Malê Rising

I gotta say, I've always felt like the way the southern German states have been treated in this timeline has been a bit... unfair?

This is a timeline all about people's self-determination, but the French and Austrians who have no problem shooting uppity Germans who think they should all be in one nation aren't given crap for it.

I really like this timeline, so I find this contrast a bit interesting.

I'm not sure if by "giving crap for it," you mean within the timeline, or by us the readers.

Within the timeline--I'd say the death toll on the various fronts amounts to the FARs being given quite a lot of "crap" for their highhandedness.

This, pretty much. Not to mention that a lot of chickens will come home to roost just as soon as the NDB is able to mount a counteroffensive into the southern German states.

And if you're referring, not to in-universe events or to the readers, but to the author, I don't think I've portrayed Leclair very favorably - he's a product of the Decade of Reaction, and I've mentioned that he's modeled after Avigdor Lieberman, who isn't one of the good guys. I've shown Leclair's France with saving graces, certainly, but I've done that with nearly everyplace here, even Russia. I won't deny having some sympathies for TTL's France, but those sympathies are with the progressive side of France - the side that, as of the last election, is waking up to the way that Leclair and his dysfunctional enablers have walked the country off a cliff.

Matters in France and southern Germany are a long way from settled, and they could turn out any number of ways.

Very unlikely. The only piece of occupied Italy the Pope has any claim whatsoever over is Ferrara and its surroundings, which is definitely NOT the point you want to be in middle of a war like this. The Papal claim on this area was the weakest one among the former Papal States territories, Austria had precedents coveting it, and more importantly the area was, well, little more than a very large malarial swamp with a city in the middle and some fields.

I think he meant more in the sense of governing it while it's temporarily occupied, not as a permanent gain. If he's framing it as his interest as an Italian for the purpose of protecting the people/making his cause look more legitimate in comparison to French/Austrian pupetry would that affect anything?

What Jord839 said. It's in the Pope's interest for the occupation of northern Italy to be a three-power arrangement rather than two, because that will cement his status as an independent power. It will also give him a role in shaping the new order in Italy as a whole and, in the event of a FAR victory, restructuring its politics in a way that will marginalize the anti-clerical faction.

Neither France nor Austria particularly want the Pope to have this much power, and they're also worried that if they grant it to him, he might use it to get even, which would cause them no end of partisan trouble. But he's providing a lot of troops, and his blessing for the FAR cause helps keep civilian morale from wavering too much. Right now they're stalling, but something might force the issue from one side or the other.

There's still enough that they could open up problems on the other side as well: If people sympathetic to the rebels help the Italian resistance in some way too and the French/Austrians cross the border/go after Swiss citizens, the gov't won't be happy either. It's in their interests not to do anything but protest and get them out as soon as possible, but if things spiral out of control, anything's possible.

Fair point; I guess that which way the Swiss government goes will depend a great deal on who intervenes first. If the Italians or the French want to get really Machiavellian, they might even try to provoke the other side into invading Switzerland, but I doubt this would happen given how many ways it could go wrong. More likely, any event that risks bringing Switzerland into the war will be error and not design.

As for Ticino, there WAS some small degree of, well, not exactly irredentism, but something milder, IOTL. A Swiss entanglement with the North Italian mess would make things interesting, in the bloody and messy sense. I am not very familiar with the history of Ticinese identity, but my limited understanding is that the it was an incredibly messy thing in this timeframe.

You're right that there was some mild thing going on in Ticino. It was always poor and conservative and that made hopes for reform pretty explosive when local elites tried to hold back the tide. Some of the more paranoid political commentators against a proportional representation movement around this time IIRC made claims that Italian irridentists in Ticino and other minority groups like monarchists in Neuchatel would ally to push their causes, but most of it was baseless fear-mongering AFAIK. Ticinese are probably going to feel a strong connection and sympathy with Italy ITTL but I don't think they'll be eager to leave the Confederation or anything. Still, if even a small group decides to get involved in the Milan pocket problems, that cause conflict.

I went looking for sources on the Ticino conflicts and didn't find much - there were a few old newspaper accounts of the 1890 revolt (including this), and Italian Wikipedia was also helpful. It seems that the conservatives gerrymandered the electoral system after coming into power in the 1870s, and that the tensions between them and the liberals came to a head in 1890 after a dispute over a referendum. It also seems like the revolt was initially more of a coup, which degenerated into guerrilla skirmishes after the federal government moved in to restore order. If that kind of thing happens in TTL, it would be very easy for Italian smugglers to get involved, and that could draw in the authorities in Milan.

