Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Wow, thanks for all the responses!
The empire's shared struggle will leave an initial reserve of goodwill on both sides - the period from 1900 to 1910 will be seen by later eras as the high-water mark of the imperial idea. But relations between the components of an empire can't stay in one place - if the center doesn't move toward partnership with the periphery, it will inevitably slide back toward oppression. And unfortunately Britain in the early 1900s, even in TTL, isn't ready for true partnership with the colonies.
The breakup of the British Empire will be a sad story of missed opportunities - I've mentioned that Usman will die with a broken heart, and this is why.
It's more a matter of how the African nations think of themselves - the delegates from Bornu aren't looking for any favors from the West, as the Japanese were in OTL (and in TTL). Also, with the Ottomans participating as a great power, the hegemony of Western fashion isn't as complete.
Keep in mind, though, that we were seeing them at a private reception; they might dress differently for the actual conference meetings.
France, like Russia, reserves the right to erect a tariff wall against foreign products that move from Alsace to other parts of France, in order to prevent dumping. In practice, due to loopholes in the tax code, it's often possible to dodge tariffs as long as imports are owned by an Alsace-based firm before being sold on to France proper; in some cases, the markup involved in this trade is less than the tariff would be, in other cases not. And of course, Germany doesn't charge import duties on products coming through Alsace. Some Alsatians will become quite rich as middlemen; banking will also be a big deal there.
Wilhelm's reasoning for attaching Alsace-Lorraine to the Zollverein was that it would allow German companies to exploit the local coal reserves and tie the Alsatian economy more closely to the German economy. Both of these will happen, but the opening of German markets will also make France a lot of money.
As Maltaran said, it was a reward for their neutrality. After the last war, Thessaly and Crete became Greek-Ottoman condominium duchies; at the beginning of this war, the Porte offered to let Greece have them free and clear in exchange for not joining the war on the FAR side. It seemed like a reasonable enough price given that, if Greece had jumped in, the Ottomans might have lost the Balkans.
BTW, it's Thessaly and not Thessaloniki/Salonika - the latter is still a free port with a substantial Jewish majority.
India has a delegation, as it did in OTL, made up about equally of British and Indian members. The majority of the Indians are army officers or princes, but Romesh Chunder Dutt is there on behalf of the Congress (which has an official role in the delegation because it now controls three ministries of the Raj government).
You're correct that the political structure of India is considered an internal matter; the only business the conference really has with India is to ratify the incorporation of Upper Burma into the Raj and to detail some minor adjustments of the Afghan border. But we'll see a lot of interplay between the Raj, the Congress and the maharajahs in the years to come - unfortunately, the Indians are of the view that their loyalty deserves a reward, but many British administrators see them as having already extorted far too much. There will be a resolution eventually, but it won't be easy.
It would also be logistically difficult to administer Southeast Asia as part of the Raj, given that Siam (which is now a British client but has kept its independence) is in between. Both physical and cultural difference will lead to them being administered separately from India or for that matter Malaya.
There will be Indians among the civil servants that govern Southeast Asia on behalf of Britain, though, just as there are already Indians in the civil service of TTL's British Africa.
Agreed, if the Ethical Policy is implemented throughout the DEI. Right now the Dutch are moving toward a system of separate administration similar to the British Raj, in which the core areas are directly administered and the princely states on the periphery aren't. If the Bugis, for instance, aren't integrated into the Javanese civil service and educational system, they might not develop a common identity, especially since they're doing fine as they are.
On the other hand, I think you're right that the world wants a unified East Indies in order to prevent a scramble, and that will mean some degree of economic and political exchange between Java and the princely states. There will also be exchanges via Islamic teachers. And the princely-state system didn't exactly prevent a unified nationalism from occurring in India, did it? So an *Indonesian identity may be in the cards for the future. I'll see what seems more natural when I get there, I guess.
Well, keep in mind that the Sultan has his own reasons to call for an independent East Indies - he figures that if the Dutch move out, he can become the patron of all the islands as he is for Aceh. The Javanese nationalists are well aware of this, and are thus somewhat skeptical.
Tolstoy's reason is an aversion to colonialism in general (I'll refer you again to his Letter to a Hindu, which makes clear what he thinks of the Raj in India) and Verne was reacting emotionally to the stories of the Javanese women; the other powers talked him out of it later.
At any rate I do suspect that the Netherlands, once it is pushed by world opinion to grant concessions to the Javanese, will try to encourage and shape the formation of a national identity, in the hope of forming a dual monarchy or some other final status where they retain a hold.
I'd imagine that the Emperor will have to walk a fine line in his reforms - the gentry won't tolerate him giving too much to the peasants, but if he tries too hard to restore the old order, he'll end up in a civil war against his own people. It will be very easy to fall off that line and end up facing a coup or an uprising; quite likely he'll have to fend off both.
He's aiming for something like OTL's Hundred Days Reform, and the victory in Korea has given him some political capital, but implementation will be a daunting task.
The patriarchate didn't exist under the Tsars? My mistake then. In that case an expansion of the synod into a parliament of parish priests is probably what would happen.
In any event, the relationship between church and state will be a complicated one, but I think it will be disestablished; Tolstoy would view an established church as being a corrupt handmaiden of the state, and would sever that bond to preserve the church's independence. And Russia's constitutional status will indeed remain open for the time being, with Tolstoy's rather ambiguous position being an excuse for not making any definite moves in either direction.
In TTL, Moller is the definitive historian of the Great War, and his work runs to several volumes; there have been excerpts from a few of them in the updates. The "academic" updates dealing with the postwar shakeout will indeed include excerpts of Moller's final volume.
The succession law is determined by the duchy's legislature, although Wilhelm is guaranteed the title for his lifetime. The Alsatian parliament would be within its rights to assign the succession to someone who is not king of Prussia and to make women eligible. In TTL, France will enfranchise women before Germany does - in fact it will happen before the century is out - so it's entirely possible that the regional parliament might do so, especially if they don't care for the person who would succeed under German law.
Its status is similar to a state of the United States; if there is a contradiction between the Alsatian and French constitutions, the French one is supreme. There are certain areas in which the duchy has exclusive competence to legislate, others in which the duchy and the empire have joint competence, and a last category, including defense and police, which are reserved exclusively to the empire. From what I understand, this is somewhat more autonomy than a French region has, but not a great deal more.
