensia might get caught up in dialectical polemics with a certain Karl Marx.
From my modern point of view, the strongest aspect of Marxism is its critique of capitalism--Marxist economics retains the rubric "political economy" quite advisedly. It also approaches the analysis of what capitalism is and how our economic world works in the most lucid fashion I am aware of.
What if, ITTL, instead of the ultra-liberal (in the 19th century sense!) fashion of Ludwig von Mises, the "Austrian school" of economics is a heavily revised form of Marxism, married to an Aquinian and Catholic vision of top-down but responsible elite rule in lieu of proletarian revolution?
The Catholic critique of Marx would condemn his eschatology of revolution as a grave error, but adopt the machinery of Hegelian dialectics as applied materialistically to economics as a guide to absolutist policy for achieving social harmony and political unity under a Catholic banner, asserting continuity with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and the alleged practices of medieval Christendom.
Elites, particularly the monarchy and the Church, would be unassailable in their rights and privileges, but answerable to God in their conduct of the duties they are charged with along with these privileges. It is the job of the monarchy and Church to regulate themselves in regulating the nation, ideally the world, to achieve God's will on Earth for an orderly society that can best enable God's people to carry out their proper destinies.
On a high, lofty level, this is just the cant of any absolutist regime; the question is, can a monarchy take the mission seriously, in the light of existential threats to its continuance, and can they effectively act to so regulate society that its conflicts are to a notable extent resolved and progress is furthered?
If we have Hapsburgs getting caught up in such a movement, and high Church officials refining and endorsing and enacting it in their own sphere, perhaps the Empire can be reformed. The ethnic rivalries between Austrian German and Magyar might have been finessed, with a baptized meritocracy promoting those nobles of either faction who promote the wholesale benefit of the Empire and demoting or sidelining those who would weaken it. Affirmative action for the numerous minorities of the Empire might lay the ground for a truly multicultural empire. Shrewd analysis of the potentials, opportunities, and side effects of industrial enterprises might lead to the rise of new industrial complexes and the expansion of existing ones, and the social transformations caused by the rise of these industrial centers managed so as to make a stronger regulated capitalist economy a bastion of central Imperial authority. Working class people of all ethnicities might be diverted from both nationalistic and radical movements to support the Empire acting in the name of Christ as well.
All of this will surely have what I'd regard as a dark side. The unifying pillar of the Empire would be a robust, modernized Catholicism. Such a movement might take on many enemies to demonize--liberal modernism, radicalism, I daresay the Jews would suffer worse in such an Empire than they did OTL. But in the context of years between 1850 and 1893, I'd think it would be the Ottomans, and Islam in general, that would be denounced worst of all. Since the Empire does include Islamic peoples these would suffer persecution, probably the choice between conversion and expulsion (the Jews might once again face the same ultimatum).
But if we don't suppose such a movement in Austria to be too ASB, the upshot might be an Austrian Empire that can stand as a plausible and reasonably durable member of the FAR alliance. With somewhat more industry and a much less fragile political order, it won't look like it will crumble facing its Ottoman foes.
This might make up for the evident failure of France to win over the allegiance of the south German peoples to a broad Catholic alliance.
Presumably in those states, either the doctrine of Christian service of the monarchy to Church guidance will have been ignored or attempted badly, discrediting it. It wouldn't spread into France due to France's polarization between secular and sectarian factions. But Austrian successes would help French polemicists portraying the FAR alliance as a holy union against Godless enemies.
What about the Russians, and Austria's Orthodox subjects? I'm thinking that in the 19th century context, the Austrian ideologues would hold that while schism between Eastern and Western Christianity is unfortunate and lamentable, still the Eastern Orthodox are Christians who have often suffered under the Mahometian yoke, allies and brothers in Christ, so within Austrian territory there will be some ecumenicism and respect for Orthodox clergy and congregations, conceivably other heterodoxies too (there are still Hussites in Romania today for instance). And with much praise and muted criticism of the Christian role the Romanovs asserted they did play, the Russian Empire is welcomed into the fold of the Christian crusade against Islam and degenerate northern European atheism.
In Paris it might look very different, but in Vienna the Great War of 1893 will look like another Crusade, one of a great, remarkably modern, unified Catholic empire-nation with the Hapsburg monarchy as the leader of Christian knighthood against the Paynim Turk.
---
Assuming such a thing is possible in Austria, what would it mean for the Church around the world?
