Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Wonderful update, again, really gonna miss these when the war is over. Although I have to say you've really succeeded in turning this world into a living breathing place, the Great War was amazing from a world holding point of view.

Thanks! I do plan to include more narratives in the 20th-century cycles - I enjoy writing them, and as you say, they're good for world-building - although they will of necessity revert to a mostly-textbook format. There will be more literary updates too - a selection from Funmilayo Abacar's feminist novel, some representative African, Euro-African and African-American writers, and maybe a final appearance of Flashman.

A big difference between OTL and TTL is that in OTL many of the newly independent African states were effectively used as testing grounds for fashionable political and economic theories from the 'North'.

Whereas in TTL we've seen and are still seeing more 'organic' political and economic ideas grow from the local areas themselves.

Well, Abacarism was inspired by the French and Haitian revolutions, and later by the spirit of 1848, so there's still quite a bit of 'Northern' influence in the Sahel's political development. But you're correct that the largest component is indigenous, and the political theories of the region are being developed and implemented by the Africans themselves. And of course some of their ideas are influencing the North as well.

But what will happen when these different systems come into competition with each other?

We're already seeing it between Abcarism and Tallism (if that's the right description of the herder/scholar ideology) and we could well see competition between Belloism and Tallism in the newly 'liberated' Kingdom of the Arabs and French Mauretania.

I doubt anyone calls it Tallism. Oumar Tall would have said he wasn't following an ideology at all, but simply emphasizing the morally pure elements of society and opposing blasphemous innovation. It will probably pick up a name because it will be contrasted with other models of society, but I'm not sure what that will be - it may depend on whether the name is given by a political faction within the Toucouleur empire or by outsiders.

But yes, there will be competition along the margins, and other forces like the Tijaniyyah and Mouride brotherhoods will also participate. In some cases the result will be opposition, in others synthesis, just as has happened with the Abacarist-Belloist and the Belloist-Ottoman reformist interactions.

Wow, France is having its arse kicked accross Africa now.

The numbers didn't work out, and it was hard for them to resupply their armies with the Royal Navy in the way. The FARs really had to win quickly or lose, and they didn't win quickly.

The French are still holding out fairly well in Gabon and the Congo, though, and they continue to hold some North German territory in southeast Kamerun and Ubangi-Shari, although neither the West African losses nor the Central African gains will affect the peace settlement that much.

What's happened viz Madagascar, the French islands in the Indian Ocean, and North America by now?

Madagascar, Réunion and the Comoros saw some small-scale fighting in the early days of the war when the French fleet was using their ports for commerce raiding, but they were left alone after the French Navy was chased out of the Indian Ocean. There was also some inconclusive fighting on the Caribbean islands, but it was never pressed hard because both sides had higher priorities and no one wanted to inadvertently anger the United States.

I do wish we'd get to the end of this war soon, so we could have some more maps.

There will be maps, never fear.

The next update will deal with what's happening in Hungary - hint, nothing very rational - and then two more until the end of the war, dealing with the endgames in France and Austria.

 

[Ed Costello]

This TL is like comfort food for my eyes. That's an odd thing to say about a story in the depths of a global conflict, I realise, but reading this is far preferable to the electrical storm I got caught in last night.

Anyway, a thought occurs: how much of the Russian peace effort is after peace indefinitely, and how much is just after some breathing space so they can build up more force before reclaiming what is rightfully theirs?

Also, how much of modern Algeria falls under the 'Kingdom of the Arabs'? Does France still control the Littoral, or has that fallen as well?

 

[Shevek23]

This TL is like comfort food for my eyes. That's an odd thing to say about a story in the depths of a global conflict, I realise, but reading this is far preferable to the electrical storm I got caught in last night.

It is most definitely my favorite timeline here ever, and there are only a dozen or so that come close to rivaling it.

Anyway, a thought occurs: how much of the Russian peace effort is after peace indefinitely, and how much is just after some breathing space so they can build up more force before reclaiming what is rightfully theirs?...

My perception is, the revolutionaries (for the most part) have no aggrandizing agenda whatsoever and very few irredentist complaints either. They are a diverse bunch so there are doubtless exceptions on both the left and the right. But as long as Tolstoy/Narodnik consensus government prevails, Russia is going to be pretty pacifist.

They might not stay in power of course. But a revival of old-fashioned expansionist Tsarism seems mighty unlikely!

There could be new editions of Russian imperialist nationalism of course, or radical leftist revolutionary messianism--perhaps literally so if Russian radicalism remains strongly religious and the religion gets crazy. But actually I see the Christian-radical linkage as tending to restrain internationalist crusading; it would falter wherever the character of traditional local religion changes. That would provoke rather than restrain a crusade of course, but these Russians don't look to me like people intent on liberating the world from demonic heresy, nor do they have a domestic society with forces straining at the bounds of their vast nation the way Feudal Europe did when Clement called the first Crusade to try to divert some of the inherent violence of feudal society eastwards and out of the bounds of Catholic Christendom.