Many of them are politically active; some parties have Prince X or Count Y as a figurehead, and several have been elected as deputies or senators. They span the political map; the Luciens are on the left, and others are more right-wing. Napoleon III's daughters are more secular than their mother and support women's causes - one of them will run for office after women get the vote.
It's a little late to maintain that unity, given that the littoral and the Tuareg desert regions have been under separate administration for almost forty years. In any event, the "Kingdom of the Arabs" (Algeria south of the Atlas) essentially is an autonomous Tuareg state, with the postwar settlement leaving it French but internally self-governing. In practice, it will be influenced by the Toucouleur and Bornu as well as by France.
In OTL, the crossover of HIV from simians to humans was fueled by social factors, including (a) the movement of people for war and labor, and (b) social and economic disruption causing an increased demand for bushmeat. In TTL those conditions occurred earlier, and once the crossover was made, the soldiers of the Great War picked up the virus from prostitutes and camp followers. HIV is already in Europe, India and Zanzibar at this point, although it will be at least 1905 and more likely 1910 before anyone notices a pattern, and decades more before they figure out the cause.
This is one of the flip sides of a more advanced Africa. Environmental degradation is another, and will become an issue during the twentieth century.
Thanks! As currently planned, there are seven updates remaining in the 19th century, which will be in no particular order: (a) two "academic" updates, one dealing with the postwar shakeout in Europe and East Asia and the other dealing with Africa; (b) four narrative updates, two for 1898 and two for 1899, and (c) a final narrative to close out the century. At the moment, I'm planning for the first of the 1898 narratives to come next, but that might change.
The empire's shared struggle will leave an initial reserve of goodwill on both sides - the period from 1900 to 1910 will be seen by later eras as the high-water mark of the imperial idea. But relations between the components of an empire can't stay in one place - if the center doesn't move toward partnership with the periphery, it will inevitably slide back toward oppression. And unfortunately Britain in the early 1900s, even in TTL, isn't ready for true partnership with the colonies.
The breakup of the British Empire will be a sad story of missed opportunities - I've mentioned that Usman will die with a broken heart, and this is why.
It's more a matter of how the African nations think of themselves - the delegates from Bornu aren't looking for any favors from the West, as the Japanese were in OTL (and in TTL). Also, with the Ottomans participating as a great power, the hegemony of Western fashion isn't as complete.
Keep in mind, though, that we were seeing them at a private reception; they might dress differently for the actual conference meetings.
France, like Russia, reserves the right to erect a tariff wall against foreign products that move from Alsace to other parts of France, in order to prevent dumping. In practice, due to loopholes in the tax code, it's often possible to dodge tariffs as long as imports are owned by an Alsace-based firm before being sold on to France proper; in some cases, the markup involved in this trade is less than the tariff would be, in other cases not. And of course, Germany doesn't charge import duties on products coming through Alsace. Some Alsatians will become quite rich as middlemen; banking will also be a big deal there.
Wilhelm's reasoning for attaching Alsace-Lorraine to the Zollverein was that it would allow German companies to exploit the local coal reserves and tie the Alsatian economy more closely to the German economy. Both of these will happen, but the opening of German markets will also make France a lot of money.
As Maltaran said, it was a reward for their neutrality. After the last war, Thessaly and Crete became Greek-Ottoman condominium duchies; at the beginning of this war, the Porte offered to let Greece have them free and clear in exchange for not joining the war on the FAR side. It seemed like a reasonable enough price given that, if Greece had jumped in, the Ottomans might have lost the Balkans.
BTW, it's Thessaly and not Thessaloniki/Salonika - the latter is still a free port with a substantial Jewish majority.
India has a delegation, as it did in OTL, made up about equally of British and Indian members. The majority of the Indians are army officers or princes, but Romesh Chunder Dutt is there on behalf of the Congress (which has an official role in the delegation because it now controls three ministries of the Raj government).
You're correct that the political structure of India is considered an internal matter; the only business the conference really has with India is to ratify the incorporation of Upper Burma into the Raj and to detail some minor adjustments of the Afghan border. But we'll see a lot of interplay between the Raj, the Congress and the maharajahs in the years to come - unfortunately, the Indians are of the view that their loyalty deserves a reward, but many British administrators see them as having already extorted far too much. There will be a resolution eventually, but it won't be easy.
It would also be logistically difficult to administer Southeast Asia as part of the Raj, given that Siam (which is now a British client but has kept its independence) is in between. Both physical and cultural difference will lead to them being administered separately from India or for that matter Malaya.
There will be Indians among the civil servants that govern Southeast Asia on behalf of Britain, though, just as there are already Indians in the civil service of TTL's British Africa.
Agreed, if the Ethical Policy is implemented throughout the DEI. Right now the Dutch are moving toward a system of separate administration similar to the British Raj, in which the core areas are directly administered and the princely states on the periphery aren't. If the Bugis, for instance, aren't integrated into the Javanese civil service and educational system, they might not develop a common identity, especially since they're doing fine as they are.
On the other hand, I think you're right that the world wants a unified East Indies in order to prevent a scramble, and that will mean some degree of economic and political exchange between Java and the princely states. There will also be exchanges via Islamic teachers. And the princely-state system didn't exactly prevent a unified nationalism from occurring in India, did it? So an *Indonesian identity may be in the cards for the future. I'll see what seems more natural when I get there, I guess.
Well, keep in mind that the Sultan has his own reasons to call for an independent East Indies - he figures that if the Dutch move out, he can become the patron of all the islands as he is for Aceh. The Javanese nationalists are well aware of this, and are thus somewhat skeptical.
Tolstoy's reason is an aversion to colonialism in general (I'll refer you again to his Letter to a Hindu, which makes clear what he thinks of the Raj in India) and Verne was reacting emotionally to the stories of the Javanese women; the other powers talked him out of it later.
At any rate I do suspect that the Netherlands, once it is pushed by world opinion to grant concessions to the Javanese, will try to encourage and shape the formation of a national identity, in the hope of forming a dual monarchy or some other final status where they retain a hold.
I'd imagine that the Emperor will have to walk a fine line in his reforms - the gentry won't tolerate him giving too much to the peasants, but if he tries too hard to restore the old order, he'll end up in a civil war against his own people. It will be very easy to fall off that line and end up facing a coup or an uprising; quite likely he'll have to fend off both.
He's aiming for something like OTL's Hundred Days Reform, and the victory in Korea has given him some political capital, but implementation will be a daunting task.