I presume the Papacy would get behind the doctrine. In broad principle I think I am merely echoing the modern Cathechism. To be sure nowadays ecumenicism has advanced to refrain from condemning non-Christian beliefs as inherently sinful and blasphemy, whereas here it clearly hasn't, but again I think that's in line with 19th century doctrine OTL. The socialistic aspects of this much-coopted Marxism are now canonized, in the sense that while the Church is conservative on the subject of property rights and much else, it asserts now and I believe asserted even then that the powerful of the Earth have obligations to guarantee the welfare of the humble, whose obligation to obey their betters and do their humble duties is part of a whole where they are aided and protected. (Not to say one is contingent on the other, an Ultramontane would hardly agree that if the secular powers fail of their obligations the humble are then entitled to rebel! It's a case of, everyone has their duties and it's a sin and a tragedy when anyone defaults on them).
So not that much has changed really. In America, I suppose that the bishops will teach that since the United States is a republic, it is the duty of Catholics to vote for political leaders worthy of the role, and to admonish whatever leadership they've got to live up to it, and urge that leadership to recognize virtue in foreign regimes and reward it with good relations. In Britain and North Germany, once the war breaks out, not only Catholics but anyone whose beliefs seem to have some resonance with these ideas might be singled out as unpatriotic and kowtowing to Austria and the Pope.
After the war, assuming the doctrine isn't discredited and denounced within the Church, the Zentrum party (that is, the German Catholic one) might have some interesting challenges and interactions. On one hand they can be denounced as being of the enemy, on the other some of their doctrines resonate with reactionaries (submission to the divinely ordained authorities) and others with the radicals (the obligation of the state to consider the needs and interests of the majority, that is the poor and working classes). Again this is not unlike OTL where Zentrum, as its name indicates, held the balance of power between reaction and radicalism.
In the FAR alliance, Austria is the weak link. If it has evolved just as OTL, it would seem like madness for them to agree to go to war against both North Germany and Britain. In context the North Germans might not be an immediate problem for them even if they do share borders because the French attack apparently fell on the North Germans like a hammer. But even though ITTL they don't have to worry about the Russians (who gave AH a nasty plastering OTL) they do have the stronger Ottomans, supported by Britain.
Meanwhile I've noted that I think it's very strange the French would go to war against North Germany without any southern German allies.
As it happens, I have a notion for how it could be that Austria is not as weak as OTL in this timeline.
It involves the possibility that sufficiently strong and visionary leadership by the Hapsburgs and allied nobles, particularly involving a more visionary Roman Catholic Church, might strengthen the Empire's political unity, reinforce its economic development, and defuse to an extent the ethnic and class schisms that OTL fragmented it completely.
Specifically I have the notion that in the middle of the 19th century, some of the Hapsburgs and their supportive bureacrats and intelligensia might get caught up in dialectical polemics with a certain Karl Marx.
From my modern point of view, the strongest aspect of Marxism is its critique of capitalism--Marxist economics retains the rubric "political economy" quite advisedly. It also approaches the analysis of what capitalism is and how our economic world works in the most lucid fashion I am aware of.
What if, ITTL, instead of the ultra-liberal (in the 19th century sense!) fashion of Ludwig von Mises, the "Austrian school" of economics is a heavily revised form of Marxism, married to an Aquinian and Catholic vision of top-down but responsible elite rule in lieu of proletarian revolution?
The Catholic critique of Marx would condemn his eschatology of revolution as a grave error, but adopt the machinery of Hegelian dialectics as applied materialistically to economics as a guide to absolutist policy for achieving social harmony and political unity under a Catholic banner, asserting continuity with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and the alleged practices of medieval Christendom.
Elites, particularly the monarchy and the Church, would be unassailable in their rights and privileges, but answerable to God in their conduct of the duties they are charged with along with these privileges. It is the job of the monarchy and Church to regulate themselves in regulating the nation, ideally the world, to achieve God's will on Earth for an orderly society that can best enable God's people to carry out their proper destinies.
On a high, lofty level, this is just the cant of any absolutist regime; the question is, can a monarchy take the mission seriously, in the light of existential threats to its continuance, and can they effectively act to so regulate society that its conflicts are to a notable extent resolved and progress is furthered?
If we have Hapsburgs getting caught up in such a movement, and high Church officials refining and endorsing and enacting it in their own sphere, perhaps the Empire can be reformed. The ethnic rivalries between Austrian German and Magyar might have been finessed, with a baptized meritocracy promoting those nobles of either faction who promote the wholesale benefit of the Empire and demoting or sidelining those who would weaken it. Affirmative action for the numerous minorities of the Empire might lay the ground for a truly multicultural empire. Shrewd analysis of the potentials, opportunities, and side effects of industrial enterprises might lead to the rise of new industrial complexes and the expansion of existing ones, and the social transformations caused by the rise of these industrial centers managed so as to make a stronger regulated capitalist economy a bastion of central Imperial authority. Working class people of all ethnicities might be diverted from both nationalistic and radical movements to support the Empire acting in the name of Christ as well.
