Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Well France is probably the most racially integrated great power ITTL.
He is a fictional person, and he definitely isn't loyal to North Germany. He had a nominal allegiance to the NDB before the war as an appointed provincial governor in International Congo, but he had plans to build an empire even then. Since the war broke out, his allegiance hasn't even been nominal, and he's also done a good deal to damage North German interests - he annoyed the Portuguese when the NDB wanted to smooth over relations with them, and he's made deals with the French and few Austrians in the Congo. He's also helped the British and North Germans from time to time in order to keep in with them, but there's a reason why Weisz (who's still Kaisertreu in spite of everything) considers him a traitor and scoundrel.
He's got a good chance to keep what he controls, if only because rooting him out is more trouble than it's worth, but he's blotted his copybook too much to have a postwar career in North Germany. And he doesn't really want one - what he wants is to be the emperor of South Kivu.
BTW, on this map, he more or less controls Tanganika district, the Kabongo and Mlemba-Nkulu subdivisions of Haut-Lomani, and the territory immediately to the northwest.
Well, Europeans in TTL have had half a century to think of Africans somewhat differently than OTL. Also, TTL's Germans have a feudal attitude toward "their" Africans, so while they don't consider them equals, they do consider them part of the family.
With that said, not everyone will agree with Sergeant Strauss. The sergeant is a worldly type who's been to Paris and seen what the West Africans have added to that city, so he's basically all right with a couple of hundred thousand Africans and Indians settling in Germany after the war. Many other Germans will be equally accepting, but some won't.
Don't forget Russia, which doesn't much care what color you are as long as you're Orthodox. That may become important in the near future.
Anyway, the Germans aren't bad guys. The guys they're fighting aren't necessarily bad either. That's part of what makes this war (like our own First World War) such a damn waste.
Mormonism actually has a lot of ingredients that would do well in Africa - a strong prophetic tradition, respect for family and hierarchy, and a touch of the secret society. Their OTL racial attitudes held them back, but those attitudes aren't present in TTL, so there are orthodox Mormons in South Africa and western Congo and heretical Mormons in eastern Congo. Trust me, the postwar relationship between Samuel the Lamanite and Salt Lake City will be complicated.
The Balkans next, followed by France, and then it's on to 1897 and the final days of the war.
Well, I wonder how he'll manage to keep his gains postwar. It'll definitely be a bit harder, but somehow, I think he'll persevere for sure, given how he's managed to keep Tanganika (province) under control.
European attitudes towards others should be really interesting, especially in the postwar. I'm betting that the right wing gets a real boost, but I truly wonder if it will try and include the African and Asian men and women in their rhetoric, or if they classify them as "the enemy". I think in Russia, for example, things might get really messy for the Turkic people if Russia is able to quell the Central Asian Revolt. And Germany really is going to get interesting. While the North Germans might see the colonial troops favourably, will the South Germans think the same thing?
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Quite simply, he's too well dug in to be removed easily, and the war-weary powers will think twice about getting thousands more men killed for a province that no one really cares about.
Köhler also can do, and has done, things to improve his odds: he's done some favors for the British and North Germans to compensate for the things he's done to annoy them, and he's also in a position to help clean up the postwar mess in the Congo. The great powers, especially the North Germans, don't particularly like him, but the path of least resistance will be to let him stay where he is.
That depends on the country and right-wing faction in question. As we've seen in France, some of the right-wing parties support the Africans due to their military service, while others see them as religious and/or cultural aliens who are dangerous to French culture. The same may be the case in other countries - the more statist elements of the right might be all for the colonial peoples (as long as they assimilate) while the racial and cultural purists won't.
In any event, not all the great powers will be ruled by the right wing after the war, although some will.
The pan-Germanists in the southern states might see the colonial troops as liberators, especially since few Africans or Asians will settle in their part of the country. The Bavarian royalists, and those in Baden and Württemberg as well, will be a different story.