The patriarchate didn't exist under the Tsars? My mistake then. In that case an expansion of the synod into a parliament of parish priests is probably what would happen.
In any event, the relationship between church and state will be a complicated one, but I think it will be disestablished; Tolstoy would view an established church as being a corrupt handmaiden of the state, and would sever that bond to preserve the church's independence. And Russia's constitutional status will indeed remain open for the time being, with Tolstoy's rather ambiguous position being an excuse for not making any definite moves in either direction.
Now I'm believe Peter Moller wrote another book in which he described the reactions within the various powers to the result of the Great War.
Could you be so kind as to reprint the relevant chapter?
In TTL, Moller is the definitive historian of the Great War, and his work runs to several volumes; there have been excerpts from a few of them in the updates. The "academic" updates dealing with the postwar shakeout will indeed include excerpts of Moller's final volume.
The succession law is determined by the duchy's legislature, although Wilhelm is guaranteed the title for his lifetime. The Alsatian parliament would be within its rights to assign the succession to someone who is not king of Prussia and to make women eligible. In TTL, France will enfranchise women before Germany does - in fact it will happen before the century is out - so it's entirely possible that the regional parliament might do so, especially if they don't care for the person who would succeed under German law.
Its status is similar to a state of the United States; if there is a contradiction between the Alsatian and French constitutions, the French one is supreme. There are certain areas in which the duchy has exclusive competence to legislate, others in which the duchy and the empire have joint competence, and a last category, including defense and police, which are reserved exclusively to the empire. From what I understand, this is somewhat more autonomy than a French region has, but not a great deal more.
Many of them are politically active; some parties have Prince X or Count Y as a figurehead, and several have been elected as deputies or senators. They span the political map; the Luciens are on the left, and others are more right-wing. Napoleon III's daughters are more secular than their mother and support women's causes - one of them will run for office after women get the vote.
How about a return to precolonial lack of Arab/Berber dichotomy to begin with
It's a little late to maintain that unity, given that the littoral and the Tuareg desert regions have been under separate administration for almost forty years. In any event, the "Kingdom of the Arabs" (Algeria south of the Atlas) essentially is an autonomous Tuareg state, with the postwar settlement leaving it French but internally self-governing. In practice, it will be influenced by the Toucouleur and Bornu as well as by France.
HIV spreading widely this early?
In OTL, the crossover of HIV from simians to humans was fueled by social factors, including (a) the movement of people for war and labor, and (b) social and economic disruption causing an increased demand for bushmeat. In TTL those conditions occurred earlier, and once the crossover was made, the soldiers of the Great War picked up the virus from prostitutes and camp followers. HIV is already in Europe, India and Zanzibar at this point, although it will be at least 1905 and more likely 1910 before anyone notices a pattern, and decades more before they figure out the cause.
This is one of the flip sides of a more advanced Africa. Environmental degradation is another, and will become an issue during the twentieth century.
Well, I picked the right day to catch up
Thanks! As currently planned, there are seven updates remaining in the 19th century, which will be in no particular order: (a) two "academic" updates, one dealing with the postwar shakeout in Europe and East Asia and the other dealing with Africa; (b) four narrative updates, two for 1898 and two for 1899, and (c) a final narrative to close out the century. At the moment, I'm planning for the first of the 1898 narratives to come next, but that might change.
Admiral Matt
Gone Fishin'
You know that's a good point. It effectively means that the delegates from these countries decided they didn't need to worry about western sensibilities and could dictate their terms despite any discomfort or alienation the Europeans in Washington might feel. A bridge too far?
On the other hand, what if it does play out like this? I assume if the Africans start showing up in native dress and can still get treated with respect, everyone else will stop kowtowing to western fashion just to demonstrate that their countries are strong enough to get away with it. Will we see the abrupt extinction of the suit and tie in Asia?
If I read it right, France has effectively entered the Zollverein as its largest member, but with any need to pay dues or submit to a higher authority delegated to one of its incorporated vassals.
Prewar deal to neutralize Greece.
Well. lol
Admiral Matt
Gone Fishin'
The gentry, yes, economically. But the gentry is mostly Han Chinese, who despite being the great majority of the government's civil servants, are largely excluded from key positions at the top. So the ruling class politically and the ruling class economically often fail to overlap and the Emperor will be balancing both interests. And of course there are the Mongols and Hui - always a priority in Qing policy-making (because if the Mongols turn against the government as one, logistically they could not possibly be subdued). By this point the groups are also the main source of useful non-Manchu troops that aren't in the New Armies created to fight the Japanese. So they need to be kept happy if the government isn't going to lose control of its own armed forces as happened with Yuan Shikai in OTL.
He does have the advantage that a lot of the reforms will have already been brought forward as exigencies of wartime, and therefore about as politically safe as possible. The ending of the war will give him the opportunity to roll back a couple of the...less practical...initiatives, while retaining the majority. Better still, the partial land reform will have fixed the critical problems in some regions or even whole provinces, dramatically reducing strains on the state.
These faits accompli combined with the successes of the earlier Self-Strengthening Movement will get the country started in the right direction. Unfortunately, they'll also mean that the conservatives already feel things have gone too far. The Emperor will never again have as open a window to power into reform as he did in the OTL Hundred Days or TTL during the war. But that itself may be to the good - it will likely mean a steadier pace of reforms. He won't go all Gorbachev and allow the reactionaries and conservatives to unify behind a coup. Any attempts will be less evenly supported, and Cixi may not get involved (and if she doesn't soon, she'll be too old to be effective).
I've never binge-read a TL before this one, but I gave it a try, got hooked, and don't regret spending so much of the past week scrolling through this thread!
My favorite thing about this thread is the relevant, constructive, insightful discourse that follows almost every update. I'm not sure I've seen anything else quite like it on this board.
Mr Edelstein, your writing is terrific and your work is addictive. Consider me a devoted follower!
My favorite thing about this thread is the relevant, constructive, insightful discourse that follows almost every update. I'm not sure I've seen anything else quite like it on this board.
Mr Edelstein, your writing is terrific and your work is addictive. Consider me a devoted follower!
Long time lurker, first time poster
This is my favorite timeline on the site and I look forward to seeing how the world ITTL develops in the 20th Century.
One question though, what is the status of Papua New Guinea ITTL? Was Kaiser-Wilhelmsland established or was the area colonized by the British?
This is my favorite timeline on the site and I look forward to seeing how the world ITTL develops in the 20th Century.