What I expect to see happen is, after some friction and turmoil, Russia to set about rebuilding itself on new terms, and for a substantial pro-peace inertia to arise, and for imperialist schemes to be rather witheringly criticized by influential sectors. If someone wants to bother the Russians or hem them in blatantly--let them beware the Bear. But they have ample leverage diplomatically to make friends without overt shows of force.

There might actually be some danger they will be overcomplacent and not maintain a sufficient combination of numbers under arms and quality of arms to tempt someone, decades hence, to try their luck with conquests at their expense.

But in such long timeframes too, things might go sour and the scary old Bear might wake up and start stretching and sharpening its claws too. I obviously hope not, but just how hopeful should I be everything goes right for Narodnik Russia?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Anyway, a thought occurs: how much of the Russian peace effort is after peace indefinitely, and how much is just after some breathing space so they can build up more force before reclaiming what is rightfully theirs?

My perception is, the revolutionaries (for the most part) have no aggrandizing agenda whatsoever and very few irredentist complaints either. They are a diverse bunch so there are doubtless exceptions on both the left and the right. But as long as Tolstoy/Narodnik consensus government prevails, Russia is going to be pretty pacifist.

Shevek23 is correct. The huge majority of expansionists were Romanov loyalists, given the imperial court's turn to the hard right after 1878, and the war and revolution have combined to lance the boil. There are some moderate nationalists in the revolutionary coalition, but nearly everyone who favors aggressive expansion is either on their way to Eritrea or keeping their heads down in opposition.

In the long term, of course, anything can happen, and I won't say much more about Russia's twentieth century, especially since I haven't decided it! But at this point and for the near term, the forces favoring imperialist expansion (on the one hand) and spreading the revolution (on the other) are marginal.

Also, how much of modern Algeria falls under the 'Kingdom of the Arabs'? Does France still control the Littoral, or has that fallen as well?

This map shows the Kingdom of the Arabs in 1892; it's basically Napoleon III's OTL scheme made flesh.

The fighting in Algeria right now is in the mountains. The terrain is excellent for defense, so the British and Ottomans haven't been able to force a breakthrough (nor has there been as much unrest behind the lines as they've hoped for), and with the end in sight, neither side is pushing very hard.

Anyway, complete change of subject: Did the monarch act on advice in appointing members of the House of Lords in the 1890s, or was this an area in which s/he had some leeway? Were life peerages permitted at this time? Were titles necessarily landed, and could they pertain to lands outside the United Kingdom (in OTL we had Baron Sinha of Raipur in 1919, but I'm not sure if the rules were the same in the 1890s)? And for those who think they've guessed where I'm going with this, you're probably right, but there are two other places I'm going, and the one you're thinking of will end in failure.

 

[Maltaran]

No life peerages, those only came in during the 1950s. The name of one's title is usually completely unrelated to any lands one actually owns, and titles have previously been given with names of places outside the kingdom (usually the name is after a battle that the person won - the Duke of Wellington also has the title of Marquess of Douro, and John Jervis became Earl St Vincent - later days OTL has Earl Mountbatten of Burma as well). I'm not sure about the monarch's discretion, but I suspect that by that time peerages were only granted with the advice and consent of her ministers (if you want an honour that's completely within the queen's gift, you can make people Knights of the Order of the Garter).

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Budapest and Luanda, April 1897

“Three more Honvéd divisions cut off in Bosnia!” shouted the man on the platform. “The papers don’t dare say anything about it, but you know it’s true! Forty thousand more of our sons sacrificed for Franz Joseph’s dreams of glory!”

The crowd in the square responded in many voices, but in their anger, they were in unison.

“It’s always the Honvéd that suffers!” the speaker continued. “It’s been that way all through the war. Who is the first sent into danger? Who is the last to be relieved? Who is abandoned, like the three divisions, to save Franz Joseph’s precious Austrian lives? And who then are called cowards and blamed for Austria’s defeats?”

Now the crowd’s anger did have words. “The Honvéd! The Hungarians!” Many of them had read the Austrian newspaper articles questioning the loyalty and competence of the Hungarian troops, written by columnists who were safe in a Vienna café while their sons bled and died. And the ones who hadn’t read them knew of them.

“We have fought and died for Franz Joseph, we have suffered and starved for him, and yet they still call us cowards and traitors! And the worst – no, you haven’t heard the worst of it! The worst is still to come!”

There was a document in the speaker’s hands now, a large, rolled-up sheet of paper, and none of the audience was quite sure how or when it had got there.

“Yes, the worst is to come, because now the Austrians are ready to sacrifice us all! Franz Joseph has sent agents to the Turk, and he has offered to give Hungary to the Sultan to save Austria’s skin!”

And now the paper was unrolled to reveal a map: an Ottoman Empire as big as it was in the days of Suleiman the Magnificent, or even more so. Algeria and the Crimea were under the crescent, and all the Sudan, and the Balkans… and Hungary.

“This is the map! I didn’t believe it at first. You know that I have sources in the army and the government, and even they couldn’t believe it. But I swear to you, it is true. Franz Joseph has sent this map to the Sultan, offered it to him if he makes peace. There’s a copy of it in the Porte now, and all the pashas are gloating over it.”