Can anyone point me to an easily-available source on the region? English or French-language sources are preferable, although I can also manage German with a dictionary and sufficient time.
 
Grão Pará and New York, April to September 1895

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“Before the war,” said Agostinho, “some people called this city the Paris of the Amazon.”

“Paris?” asked the American, surveying the mansions that rose above the warehouse district. Some – the most grandiose – had been built without any semblance of taste, others with the semblance but little more. “That’s a novel way to misspell ‘Newport.’”

“It was so,” Agostinho continued, missing the reference. He spread his hands to take in the opera house down the street from the café where they sat, the lavish city hall, the electric streetlamps. “Rubber made more millionaires than gold. But all those houses are fortresses now.”

The American strained to look at the mansions more closely, and saw that this was true. The heights where they stood were bristling with artillery, and many of the outbuildings had been converted into barracks: the city’s defenses against the besieging French and Brazilian armies. But as he looked again, he saw that there were just as many sentry posts and machine-gun nests pointing toward the city.

“There’s more money here than ever,” Agostinho explained. “No one wants to anger your country, so the rubber comes and goes, and the armies pay dearly for it. And with all the refugees in the city, there are many people for the barons to defend it from.”

The American nodded. It was of a piece with what he’d seen on the way to the city: the neutral rubber-barons’ boats going unmolested amid the raids and ambushes that characterized the jungle war, and the abandoned villages by the riverside whose people had been forced to flee by the contending armies. And it was of a piece with the empty stores and hungry street children in the city itself. There was, indeed, more money in Manaus than ever before, and the plantation-owners who still lived here used it to bid up the prices of everything to levels that the refugees couldn’t afford.

He slapped at his neck where a fly had stung him; seeing that his companion had noticed, he withdrew his hand and flicked the dead insect away. “With all the blood the rubbermen and the soldiers have spilled,” he said, “it’s amazing the flies can find any left to suck.”

It took a moment for the English words to register – most people in Manaus knew some English now, after two years of being garrisoned by British troops – but when they did, Agostinho laughed. “But that’s why they’re so fond of you, Senhor Clemens! An American with fresh blood, untainted by the jungle – is it any wonder they flock to you?”

“I imagine not,” Clemens answered, “but it’s an honor I’d forgo if I could.” He took another sip of his iced coffee – Manaus still had electric iceboxes, for those who could afford them, and the cool drink was a godsend in the tropical heat.

“Those houses, though – they seem a bit over-defended against refugees.”

“Quite so. The barons don’t want to pay their taxes either, or be bothered by the police.”

“And they get away with it?”

“Yes, Senhor, most of the time – as I said, no one wants to anger your country, and they already write enough letters home calling for war.”

“I’ve seen the letters,” Clemens said. He was quite familiar with those letters – they were, in fact, what had brought him here. “They don’t usually talk about war taxes, though. Mostly, they complain that their land is being taken away at gunpoint.”

“Ah, land reform,” agreed Agostinho. “No, they don’t like that a bit. But they aren’t in danger of losing their land – the Amazon is vast, and there’s plenty for all. That’s not what they’re afraid of.”

Clemens took another sip of coffee and waited for the Grãoparaense to continue.

“Now that there’s homestead title, they’re afraid of losing their workers. How can they keep men on the plantations, in the conditions there, if the men can run away and get land of their own? Land reform is the anvil for the hammer of the wage-and-hour laws: if the men have a choice, the rubber-barons will have to treat them well and pay them more.”

So that’s what all the fuss is about. Labor legislation had been part of the price the Army of Angelim had exacted for its alliance with the Grão Pará government, and the congress had enacted it the previous year. It wasn’t long afterward that the American rubber companies had started agitating for war, although nobody had noticed the coincidence at the time. And all it took was someone to come here and ask.

He put the coffee cup down on the table. “Senhor,” he said. “You’re in Congress now, but you were an officer in the Army of Angelim before, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Agostinho answered, suddenly guarded. “Why?”

“If you can introduce me,” the American said, “there are some things I want to see for myself.”