Of course, it's not like northern German opinion will be uniform either. Some of them will see the colonial troops as heroes and be willing to accept them as German citizens, while others will be bothered about all those Africans and Indians living in their towns and taking their jobs and wimmin. That will probably be the pattern in pretty much every country where Africans settle, more's the shame.
The Sandman
Banned
I just had an absolutely crazy idea for a way to combat this, but one that also could actually be justified in this timeline.
Namely, extending the idea of a corps of traveling female teachers to the nascent efforts to establish general public school systems in Western countries, then hiring young single females from the colonies to do the job. In particular, focus the hiring on those regions where woman are still looked down on from a cultural perspective, like the more backward rural bits of India.
When the inevitable happens and some of them end up marrying some young German or Italian or British or French fellow and staying there for the long haul, it'll help dampen the "brown men taking our women" aspect of things by making the integration of Asians and Africans into European society a more general occurrence.
Kind of like darker-skinned Harvey Girls, I suppose, except educators instead of waitresses. Although I wonder if there are non-white Harvey Girls ITTL, assuming that the Fred Harvey Company or an ATL sibling thereof still exists. Might change the complexion of the racial debate in the American West at least a little if there are folks openly settling down with non-white wives to have mixed-race kids.
Albania, Salonika and Sarajevo, November-December 1896
Keep moving, keep moving, thought Usman Abacar as he paced up and down the beach. Troops scrambled off the boats everywhere, unloading supplies and ammunition. Off to Usman’s left, a team of soldiers struggled with a mountain gun; others hauled pieces of a disassembled North German aircraft that the mechanics would put together in the morning.
There wasn’t any danger in the landing: the Austrian navy was bottled up at Trieste and Pola, and they didn’t have any of those underwater craft that the French were now using for home defense and as couriers. The Royal Navy and the Turkish fleet ruled these waters, and the men could land just as if they were on an exercise. But speed was still essential; the Austrians almost surely knew that they were coming by now, and they’d have to get through the Albanian hills quickly if they wanted to cut off the main Habsburg armies.
This landing had been a long time in coming, after all – the British brass had debated for months whether to attack through Albania first or wait until they were finished retaking northern Italy. But the Italian counteroffensive had stalled, with the French proving more tenacious than expected, and Albania had won by default – just in time for Usman, in Tripoli, to be chosen to take part.
He was a brigadier general now, but the force he commanded was closer to a division than a brigade – his Malê had been joined by odds and sods from southern Africa, a couple of Indian regiments, and even some Tommies. Most of the invasion force was just as motley – units detached from any front that could spare them, and packed on board the first transport to Durrës – and the rule against colonial officers commanding British troops was by now honored in the breach. There was an Indian major general somewhere on this same beach, a Rajput prince, and he had Tommies under him too.
“The Albanians are here, sidi.”
Usman turned his head to the officer who had spoken, and gestured for him to lead. This meeting would be an important one; if the local clan chiefs were willing to guide the troops through the hills rather than harassing them, that might make all the difference.
“Do we have anyone who can speak to them?”
“I asked. A couple of them speak some Arabic.”
That was good enough. “Can you get some coffee for them?”
“It won’t be what they call coffee.”
“Nevertheless.”
The parties sat and broke bread a few minutes later: Usman and his senior officers on one side of the campfire, the clan chiefs and their retinue on the other. The Malê wished that a Turkish officer was at hand, but Arabic proved to be enough, and one of the Albanians even knew a little English.
“You’re coming to fight the Austrians?” The chieftain had a good idea of why the British army had landed, but the notion of two hundred thousand men marching through his hills made him more than a little nervous.
“Yes. We don’t mean you or yours any harm. We only want to pass through your land.”
“No stealing?”
“We’re well supplied. We can spare some food for you, even, if it will help pay for you to guide us.”
The chief thought about that. “We’d rather get silver. And guns.”