One question though, what is the status of Papua New Guinea ITTL? Was Kaiser-Wilhelmsland established or was the area colonized by the British?
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Long time lurker, first time poster
This is my favorite timeline on the site and I look forward to seeing how the world ITTL develops in the 20th Century.
One question though, what is the status of Papua New Guinea ITTL? Was Kaiser-Wilhelmsland established or was the area colonized by the British?
Welcome to the board! It's great to have new posters. I too joined because I wanted to participate in a discussion about a wonderful timeline.
Cheers,
Ganesha
Wiki shows the large majority of Tuareg people living in modern day Niger and Mali ie TTL Bornu and Toucaleur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuareg_people
It also mentions that Tuareg society was heavily dependent upon slavery.
What's the attitude to that among the Abcarists and Belloists? I imagine the herder/scholars of Toucaleur are more tolerant towards it.
BTW Jonathan your timeline has prompted me to play some CDs of African (predominantly French West African) music I have.
Truly a terrific update. The way that many hints and suggestions at what the future hold are mixed in with the meat and veg of the peace agreements too really is quite masterful. Out of curiosity, you mentioned Ottoman dress as being "non Western". What is the fashion in the Ottoman Empire currently? OTL's semi-European dress with features such as the fez, or has there been a limited return to traditional Ottoman clothing? Or something else entirely? Apologies if it was covered on a previous update, I must have missed it if it was.
On Tolstoy - how is he holding up, anway? My image of him is that of one of those people who venerate freedom and tolerance, but have difficulties with practising what they preach; some of his writing is quite cranky and he managed to alienate many personal friends and family when they didn't agree with him and his ideals. I imagine that he risks running out of allies quite soon; also, there is a danger that he'll surround himself with flunkies who tell him how right he is, instead of critical people who disagree with him.
I do also wonder if a British Empire collapse is on the cards. However, given how things have unfolded, that will not necessarily be catastrophic - we seem to have a whole collection of proto/actual states that are mature and sustainable, so long as the international atmosphere is peaceful rather than war.
A sustained social and economic crisis in the UK seems like a reasonably likely outcome, as it is after any great war, which with Ireland being a trigger point, well.
Happily I am sure JE will arrange for an armed international nation-building force to restore order and spread emancipation and education in the blighted cities
A sustained social and economic crisis in the UK seems like a reasonably likely outcome, as it is after any great war, which with Ireland being a trigger point, well.
Happily I am sure JE will arrange for an armed international nation-building force to restore order and spread emancipation and education in the blighted cities
I really like Verne as a prime minister, Michel Strogoff is one of my favourite novels. However his radical utopianism is going to get him a lot of enemies. Even if the deal in Alsace favours France, the nationalist press is going to say he is a traitor. I can't see him last more than a few years with all you said he would do : problems in the colonies, in regards to the vote for women (France was quite conservative and didn't give the right to vote before WW2) and his personality (he follows his emotions). But hopefully he will have a major impact on the French psyche. Have you think about universal expositions and Olympic games? Because Verne could use one of these to leave his mark on the Parisian landscape.
On Russia, the Tolstoy years might be remembered as were the New Economic Policy in the early USSR : a period of financial prosperity and optimism with a lot of cultural achievement (early soviet style movies anyone?). But when Tolstoy will die or get really old, I fear for the future of Russia : there is no democratic tradition and this Russia is a lot more conservative and rural than the one the Soviet got (Russia industrialised really quickly between 1897 and WW1). But maybe I'm wrong and Russia will continue to liberalise.
Turkestan will be really interesting : Chagatai will likely be the lingua Franca but with what alphabet, Arabic or Cyrillic? I think Arabic is the most likely because it's the one of the Ottomans.
On Russia, the Tolstoy years might be remembered as were the New Economic Policy in the early USSR : a period of financial prosperity and optimism with a lot of cultural achievement (early soviet style movies anyone?). But when Tolstoy will die or get really old, I fear for the future of Russia : there is no democratic tradition and this Russia is a lot more conservative and rural than the one the Soviet got (Russia industrialised really quickly between 1897 and WW1). But maybe I'm wrong and Russia will continue to liberalise.
Turkestan will be really interesting : Chagatai will likely be the lingua Franca but with what alphabet, Arabic or Cyrillic? I think Arabic is the most likely because it's the one of the Ottomans.
That's an interesting point.
IOTL Ataturk deliberately attempted to westernise Turkey by adopting the Latin script, banning fezzes and suchlike.
ITTL the Ottomans are more successful and modern than they were in our 'sick man of Europe' stage but they maintain more of their 'oriental' aspects.
I'd assume that Ottoman clothing is roughly similar to OTL - there's still some equation of modernization with Westernization, and the Young Ottoman generation of liberals has a pro-Western outlook. At this point in TTL, clothing is actually something of a political marker among the Ottomans; liberals wear semi-Western suits and fezzes, conservatives dress somewhat more traditionally.
As for the Africans, that's a fair point. The Africans who dress traditionally at Washington are generally the ones who aren't looking for any favors from the West - Bornu, for instance, which is under the Ottoman umbrella and doesn't stand to gain anything from any Western power. Those who need the European powers' goodwill will conform more to Western clothing styles, especially at the actual meetings. The Ethiopians were in traditional clothes at the South Carolina reception, but they probably dressed Western-style at conference sessions.
Alsace-Lorraine does have to pay dues - in fact, for the first 25 years, they're scheduled to be somewhat higher than the pro rata dues for German states. (That's one way to make war reparations more palatable: call them something other than war reparations.) And while it technically doesn't have to submit to German economic authority, it can be expelled from the Zollverein if it doesn't follow the rules, so it, and by extension France, will tend to work toward a consensus.
This sounds about right, and I'll follow your lead on it. BTW, the early twentieth century will also be when Islamic liberalism starts making an impact on China, via TTL's version of the Ma clique. China and Afghanistan will be the last dominoes to fall.
Thanks! That's one of the things I enjoy most about this timeline too - a number of ideas that I've used in the story came from readers. Please keep reading and commenting.
I haven't thought much about it before now, but I'll flip a coin and say yes: given the amount of German commercial shipping in the Pacific at this time, it seems natural that they'd want a local naval base and coaling station. Samoa is independent, though, albeit under the influence of German traders and missionaries.