The man was fairly screaming now. “Do you see what Franz Joseph means to do to us? He will give our sons to the Turk’s sword and our daughters to the Turk’s harem, and he will buy his worthless life by surrendering us to the Turk’s lash! If we don’t act, we will be…”

The crowd in City Park could see the speaker’s mouth working, but they could no longer hear him over their own voices. “Down with Austria! Down with the Turk! Down with Franz Joseph!”

When he moved forward, they moved with him, and none had any more need to ask why.

_______​

“It’s nonsense!” said Count Khuen-Héderváry. “It’s more than nonsense, it’s preposterous! The Emperor selling us out to the Turks? I don’t know where that rabble-rouser got the idea, but it’s ridiculous!”

“I know that, and you know that,” Ferenc Szapáry answered. “But the rabble believe every word of it, and frankly, given the things we’ve been saying about the Habsburgs for the last thirty years, we shouldn’t be surprised.”

“But where would he have got his hands on a map…”

“It’s a map of the Ottoman Empire in 1529.” Szapáry laid a torn and bloodstained leaflet on the table, obviously captured during the rioting. “You’ll notice it doesn’t include Arabia or any of the Yemen. Someone got hold of it – fool or demagogue, I don’t know – and it was dry tinder. You know there’ve been strikes already, and protests over taxes…” The interior minister trailed off wearily and gestured out the window.

“Then all this is over…”

“Yes. But they won’t listen if we tell them. They all believe it’s the gospel truth, and they’ll tear us apart if we deny it. That’s what happens when people are losing a war and starving. There are deserters with them, armed. The troops are barely holding them at bay now, and even if we pull more soldiers from the front, it’ll be days before they can get here.”

“So, Ferenc,” and now Khuen-Héderváry’s voice was as tired as Szapáry’s, “what do we do then?”

“I’m afraid, count, that there’s only one thing we can do.”

*******

​

​

“Thalatta, thalatta!” cried András Weisz as he stood on the heights east of Luanda.

For a moment, he couldn’t believe that the journey was over. The last leg of it had passed like a dream; the Portuguese resident in Yeke had made them help put down a provincial rebellion in exchange for being allowed to cross the border, but after that, it had been a steady march through lands that had bore no scars of war. And now they had reached the sea.

The men started cheering as they came up behind in ones and twos, military discipline long gone. They jumped up and down, embraced, wept openly, and so did the camp-followers and the children when they arrived. Weisz was far too exhausted to stop them even if he’d wanted to do so, and after a moment, he realized that he didn’t.

“Find a couple of the captains, have them get the people into camp,” he told László Tóth. “You, Nagy and me will go into the city.”

An hour later, as the sun began to set, the two Hungarian officers and Nagy the Magyarab were in the harbormaster’s office. “We need to be on the next ship to Lisbon,” András said – from there, surely, they’d be able to cross Spain and France to rejoin the Habsburg army in southern Germany. “I don’t care if it’s a freighter or even a collier – we’ll sleep on the deck if we have to. When can you arrange it? My government will pay passage.”

The harbormaster didn’t answer for a long moment; he was already annoyed that these ragged men from the interior had caught him just as he was about to go home, and their preposterous demands made him even less willing to help.

“I doubt very much,” he said finally, “that your government would pay a single real for your passage.”

“They don’t know we’re here, yes, but if we could send a telegraph message to them, tell them where we are…”

“They still wouldn’t care.” The harbormaster pulled a sheet of paper from the day’s dispatches and slid it across the desk.

András was far from fluent in Portuguese, but he’d picked up enough to read the gist of the dispatch: Hungary had seceded from the Habsburg empire and was suing for an immediate cease-fire, the cabinet had constituted itself as a regency council, Hungarian soldiers were to pull out of line and not give battle unless attacked, no commands from Austrian officers were to be obeyed…

There was suddenly nothing for András to say. To have marched all this way for Franz Joseph, only for his country to turn its back on the emperor he’d sworn to serve – a punch in the gut would have been less.

“What do we do now?” he asked no one in particular.

“Franz Joseph has released you from your oath,” said Nagy, who was still reading the dispatch. “You can go home, I guess.”

Home? András suddenly wasn’t sure where that was. Home had been the Habsburg empire, but Hungary was no longer part of that; he doubted he’d like a Hungary ruled by narrow-minded nationalists, and he doubted they’d have much use for a Jewish colonel or for soldiers with African wives…

He motioned his companions out of the office, and barely remembered to thank the harbormaster as they left.

“We’ll have to go back and tell them,” he said. The African soldiers, and even most of the Magyarabs, probably wouldn’t care, but the Hungarians would have a decision to make. “We have some money; maybe it will be enough to pay passage for the people who want to go back.”

“The people who want to go back, sir?” Tóth repeated, shocked into formality. “You mean we aren’t all going?”