Usman wasn’t sure whether the British brass, or their allies in the Porte, would approve; the Gheg clans had been trouble for centuries, and they’d got used to doing things their own way in the years that the Austrians had cut them off from the rest of the empire. The guns they used against the Habsburgs today might be turned on the Sultan’s men tomorrow. But right now, what the invasion force needed was someone to lead the troops through the mountains.
“We can spare some of those, yes.”
“How many?”
This was the part that would take all night. Usman held his coffee cup carefully in his left hand – the wound he’d got at Bornu was as healed as it would ever be, but his arm still had moments of weakness – and named a figure. The chief and his men laughed loudly.
Behind, on the beach, the troops were unloading the second aircraft, and Usman settled down to bargain.
The Serbs who sat across from Midhat Pasha at the Allatini Hotel had taken the long route to get there. Traveling through Austrian-held territory to Thessaly was out of the question, and even the Romanian route, which the Serbian diplomats had taken, was a risky one. Romania was formally neutral, but it was very much neutral in the Habsburgs’ favor, and it had four divisions of volunteers on the Bulgarian front. If anyone there had learned where the Serbs were going, it would have ended badly – but no one had, and now they were here.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” Midhat Pasha said, as a waiter – a Russian Jew, from the look of him – brought coffee and baklava. “I trust there’s no need for preliminaries.”
Simović, the leader of the Serb delegation, nodded sharply. Yes, there was no need for preliminaries when everyone knew why they were here. Serbia had fought on the Habsburg side for three and a half years with nothing to show for it. The Austrians had kept Bosnia for themselves; they’d promised Niš, Novi Bazar and Kosovo to Serbia, but somehow they’d never got around to letting the Serbs annex them, and now the Habsburg retreat had made the question academic. Two hundred thousand dead, privation at home, and all for no reason – Belgrade was on the edge of revolution, and the Serbian king would do nearly anything to avoid that fate…
“Let’s dispense with them, then,” Midhat Pasha continued, and laid out a map on the table. He circled an arm of territory in northeastern Bosnia where Serbs were in the majority, and drew another circle around the Vojvodina.
“If you will join the war on our side” – he carefully avoided saying betray the Habsburgs – “and renounce all other claims to Ottoman territory, we are prepared to cede this part of the Banja Luka sanjak to you, and a corridor through the sanjak of Zvornik, both with immediate effect. And we have also obtained assurances from the British and Germans that they will not object to you annexing the Vojvodina after it… passes out of Habsburg hands. In other words, you take it, you can keep it.
Simović looked distinctly unhappy. Serbia had entered the war hoping for vast territorial gains to the west and south; now it would have to settle for a sanjak and a half, give up Kosovo forever and accept that hundreds of thousands of Serbs would remain as the Sultan’s subjects. But what other choice did it have? If it went down to defeat along with Austria and Russia, it would gain nothing at all, and might even find itself carved up. Under the circumstances, Midhat Pasha was being nothing short of generous – and the promised gains might, might, be enough to stave off a revolution.
“Is this something we can take back to our government?”
“I wouldn’t suggest that you do. Right now, with the front where it is, your entry on our side would be quite valuable to us. In two weeks, or a month, or two months…” The Ottoman foreign minister trailed off. “You have plenipotentiary powers; I suggest you exercise them.”
Simović stared down at the map again, and realized that the offer wasn’t going to get any better. Would he be remembered as the one who sold out Serbia to the Turks, or will I be the one who pulled honor from the brink of defeat? But either way, there was only one answer he could give.
“On behalf of the Kingdom of Serbia, we agree.”
The White Fortress shook as a shell struck home, and all the heights around Sarajevo echoed with the thunder of Austrian cannon. The Habsburgs were bombarding the city militia, and down below, their troops readied for the assault.
“Why now?” muttered Osmanović the baker’s son. “They’ve left us alone for this long, why now when they’re about to…”
The rest of the sentence was lost as the White Fort’s guns answered the Austrians, but everyone knew what they were. In three years of siege, the most the militia had faced was infiltration and probing attacks; why an all-out assault when the Habsburgs were retreating?