All of this will surely have what I'd regard as a dark side. The unifying pillar of the Empire would be a robust, modernized Catholicism. Such a movement might take on many enemies to demonize--liberal modernism, radicalism, I daresay the Jews would suffer worse in such an Empire than they did OTL. But in the context of years between 1850 and 1893, I'd think it would be the Ottomans, and Islam in general, that would be denounced worst of all. Since the Empire does include Islamic peoples these would suffer persecution, probably the choice between conversion and expulsion (the Jews might once again face the same ultimatum).
But if we don't suppose such a movement in Austria to be too ASB, the upshot might be an Austrian Empire that can stand as a plausible and reasonably durable member of the FAR alliance. With somewhat more industry and a much less fragile political order, it won't look like it will crumble facing its Ottoman foes.
This might make up for the evident failure of France to win over the allegiance of the south German peoples to a broad Catholic alliance.
Presumably in those states, either the doctrine of Christian service of the monarchy to Church guidance will have been ignored or attempted badly, discrediting it. It wouldn't spread into France due to France's polarization between secular and sectarian factions. But Austrian successes would help French polemicists portraying the FAR alliance as a holy union against Godless enemies.
What about the Russians, and Austria's Orthodox subjects? I'm thinking that in the 19th century context, the Austrian ideologues would hold that while schism between Eastern and Western Christianity is unfortunate and lamentable, still the Eastern Orthodox are Christians who have often suffered under the Mahometian yoke, allies and brothers in Christ, so within Austrian territory there will be some ecumenicism and respect for Orthodox clergy and congregations, conceivably other heterodoxies too (there are still Hussites in Romania today for instance). And with much praise and muted criticism of the Christian role the Romanovs asserted they did play, the Russian Empire is welcomed into the fold of the Christian crusade against Islam and degenerate northern European atheism.
In Paris it might look very different, but in Vienna the Great War of 1893 will look like another Crusade, one of a great, remarkably modern, unified Catholic empire-nation with the Hapsburg monarchy as the leader of Christian knighthood against the Paynim Turk.
---
Assuming such a thing is possible in Austria, what would it mean for the Church around the world?
I presume the Papacy would get behind the doctrine. In broad principle I think I am merely echoing the modern Cathechism. To be sure nowadays ecumenicism has advanced to refrain from condemning non-Christian beliefs as inherently sinful and blasphemy, whereas here it clearly hasn't, but again I think that's in line with 19th century doctrine OTL.
The socialistic aspects of this much-coopted Marxism are now canonized, in the sense that while the Church is conservative on the subject of property rights and much else, it asserts now and I believe asserted even then that the powerful of the Earth have obligations to guarantee the welfare of the humble, whose obligation to obey their betters and do their humble duties is part of a whole where they are aided and protected. (Not to say one is contingent on the other, an Ultramontane would hardly agree that if the secular powers fail of their obligations the humble are then entitled to rebel! It's a case of, everyone has their duties and it's a sin and a tragedy when anyone defaults on them).So not that much has changed really. In America, I suppose that the bishops will teach that since the United States is a republic, it is the duty of Catholics to vote for political leaders worthy of the role, and to admonish whatever leadership they've got to live up to it, and urge that leadership to recognize virtue in foreign regimes and reward it with good relations. In Britain and North Germany, once the war breaks out, not only Catholics but anyone whose beliefs seem to have some resonance with these ideas might be singled out as unpatriotic and kowtowing to Austria and the Pope.
After the war, assuming the doctrine isn't discredited and denounced within the Church, the Zentrum party (that is, the German Catholic one) might have some interesting challenges and interactions. On one hand they can be denounced as being of the enemy, on the other some of their doctrines resonate with reactionaries (submission to the divinely ordained authorities) and others with the radicals (the obligation of the state to consider the needs and interests of the majority, that is the poor and working classes). Again this is not unlike OTL where Zentrum, as its name indicates, held the balance of power between reaction and radicalism.