*******

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Dawn was breaking, and Clemens let his machete fall to the side and took a moment to lean against the rubber tree. He’d spent all night slashing the bark to let the latex bleed and placing cans to collect it, and he was dead tired.


This, after less than a month. He’d spent most of May and June with the Army of Angelim, dodging French river patrols, waiting in ambush on jungle tracks, visiting the quilombos that the Grão Pará government had lately recognized as municipalities. He’d spoken to the men who’d run off from the rubber plantations, and he’d found a couple who still went on raids – the army had renounced its war against the rubber barons for the duration of the greater conflict, but some of the soldiers still fought to free their comrades, or simply for revenge. He’d shared their rotgut and heard their stories.

Those stories had brought him, in July, to this plantation.

He wasn’t the only white man working there – adventurers in Grão Pará sometimes ended up in debt, and if they had no family to bail them out, they might end up earning their keep tapping rubber. That had been his cover story, and thus far, it had kept him from suspicion. But his kind was far from a majority here, and harshly as the foremen treated him, the difference between the treatment he got and what they got was as far as the earth was from the sun.

Many rubber companies, Clemens had learned, brought workers in from their home countries’ colonies. American companies couldn’t do that, so they recruited from all over – Negroes from Georgia or Florida who’d been dispossessed by Redeemer governments, coolies from China and Japan, indios from the depths of the jungle. The recruiters in Asia and the American South offered five-year contracts, but what they didn’t say was how few people ever returned from them. Those who didn’t die of overwork or malaria found themselves in debt for their barracks-rooms and meager rations, and the company scrip in which they were paid never seemed to be enough to pay what they owed. No wonder so many tried to run – the ones who could get past the plantation guards, that was.

And even they were better off than the indios, who were nothing more or less than slaves – grabbed from the jungle and pressed into service, with the recruiters being paid so many dollars per head.

“They don’t do this in the British or Dutch plantations anymore, now that the new laws are in place,” Agostinho had said. “But we aren’t allowed to bring the law to the American plantations, because no one wants to anger your country.”

Clemens picked up his machete and slashed at the tree again, grunting with shame and fury as much as fatigue. Today was the day he’d arranged for a “concerned brother” to pay his debts and buy his passage downriver. And once he got home, he’d have no problem making people angry. Not in the least.

*******

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“Your article made quite a splash,” said Theodore Roosevelt. He had a copy of the Saturday Evening Post in his hand, open to Clemens’ essay. “CONGO ON THE AMAZON” stretched across the top of the page, above the journalist’s picture; the prose beneath was punctuated with copious drawings.

“Some say the devil’s work is being done in the Amazon, but they’re wrong,” Roosevelt read. “If the devil could get there – if he could fight his way through clouds of flies, and keep from catching his death of malaria – he’d take one look at a Grão Pará rubber plantation and shout for the police.” His laughter boomed across the parlor. “Perfect!”

Clemens looked around the parlor, surveying the assembled delegates to the American Peace Convention. “I’ve been too busy to read the papers since I got back,” he said. “What are people saying about it?”

“It’s got them talking, all right. You’ve given everyone a new topic of conversation, after all the articles in the yellow press calling for us to join the war yesterday. Naming names was a perfect touch – the scandal sheets love their scandals, and you’ve given them enough to keep picking at for a year.”

“I wasn’t thinking of scandal - the names just needed to be named. What I saw down there…”

“I’m not denying that. But you couldn’t have done better if it had been calculated. The warmongers are busy defending themselves now, and some of their hired men in Congress are having second thoughts…”

“They’ll regroup, though,” came a woman’s voice. It was Rebecca Felton, the uncrowned first lady of Georgia, who knew the ins and outs of back-room politics better than most politicians. “The elections are coming up next year, and they’ll be right back at it as soon as the campaign gets going. Or maybe before, if they can get their way in Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” Roosevelt asked. “I hadn’t thought anything was happening on that front right now, not with the Royal Navy standing in the way.”

“That might change, if they can get the Hawaiian government to invite us in.”

“I hadn’t thought the king was inclined to do that,” Clemens said; he had only a nodding acquaintance with Hawaii, but he’d kept up with the news before he’d left for the Amazon. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“I didn’t say the king,” Felton answered. “I said the government.”

Clemens wasn’t certain what that meant, but Roosevelt was. “They’re planning a coup?”

“That’s what I hear – I can’t tell you from where, but there’s been money flowing into Hawaii lately that has nothing to do with sugar exports.”