Both Bornu and the Toucouleur empire have abolished slavery at this point; the Toucouleur did so under Umar Tall (who wrote polemics against the Atlantic slave trade in OTL). The Tuareg tribes who live in that region are vassals of one or the other, and are thus forbidden from having slaves; this is one thing both empires enforce fairly strictly, although in other respects they mostly leave the Tuaregs alone.
Cranky, yes. He isn't an absolute ruler, and he'll have an elected executive council to keep him honest - I think Gwenc'hlan is right about how his term in office will be evaluated - but he'll sometimes be a bit... stubborn about pushing his programs through, and he won't always listen to people telling him that he's going to far. To be fair, sometimes he'll be right not to listen, but it will still cause trouble.
I won't say too much now, and it may or may not involve Ireland, but yes, a sustained social and economic crisis - debt hangover combined with a shrinking imperial balance of payments combined with a feeling that social hierarchies have been shaken too much too fast.
That's pretty much exactly what I have in mind. His two premierships will be considered a mixed success at best; in fact, as we'll see in the next two updates, the legacy of the first one will touch off France's time of troubles. The outbreak won't be on his watch, but the reaction to his policies and ideas will play a large part. But many of France's progressive majority will be inspired by his radical futurism - the Futurist Party will be a lasting presence in postwar French politics - and it will indeed have an impact on the French psyche.
Stop reading my mind, dammit! He will indeed propose the revival of the Olympics, although the first one won't take place in France due to the time of troubles, and there will be a Paris world's fair during his second premiership after the civil war.
The Ottomans will definitely keep the Arabic alphabet, although there will eventually be some use of Roman letters for the benefit of foreigners and for aesthetic reasons (think modern Japan in OTL).
Turkestan will use both Arabic and Cyrillic - thanks to decades under Russian rule, the latter is widely used for education and on official documents. Arabic/Persian script will have strong nationalist and religious appeal, but as long as there are leaders like Abay who admire Russian culture and learning, Cyrillic will also have official status and widespread public use. Government documents may come to be published in both scripts.
1898, Part 1
Hungary, Oxford and France
“Hurry, hurry,” said Thomas Wieser. “There isn’t much time.”
His wife Sári was in the next room, rummaging frantically through a drawer. “Leave it, whatever it is,” he said. “We have enough already. We have to go.”
“The family Bible, Thomas. Why isn’t it here?”
“I don’t know. Someone must have misplaced it the last time they made an entry. But we need to go now.”
But Sári kept looking. Thomas could hardly blame her; the book had been in the family since the seventeenth century, and there were names in it that no one would ever remember if it were lost. But compared to what might happen if they tarried too long…
Four years of war, and it’s the peace that’s killing us. Hungary may have thought it was saving itself by bailing out of the fight, but it had only bought itself another. The Slovaks and Croats had risen up even before the peace became final, as soon as they realized that the mandarins in Washington wouldn’t give them independence. Romania had much of Transylvania now, but it wanted more. The regency council in Szeged couldn’t decide who the next king would be, two of its members had decided to force the issue on their own, and Budapest was held by a republican militia of Jews and socialists…
And then there was Burgenland.
Thomas had never dreamed that he’d become a target, even in civil war – Germans were above all the squabbling, weren’t they? But the Burgenland uprising had changed all that. The German majority there had declared secession, volunteers from Austria and Germany were streaming in to help them, and suddenly every German living in Hungary was a traitor. Even those whose families had farmed this land for four hundred years. Even those with Hungarian wives and children who’d been baptized by the parish priest.
“They’re coming, Sári. Can’t you hear them outside? We need to go.”
That finally got through to her, and she stood up slowly. There were tears in her eyes. “The children?”
“In the carriage already, with Zosia. Come.”
A moment later, they’d joined the children in the landau, and Thomas was urging the horses down the lane. The noise from up the road was much louder now, and they could see the flickering of torches.
My sister lives in Poland – the one who married that Jewish doctor. If we can get there, we’ll be safe. He’d disapproved of his sister’s marriage for many years, and he regretted that now – it was suddenly hard to despise the Jews when he’d been turned out like a wandering Jew himself.
The carriage reached the top of the hill and followed the road down the other side. Thomas kept his eyes resolutely ahead, but Sári had turned around, and looked silently back at where their house was burning.
When Funmilayo Abacar came to Oxford, a sympathetic charwoman had shown her the rooms where her brothers had stayed. She couldn’t go to Magdalen as they had done, though; women could sit exams, and there was talk of making them eligible for university degrees, but they weren’t admitted to the colleges. It was Lady Margaret Hall for her.
For the first time in her life, Funmilayo lived entirely in the society of women, and they were of a different sort from the ones she’d known in Ilorin. She wouldn’t call them unworldly. British girls weren’t as sheltered now as they’d been a generation ago, and her companions were all from bluestocking families who believed in education for women. The war had broadened their horizons still more; many had volunteered as nurses or to bring in the harvest. They were wonderfully educated and open-minded, and their conversations ranged across borders and centuries. To have the leisure to sit up all night and talk about ideas was a balm to the soul; it was rather like what Funmilayo imagined a medieval monastery might be, albeit far more comfortable.
But none of the others had helped to run a country during wartime the way she had. None of them had sat in on cabinet meetings or been sent on political errands by their mother; none had bargained with princes or brokered deals with politicians. Funmilayo was a veteran in a way that they were not, and it showed; the others spoke gloriously of votes for women and a future in which the sexes were equal, but she was the one who talked about how that might be made to happen.
That was a debate for another time, though; she was late to breakfast this morning, and the other girls were already at the table. “Come sit, Fanny!” called Lady Mary Carroll, who’d appointed herself the house leader five minutes after arriving; she could be annoying about it, but she had a good soul and she was amusing enough that most deferred to her.
Funmilayo took the place reserved for her, inhaled a cup of coffee and spread jam on a biscuit. She poured another cup and savored the rich aroma; coffee, and breakfast in general, were high on her list of favorite things about England. The meal was simpler than it would have been before the war – everything was still rationed and life remained threadbare – but she had no complaints.
“Have we decided on the play?” asked Catherine Heatherford. That was Mary’s latest inspiration: that the house would put on a theatrical production, and she’d insisted that it be one they wrote themselves.
“I thought we were doing Boudicca.”
“I never agreed to that. What happened to the Mother of the Gracchi?” And they were off.
“Why don’t you write it, Fanny?” Laura Adams said. Like Funmilayo, she’d been listening quietly up to then, sharing a long-suffering amusement. “You tell such wonderful stories. Your warrior queen Amina – wouldn’t she make a brilliant play?”