“We aren’t just a pocket behind the lines any more,” Mihajlović answered. “Now we’re a ready-made strong point for when the Turks get here. If the Austrians want to hold Bosnia, they’ll have to clear us out.”
“At least those are only reserve regiments, Osman.” That was Merjema Ahmetović, one of the four women in their militia company. “The front-line troops have other problems on their hands.”
“That’s a point,” Osmanović said. It probably wasn’t a very good one – reserve or not, the Habsburg troops were better armed than the militia was likely to be – but if it kept the young man calm, it was worth making.
The fort shook again, and there was a piercing scream as someone was hit by shrapnel. The thunder continued, and the air was thick with stone dust and the smell of gunpowder. Mihajlović almost wished the assault would start already, and when he looked at Merjema, he could tell she was thinking the same thing.
“Don’t say anything,” he heard her whisper. “Let them think we aren’t scared.”
He nodded. He knew Merjema well; he knew she didn’t consider fear to be any shame, and he knew that she wouldn’t let her fear stop her. But he also knew it was important for the young militiamen to think their elders were brave. The militia held the high ground, and they could repel the Austrian assault if they held firm, but if their morale broke, they were done for.
He wanted to reach for her hand, but that too might show weakness. So he crouched on the ramparts and imagined how it would feel…
“Marry me,” he said suddenly.
Merjema wasn’t the only one to look around at him. “Now?” she asked.
“Why not? What better time?”
“Are you crazy?”
Mihajlović remembered a time when he’d asked the same question of her, when he’d come upon her facing down a mob intent on destroying the Franciscan monastery. That’s when it had started, really; they’d been friendly before that, but after the riot, she’d taken shelter for a week in his house, and since then, they’d been almost daily visitors to each other’s homes.
It had long since ceased to be a scandal. Actually, it had never really been one, even among the Muslims; many things that would have raised eyebrows before the war were just facts of life in a city under siege. Merjema’s mourning period was long since over, and everyone knew that she and Milan Mihajlović would marry, but everyone assumed it would be after the war…
“It doesn’t work most of the time,” she said quietly. “When Christian marries Muslim.”
“And my father said war brides are no brides,” Mihajlović answered. “But we aren’t any Christian or any Muslim, and we aren’t any two people meeting in the middle of a war. Besides, in an hour we may both be dead.”
“In that case, I’d rather die a wife than a widow.”
It took Mihajlović a moment to realize that she had accepted his proposal, but the cheers from the other militiamen on the ramparts made it unmistakably clear. “Captain!” shouted Sergeant Ibrahimović. “Come here, you’ve got a wedding to perform!”
The captain spun around, wondering if his men were joking. “Of all the fool…” He trailed off as he saw that they were serious, and then realized that God Himself couldn’t have given him a better way to raise their morale. “A marriage before the battle, is it? All right, Mihajlović, do you take Merjema here to be your wife?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Ahmetović, do you take that fool next to you to be your husband?”
Merjema said something which the captain couldn’t hear amid the thunder of guns, but he judged it to be an affirmative.
“Then in the sight of God and your comrades, I marry you. Now look sharp, because the bastards are coming.”
Mihajlović threw himself prone and looked out a loophole, and saw that the captain was right; a wave of Austrians was advancing up the heights. Shells from the White Fort’s guns exploded among them, but they kept coming; they weren’t in rifle range yet, but they would be in another minute.
Beside him, Merjema was saying the Qadiri zikr, schooling her breaths into a rhythm and beating time on her rifle stock as she aimed. It doesn’t sound strange any more, he realized, and then looked back toward the oncoming troops and concentrated on staying alive.
Keep moving, keep moving, thought Usman Abacar as he paced up and down the beach. Troops scrambled off the boats everywhere, unloading supplies and ammunition. Off to Usman’s left, a team of soldiers struggled with a mountain gun; others hauled pieces of a disassembled North German aircraft that the mechanics would put together in the morning.