“Hah! Well, if that’s so, we’ve got people with money too. I’ll make sure some of it goes in the right direction, and I’ll also put a bug in the ear of a couple of our Congressmen.”

“We can hope it isn’t too late,” Felton said. “Ah, there’s Harriet. We’ll talk later, gentlemen.”

Clemens followed Felton with his eyes as she walked over to join Harriet Tubman. “Now there are some strange bedfellows.”

“Quite,” said Roosevelt with just a hint of a raised eyebrow. Felton was a firm believer in the supremacy of the white race, and Tubman had spent her life fighting against that pernicious doctrine, but the two women had found a common cause in peace. And with Tubman as much a power in South Carolina as Felton was in Georgia, they’d found, in spite of themselves, that they had much to talk about. Sometimes they talked loudly – their arguments had become legendary wherever the peace party gathered – but the specter of millions of Americans being sent to die in a global war was evidently enough for them to put aside their differences temporarily.

“They’re discussing the Sea Islanders, no doubt.” No further explanation was necessary; it was well known that the Gullah of both South Carolina and Georgia were running guns to the British in Sierra Leone, and that some of them had gone so far as to join the creole militia there. That was all well and good, even if it winked at the Neutrality Act, but some of their representatives were arguing for the United States to come into the war on the British side. Tubman had made a project of swaying them to the peace faction, and she’d somehow persuaded Felton to secure concessions for the Gullah on the Georgia side of the state line.

“That problem will solve itself soon enough,” Clemens said. Sierra Leone was close to being relieved by the advancing British and Malê armies, and once that happened, the Gullahs’ cousins would have no more need of American aid. And besides, the lowland politicians who wanted to join the British side had no truck with the rubber-barons who wanted to fight against the British in Grão Pará – if anything, the confusion they’d brought to the pro-war camp had helped the cause of peace.

“No doubt.” Roosevelt watched the two women a moment longer. “I wonder what Mrs. Felton would think of the last line of your essay – ‘after all the blood this nation spilled to wipe out Negro slavery on American soil, it would be a crime against God and nature to fight to reinstate it in the Amazon.’”

“I’m not sure, but I know what Miss Harriet would think.” Everyone in South Carolina, from the governor on down, called Tubman that, and it had been a long time since she’d been known by any other on the national stage. “And if she approves, I don’t much care if Rebecca doesn’t.”

“Now, now. Not that I don’t agree with you, but we all have the same enemy here.”

“Enemy? For a peace convention, Teddy, this sounds a great deal like a council of war.”

Roosevelt nodded. “I suppose that’s what it is, in a sense. A campaign, just as an election is a campaign.” He flourished the Post in his right hand. “And may you fire many more shots like this one.”
 
Love the update.

I can just see Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain narrating his South American adventures (have you seen Mark Twain Tonight, Jonathan?).

And kudos to the gay Teddy Roosevelt, too.
 
For American politics anti-Catholics have to be screaming their heads off with paranoia about the Papal Legion, which of course would push a lot of Catholics into the peace faction.
 

The Sandman

Banned
I wonder what Mister Hearst thinks?

He and Mister Clemens no doubt get along like a house on fire - you know, screams, flames, people running for safety...
 

Hnau

Banned
Wait, so is this OTL Samuel Clemens? 60 years old and still able to swing a machete in the Amazon heat? I guess that's not impossible, I've seen Brazilians older than that working in the tropical heat, but damn. Welcome to the ranks of badasses in this timeline, Twain. ;)

Jonathan Edelstein said:
Clemens took another sip of coffee and waited for the Grãoparaense to continue.

I'm thinking that Paraense would most often be the appropriate word here. To say otherwise would like be calling someone a Great-Briton.

About Sayijarao III, he's a pretty cool figure in this part of Indian history and I think it's awesome you've made him into even more of a reformer. With the kind of environment he's being surrounded by I think it's obvious he would have played the part he is playing here now.
 
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I can just see Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain narrating his South American adventures (have you seen Mark Twain Tonight, Jonathan?).

I haven't, actually - but Clemens' South American trip, as well as some of his other travels, will find their way into his later novels.

For American politics anti-Catholics have to be screaming their heads off with paranoia about the Papal Legion, which of course would push a lot of Catholics into the peace faction.