“My brother was the storyteller in the family…” But Mary had caught the idea, and as usually happened when she did, she ran with it. “Yes, Amina would be perfect. Amina and Boudicca! They could be like King Arthur – warrior queens who return in the modern day, to win the war for us after the generals blundered. We could put the Queen of the Amazons in it too, and Joan of Arc, and…”
Funmilayo burst out laughing. “That would be awful!” she said, and after a moment, Mary had to agree. But something about the notion wouldn’t let her go. A story about Queen Amina, and magic, and powerful women – maybe Boudicca shouldn’t be in it, but it was something to file away for later.
“Nigeria,” she said instead. “You’ve heard of Evans’ theory [1], haven’t you? My father thinks it’s rubbish, and frankly I do too, but he says it was like Egypt, and that that they had sacred queens like Hatshepsut.” She was already imagining a story of royal intrigue, battle and discovery on the banks of the Niger, in which the courageous queen would of course triumph over the machinations of the evil high priest. So what if it never happened?
Lady Mary clapped her hands. “Well done, Fanny!” she said. “The Amazons of Africa, that’s perfect! When can we rehearse?”
Funmilayo said nothing at all, took another biscuit, and reached for the jam.
Omar had never thought he would go to war again, never imagined that he would be an army officer before he was twenty, never dreamed that civil war would come to his very homeland. But here he was.
If the last days of the old war had seemed like a dream, so too did the last days before this one. It had all gone out of control so quickly: the socialists winning a near-majority in the election, the UPF and the Ligue catholique walking out of parliament over the Algeria bill, the defection of the army officers in Algiers and Oran, the street fighting between gangs of demobbed soldiers in Paris itself. Sometimes Omar still couldn’t believe that it had all happened.
It had, though. Paris was quiet now – the Union des travailleurs had come in from the northern industrial cities and taken control of the streets – but much of the south was in rebellion, and there were Ligue and UPF-held towns in nearly every province. There were garrisons in Provence and even in Algeria that had declared for the government after the soldiers overthrew their officers, but there were others up north where the men had followed popular commanders into rebellion. Marseilles was under siege. The government was recruiting Tuaregs and Arabs to fight in Algeria, and calling up the tirailleur reserves. Both sides were moving frantically to consolidate their strongholds and eliminate pockets of enemy territory behind the lines before the real battle commenced.
Veterans were suddenly in demand, and Omar had learned both field-medicine and city fighting in the old war. They’d offered him a lieutenancy and then a captaincy. At nineteen years old, he would outrank his father.
In truth, he hadn’t really needed much persuading. This fight was for his home and family. He wasn’t a socialist like his mother – he found Verne’s Futurists more inspiring, though their vision of motors and flying machines seemed to have taken a temporary detour – but the enemy had made clear that they saw no place in France for people like him. The rebellion was full of men who’d chosen the Papal Legion over the French army in order to fight a “purer” war, veterans of the brutal struggle in northern Italy: the same kind of men who’d staged the coup in Brussels, the same ones who marched and protested in Madrid and Lisbon.
They hated him; he had no doubt of that. He might have hated them too, if his company sergeant hadn’t once been in the Papal Legion himself.
“You were either Catholic, candomble or Bwiti where I came from, you know, and if you’re Catholic, you learn who your friends are,” the sergeant had said. He was Gabonais, and his mother had been a Marianado from Brazil, but he’d been raised in the Church and raised strictly. “I’d defended my faith in Libreville, so when the Pope called on us to defend it in Italy, I answered. And it was inspiring. Men of every nation fighting together – there were Spaniards and Belgians, Brazilians and Mexicans, Maltese, Poles, even Arabs. We used to say that the only language we had in common was Latin and that every reveille was a mass.”
“What happened, then?”
“I went to Italy. I learned to hate war. And I also came to realize that God didn’t want us to stand village mayors against a wall and shoot them because their cousins were anarchists or they’d annoyed the local priest.”
“So you’re a socialist now?”
“No, a Catholic Liberal. It’s a new party. Those of us who want to fight for the faith as it really should be.”
That had been a week ago, and whenever Omar felt of a mind to hate his enemy, he remembered that conversation. Or sometimes he didn’t have to, because Sergeant Oyoubi was looking over his shoulder at the same map, as they were doing now.
“They’ve got the railroad station,” he said, pointing, “and they’ve set up roadblocks here and here. But there aren’t any barricades on these roads…”
“Those streets are pretty narrow. They’d make a good ambush point.”
“My intelligence is that they’re very thinly held – the Ligue is strapped for men, and they have to keep a lid on dissent in the town.”
“Your intelligence?”
“Let’s just say a little red bird told me.” The two of them grinned; Vendôme might be held by a Ligue strongman, but many of its citizens were unhappy with his rule, and he hadn’t managed to sweep up all the local socialist cadres.
“And besides,” he continued, “you’ve picked up a couple of fiacres [2], haven’t you? Those things are fast - if there are no barricades, we can get past an ambush and into the middle of them before they know what hit them.”
“There wasn’t much I could commandeer around here,” Oyoubi answered carefully. “I got three of them, though, and a couple of delivery wagons that we can mount guns on.”
“That could work.” That was the kind of war they were fighting now – a war of trains, wagons and those new fiacres that were being used as taxis in the cities. No doubt it would come to trenches once the big armies assembled, but for now it was a war of raids and position, a battle for strategic towns and roads. And if they could take this town, the road to Tours would be open.
Let’s hope that when it gets to trench fighting, it won’t last long. Maybe it wouldn’t; considerably more of the army had stayed loyal than not, especially now that the emperor had declared for the government. “I am emperor of the socialists too” – maybe that would put paid to the rumor that the soldier who’d almost killed him had been a leftist.
Omar took a last look at the map. “I think we’ll do it. There’s a shop in this town; let’s scrounge some metal plates and put them on the wagons just in case. We’ll lead with the fiacres here and here, and the men in the wagons will follow. They can take the barricades from the rear and converge on the headquarters.”
His red bird had told him about the headquarters. It was heavily fortified, and there was likely to be a hard fight there even if they could catch the Ligue napping. He was apprehensive, as he always was before a battle, but there was something else as well, that he recognized after a moment as anticipation.