András hadn’t yet asked himself the question straight out, but now that Tóth had, he knew the answer. He wasn’t married, he had no family, he was a man without a country – no country, at least, but the band of soldiers he’d come to lead.

“No, we’re not. At least I’m not. Whoever wants to go can go – if any of the Magyarabs want to see Hungary, I guess they can go too. I’ll stay here with the rest.”

“And go where?”

“That’s a good question.” Months ago, Nagy the Magyarab had urged him to hire on with Dietmar Köhler; maybe he’d do that after all. Or maybe the Portuguese had something for him to do, or the Schutztruppe in Southwest Africa. Or there were the Great Lakes kingdoms – he’d missed them on the march down from the Sudan, and maybe there were things to see. He’d heard there were even some Jews in Buganda – would the king want another one, with a battalion of soldiers behind him?

“I’ll decide when I get there.”

 

[Shevek23]

Well damn, I didn't see that coming for Hungary. Not just that way; I did figure it might happen if the Ottomans struck hard from the Balkans and threatened to overrun Hungary itself. But that would be a different situation, with the Ottomans threatening--not to incorporate their more southerly non-Magyar holdings, but split them off as a string of buffer states, and maybe actually accomplishing that. Here Hungary is sitting pretty much whole for the moment, with all their pretensions and ambitions intact, while the Hapsburgs have lost much of Bohemia and are just about sure to lose the rest of it in the peace, with Wilhelm aiming (foolishly) to gobble up--everything else, certainly all majority-German lands and either take the ethnic lands too or turn them loose as puppet states.

I have to wonder how just the Magyar complaints were. It doesn't seem likely to me that the Honved really took more than their share of punishment; on their half of the Empire they mainly faced the Ottomans, who gave them some startling turns to be sure but mainly lost ground. Just now they are facing the turncoat Serbs and recently stirred up Rumanians of course. But until these recent endgame turns of fortune I'd think it was the Germanophone forces that bore most of the pain, on the North German front.

If these suppositions of mine are correct then the Hapsburgs are the victims of their own absolutism; unable to hold the front lines they were able to crack down on free distribution of news, with the result that everyone only hears rumors about their own relatives and neighbors. So the Hungarians heard distorted but basically true stories about how their own army suffered but not how the Austrians suffered even worse.

It's only stubborn South German particularism that can save a scrap of territory for the Hapsburgs to call their own now; that and maybe their relations with the various Slavic subjects of OTL NW (former!) Yugoslavia aren't so bad and they might keep a portion of the Balkans to keep an Adriatic port or two. Not, I suppose, Trieste though. They might actually make gains eastward if some of Hungary's subject peoples near the German side of the former Empire decide they prefer their chances under Vienna to their prospects under Budapest. But under war logic, the Hungarians are pretty much helping the BOGs by their actions and it is the Hapsburgs who are last in line to sue for peace. This will win them no favors at the bargaining table.

Conceivably they never will and decide it is better for the dynasty to go down fighting, gloriously if hopelessly. That would be stupid though, since surely they'd alienate the last subjects they might hope to keep loyal if they do that.

If the BOGs make a truce with the Magyars then that will take the Rumanians out of play, now that Russia is suing for a truce too, and force the Serbs to turn their attentions westward, to get what they can out of Austria before it too puts up the white flag. I can see both recent riders on the BOG bandwagon resenting that they didn't get a chance to get their spoils yet and keep on fighting anyway.

I guess I won't be seeing that Ottoman offensive in Europe I was imagining; on the Russian fronts too I suppose by now they are also standing down, leaving just Africa and Arabia as fronts where they can get in any action. I suppose it is just as well then that a string of glorious victories by the Sultanate's central armies will not be part of what holds the post-war realm together; the central government will have to get by on having made good efforts at the defense--against Austria-Hungary. And more gloriously and creditably, Russia. The French fronts in Africa were much more fluid and largely the job of British-associated Africans to hold; all the BOGs are still embarrassed by Mikoyan of course, but it was Ottoman territory he most infamously stole. So it helps the Sultan's prestige that the British didn't do so well against him either.

The Porte will not be in a very commanding position post-war within the realm then--it will be up to the central government to realize they can't shame the subjects into obedience nor compel them with sticks--they have to try to offer them positive reasons to stay in mutual association. Such reasons exist, I just hope the politicians are astute enough to realize they are all they have; not a solidarity of the rule of all-conquering Turks, nor glory, but a solidarity of mutual benefit of the Umma (with due consideration for non-Muslim subjects who remain, as well, lest they be wooed away by the first silver-tongued ambitious European power that comes along).

Good thing all those Islamic reform philosophies are in place then. Here's hoping the Sultan understands them well enough to speak the language of Bello, if not Acabar.
----
Poor good soldier Weisz! I was wondering if he should write a book about his travels, right up there with Xenophon. I suppose the royalties from its sale might buy a lot in southern Africa. But then again, he might put relatives back in Hungary at risk if he is too frank; maybe best if he just goes back inland and finds a fairly decent warlord to serve. I don't know, maybe that Mormon guy? If he can be a moderating influence and deflect the crazier possibilities, while avoiding losing his own head?

