Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Most Arabs in South America were Maronites, thus Catholic, IOTL. OTOH, Balkan Christians are largely Orthodox and then more likely to end up in the Platine states than Brazil.
I concur that a lot of Italians will end there in addition to Piratini, that is large, but not THAT large.
For the Italian anti-clericals, Crispi himself might be a reasonable choice. He'll be probably less of dick ITTL since Italy is more liberal from the start. Still very likely to be anti-French as he was IOTL.
Possibly, in earlier times, Giuseppe La Farina, who was fairly moderate (he was quite hostile to Garibaldi) or maybe the Emilian dictator Farini.
On a unrelated note, check out for Arminius Vámbéry. He'll might be up to interesting stuff in Central Asia.
Or Ecuador! We demand access to the Atlantic, I dare say!
Actualy if you look at Jonathan's map, Ecuador is claiming territory.
As to Colombia, well it only has a very small with Grao Para and is larger than modern OTL Colombia.
I've been puzzled by this for years, nitrates as a strategic resource. I suppose that while nitrates can be harvested on a small scale from any barnyard, the sheer scale of gunpowder expenditure in a serious war dwarfs what can be obtained by a reasonable level of effort from such sources.
And while small nitrate deposits exist in many places in the world, even in Europe, the only really big one known in the 1880s was the one in the coastal desert contested by Chile and Bolivia. And even if the French side has some sort of ace in the hole in terms of local influence in the contending powers there, still it's the British who are going to control the sea routes to haul it back to Europe. The same holds even if we consider other deposits, such as on islands near the South American coast or even Nauru.
So--it's the Franco-Russian-Austrian alliance that has to worry about running low. Though I suppose if the French naval forces are really good, they can interdict shipments to North Germany somewhat.
By the way Jonathan I hope I haven't been remiss and too late in naysaying about submarines in this war. It occurred to me that you might have the French playing that card. Maybe they can. But I doubt it. As with aircraft, I fear the crucial issue is power plants. Holland was OTL the advanced visionary who came up with the solution that worked best for making submarines practical warcraft, and even he was rather stymied and behind in coming up with the classical, definitive answer. Because oddly enough, Americans had a hard time coming up with decent, reliable diesel engines, and so the American submarine force in particular was still using gasoline engines when the OTL war broke out.
There are certainly at least in theory alternatives to the classic combination of diesel (or in a pinch, gasoline, but these stank and were hazardous too) engines to generate electricity (and also direct torque for propulsion) when surfaced, to charge storage batteries for electric propulsion when submerged. OTL, one attempted method was to use steam engines even when submerged, by taking advantage of latent heat in hot water to develop useful pressure even after the fire was quenched. In general, I gather, though steam was a tempting and very well developed tech for generating primary power, it worked badly in submarines. The subs were horribly hot and humid; it took a very long time to work up the steam head; submerging was slowed down considerably by the requirements of banking the fire.
Other methods, like using pneumatic air pressure for energy storage and power while submerged, were terribly limited; the range of pneumatic powered subs was well under 10 miles. Yet other methods, such as the Walter process of using hydrogen peroxide as oxidant in what was basically a Diesel engine (I think, I confess I don't really get exactly how the Walter process was supposed to work, I think by simply using the peroxide as an oxygen storage medium and outgassing it to run a diesel) proved too visionary and risky even in the 1940s and post OTL WWII, even in the 1950s when both British and Soviet experiments tried it and gave it up in favor of nuclear power. I suppose if nuclear power weren't an option peroxide might have been made to work but it was marginal even sixty years after your Great War period, so I daresay it's clean out for even an 1890s advanced by hothouse priority R&D.
The most promising alternative, path not tried OTL, I can think of is using either peroxide or liquified oxygen, if that could be possible in this time frame, and conventional fuels to burn to drive a kind of Stirling engine. I believe that Stirling engines, despite some attractive features (including relatively quiet running, very important for war subs in particular) have been bypassed OTL for some good reasons. But on the other hand, the basic concept and practical tech had been developed well before IC engines OTL, and they are after all quiet (though I suppose that in the 1890s, the potential for using sonic location would be low enough to allow systems that would be unacceptably noisy even in the OTL 1910s, so this advantage ironically might not count). I'm most encouraged because I know of modern OTL air-independent submarines built by the Swedes that use such a method--stored, presumably liquid, oxygen burns with a fuel to drive a modern Stirling, as an alternative to nuclear power. Compared to nukes it is much inferior of course but compared to diesel-electrics it's pretty good. But that of course is with modern familiarity with liquefying oxygen, and modern very expensive advanced Stirling engines. An 1890s version might have to use peroxide to store the oxygen, and suffer much in lower efficiency and a heavier engine for a given power output, but it's competing with alternatives that are also terribly poor compared to modern standards.
I wish I knew how much of the risk and danger of using peroxide had to do with the Walter process engine system, and how much is just inherent in trying to store hydrogen peroxide at all; I fear the problems are mostly from the latter. I know that Walter's WWII U-boat designs wanted to store the peroxide in "plastic," whatever that means in the context of 1940s Germany, bags outside the pressure hull, and obviously the options in the 1890s for such storage are more limited.