Now that you mention it, yes. There will also be American Catholics who are pro-FAR, both because of the papal connection and (in the case of the Irish-Americans) because of old grudges with the British Empire, and they might be part of a strange-bedfellow coalition with the rubber and sugar interests. Boston and New York in the 1896 election will be split between the "peace Catholics" and "war Catholics," and some of the pro-BOG candidates will take a nasty anti-Catholic tone.

I wonder what Mister Hearst thinks?

He and Mister Clemens no doubt get along like a house on fire - you know, screams, flames, people running for safety...

There isn't a Hearst as we know him - his mother was born after the POD and his parents only married in 1862. There's a person with his name in TTL, but he's only a half-sibling and followed his father into the mining business.

There are newspaper barons like him, though - we might see one or two of them when 1896 rolls around - and their relationship with Clemens is pretty much what you say.

Wait, so is this OTL Samuel Clemens? 60 years old and still able to swing a machete in the Amazon heat? I guess that's not impossible, I've seen Brazilians older than that working in the tropical heat, but damn. Welcome to the ranks of badasses in this timeline, Twain. ;)

He didn't do it very long, and it helps that rubber-tapping is done at night, but yeah, he's pretty badass for 60. It takes someone like that to call the rubber-barons out by name.

I'm thinking that Paraense would most often be the appropriate word here. To say otherwise would like be calling someone a Great-Briton.

Fair enough, and it's not like there's any other place called Pará that people would need to distinguish. "Paraense" would be a lot easier for an outsider to say (although English-speakers of the time might also use something like "Paranese").

About Sayijarao III, he's a pretty cool figure in this part of Indian history and I think it's awesome you've made him into even more of a reformer. With the kind of environment he's being surrounded by I think it's obvious he would have played the part he is playing here now.

Yup - he's in an environment where he can take reforms farther than in OTL, so he did. He's an ATL-sibling, but in this case, he's almost exactly like the maharajah of OTL, and this certainly isn't the last we'll hear from him here.

It sounds like 1896 presidential campaign will be complicated.

It will be a realignment election, and the number of major candidates will be greater than two.
 
A bit late, but obviously it's nice to see gay Teddy Roosevelt again. Is he going to run for president, though? Because that would be an interesting presidency, to say the least.:p
 
A bit late, but obviously it's nice to see gay Teddy Roosevelt again. Is he going to run for president, though? Because that would be an interesting presidency, to say the least.:p

He certainly won't be running in 1896, given that he's barely out of his thirties (born in December 1855 in TTL) and has never held political office. And I doubt a presidential run is ever in the cards, because his sexual orientation is too open a secret. His social position has protected him from the kind of police harassment that ordinary members of the Turkish-bath scene might face, but if he became an electoral candidate, the scandal would be too big to ignore and he would face personal ruin. While he is politically active, he prefers to work as an opinion-shaper and associate of politicians rather than running for office himself. Appointed office, however, is a possibility as long as it's low-profile, and he might end up in an important one fairly soon...
 
Sounds like America is quite likely to stay out the mess.
Which will be beneficial to it.
Pretty much everyone else involved is probably going to be fairly broke in end, regardless of the outcome.
 
Central Africa, October and November 1895


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“Give honor to András Weisz, conqueror of the Sara!” the herald cried, and the Hungarian entered the palace amid ululating crowds. “Give honor!” he repeated, and Weisz walked across the great hall to the king’s stool.

“Your Majesty,” he said, and went to one knee. “God has given strength to your armies, and crowned them with victory.”

On the dais, King Kikulwe nodded gravely. Weisz had reported to him days since, and the victory wasn’t news to him or to the assembled courtiers, but ceremony had its demands. This was the celebration, a night of feasting and song, of thanksgiving prayer, and it was his duty to acknowledge the blessing.

“All things happen by the grace of God,” he answered. “Sit, Colonel Weisz, and take a place of honor at the feast.”

Weisz obeyed, and behind him, his officers took their own places. No doubt their thoughts were much the same as his: why am I in this place, serving this king?

The plan had been a simple one when Weisz’ lost Hungarians escaped from the prison camp: march south to Ethiopia, and from there, find a way back to his army. But the way to Ethiopia had been blocked. There were troops gathering in Khartoum, recruiters moving among the peasants, and for a force as ill-armed as the prisoners, the south had become as deadly as the north. So they marched in the only direction they could, although every step west took them further from where they hoped to go.