If any Magyarabs do go to see Hungary, I don't foresee them having a good time there at all. I hope they mostly make it back to Africa. But maybe I do the Magyar an injustice?

 

[Scientist Shan]

Poor good soldier Weisz! I was wondering if he should write a book about his travels, right up there with Xenophon. I suppose the royalties from its sale might buy a lot in southern Africa. But then again, he might put relatives back in Hungary at risk if he is too frank; maybe best if he just goes back inland and finds a fairly decent warlord to serve. I don't know, maybe that Mormon guy? If he can be a moderating influence and deflect the crazier possibilities, while avoiding losing his own head?

Indeed.

I wonder if JE could let us have a map showing the travels of Andras Weisz with dates.

 

[Kaiphranos]

If the BOGs make a truce with the Magyars then that will take the Rumanians out of play, now that Russia is suing for a truce too, and force the Serbs to turn their attentions westward, to get what they can out of Austria before it too puts up the white flag. I can see both recent riders on the BOG bandwagon resenting that they didn't get a chance to get their spoils yet and keep on fighting anyway.

Or maybe we just see a another war in eastern Europe a few years down the line between Rumania, the newly-independent Hungary, and whoever else isn't satisfied with the post-war settlement. Maybe Serbia, maybe Poland, depending on what shape they end up being given at the conference table...

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Well damn, I didn't see that coming for Hungary... Here Hungary is sitting pretty much whole for the moment, with all their pretensions and ambitions intact

At least part of the government's decision was motivated by the desire to keep their pretensions and ambitions intact. They figured that they could get fairly decent terms now, but with Romania having just jumped into the war and the BOGs about to cross into Croatia, things would only get worse for them.

I have to wonder how just the Magyar complaints were... If these suppositions of mine are correct then the Hapsburgs are the victims of their own absolutism; unable to hold the front lines they were able to crack down on free distribution of news, with the result that everyone only hears rumors about their own relatives and neighbors. So the Hungarians heard distorted but basically true stories about how their own army suffered but not how the Austrians suffered even worse.

Yes, that's more or less what happened. Not all the Hungarian troops were facing the Ottomans - there were Honvéd regiments on the other fronts, and Hungarian soldiers in the k.u.k. regiments everywhere - but the ordinary complaints of soldiering combined with nationalist grievance convinced many of them that they were being thrown away faster than the Cisleithanian soldiers. And the Viennese press did scapegoat the Hungarians for the Habsburg army's failures, much as the Budapest press scapegoated the Austrians. None of it was true - there were instances where Austrian officers did sacrifice Hungarians or made impolitic statements about the value of their lives, which added fuel to the fire, but never as a matter of policy - but that didn't really matter.

This wasn't such a big factor at first, but in the last year of the war, with everyone hungry and deserters streaming back home with stories of disaster, the Hungarians became sure that they were sacrificial lambs. And since, as you say, they had little knowledge of the Austrian troops' suffering by way of comparison, the nationalist tinder became very dry. The riot wasn't really all about a map.

It's only stubborn South German particularism that can save a scrap of territory for the Hapsburgs to call their own now; that and maybe their relations with the various Slavic subjects of OTL NW (former!) Yugoslavia aren't so bad and they might keep a portion of the Balkans to keep an Adriatic port or two. Not, I suppose, Trieste though.

You'll see. But you're right that they won't keep Trieste.

I suppose it is just as well then that a string of glorious victories by the Sultanate's central armies will not be part of what holds the post-war realm together; the central government will have to get by on having made good efforts at the defense--against Austria-Hungary. And more gloriously and creditably, Russia.

And they'll have to share the glory of the defense with various hill clans, town militias and partisans.

The Porte will not be in a very commanding position post-war within the realm then--it will be up to the central government to realize they can't shame the subjects into obedience nor compel them with sticks--they have to try to offer them positive reasons to stay in mutual association.

Keep in mind that the Porte isn't the only one to have a say - the Ottoman Empire has been a constitutional monarchy for almost a generation now, albeit with a rather authoritarian and malapportioned political system. There are going to be a couple of postwar shocks to this system, and the conflicts between liberals and reactionaries will take on some new dimensions. It's going to be complicated, and the road won't exactly be easy, but the Sultan won't be able to stand athwart history on his own even if he wants to do so.

The empire will pull through. I won't say how just now, or reveal what it will look like in another generation, but remember that Lev Pasha still has a role to play.

Poor good soldier Weisz! I was wondering if he should write a book about his travels, right up there with Xenophon. I suppose the royalties from its sale might buy a lot in southern Africa. But then again, he might put relatives back in Hungary at risk if he is too frank; maybe best if he just goes back inland and finds a fairly decent warlord to serve. I don't know, maybe that Mormon guy? If he can be a moderating influence and deflect the crazier possibilities, while avoiding losing his own head?

He'll end up in the Great Lakes somewhere, that's all I'll say now.

