Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

The main reason to ensure a friendly Paraguay would be to cover Argentina's flank, not to develop a front. Geographically speaking, the Paraguayan-Brazilian border is one of the most impassible regions on the continent. Marching an army into Brazil isn't impossible per se, but getting it to even a medium-sized town would be a challenge, much less anything strategic. This is doubly true with Piritini and the benighted Entre Rios sitting astride the least useless route.

Hmmm. The Paraguayans could always join an Argentine-led expeditionary force, and they have a good riverine navy that could be of use in Grão Pará, but both of those could pose command and logistics issues (the latter especially, given that it would be a non-trivial problem to get the Paraguayan river gunboats to the Amazon basin). So, yes, Britain's main interest in Paraguay would be to keep it from jumping Argentina while the latter is committed in Brazil, and to secure its industrial capacity for supporting the Argentine war effort. Which still requires an assurance that Argentina won't attack Paraguay either now or when the battle against Brazil is over.

Having known Gauchos personally and with my twin brother living in the Rio Grande do Sul for two years, I feel like the Piratini culture would not develop in a way that would condone further expansionism into Brazil. The war of independence would be seen as their epic climax of cultural ascendance, not the first step of many. They would be interested in defending their sovereignty if they need to, yes, but they wouldn't be after territories.

As far as loyalty to their neighbors, because of cultural similarities I feel their first ally would be Entre Rios (another "liberated" gaucho republic), followed by Uruguay, followed by Paraguay, followed by Argentina, with Brazil as the clear antagonist. I highly doubt Piratini would be comfortable with any country taking control of Entre Rios, though they might be convinced if they needed help if Brazil were to threaten Piratini.

And so another piece falls into place. Now we know why Argentina hasn't tried to reconquer Entre Rios up to now (or, alternatively, why its attempt at reconquest failed) - because Piratini would fight on Entre Rios' side. And that also means that if the British want to sacrifice Entre Rios in order to get the Argentines into their column, that could cause trouble with Piratini. This, in turn, could lead to other complications, because there are probably thousands of volunteers from Piratini fighting in the Italian army, and Britain wouldn't want to provoke them into going home. And if, as Admiral Matt says, throwing Uruguay under the bus would be a step too far, throwing Piratini there would also be.

The more I hear about this, the more I wonder if the politics are just too complicated - maybe Britain will throw up its hands and let the southern republics fight their own private war. But the prospect of Argentina opening up a second front against Brazil and relieving the pressure on Grão Pará must still be very tempting. I'm going to have to think about this a bit.

There's an even lower tech version that might be relevant here, especially on the fronts involving Russia--or Austria-Hungary, which strikes me as having essentially the same per capita technical capabilities as the Tsar's forces do. That is, Russians and Austrians can and will make proper motor vehicles--those wacky Russians might even produce something like this before the war's over, especially if it moves east onto Russian soil in winter--but they'll always be in relatively short supply; something that requires only a typical cart, some horses--and the gun of course--must surely find a niche; it certainly did in the OTL Russian Civil War and that was in a Russia advanced some two decades beyond the starting point of this war.

I hadn't known about the aerosanis - they're certainly something the Russians might build for winter campaigning. Some of the powers might also try to use them for alpine warfare, but if the Wikipedia article is anything to go by, that probably wouldn't work.

Tachankas will definitely be used on the eastern front and in the Balkans - hell, a technical could easily become one, if the dang engine breaks down.

It would be highly, highly unlikely for Portugal to come in on the side of France (or, specifically, against Great Britain). It's a maritime nation, with a long history of relations with Britain (and an official alliance), with very little to gain indeed from an entry into the war on the side of France.

Portugal entering on the side of Great Britain, maybe. But that would be a hard pill to swallow still, since they have the lucrative opportunity to trade with both sides as neutrals.

Remember, Portugal is currently engaged in fighting against what it believes to be North German-backed Africans in southern Africa. If they get too frustrated, they might declare war.

Their strategy for the war'd be a bit questionable, though. What - they won't destroy our empire with their overwhelming force because....they're too busy destroying the empires of the much stronger powers?

I'd guess cooler heads might take it as far as a shift from pro-British to pro-French neutrality but no farther. But I suppose cooler heads don't always prevail.

Certainly, nobody in Lisbon wants to get in a war with the BOGs. But the way things are going, an incident could easily happen in the field - for instance, a frustrated colonial governor might attack an "arms shipment" that turns out to be an ordinary North German supply train - and if so, the adults will have their hands full trying to keep things from spinning out of control.

There are other possibilities too - if the BOGs play their cards right, they might be able to get Portugal to come in on their side in exchange for help conquering Katanga. Of course, that would require the BOGs (which, in practical terms, means Britain) to take on another significant commitment at a time when they're already spread very thin.

I'm actually not sure how that particular situation will play out, but by the time I get there, sometime partway through year three, I should know.

In any event, the next update will be a literary one, to tide you over until I've finished figuring out Argentina.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Literary interlude: the war of silence

Ibrahim Abacar, The Silent Ones (1895)

… “Our father tells me you are a poet,” wrote Funmilayo Abacar to her brother Ibrahim, “but I think you are two of them.” More than one literary critic has since echoed the observation. Abacar’s religious poems, many of which are intended to be sung as Sufi hymns, are lyrical and speak in metaphor; his war poetry, written on the battlefields of the Great War, is marked out by its realism and sardonic wit. His work draws a sharp distinction between the sacred and profane, extending to both tone and language; possibly it was an inevitable distinction for an idealist in his early twenties to draw.