There wasn’t any danger in the landing: the Austrian navy was bottled up at Trieste and Pola, and they didn’t have any of those underwater craft that the French were now using for home defense and as couriers. The Royal Navy and the Turkish fleet ruled these waters, and the men could land just as if they were on an exercise. But speed was still essential; the Austrians almost surely knew that they were coming by now, and they’d have to get through the Albanian hills quickly if they wanted to cut off the main Habsburg armies.
This landing had been a long time in coming, after all – the British brass had debated for months whether to attack through Albania first or wait until they were finished retaking northern Italy. But the Italian counteroffensive had stalled, with the French proving more tenacious than expected, and Albania had won by default – just in time for Usman, in Tripoli, to be chosen to take part.
He was a brigadier general now, but the force he commanded was closer to a division than a brigade – his Malê had been joined by odds and sods from southern Africa, a couple of Indian regiments, and even some Tommies. Most of the invasion force was just as motley – units detached from any front that could spare them, and packed on board the first transport to Durrës – and the rule against colonial officers commanding British troops was by now honored in the breach. There was an Indian major general somewhere on this same beach, a Rajput prince, and he had Tommies under him too.
“The Albanians are here, sidi.”
Usman turned his head to the officer who had spoken, and gestured for him to lead. This meeting would be an important one; if the local clan chiefs were willing to guide the troops through the hills rather than harassing them, that might make all the difference.
“Do we have anyone who can speak to them?”
“I asked. A couple of them speak some Arabic.”
That was good enough. “Can you get some coffee for them?”
“It won’t be what they call coffee.”
“Nevertheless.”
The parties sat and broke bread a few minutes later: Usman and his senior officers on one side of the campfire, the clan chiefs and their retinue on the other. The Malê wished that a Turkish officer was at hand, but Arabic proved to be enough, and one of the Albanians even knew a little English.
“You’re coming to fight the Austrians?” The chieftain had a good idea of why the British army had landed, but the notion of two hundred thousand men marching through his hills made him more than a little nervous.
“Yes. We don’t mean you or yours any harm. We only want to pass through your land.”
“No stealing?”
“We’re well supplied. We can spare some food for you, even, if it will help pay for you to guide us.”
The chief thought about that. “We’d rather get silver. And guns.”
Usman wasn’t sure whether the British brass, or their allies in the Porte, would approve; the Gheg clans had been trouble for centuries, and they’d got used to doing things their own way in the years that the Austrians had cut them off from the rest of the empire. The guns they used against the Habsburgs today might be turned on the Sultan’s men tomorrow. But right now, what the invasion force needed was someone to lead the troops through the mountains.
“We can spare some of those, yes.”
“How many?”
This was the part that would take all night. Usman held his coffee cup carefully in his left hand – the wound he’d got at Bornu was as healed as it would ever be, but his arm still had moments of weakness – and named a figure. The chief and his men laughed loudly.
Behind, on the beach, the troops were unloading the second aircraft, and Usman settled down to bargain.
*******
The Serbs who sat across from Midhat Pasha at the Allatini Hotel had taken the long route to get there. Traveling through Austrian-held territory to Thessaly was out of the question, and even the Romanian route, which the Serbian diplomats had taken, was a risky one. Romania was formally neutral, but it was very much neutral in the Habsburgs’ favor, and it had four divisions of volunteers on the Bulgarian front. If anyone there had learned where the Serbs were going, it would have ended badly – but no one had, and now they were here.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” Midhat Pasha said, as a waiter – a Russian Jew, from the look of him – brought coffee and baklava. “I trust there’s no need for preliminaries.”