The colonel looked at his newest officer, Nagy the Magyarab – the people of Magyariyya, too, had had come west, lest they face punishment for sheltering Weisz’ men. They too had come to Egypt as prisoners, and after centuries, they and the Hungarians hoped to win free together. Most of them said they were Hungarians by now, and they’d proven it all the way through Darfur and the marches of Ouaddai.

There were things that still set them apart, though, and Weisz was reminded of one of them as Nagy refused a servant’s offer of sorghum beer. Hungarian their ancestors might have been, but they’d lived in Egypt long enough to have adopted the language… and the religion. Muslim Hungarians – that will put the cat among the pigeons when we get home, if we ever do. Although when you think about it, that’s really no stranger than a Jewish colonel in the army of N’Dele.

And that brought things back to the original question: what were they doing here? In Darfur, they’d finally been able to turn south, and a long, hungry march had brought them to Kikulwe’s court. He was a Catholic king, an exile from Buganda, and he was happy to have Catholic Hungarian soldiers take service with him; he’d promised them food and guns, and help in moving onward. All those things had been good.

But Kikulwe had broken with France the previous year, after the French had promised his kingdom to Belgium, and he’d made a deal with the North Germans. Joining his army would be helping Hungary’s enemies, and treason was too high a price for what the king offered.

It had been an old counselor, one of those who’d followed Kikulwe all the way from Buganda, who’d squared that circle. Nobody was asking the Hungarians to fight for Wilhelm or against France – the king had no wish to force brave soldiers to break their oaths. But if they let him send them against the southern Sara, they wouldn’t be doing either of those things. And besides, Kikulwe’s agreement with the North Germans let him keep what he conquered, so if he absorbed the Sara into his empire, he could protect them from German rule.

It still wasn’t something that made Weisz comfortable, and some of the men had struck out on their own rather than accept those terms. But for most, it was enough of a salve to their honor… and they were very hungry.

“Behold the treasures of the Sara!” the herald was saying. The treasures were more symbolic than anything else – there were some fine wood carvings, jewelry and woven garments, but the Sara were not a rich people, and Kikulwe had no wish to despoil them.

Tomorrow, Weisz promised, I’ll see what those treasures have bought me. And then we’ll move on.


*******

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“So Tippu Tip has called a meeting to decide who the next Sultan will be, and he’s graciously invited me? How generous of him. Tell me, now, why I shouldn’t use his invitation to light my cigar.”

Paulo looked across the table at Prince Ali, trying to will away the difference in their age and rank. “Because if you come, your Highness, you will have a voice in the succession. And if you don’t, then everyone who does come will unite against you.”

“They will, will they? And what will Tippu Tip give them, to make them unite?”

“He will let them remain noble.”

Paulo waited for the prince to burst out in rage or laughter, but he didn’t; something in the young man’s voice must have carried more conviction than he felt. The prince wore a calculating expression instead; Paulo could tell that he was counting votes and armies in his head, trying to decide whether attending parliament would be more to his advantage than boycotting it. His father’s voice came to him across the miles and years: once you’ve got them thinking about the terms, you’re halfway to persuading them.

With a man as proud as Prince Ali, though, the other half of the journey would be long, and Paulo wondered for the hundredth time why he’d been given this job. Maybe someone remembered the alliances he’d built on the other side of Lake Tanganyika during the early days of the war, or maybe it was simply that his city had been the last straw. Two princes had besieged Kigoma and fought each other outside the gates for eight weeks, cutting the British off from their major Lake Tanganyika port and endangering the supply lines to the Congo. The garrison, and Paulo’s district militia, had stood them off until Tippu Tip’s army and three Indian regiments arrived to scatter them; that was when the plan to put an end to the civil war was made, and that was when Paulo had been chosen as one of the messengers. He’d been in the right place at the right time, or maybe the wrong place at the wrong one.

“And who will these nobles choose, then?” The prince was evidently done with his calculations, and he regarded Paulo evenly. He seemed to be trying to read Paulo’s thoughts as much as the younger man sought to divine his.

“That will be decided at the session.”

“Nonsense! It’s been decided already – that’s your way, isn’t it? Tippu Tip and the British consul know what name they’ll be pulling out of the hat, and the nobles will just be there to agree. Look me in the eye, district officer, and tell me that isn’t so.”