There definitely won't be the kind of repression of German culture, either in the United States or Britain, that there was in OTL. That may also change the way the United States treats aliens in general; for instance, it was common in OTL to allow aliens to vote in state and local elections, but that was abolished in WW1. In TTL this might not happen, although there will still be considerable nativist pressure. And of course, the British royal house in TTL will remain the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
I'll go with Dathi Thorfinnsson on Quebec, although with France as an enemy nation, the Confederation authorities might perceive the Québecois as a potential fifth column, and if they're ham-handed enough, this might increase Québecois separatism down the line.
What I'll say in this regard is that Baden and Württemberg are not Bavaria. There's substantial pan-German sentiment in both countries - the idea of being part of a strong German empire, as opposed to weak Franco-Austrian client states, has appeal - but the ruling dynasties have been better at mediating these tensions. Both have pursued a policy of promoting stronger commercial and cultural links to the NDB through the Zollverein while emphasizing distinct local traditions and playing up the fear of Prussian overlordship. Bavaria, while more Catholic than the other two south German states, has been much worse at mediating popular sentiment: Mad King Ludwig (who's still king at this point in TTL) isn't exactly a consensus-builder, and his alliance with the ultramontane reactionaries has forced the pan-Germanists and the moderate Catholic democrats into an alliance.
So France and Austria do stand a chance of keeping Baden and Württemberg on-side - as I said before, their rulers will face pressures in both directions, but their natural inclination will be toward the FAR alliance, and if they do join it, they won't face open rebellion (although some volunteers might sneak across the border to fight for the North Germans). And even in Bavaria, pan-Germanism is stronger in some places than others: the Palatinate is reasonably pro-French, for instance, and the majority of the royal Bavarian army is fighting on the FAR side. The French and Austrians certainly don't have the unqualified support of the southern German states, but they also won't have to treat them as conquered provinces with the exception of parts of Bavaria.
In some ways your Great War is more like WWII than WWI, in that there are many separate theaters of war; the GBO side is more apt to see it as all one war than the FAR but even among them only the British are directly involved in all of them. Brazil and Siam respectively are major factors along with their European allies in their separate South American and Southeast Asian theaters. Romania is very interesting in the context of the eastern wing of the European war, which is actually another theater too; it means FARR (now, with added Rumanians!
I daresay though the Sultan will be able to draw in a lot of force from throughout the Sultanate to redouble the defense of Constantinople and the Muslim foothold on Europe and if Britain develops a surplus of available mobile Colonial troops, the Muslim ones will gladly join if necessary by then.
The Great War will in many ways be a set of interlocking wars, but anything that happens in one of them is likely to affect the others, because the overall strength of the respective empires will matter a great deal. West Africa, Burma-Siam and Grão Pará - and later in the war, Central Asia - will be major theaters, not sideshows.
I do think you're correct that, during the first year or two, Britain's role will be to shore up its allies' defenses, given that its own territory won't be under threat and that it will have by far the greatest naval lift and escort capability. In addition to what you suggest, the British might reinforce the Ottomans from West Africa via Bornu and Libya, or from India and the Omani empire via the Red Sea and/or Persian Gulf, but either would be a major undertaking and could only be done once local threats are dealt with.
The British will be playing whack-a-mole for a long time, which will do at least two things. It will force them to spread their naval resources thin and give the French a chance to keep a few critical sea lanes open by concentrating theirs. It will also highlight their dependence on their colonial population and force them to think about how they treat that population and how to ensure its loyalty. The debates that start during the war will continue for a long time after.
BTW, I'd love to discuss your plan for Austria at some point, and I may (with your permission) use aspects of this ideology during and after the war, but it probably belongs on a separate thread.
Last edited:
Oh well, in that case, I guess it isn't so necessary to flail around for ways to strengthen Austria then!
And so I used that terminology advisedly, not calling them sideshows but "theaters." Compared to WWII there are lots and lots of them, but this reflects a world less integrated by fast and massive transport than the OTL 1940s.
I should have brought that up earlier, if it were to be relevant. I was actually thinking about it more in the context of someone else who wants to do a Hapsburg-wank, but he seems to have let that project drop; I let it get more dystopian here than I'd like but it's an inherently slippery and dangerous idea.
Here I put it out belatedly because as I say I got confused by the South German situation and figured FAR needed to be shored up somewhere, somehow, to have any plausibility. You've said little enough about Austria I thought it might be a useful patch, but clarifying that Bavaria is an exception to the South German rule makes it look less urgent.
Trying to spell the whole thing out more plausibly and with proper elaboration is beyond me anyway and I don't think it's wanted here, not in this form anyway!