Simović, the leader of the Serb delegation, nodded sharply. Yes, there was no need for preliminaries when everyone knew why they were here. Serbia had fought on the Habsburg side for three and a half years with nothing to show for it. The Austrians had kept Bosnia for themselves; they’d promised Niš, Novi Bazar and Kosovo to Serbia, but somehow they’d never got around to letting the Serbs annex them, and now the Habsburg retreat had made the question academic. Two hundred thousand dead, privation at home, and all for no reason – Belgrade was on the edge of revolution, and the Serbian king would do nearly anything to avoid that fate…
“Let’s dispense with them, then,” Midhat Pasha continued, and laid out a map on the table. He circled an arm of territory in northeastern Bosnia where Serbs were in the majority, and drew another circle around the Vojvodina.
“If you will join the war on our side” – he carefully avoided saying betray the Habsburgs – “and renounce all other claims to Ottoman territory, we are prepared to cede this part of the Banja Luka sanjak to you, and a corridor through the sanjak of Zvornik, both with immediate effect. And we have also obtained assurances from the British and Germans that they will not object to you annexing the Vojvodina after it… passes out of Habsburg hands. In other words, you take it, you can keep it.
Simović looked distinctly unhappy. Serbia had entered the war hoping for vast territorial gains to the west and south; now it would have to settle for a sanjak and a half, give up Kosovo forever and accept that hundreds of thousands of Serbs would remain as the Sultan’s subjects. But what other choice did it have? If it went down to defeat along with Austria and Russia, it would gain nothing at all, and might even find itself carved up. Under the circumstances, Midhat Pasha was being nothing short of generous – and the promised gains might, might, be enough to stave off a revolution.
“Is this something we can take back to our government?”
“I wouldn’t suggest that you do. Right now, with the front where it is, your entry on our side would be quite valuable to us. In two weeks, or a month, or two months…” The Ottoman foreign minister trailed off. “You have plenipotentiary powers; I suggest you exercise them.”
Simović stared down at the map again, and realized that the offer wasn’t going to get any better. Would he be remembered as the one who sold out Serbia to the Turks, or will I be the one who pulled honor from the brink of defeat? But either way, there was only one answer he could give.
“On behalf of the Kingdom of Serbia, we agree.”
*******
The White Fortress shook as a shell struck home, and all the heights around Sarajevo echoed with the thunder of Austrian cannon. The Habsburgs were bombarding the city militia, and down below, their troops readied for the assault.
“Why now?” muttered Osmanović the baker’s son. “They’ve left us alone for this long, why now when they’re about to…”
The rest of the sentence was lost as the White Fort’s guns answered the Austrians, but everyone knew what they were. In three years of siege, the most the militia had faced was infiltration and probing attacks; why an all-out assault when the Habsburgs were retreating?
“We aren’t just a pocket behind the lines any more,” Mihajlović answered. “Now we’re a ready-made strong point for when the Turks get here. If the Austrians want to hold Bosnia, they’ll have to clear us out.”
“At least those are only reserve regiments, Osman.” That was Merjema Ahmetović, one of the four women in their militia company. “The front-line troops have other problems on their hands.”
“That’s a point,” Osmanović said. It probably wasn’t a very good one – reserve or not, the Habsburg troops were better armed than the militia was likely to be – but if it kept the young man calm, it was worth making.
The fort shook again, and there was a piercing scream as someone was hit by shrapnel. The thunder continued, and the air was thick with stone dust and the smell of gunpowder. Mihajlović almost wished the assault would start already, and when he looked at Merjema, he could tell she was thinking the same thing.
“Don’t say anything,” he heard her whisper. “Let them think we aren’t scared.”
He nodded. He knew Merjema well; he knew she didn’t consider fear to be any shame, and he knew that she wouldn’t let her fear stop her. But he also knew it was important for the young militiamen to think their elders were brave. The militia held the high ground, and they could repel the Austrian assault if they held firm, but if their morale broke, they were done for.
He wanted to reach for her hand, but that too might show weakness. So he crouched on the ramparts and imagined how it would feel…
“Marry me,” he said suddenly.
Merjema wasn’t the only one to look around at him. “Now?” she asked.