“It isn’t,” Paulo answered, although for all he knew, it might be. “The vote will be free, and the majority will decide. The Yao king, the Luo, the nobles of the coast have all pledged to abide by the vote – even Ethiopia will recognize whoever is elected.”

Prince Ali started to say something, and Paulo knew what it was: why should I care about them? But then he realized. The vassals might not be princes of the blood, and none could hope to become Sultan themselves, but if they united, then any princes who continued to fight for the throne would find the country raised against them. And if Ethiopia too supported the new Sultan, then they would have no refuge either.

“All the nobles will attend?” he asked instead.

“They’re the easy ones to persuade.” That was true as far as it went, although not all had yet been persuaded. “At the parliament, their votes will count whether or not they have armies. The small nobles and vassals might not have troops or money to support one of the contenders, but they could bargain for their votes…”

“That’s so,” the prince mused. “That’s certainly so.” Paulo could practically see him weighing up what gains his army had brought him – few thus far, and little prospect of more – against the possibility that he could gather enough backing among the nobles or, failing that, sell his support dearly to the winning candidate. With that, and with the fact that making an enemy of both Britain and Tippu Tip would be dangerous…

At last the prince nodded. “I will come to the parliament,” he said. “But I will not agree now to abide by its decision. For that, I’ll wait to see what it decides.”

Usman’s voice came into Paulo’s ears again: when they bargain over the price, they’ve decided to buy. And whatever defiance Prince Ali showed now would be hard for him to maintain on Zanzibar, away from his soldiers and retainers.

“That’s all I can ask, your Highness,” he said.


*******



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Her name was Mélisande.

Her father had been a creole trader from Gabon, her mother a Bembe of eastern Congo. In the early years, when there was peace, her father had come twice a year, but as war engulfed the Great Lakes, his visits became irregular and finally ceased.

From her mother, she learned of the gods of forest and river, sky and lake. From her father, she learned Bwiti, the rites of communion with the sacred ancestors and prophets. Her mother taught her to weave and to gather; her father, to speak French, to bargain and to shoot.

From others, she learned war.

The fighting had come to the Bembe when she was eight years old: men displaced from the civil wars of the Great Lakes came to find new land, and to displace others in their turn. Mélisande and her mother fled their burning village and found another, working as serfs in exchange for their meager keep and scrabbling for vine-rubber lest the village be punished for missing its quota. She fled again at eleven, and at thirteen. That was the year her father had initiated her in the iboga-trance, the rite of the naissance pascale, and that was the last year she ever saw him.

When she was sixteen, the war of the clans became the war of the powers, and soldiers from distant lands joined the displaced nobles and rubber militias. That year the North Germans had come to her village and told the people that they had been conscripted to provide rubber and timber for the armies. “Conscripted” turned out to mean little more than “enslaved,” and the meaning didn’t change when a French battalion drove out the Germans the following season.

They fled when the rains came – fled with the aid of a Gabonais tirailleur who Mélisande had befriended, fled with half the village following. Their destination was the other side of Lake Tanganyika, where she’d heard that other Bembe had taken refuge. There were armies in their way; food was scarce and sickness rife; roads were poor where they existed at all. Of the forty who fled, six, exhausted, arrived at Kigoma. Mélisande was one of them. Her mother was not.

She found work as a hired hand for the Rwandan settlers, who’d fought for Britain and been rewarded with land. She learned their language and their customs, and they told her of Islam: of the mystic doctrines of Tippu Tip, and of his teaching that rulers should be just.

The war came to Kigoma when she was eighteen, as it came to all Tanganyika when the sultan was murdered and the princes contended. Like many women, she’d stood at the palisade during the siege, under the command of the city’s young governor. He was so beautiful, she thought, so much to be admired. In his speeches on the ramparts, he’d shown her another kind of Islam, the one taught by his grandfather, in which power must come from the people and in which slavery and servitude were forbidden. She was Muslim by then, although she still carried traces of what she had been before, and he became her teacher, although he never knew that she was his student.

It was after the siege that everything changed.

It was rare in these days of war for iboga to come in from western Congo, but some arrived in Kigoma soon after the siege was lifted, and Mélisande had shown the Rwandans that it would give them religious visions. The mystics among them – and most were mystics – had adopted the drug readily, and three days after the battle was over, they met to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the enemy.