That’s the other reason I joined the army again, the one I’ll never dare talk about. In the year since the old war ended, he’d found that he just couldn’t concentrate on anything. He’d tried to go back and finish at the lycée, but he hadn’t been able to pay attention, even to the classes that had once been his favorite. He’d tried a few jobs but hadn’t lasted at any of them. It was better than coming back as a shell, the way he’d seen too many other people do, but…
Someone please tell me this isn’t where I belong.
_______
[1] See post 1023.
[2] And there we have it: TTL’s Obligatory Term for the Automobile.
Hungary, Oxford and France
“Hurry, hurry,” said Thomas Wieser. “There isn’t much time.”
His wife Sári was in the next room, rummaging frantically through a drawer. “Leave it, whatever it is,” he said. “We have enough already. We have to go.”
“The family Bible, Thomas. Why isn’t it here?”
“I don’t know. Someone must have misplaced it the last time they made an entry. But we need to go now.”
But Sári kept looking. Thomas could hardly blame her; the book had been in the family since the seventeenth century, and there were names in it that no one would ever remember if it were lost. But compared to what might happen if they tarried too long…
Four years of war, and it’s the peace that’s killing us. Hungary may have thought it was saving itself by bailing out of the fight, but it had only bought itself another. The Slovaks and Croats had risen up even before the peace became final, as soon as they realized that the mandarins in Washington wouldn’t give them independence. Romania had much of Transylvania now, but it wanted more. The regency council in Szeged couldn’t decide who the next king would be, two of its members had decided to force the issue on their own, and Budapest was held by a republican militia of Jews and socialists…
And then there was Burgenland.
Thomas had never dreamed that he’d become a target, even in civil war – Germans were above all the squabbling, weren’t they? But the Burgenland uprising had changed all that. The German majority there had declared secession, volunteers from Austria and Germany were streaming in to help them, and suddenly every German living in Hungary was a traitor. Even those whose families had farmed this land for four hundred years. Even those with Hungarian wives and children who’d been baptized by the parish priest.
“They’re coming, Sári. Can’t you hear them outside? We need to go.”
That finally got through to her, and she stood up slowly. There were tears in her eyes. “The children?”
“In the carriage already, with Zosia. Come.”
A moment later, they’d joined the children in the landau, and Thomas was urging the horses down the lane. The noise from up the road was much louder now, and they could see the flickering of torches.
My sister lives in Poland – the one who married that Jewish doctor. If we can get there, we’ll be safe. He’d disapproved of his sister’s marriage for many years, and he regretted that now – it was suddenly hard to despise the Jews when he’d been turned out like a wandering Jew himself.
The carriage reached the top of the hill and followed the road down the other side. Thomas kept his eyes resolutely ahead, but Sári had turned around, and looked silently back at where their house was burning.
*******
When Funmilayo Abacar came to Oxford, a sympathetic charwoman had shown her the rooms where her brothers had stayed. She couldn’t go to Magdalen as they had done, though; women could sit exams, and there was talk of making them eligible for university degrees, but they weren’t admitted to the colleges. It was Lady Margaret Hall for her.
For the first time in her life, Funmilayo lived entirely in the society of women, and they were of a different sort from the ones she’d known in Ilorin. She wouldn’t call them unworldly. British girls weren’t as sheltered now as they’d been a generation ago, and her companions were all from bluestocking families who believed in education for women. The war had broadened their horizons still more; many had volunteered as nurses or to bring in the harvest. They were wonderfully educated and open-minded, and their conversations ranged across borders and centuries. To have the leisure to sit up all night and talk about ideas was a balm to the soul; it was rather like what Funmilayo imagined a medieval monastery might be, albeit far more comfortable.
But none of the others had helped to run a country during wartime the way she had. None of them had sat in on cabinet meetings or been sent on political errands by their mother; none had bargained with princes or brokered deals with politicians. Funmilayo was a veteran in a way that they were not, and it showed; the others spoke gloriously of votes for women and a future in which the sexes were equal, but she was the one who talked about how that might be made to happen.
That was a debate for another time, though; she was late to breakfast this morning, and the other girls were already at the table. “Come sit, Fanny!” called Lady Mary Carroll, who’d appointed herself the house leader five minutes after arriving; she could be annoying about it, but she had a good soul and she was amusing enough that most deferred to her.
Funmilayo took the place reserved for her, inhaled a cup of coffee and spread jam on a biscuit. She poured another cup and savored the rich aroma; coffee, and breakfast in general, were high on her list of favorite things about England. The meal was simpler than it would have been before the war – everything was still rationed and life remained threadbare – but she had no complaints.
“Have we decided on the play?” asked Catherine Heatherford. That was Mary’s latest inspiration: that the house would put on a theatrical production, and she’d insisted that it be one they wrote themselves.
“I thought we were doing Boudicca.”
“I never agreed to that. What happened to the Mother of the Gracchi?” And they were off.
“Why don’t you write it, Fanny?” Laura Adams said. Like Funmilayo, she’d been listening quietly up to then, sharing a long-suffering amusement. “You tell such wonderful stories. Your warrior queen Amina – wouldn’t she make a brilliant play?”
“My brother was the storyteller in the family…” But Mary had caught the idea, and as usually happened when she did, she ran with it. “Yes, Amina would be perfect. Amina and Boudicca! They could be like King Arthur – warrior queens who return in the modern day, to win the war for us after the generals blundered. We could put the Queen of the Amazons in it too, and Joan of Arc, and…”
Funmilayo burst out laughing. “That would be awful!” she said, and after a moment, Mary had to agree. But something about the notion wouldn’t let her go. A story about Queen Amina, and magic, and powerful women – maybe Boudicca shouldn’t be in it, but it was something to file away for later.
“The Nana Asma’u,” she murmured. That was the play she really wanted to write – the poet and teacher who’d educated a generation of women, and who was the reason nobody in Sokoto or Ilorin had ever thought to exclude women from voting. The other girls in the house had been enamored of the Nana and Grandmother Aisha from the moment Funmilayo had mentioned them, and argued passionately that they should have the same rights Malê women did. But while the quiet work of the jajis might make for excellent practical politics, it wasn’t very dramatic.
“Nigeria,” she said instead. “You’ve heard of Evans’ theory [1], haven’t you? My father thinks it’s rubbish, and frankly I do too, but he says it was like Egypt, and that that they had sacred queens like Hatshepsut.” She was already imagining a story of royal intrigue, battle and discovery on the banks of the Niger, in which the courageous queen would of course triumph over the machinations of the evil high priest. So what if it never happened?