There will be books written about the Lost Hungarians, and probably a movie or two. Weisz will play a very ambivalent role in some of them, given that in the end he didn't go home - to some Hungarian nationalists, he'll symbolize the failings of the old, cosmopolitan Habsburg state. Others will look at him in a more heroic light. He may or may not weigh in himself, depending on what happens to him and to Hungary after the war.

If any Magyarabs do go to see Hungary, I don't foresee them having a good time there at all. I hope they mostly make it back to Africa. But maybe I do the Magyar an injustice?

They'd be a gold mine for nationalist mythmaking, but they'd be fish out of water, and when they resist Magyarization, the more narrow-minded nationalists would fall out of love with them very quickly. A few of those who go to Hungary will stay, and we may hear of them in the future; others will find their way back home or rejoin Weisz in the Great Lakes.

I wonder if JE could let us have a map showing the travels of Andras Weisz with dates.

Your wish is my command:

​

Or maybe we just see a another war in eastern Europe a few years down the line between Rumania, the newly-independent Hungary, and whoever else isn't satisfied with the post-war settlement. Maybe Serbia, maybe Poland, depending on what shape they end up being given at the conference table...

That could happen - I've said there won't be another Great War until at least 1960 (and possibly not after that either), but there will be small and medium-sized ones, and the postwar nationalist shakeout in Eastern Europe won't be a smooth one. Down the line, this conflict may end up adding fuel to the post-Westphalian trend.

 

[The Sandman]

One thing I would like to see is the relief of Sarajevo. Both for its own sake, and for what that scene might imply about the post-war trajectory of the Ottoman Empire.

The Hungarians are pretty much guaranteed to have major rebellions in Slovakia, Croatia and Transylvania almost immediately after the war ends; indeed, that might be what kicks off the inevitable Balkan War here.

Belgium is going to be an interesting question; the BOGs are definitely going to want to punish them, but since they don't actually have any troops on Belgian soil their options to do so are rather limited.

And I suspect that the historical view of Weisz is going to tend towards seeing him as a tragic version Xenophon, who spent three years leading his men across an entire continent only to find that his country had died in the interim.

 

[Scientist Shan]

Thanks for the map Jonathan.

Could I be cheeky and ask you to add links to all the instalments in which Andras Weisz appear?

That he's now heading to the Great Lakes suggests he's a glutton for punishment - is there a worse part in all Africa?

Looking at the map it seems surprising that they got through the 'Sudanese' part which must have had various Ottoman / Egyptian / Bornu / German patrols about. Perhaps the march managed either by design and/or luck (probably both) to skirt the edges of the hostile but organised countries to reach the 'safety' of the chaos of the Congo basin.

 

[Jord839]

So it looks like the worst case scenario I posted earlier's getting more and more likely: the breakup of AH into Westphalian style nationalist states is going to be one of that system's death knells, with all the low to mid-level wars that implies.

Now I'm wondering where Austria goes from here. Shevek seems to think that Wilhelm will want to absorb them, but that seems very problematic from the Prussian point of view. Unless the Austrians are somehow seriously hamstrung and their influence limited, all the Prussians are doing is providing a counterweight to their influence within their own country. This NGF is less Prussian dominated than OTL, but I get the feeling that they still wouldn't be able to be outnumbered on this kind of issue. That's not even going into the question of whether the Hapsburgs keep power or not which could complicate things further. I still think that, Grossdeutschland advocates aside, Austria won't get absorbed right after this war. This isn't OTL where they were two allied powers who fought long and hard at each others' sides, but brutal enemies politically and militarily who have just come out of a downright devastating war.

I'm really curious where in the great lakes Weisz will end up and what effect he'll have. Between Melisande and Usman, intrigues with the Ethiopians and the Omanis, and the continuing clusterfuck in the Congo, central Africa is going to be the most interesting (and probably horrifying in some way) area on the continent for a while.

On that note, what can we expect out of the Congo? Will the BOGs and FARs try to re-impose the old International Congo idea or has the quick breakdown into national zones of interest, warlords, and indigenous rebels made them realize how untenable it is?

 

[Badshah]

On that note, what can we expect out of the Congo? Will the BOGs and FARs try to re-impose the old International Congo idea or has the quick breakdown into national zones of interest, warlords, and indigenous rebels made them realize how untenable it is?

I'd expect the International Congo to be continued nominally, with the powers essentially ignoring what's going on inside of it, as long as money is made.

 

[Nassirisimo]

It looks as if the Hungarians want out no matter how the peace of the war pans out. Though I wonder whether the departure will be peaceful, and just how most of the Hungarian elites react to the situation.

 

[eliphas8]

Yay finally some Austro Hungarian updates (even though I love Good Soldier Weisz, he's just not as connected to the actual Austro-Hungarian war effort), And I do have to wonder how there could be any debate between "The Hungarians are painfully stupid" and "Corrupt Demagougery making up a crisis". Because really them just not getting the fact that the map would be some kind of historical piece rather than a peace plan is ludicrous.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

One thing I would like to see is the relief of Sarajevo. Both for its own sake, and for what that scene might imply about the post-war trajectory of the Ottoman Empire.