When Mélisande emerged from her day-long trance, she had been given a task by the ancient prophets and the ancestors of all mankind: to free Rwanda from the oppression of its king and to establish in his place a commonwealth of justice. And her companions in prayer would each swear to their dying day that they had been given a vision to match hers: that a foreign woman had been appointed to end the persecution of Rwanda’s Muslims and bring freedom to all its people.

News travels quickly among exiles, and hope travels faster still, and so, at nineteen, Mélisande became the commander of an avenging army.

They marched forth with British rifles – Mélisande’s father had taught her to bargain, and she went to fight a king who had taken French gold – and as they made their way north, others flocked to their banner. Some were Muslims, hardened by their long life underground; some were serfs; others simply tired of the king’s caprices and pointless wars. Mélisande had promised them a nation without caste: as the Army in White had done in Ankole and the Eighth King in Buganda, she declared that Rwanda would have no royalty or nobility, no serfdom or slavery. In place of the old kingdom, there would be a commonwealth of peasants and herders, with all the thousand hills held in common.

And it was at the crest of one of those hills that she stood now, walking among her soldiers as the bullets crackled all around. They could take cover, and they had, but she was the one chosen by the ancestors, and she could show no fear.

They’d stolen a march on the royal army, and they stood on the high ground, but the outcome of the fight was far from certain; the king’s soldiers were better armed and their officers veterans of a dozen wars. Three times Mélisande had turned back the soldiers’ charges, but the officers were urging their men up the hillside again, telling them that one more would see the rebels off. This time they seemed sure to break through, and then it would be bayonets that decided the battle.

The first of them were fifty meters away, thirty, twenty, and Mélisande drew her sword. As she did, she seemed to see a face in front of her: the face of a young man with close-cropped hair and calm brown eyes who’d stood on the Kigoma palisade as she was standing on this hill.

She hoped she could create a kingdom worthy of his grandfather, and of him.
 

The Sandman

Banned
This Melisande wouldn't happen to dress entirely in red would she?

I don't think winter is likely to be a real concern in the Congo Basin, though.

I wonder if our Hungarians coming from the north are likely to run into our Rwandans coming from the south?

I also wonder if Paulo knows he has a huge bunch of groupies carving out an Abacarist republic in the Great Lakes region?
 
Lovely as always, JE!

Awesome. It's good to see that the Abacars are still inspiring people fifty years after Paolo first made his mark.

Thanks! And with the apocalyptic revolutionary currents running through the region, not to mention the incorporation of Abacarist principles into Tippu Tip's hybrid Ibadism, it's only natural that some of the local prophets will be inspired by them.

A Rwandan Joan of Arc? Lovely.

That's more or less the model, yes, with some differences (such as the fact that she's a foreigner in Rwanda, which will be both a blessing and a curse in dealing with local politics). You can call her the Maid of Kigali if you wish - some of the penny-dreadfuls will, once they get wind of her.

Things won't go quite the way she has in mind, of course. If you're familiar with the Ikko-ikki of 15th-16th century Japan, you'll have a very rough idea of what a great swath of the Great Lakes kingdoms will look like when the dust clears - premodern, rather militarized peasant-religious commonwealths.

Was Paulo Abacar (II) the governor of Kigoma?

Paulo the Younger is the British district officer in Kigoma, or at least he was before being sent out to dragoon the Omani princes into the succession conclave. We've seen him there before a couple of times - it was an out-of-the-way post at the beginning of the war, but has become much more important due to its role as a major lake port. He wasn't technically governor, but he was the de facto day-to-day ruler of the city, and most of the people there think of him as governor rather than the official title-holder who they've never seen.

This Melisande wouldn't happen to dress entirely in red would she?

That's a George Martin reference, right? I actually took the name from here and here. One guess who Pelléas will be.

I wonder if our Hungarians coming from the north are likely to run into our Rwandans coming from the south?

I also wonder if Paulo knows he has a huge bunch of groupies carving out an Abacarist republic in the Great Lakes region?

The Rwandans aren't interested in going beyond Rwanda, and will have reasonably friendly relations with their immediate northern neighbor. I won't say too much now about where the Lost Hungarians are headed, though, and it certainly isn't impossible that they'll pass through that region.

And yes, Paulo will find out - he'll be doing a good deal of regional diplomacy over the next couple of years, and some of it will take him to the Great Lakes.
 
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