Lady Mary clapped her hands. “Well done, Fanny!” she said. “The Amazons of Africa, that’s perfect! When can we rehearse?”
Funmilayo said nothing at all, took another biscuit, and reached for the jam.
*******
Omar had never thought he would go to war again, never imagined that he would be an army officer before he was twenty, never dreamed that civil war would come to his very homeland. But here he was.
If the last days of the old war had seemed like a dream, so too did the last days before this one. It had all gone out of control so quickly: the socialists winning a near-majority in the election, the UPF and the Ligue catholique walking out of parliament over the Algeria bill, the defection of the army officers in Algiers and Oran, the street fighting between gangs of demobbed soldiers in Paris itself. Sometimes Omar still couldn’t believe that it had all happened.
It had, though. Paris was quiet now – the Union des travailleurs had come in from the northern industrial cities and taken control of the streets – but much of the south was in rebellion, and there were Ligue and UPF-held towns in nearly every province. There were garrisons in Provence and even in Algeria that had declared for the government after the soldiers overthrew their officers, but there were others up north where the men had followed popular commanders into rebellion. Marseilles was under siege. The government was recruiting Tuaregs and Arabs to fight in Algeria, and calling up the tirailleur reserves. Both sides were moving frantically to consolidate their strongholds and eliminate pockets of enemy territory behind the lines before the real battle commenced.
Veterans were suddenly in demand, and Omar had learned both field-medicine and city fighting in the old war. They’d offered him a lieutenancy and then a captaincy. At nineteen years old, he would outrank his father.
In truth, he hadn’t really needed much persuading. This fight was for his home and family. He wasn’t a socialist like his mother – he found Verne’s Futurists more inspiring, though their vision of motors and flying machines seemed to have taken a temporary detour – but the enemy had made clear that they saw no place in France for people like him. The rebellion was full of men who’d chosen the Papal Legion over the French army in order to fight a “purer” war, veterans of the brutal struggle in northern Italy: the same kind of men who’d staged the coup in Brussels, the same ones who marched and protested in Madrid and Lisbon.
They hated him; he had no doubt of that. He might have hated them too, if his company sergeant hadn’t once been in the Papal Legion himself.
“You were either Catholic, candomble or Bwiti where I came from, you know, and if you’re Catholic, you learn who your friends are,” the sergeant had said. He was Gabonais, and his mother had been a Marianado from Brazil, but he’d been raised in the Church and raised strictly. “I’d defended my faith in Libreville, so when the Pope called on us to defend it in Italy, I answered. And it was inspiring. Men of every nation fighting together – there were Spaniards and Belgians, Brazilians and Mexicans, Maltese, Poles, even Arabs. We used to say that the only language we had in common was Latin and that every reveille was a mass.”
“What happened, then?”
“I went to Italy. I learned to hate war. And I also came to realize that God didn’t want us to stand village mayors against a wall and shoot them because their cousins were anarchists or they’d annoyed the local priest.”
“So you’re a socialist now?”
“No, a Catholic Liberal. It’s a new party. Those of us who want to fight for the faith as it really should be.”
That had been a week ago, and whenever Omar felt of a mind to hate his enemy, he remembered that conversation. Or sometimes he didn’t have to, because Sergeant Oyoubi was looking over his shoulder at the same map, as they were doing now.
“They’ve got the railroad station,” he said, pointing, “and they’ve set up roadblocks here and here. But there aren’t any barricades on these roads…”
“Those streets are pretty narrow. They’d make a good ambush point.”
“My intelligence is that they’re very thinly held – the Ligue is strapped for men, and they have to keep a lid on dissent in the town.”
“Your intelligence?”
“Let’s just say a little red bird told me.” The two of them grinned; Vendôme might be held by a Ligue strongman, but many of its citizens were unhappy with his rule, and he hadn’t managed to sweep up all the local socialist cadres.
“And besides,” he continued, “you’ve picked up a couple of fiacres [2], haven’t you? Those things are fast - if there are no barricades, we can get past an ambush and into the middle of them before they know what hit them.”
“There wasn’t much I could commandeer around here,” Oyoubi answered carefully. “I got three of them, though, and a couple of delivery wagons that we can mount guns on.”
“That could work.” That was the kind of war they were fighting now – a war of trains, wagons and those new fiacres that were being used as taxis in the cities. No doubt it would come to trenches once the big armies assembled, but for now it was a war of raids and position, a battle for strategic towns and roads. And if they could take this town, the road to Tours would be open.
Let’s hope that when it gets to trench fighting, it won’t last long. Maybe it wouldn’t; considerably more of the army had stayed loyal than not, especially now that the emperor had declared for the government. “I am emperor of the socialists too” – maybe that would put paid to the rumor that the soldier who’d almost killed him had been a leftist.
Omar took a last look at the map. “I think we’ll do it. There’s a shop in this town; let’s scrounge some metal plates and put them on the wagons just in case. We’ll lead with the fiacres here and here, and the men in the wagons will follow. They can take the barricades from the rear and converge on the headquarters.”
His red bird had told him about the headquarters. It was heavily fortified, and there was likely to be a hard fight there even if they could catch the Ligue napping. He was apprehensive, as he always was before a battle, but there was something else as well, that he recognized after a moment as anticipation.
That’s the other reason I joined the army again, the one I’ll never dare talk about. In the year since the old war ended, he’d found that he just couldn’t concentrate on anything. He’d tried to go back and finish at the lycée, but he hadn’t been able to pay attention, even to the classes that had once been his favorite. He’d tried a few jobs but hadn’t lasted at any of them. It was better than coming back as a shell, the way he’d seen too many other people do, but…
Someone please tell me this isn’t where I belong.
_______
[1] See post 1023.
[2] And there we have it: TTL’s Obligatory Term for the Automobile.
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With the Emperor siding with the government, I feel that the rightists will not be slow to proclaim a Republic.
It seems like the rightists are setting themselves up for a defeat, if Omar's view of the combatants is accurate. With northern France and the emperor on the government's side, the socialists are probably going to end up victorious. I do hope the postwar backlash isn't too bad.
Seems like Hungary is going to hell. I wonder how happy the Poles will be to have German refugees coming north, though. They probably won't like even more minorities in Poland, especially minorities with a next-door Great Power to support their rights.
Seems like Hungary is going to hell. I wonder how happy the Poles will be to have German refugees coming north, though. They probably won't like even more minorities in Poland, especially minorities with a next-door Great Power to support their rights.