Anyway, OTL no subs tried the Stirling solution in the 19th century and there may be good reasons for that.
The method that in hindsight worked best, diesel-electric, is aside from limits of the state of the art of suitable IC engines, limited by the state of the art of electric tech, batteries and motors.
I fear that even with a feverish effort put behind it leading up to the war, the possible submarines of the 1890s can't amount to serious war machines in the way they did just a couple decades later. The batteries just won't be good enough, the alternatives are too poor; a Stirling system just might emerge at the top of the pool and function acceptably well, but the lack of even attempts at that OTL argues against it.
Whatever clever tricks the French might have against the RN, they might try subs but I don't think they can achieve many good results with them this early.
Oh well, if you've already written posts detailing the deadly effect of French (or conceivably Russian or even Austrian designed) subs I might still credit it, especially if you've got technical advice more practically informed than mine. But I hope any clever tricks you give the French side don't rely on good subs, because it's just too early for them.
wolf_brother
Banned
The Mojave also has significant deposits iirc. American neutrality will undermine any British-North German attempts to control the flow of nitrates to the Franco-Austrian entente. Whether or not either London or Berlin would be willing to chance war with the US will be a whole can of worms in and of itself.
Nice map! Hope you don't mind if I steal from it in the future.
Or Ecuador! We demand access to the Atlantic, I dare say!
As Iori says, Ecuador has grabbed a piece already. It wants more - and Colombia does want to jump in - but both countries have internal issues, and they want to avoid stepping on anyone else's toes. The Andean republics don't want to fight each other over Grão Pará - someone could get hurt doing that - so there's a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomacy aimed at parceling out occupation zones.
The South American countries' involvement in the war will be a bit peculiar. With the exception of Brazil, Grão Pará and possibly Argentina, none of them is interested in joining the big alliances. The others will try as much as possible to grab for themselves while staying neutral as against the major powers. Assuming they can pull this off, the nitrate issue that Falecius and wolf_brother mention shouldn't be a major problem, because both alliances will be able to buy from Chile and Bolivia. There's always the chance that one or another of the major powers will try to seize the deposits for itself, but western South America is a long way away, and the troops are needed elsewhere.
This might conceivably be a chance for Bolivia to prosper - or, alternatively, it could ignite war between Bolivia and Chile all over again.
I actually hadn't thought much about subs - when I hear "19th-century submarine," I tend to think Hunley and dismiss the idea. I'll take your word that the tech hasn't advanced enough by the 1890s to make the idea feasible, at least as a blue-water force. (Now that you mention it, France or another power might try to develop short-range subs for home defense - basically, tin cans that can make life tough for blockading ships but can't go more than a few miles from harbor - but I'm not sure how feasible even this would be, and I agree that ocean-going subs would be out of the question.)
The French naval strategy will probably concentrate on achieving local superiority by sending out big escort fleets that will (hopefully) outgun whatever the RN and North German navy have in any one place. France won't be able to maintain anywhere near the breadth of naval coverage that Britain and North Germany can manage, but it might be able to defend a few key sea lanes.
My bad, I forgot that the Maronites counted as Catholic. The Arab communities in South America will probably be much as OTL, with Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians all over the place (although at this point, most would identify more with their village or city than with any larger region).
A fascinating character! I think we may have our Lawrence of Uzbekistan right there.
Indeed. I find that it is always thought-provoking how, in spite of how it might feel, the area wherein the changes properly catalyzed (That is to say, the Sokoto region and thereabouts), is only a very small part of Africa. As a European, certainly, I often feel overwhelmed by sheer scale of things.
Excellent map.
One small note: I think you mislabeled Djibouti. Was it supposed to have its own label?
The Andean Republics were prepared to fight each other over their own Amazonian claims: Peru and Colombia might have some strong objections to Ecuador land-grabbing pieces of Grao Para through what they see as their own territory, for instance. But, depending on the vagaries of the local politics, they may be able to sort-of manage all this bickering through diplomacy, though I'm not sure it'll work nicely in the Peru-Ecuador case, since that particular dispute has been going on, in the form of armed clashes and small wars, until 1998 or so.
The issue I see with nitrates is not much about buying them from either Chile, Bolivia or Peru. It's going to be about shipping them in port against the will of the Royal Navy. Probably this can be one of the key sea lanes you say France might manage to keep open, somethings that likely assumes a non-hostile Chile, or some very impractical tras-shipment through Bolivia to Brazil.
At this point, there was some embryonic Lebanese identity taking form since the place had had a special admistrative status for some decades, but it was largely a religious thing still. OTOH, there was a very vague regional feeling of "Syrianness" encompassing Palestine and Lebanon, but only a minority of those people gave it a markedly political significance. With a more liberal Ottoman Empire, probably this would be subtly different, but not by much. Levantine immigrants in South America were and sometimes are reffered to as "turcos" (Turks) since they were Ottoman subjects, though they largely were not "ethnically" Turk.