“Why not? What better time?”
“Are you crazy?”
Mihajlović remembered a time when he’d asked the same question of her, when he’d come upon her facing down a mob intent on destroying the Franciscan monastery. That’s when it had started, really; they’d been friendly before that, but after the riot, she’d taken shelter for a week in his house, and since then, they’d been almost daily visitors to each other’s homes.
It had long since ceased to be a scandal. Actually, it had never really been one, even among the Muslims; many things that would have raised eyebrows before the war were just facts of life in a city under siege. Merjema’s mourning period was long since over, and everyone knew that she and Milan Mihajlović would marry, but everyone assumed it would be after the war…
“It doesn’t work most of the time,” she said quietly. “When Christian marries Muslim.”
“And my father said war brides are no brides,” Mihajlović answered. “But we aren’t any Christian or any Muslim, and we aren’t any two people meeting in the middle of a war. Besides, in an hour we may both be dead.”
“In that case, I’d rather die a wife than a widow.”
It took Mihajlović a moment to realize that she had accepted his proposal, but the cheers from the other militiamen on the ramparts made it unmistakably clear. “Captain!” shouted Sergeant Ibrahimović. “Come here, you’ve got a wedding to perform!”
The captain spun around, wondering if his men were joking. “Of all the fool…” He trailed off as he saw that they were serious, and then realized that God Himself couldn’t have given him a better way to raise their morale. “A marriage before the battle, is it? All right, Mihajlović, do you take Merjema here to be your wife?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Ahmetović, do you take that fool next to you to be your husband?”
Merjema said something which the captain couldn’t hear amid the thunder of guns, but he judged it to be an affirmative.
“Then in the sight of God and your comrades, I marry you. Now look sharp, because the bastards are coming.”
Mihajlović threw himself prone and looked out a loophole, and saw that the captain was right; a wave of Austrians was advancing up the heights. Shells from the White Fort’s guns exploded among them, but they kept coming; they weren’t in rifle range yet, but they would be in another minute.
Beside him, Merjema was saying the Qadiri zikr, schooling her breaths into a rhythm and beating time on her rifle stock as she aimed. It doesn’t sound strange any more, he realized, and then looked back toward the oncoming troops and concentrated on staying alive.
Well, it sounds as if Austria's position in the Balkans is seriously compromised. Is there any hope for Serbia to gain lands to the north?
Another great update, though I'm sure most of us expect quality from this TL by now.
Another great update, though I'm sure most of us expect quality from this TL by now.
The thing is that Western Europe already had general public school systems by this time. The purpose of the jajis, and the other corps of itinerant teachers that followed them in TTL, was to bring elementary education to countries with no rural schoolhouses. That isn't a problem in Germany, and in any event, if women are needed as rural schoolteachers, there are plenty of Germans available to take the job. It's only the male population that's missing part of an age cohort.
There will still be women coming to stay, though - there are army nurses (especially in the Congress regiments), and some will come after the war as students. There won't be as many as the men, but they'll be there, and some may end up marrying into local families the same way the men do.
If the British invasion force can get through Albania soon enough, they'll emerge in the Austro-Hungarian rear, which will put the Habsburg troops in big trouble. There are some Austrians in northern Albania, but not nearly enough to stop a force that size, and they're getting seriously short on ammunition.
There's definitely a prospect of gains in the north - Serbia will get Vojvodina, and possibly some of Habsburg Croatia.
Maybe, maybe not. The territory they're giving away is economically marginal and a source of nationalist unrest, and as far as Midhat Pasha is concerned, they're better off without it. Of course, not everyone in the Porte agrees that giving away troublesome districts is a good thing, but Midhat Pasha figures that there will be enough gains in the Caucasus to offset any political fallout.
Good to see that a proper and tolerant modus vivendi is developing in Bosnia! There is no better way of unifying ethnicities than an external threat.