I'll make that the next update then - it happens a couple of months before the point we've now reached, but there's no reason I can't revisit it. Do you want the scene where the cavalry arrives, or a few days later (I'd favor the latter)?

The Hungarians are pretty much guaranteed to have major rebellions in Slovakia, Croatia and Transylvania almost immediately after the war ends; indeed, that might be what kicks off the inevitable Balkan War here.

So it looks like the worst case scenario I posted earlier's getting more and more likely: the breakup of AH into Westphalian style nationalist states is going to be one of that system's death knells, with all the low to mid-level wars that implies.

Some of it will be resolved in the peace settlement - Hungary will have to give up Vojvodina and the eastern part of Transylvania in order to satisfy the Serbs and Romanians. But Slovakia, Croatia and western Transylvania will be a problem, especially if (a) the Hungarians double down on Magyarizing their remaining territories, and/or (b) the Croatians want the same freedom that their coethnics in Dalmatia will get. It may not be a Balkan war as such, but there will be a central/eastern European war or two in the offing. The first third of the twentieth century won't be fun for a lot of people in that part of the world.

Belgium is going to be an interesting question; the BOGs are definitely going to want to punish them, but since they don't actually have any troops on Belgian soil their options to do so are rather limited.

On the other hand, Belgium is small enough to be easy to intimidate - unlike France or Russia, the BOGs would be able to restart the war in Belgium without breaking a sweat. They won't want to do it, though, and the Belgians will know that, so yeah, their options will be somewhat limited.

And I suspect that the historical view of Weisz is going to tend towards seeing him as a tragic version Xenophon, who spent three years leading his men across an entire continent only to find that his country had died in the interim.

That will depend in part on their view of what his country was.

Could I be cheeky and ask you to add links to all the instalments in which Andras Weisz appear?

Magyariyya, N'Dele, Samuel's Kingdom, Moba, Luanda.

That he's now heading to the Great Lakes suggests he's a glutton for punishment - is there a worse part in all Africa?

I'm really curious where in the great lakes Weisz will end up and what effect he'll have. Between Melisande and Usman, intrigues with the Ethiopians and the Omanis, and the continuing clusterfuck in the Congo, central Africa is going to be the most interesting (and probably horrifying in some way) area on the continent for a while.

The Great Lakes are in a varied state at the moment. The states that were part of International Congo before the war are in pretty horrible shape, but those that were independent all along are stabilizing. Of course, the warlord states will have more for a mercenary to do.

You'll see where Weisz comes to ground and what he ends up doing; the only things I'll say right now is that he won't become a ruler or warlord himself, and that he will have an effect on his adopted country.

Looking at the map it seems surprising that they got through the 'Sudanese' part which must have had various Ottoman / Egyptian / Bornu / German patrols about. Perhaps the march managed either by design and/or luck (probably both) to skirt the edges of the hostile but organised countries to reach the 'safety' of the chaos of the Congo basin.

That's basically correct - they kept to sparsely populated areas whenever possible, camouflaged their campsites, dodged patrols and fought only when they absolutely had to. The fact that there was no active fighting in the region was helpful, but a fair part of their survival is down to luck.

Now I'm wondering where Austria goes from here. Shevek seems to think that Wilhelm will want to absorb them, but that seems very problematic from the Prussian point of view. Unless the Austrians are somehow seriously hamstrung and their influence limited, all the Prussians are doing is providing a counterweight to their influence within their own country.

What Wilhelm wants and what he'll get aren't necessarily the same thing, and internal Prussian politics will indeed be one of the restraining factors here. Not to mention that Austria is a hell of a place to try to occupy against its inhabitants' will, which they'll prove very shortly. There will be an independent Austria after the war, although its borders and form of government remain to be resolved.

On that note, what can we expect out of the Congo? Will the BOGs and FARs try to re-impose the old International Congo idea or has the quick breakdown into national zones of interest, warlords, and indigenous rebels made them realize how untenable it is?

I'd expect the International Congo to be continued nominally, with the powers essentially ignoring what's going on inside of it, as long as money is made.

As I've mentioned, a major complication lies in the fact that International Congo still exists as a legal entity and can only be dissolved with the consent of the participating powers. A formal dissolution would require extensive negotiations, bribes and exchanges which the major powers would rather not do if they don't have to. They realize that it's untenable, but might prefer to keep it going on paper rather than deal with winding it down.

In the western provinces, which were relatively peaceful during the war, it may be possible to re-establish an international administration without much difficulty. The east, which is a patchwork of warlord and rebel states and where the areas held by European troops are scattered and non-contiguous, is another story entirely. I doubt there will be any serious effort to re-establish the prewar administration here - a couple of the more stubborn powers might try, but they'll find out that subduing organized states that are awash in surplus army weapons is a very different matter from conquering Iron Age villages and tribes.

I'd expect that much of the east will become a de facto part of the Anglo-Omani sphere, while parts of the north and south will become de facto German and Portuguese territory respectively, and that the rest - including the peasant-herder-religious republics and many of the warlords - will make various deals to maintain the rubber and timber exports in return for being left alone. The fact that Tippu Tip will be sponsoring some of these states won't hurt.