Not sure Vambery would be your Lawrence; he's being an Austrian subject, and stirring up trouble within Russia is emphatically not in Austrian best interest ITTL. He worked for the British IOTL, but IOTL, the British, the Ottomans and the Austrians were on the same side against the Russians in Central Asia. Not the case here. Of course, the Austro-Ottoman enmity ITTL might even affect his views on the relationship between Turkish and Hungarian. Alternatively, he might come to think that stirring trouble in Russian Asia is in Hungary's best interest. In other words, he might not be that ardent Austrian patriot, especially considering that he was an Hungarian (by choice) and a German speaking-Jew (by birth). Plenty of possibilities for his life. Again, however, he'd be in his sixties by the time of the war, holding a respected academic post in Budapest University.
Maybe he could provide an inspiration for some younger character (a pity that TTL's equivalent of Enver Pasha would be way too young instead, as is T.E. Lawrence's).
Thinking of it, a nicely suitable character for that role could be a Robert Baden-Powell's alt-sibling.
About the Africa map: yes, Assab and Djibouti seem mislabeled.
Also, what happened to Cabinda? I'd thougt Adamawa and Bornu extended a bit more to the east in northern Camerun you assigned to Germany; which is seems to be including Kanem and Baguirmi.
Anglo-Omani/Ethiopian relation sounds like going to be difficult.
EDIT: Is Casamance attached to Portuguese Guinea because of the resolution of the map or did it actually change?
Also, what happened to Cabinda? I'd thougt Adamawa and Bornu extended a bit more to the east in northern Camerun you assigned to Germany; which is seems to be including Kanem and Baguirmi.
Anglo-Omani/Ethiopian relation sounds like going to be difficult.
EDIT: Is Casamance attached to Portuguese Guinea because of the resolution of the map or did it actually change?
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Well, would you really expect to see the Arabs treated fairly by the French government (though they are getting a better deal than OTL).
However, I've been there. Some areas are oases, and there's some really pretty good agriculture being done there. And plenty of pastoralists of course. Some parts of that desert are not that bad as deserts go, camels and even sheep can be fed on the scant vegetation.
Of course, most of the Arab population is still going to be living in French Algeria proper.
As a side note, much of the population of the "Arab" Kingdom in those borders is going to be Berber, especially but not exclusively in the Tuareg-dominated southern part.
He actually accidentally put two 41's on the map, the label is for the one in OTL Sudan area, while Djibouti does'nt have a label for itself.
Thanks!
Hell, I always forget something, don't I? Yes, Obock and Assab were supposed to have their own labels. I've fixed the map and will edit post 1370 as soon as I finish this response.
I agree that the border of Adamawa should be farther east (the eastern border was always off the edge of my West Africa maps, so I never set it in stone), so the it will be adjusted in the revised map.
The omission of Cabinda is deliberate: Portugal's claim wasn't recognized until 1885 in OTL, there were other European powers with interests in the region, and in TTL the conflicting claims were resolved by merging Cabinda into the international Congolese mandate. And yes, Casamance is part of Portuguese Guinea - France didn't acquire possession until the late 1880s in OTL, and TTL's diplomacy went somewhat differently.
How do you think I feel? As this timeline has expanded to all of Africa and then the world, I've sometimes felt as if I were drowning in the details. It's easy to lose track of the fact that it all started in a small corner of Africa, although the Malê will continue to punch above their weight culturally and politically.
Being in the desert is the whole point. The Kingdom of the Arabs grew out of Napoleon III's fantasy of being overlord of the desert tribes. He wasn't going to close off anyplace that the settlers actually wanted, so the borders were drawn along the southern edge of the massif.
Most of the "kingdom's" citizens are indeed Tuaregs or Berbers, not that the distinction made any difference to Napoleon III.
It isn't. The North Germans control Kazembe because the pro-German faction at court defeated the pro-Portuguese faction, but their power is far from absolute and a return of Portuguese influence isn't outside the bounds of possibility. The Germans see Kazembe mostly as a stepping stone to the resources of Katanga rather than a prize in its own right, so they haven't really tried to be more than nominal overlords.
In general, the lighter a colonial power's color is shown on the map, the more autonomy the region has - the darkest shades are non-self-governing colonies, medium shades are princely states or vassals, and light shades are dominions, self-governing colonies or integral provinces.
True enough, but with two major wars in the last generation, they'd be wary of risking another one. More than that, the Andean republics wouldn't want to get into an unplanned war - if a clash deep in the Grão Pará jungle escalates into a conflict between Peru and Ecuador proper that neither is prepared for, it could get out of control very quickly. For the time being, they're all trying to carve up Grão Pará like gentlemen, although there's always room for things to go sour later.
Fair enough. His contributions would be more academic than political, then, although he might be able to mediate between the Ottomans and the Hungarian nationalists if it comes to a breakup of the Habsburg empire, and as you say, some younger character could become enamored of his ideas.
Thinking of it, a nicely suitable character for that role could be a Robert Baden-Powell's alt-sibling.
That could certainly work, yes. Or maybe, without an Ethiopian debacle to derail his diplomatic career, TTL's Hormuzd Rassam might marry earlier and have a son who's just the right age to stir things up in the 'Stans.