I do think a tiny bit of this--a patched over crisis here, a somewhat more successful industrial complex there--might naturally emerge from the French alliance over some decades, with astute French advice smoothing things over and generous French subsidies both fertilizing and lubricating war industries in particular.I feel we need an AH that is a bit less rickety than OTL, but then again it is the 1890s and the liabilites have not had quite as long to do their work, while the advances of the more advanced nations have had less time to accumulate; these considerations alone may keep the Hapsburgs in the fight longer.
As I say other timelines where I would consider this sort of baptized Marxism more appropriate would be ones where Austria is not on the losing side. Here I don't particularly care whether the Dual Monarchy lives or dies, and the sketchy measures I took make me rather want it to fail anyway!
So sorry if that's a derailment, I recant!
I considered making it a PM but thought at this late date, if it were a tempting idea, it might be best for it to suffer withering criticism lest a flawed notion get too far. And I didn't suggest it earlier because south Germany on the French side seemed like an ample balancing of the scales. Having just roughly 2/3s of it (with half of Bavaria counting for 1/3 of all south Germany, at a wild guess) with the Bavarian radicals neutralizing another third, well, it looks hairy for France but then I always figured they'd lose eventually and meanwhile they did tend to go rushing in without counting the cost too carefully.
A big issue is where does FARs money come from. France has money but being cut off from trade will be painful and I doubt they'll be financing the other two. Austria and Russia will have big cash problems and when Japan joins in Russia will be cut off from basically all maritime trade.
More or less a race between FAR running out of money and the Germans running out of men.
Also as IOTL the die off will have big demographic effects and will hit old aristocracies especially hard due to sky high officer mortality rates.
More or less a race between FAR running out of money and the Germans running out of men.
Also as IOTL the die off will have big demographic effects and will hit old aristocracies especially hard due to sky high officer mortality rates.
Good updates.
This is one of the most detailed timelines on this board (with over 200,000 words).
Can't wait to see what the rest of the TL holds.
BTW, I voted for this TL in the new 19th century timeline.
Keep up the good work!!!
So far, it looks good for this timeline in the voting (it is handily beating all the other nominees, so far).
This is one of the most detailed timelines on this board (with over 200,000 words).
Can't wait to see what the rest of the TL holds.
BTW, I voted for this TL in the new 19th century timeline.
Keep up the good work!!!
So far, it looks good for this timeline in the voting (it is handily beating all the other nominees, so far).
I didn't mean to suggest that you had any other opinion; I was just emphasizing the importance of the colonial theaters in TTL as compared to OTL's world wars. Sorry if I came off as unintentionally dismissive.
As I say other timelines where I would consider this sort of baptized Marxism more appropriate would be ones where Austria is not on the losing side. Here I don't particularly care whether the Dual Monarchy lives or dies, and the sketchy measures I took make me rather want it to fail anyway!
It actually seems to me that this ideology would be more likely in an Austria that is losing, or has lost, the war: one which feels the need to recover discipline and national purpose. It has some points in common with fascism, including a paternalist ethic that could lend itself to corporatist economics (or a bastardized form of collectivism that works a lot like corporatism), and could possibly arise under circumstances similar to those in which fascist regimes arose in OTL. It differs from fascism in that religion rather than nationalism is the organizing principle, which means that it would be much more tolerant of multiculturalism (as long as the cultures in question are Catholic!) and if interpreted in accord with the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, it could provide for significant, albeit restricted, local freedom of action. It might also be less militaristic - nothing about the ideological framework necessarily requires militarism - but in either a revanchist or an imperialist monarchy, I suspect that any version which actually comes to power would be militaristic as hell.
I could see something like this happening in a defeated Austria that remains a monarchy rather than becoming a republic, in which a defeated imperial house combines with a defeated Church (the latter-day Catholic League has been beaten, and Rome seized by godless modernists!) to rethink and re-forge the concept of a Catholic nation. Maybe the French clerical parties might also adopt something like this as an alternative to socialism on the one hand, and the secular populist right wing on the other hand. And there's no reason it couldn't incorporate a bastardized Marxism - these kinds of ideologies in OTL were always grab bags, and several did cherry-pick bits and pieces of socialism.
They might also think they have more allies than they actually do.
France can continue to trade through Spain as long as the latter stays neutral - the trade will be less profitable due to the Spaniards taking their cut, but the French economy might be able to survive. Austria and Russia are, as you say, in a lot more trouble - if Sweden stays neutral and Russia can keep the Gulf of Bothnia open, it can potentially trade through Swedish ports, but that would be expensive and risky in the face of the British and North German fleets.
This might have a particularly dramatic effect in the German-speaking world, as well as Russia.
Thanks! And in case anyone missed it amid all the discussion, the last update was at post 1416.