It looks as if the Hungarians want out no matter how the peace of the war pans out. Though I wonder whether the departure will be peaceful, and just how most of the Hungarian elites react to the situation.

The elites will be very divided - some will think the government did what it had to do, and others will consider the peace a major sellout. There will be a Dolchstosslegende among elements of the right, not only against the Austrians but against the urban mob and the more accommodating elites.

And I do have to wonder how there could be any debate between "The Hungarians are painfully stupid" and "Corrupt Demagougery making up a crisis". Because really them just not getting the fact that the map would be some kind of historical piece rather than a peace plan is ludicrous.

Look who's debating it, though - Hungarian aristos don't exactly have a high opinion of the mob's intelligence. Of course it was a demagogue claiming that the map was a peace plan in order to galvanize the mood that already existed, but people like Count Khuen-Héderváry are quite willing to believe that it was all a stupid mistake, especially since that exculpates them for creating the mood in the first place.

 

[Scientist Shan]

Some of it will be resolved in the peace settlement - Hungary will have to give up Vojvodina and the eastern part of Transylvania in order to satisfy the Serbs and Romanians. But Slovakia, Croatia and western Transylvania will be a problem, especially if (a) the Hungarians double down on Magyarizing their remaining territories, and/or (b) the Croatians want the same freedom that their coethnics in Dalmatia will get. It may not be a Balkan war as such, but there will be a central/eastern European war or two in the offing. The first third of the twentieth century won't be fun for a lot of people in that part of the world.

As I remember wasn't the Hungarian (and German) population in Transylvania concentrated in the south-east of the province and surrounded by ethnic Romanians? Which made all attempts at a 'fair' boundary impossible.

Thanks for the links to the Weisz anabasis, is it possible that you've butterflied a future Rachel Weisz:

" Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb.[3] Her father, George Weisz, was an inventor from Hungary.[4][5] Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a teacher-turned-psychotherapist from Vienna, Austria "

 

[Gwenc'hlan]

Very good updates. You handled this war very well : you never lost your focus or the spirit of the TL, which happened quite a few times.
I just wonder : the eastern parts of Transylvania are the ones that are Magyar populated so it won't be as simple as you thought. Maybe southern Transylvania instead?
I'm in Brittany at the moment so I wondered if the naval war went as far as outright raiding of ports (it seemed to be a tradition before the 19th century). But anyway with smugglers, "neutral" Spanish vessels there would have been quite a lot to tell.
On the subject of the Ottomans, everything seem to be quite good for them but I remember a discussion on how the industrialisation would have taken place in the european part. How are the coping with internal migrations and the tensions that are resulting? With the new Russia being quite more tolerant, would the be anything to say about Circassians coming back?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

As I remember wasn't the Hungarian (and German) population in Transylvania concentrated in the south-east of the province and surrounded by ethnic Romanians? Which made all attempts at a 'fair' boundary impossible.

I just wonder : the eastern parts of Transylvania are the ones that are Magyar populated so it won't be as simple as you thought. Maybe southern Transylvania instead?

Good point. Does anyone have a link to an ethnic map of Transylvania (or Hungary as a whole) at this time? Would it be possible to draw a border in southern Transylvania that would satisfy the Romanians, or at least not leave them too unhappy, without putting most of the Magyars under their rule?

EDIT: If this is correct for the 1890s, it may be possible to draw a corridor through Oradea and Cluj, or alternatively for Romania to annex the southwestern part of Transylvania.

Thanks for the links to the Weisz anabasis, is it possible that you've butterflied a future Rachel Weisz

Quite possibly, although Weisz is a very common name among Hungarian Jews - when I taught fourth-grade English in a Satmar Hasidic school (hey, don't laugh, it put me through a year of college), I had three kids named Joel Weisz in the same class!

I'm in Brittany at the moment so I wondered if the naval war went as far as outright raiding of ports (it seemed to be a tradition before the 19th century). But anyway with smugglers, "neutral" Spanish vessels there would have been quite a lot to tell.

The shore batteries and home-defense fleets would make that hard, and Shevek23 has suggested that by the end of the war, France would also be using primitive submarines for port defense. There may have been some attempts but they probably didn't get very far, and as you say, most of the wartime French trade was going through Spanish ports.

On the subject of the Ottomans, everything seem to be quite good for them but I remember a discussion on how the industrialisation would have taken place in the european part. How are the coping with internal migrations and the tensions that are resulting? With the new Russia being quite more tolerant, would the be anything to say about Circassians coming back?

Internal migrations are certainly still an issue - there has been Bulgarian Christian migration into the Bulgarian autonomous area and Muslim migration out of it, and the Ottomans will have to resolve the tensions with the Bulgarians in order for the Balkan parts of the empire to be stable in the long term.

Tolstoy will be fine with the Circassians coming back if any of them want to, but many of them have put down roots in Anatolia or the Balkans by now.