Admiral Matt
Gone Fishin'
Hrm. I see why Serbia'd take the offer, but not quite why Stamboul would make it. With the tide clearly turning, few governments would offer to give up territory.
And that's leaving aside the fact that the Ottomans have found their territorial concessions coming back to bite them in the past. Serbia itself, for starters.
And that's leaving aside the fact that the Ottomans have found their territorial concessions coming back to bite them in the past. Serbia itself, for starters.
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The Sandman
Banned
The prospect of crushing the Austrians now by giving up a relatively small amount of worthless and rebellious territory means that the Ottomans are more likely to be able to not only grab the Caucasus but to start shipping troops across the Caspian and thus have a more direct say in matters in Turkestan once the war ends.
The Ottomans might also consider going for the Crimea. Or making Rumania pay for its decision to become the Belgium of the Balkans. Maybe even both.
Admiral Matt
Gone Fishin'
Also, I'd think rifles were relatively short even this late in the war, and that the invasion force wouldn't come stocked to spare unless a policy decision had already been made to arm the Albanians.
Lookin' at the map: probably going to be very different post-war in Africa, but are there any areas that still are going to look like the pre-war map you put for 1892 africa?
Any changes in China's borders?
OTL New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma still territories at war's end?
Central Asia will have to wait till post-war, but at the time of the war starting, were there any independent bits and bobs of central Asia left, or was the border with Afghanistan?
Upper Burma: swallowed by the Raj jet?
The northern border of the International Congo-does it follow the Bomu tributary as OTL, or does it follow the Uele?
Thanks,
Bruce
Any changes in China's borders?
OTL New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma still territories at war's end?
Central Asia will have to wait till post-war, but at the time of the war starting, were there any independent bits and bobs of central Asia left, or was the border with Afghanistan?
Upper Burma: swallowed by the Raj jet?
The northern border of the International Congo-does it follow the Bomu tributary as OTL, or does it follow the Uele?
Thanks,
Bruce
Is it just me, or do we all agree Jonathon should be writing historical romances full time? I mean this as a compliment
Midhat Pasha favors a leaner, meaner Ottoman Empire, but aside from that, he wants to crush the Austrians quickly rather than push them out of the Balkans in a drawn-out, costly offensive. With the British coming up behind Habsburg lines, a Serbian switch might be the coup de grace, and Midhat Pasha is willing to pay for it, especially since he isn't paying very much.
The considerations The Sandman mentioned are also relevant - Midhat Pasha wants to get as many troops as possible to the regions where the empire can make useful gains.
Remember that they're being made in India and Africa too. The BOGs' latent industrial capacity is fully online at this point - they're still scrambling for men, but they're pretty flush with weapons.
- The British, German and Portuguese parts of southern Africa will be the same. All the African provinces of the Omani-Zanzibari empire, with the exception of the Ethiopian Muslim vassals, will still be part of it at the end of the war. Bornu will have the same territories it started with, plus Darfur and Agadez. The complex of British colonies and princely states in the Niger will be the same. The Great Lakes states will still be there, albeit many of them under different governments. Liberia won't change, nor will Senegal or Gabon. Most of the rest will.
- China's borders are the same.
- Still territories, although their status is under discussion. Dakota is a single state.
- The border's at Afghanistan.
- Upper Burma has most definitely been swallowed.
- The northern border of International Congo was as OTL before the war, although the Congo will be a place that undergoes many border adjustments.
I'd mentioned in post 1695 that Merjema and Mihajlović got married under Austrian fire. I never planned to write the scene, but now that the war is drawing to a close in the Balkans, it seemed natural.
To repeat what I said then, Merjema becomes a primary teacher after the war, and they both live into their seventies in Mihajlović's farmhouse above the city - not happily ever after, because no marriage is, but contentedly most of the time. And when they have children, Mihajlović has one hell of a "how I met your mother" story to tell them.
Yeah, I'm getting convinced that Jonathan is The Archive with how much he knows about seemingly every culture on earth.