What unites the two branches of Abacar’s work is vivid visual imagery and a fascination with dance and movement. He encountered Southeast Asian classical dance while serving as a cavalry officer in Siam and Cambodia, and Polynesian dance forms while stationed as a military advisor in Samoa; he found both inspiring, and became captivated by the idea of movement as communication. To Abacar, dance, like language, encompassed both the sacred and profane, and in his poetry, it can be either storytelling or prayer.

The same themes are present in his only novel, which he began in Samoa and finished after his company was reattached to its regiment in the Northwest Frontier. The Silent Ones has been described variously as a national epic of the Malê, a magical-realist exploration of folk memory and a story of the moral conflicts of modernity, and all three may be right. It is certainly the most subtle of his works, in which he used the greater length of the novel format to weave more themes together and treat them in greater depth.

The work’s eponymous Silent Ones are a group of African slaves who are taken to a New World country where they are forbidden to speak. Over time, their folk dances evolve into a language of movement, through which they pass down their history and religion to future generations. The historical and mythical characters from the dances slowly take on physical presence, ultimately leading the slaves in rebellion. After hard fighting, they win their freedom and set off for what their folk-heroes have told them is the promised land.

The ex-slaves reach that land and, in an epic battle, conquer it, but in doing so, they realize that they have forgotten how to speak or understand speech. They must thus let their dance-evoked heroes speak for them to the rest of the world while they search for ways to communicate with people beyond themselves. They never know for certain if the messages the heroes convey are the ones they intend, especially since their dances also invoke the heroes’ antagonists as part of their synthesis. The freedmen become embroiled in wars in which the distinction between liberation and conquest becomes blurred, and slowly begin to question whose interests their folk-heroes truly have at heart.

At length a great conflict erupts that encompasses the whole world. The Silent Ones’ heroes – who now include characters from more recent periods in their history, including that of their enslavement – tell them that the war is a struggle between good and evil, but on the battlefield, they learn that its morality cannot be so easily determined. Faced with the need to find their place in a world bent on self-destruction, they dedicate their dance to God, and ask him not to speak for them but to teach them to speak. In the final scene of the novel, they find that their chant to him has become words.

The dances in the story owe much to the West African dance forms of his childhood as well as the Asian and Polynesian ones he encountered later, with the Polynesian forms especially evident in the Silent Ones’ war epics. There is also imagery from Persian classical dance - which Abacar never saw but which he studied for its treatment of religious themes – and from Sufism and Malê folk religion. Several dance companies have “translated” Abacar’s work into actual performance, with the first such rendition taking place in 1901 as part of the founding season of the Ilorin National Dance Theater.

One of the most famous dances from that performance was inspired by a scene from late in the novel, when the Silent Ones are fighting in a mystic land of temples…
​

_______​

… Ayo’s mother had taught him, in his earliest days, that every movement told a story, and that a story might be a single thought. There were the dances that told the story of the people, but there was also the raising of a hand, the narrowing of an eye, that told the story of a person. A finger might say I need you, the lips I love you, the palm I am finished, each of them a story: stories could take place in the present as well as the past, and people might enact them together.

Now, on the battlefield, he wondered what story his enemies were telling when they fired their guns. I am going to kill you, obviously, and I do not want you in my land. But surely there was more than that. Surely each finger sat on the trigger differently, surely each face mapped its own thoughts as it looked on the men who came forward to be shot.

Maybe he could learn, if he could get close enough. But he always had to kill before he did. If bullets could speak, their language was very unsubtle.

He had asked Bola once, late one night as they drank tea in the camp, and the other man had turned the question around: what story are you trying to tell them? And the truth was that he didn’t know. The battlefield was the province of chaos: the movements of the earth, the flight of the bullets and the pounding of the artillery, drowned out any purposeful movement in a sea of randomness. It was impossible to tell a story where nothing was constant, where the motion of art could not be told from that of necessity.

Maybe that was what made war what it was. Maybe war was a place where it was impossible to share, where one could only kill. Maybe it was a place where a soldier had to make his movements meaningless if he hoped to survive.

War is just a dance, the great one had said when he called for men to fight, but it was not; it was a parody of a dance.

For all that, Ayo dived into the battle with a dancer’s grace, and his brother-soldiers did so with him. A plunge for cover, a dash from tree to tree, a flanking attack on a gun position, a charge at the wavering enemy line: the Silent Ones did all of them in company. The enemy soldiers had to strain to hear their commanders’ orders; the Silent Ones need only watch. They fought as if they were a single body: a body with a hundred thousand hands, each holding a gun. And when the movement at last was finished, the enemy was driven off; the Silent Ones celebrated and their foes mourned, all but the thousands whose corpses littered the field, their arms frozen in a silent call that no one could understand.

The signal spread through the army: they would fight no more that day. The morning was spent burying the dead; the afternoon, marching to the campsite that the great ones had found. Digging and marching. Parodies of the dance, just as battle was: unison without meaning, motion that was as controlled as a dance was, but that silenced stories rather than telling them. But the Silent Ones managed to say things even so. A final stroke of the shovel to smooth the earth over a grave: this was a comrade I loved. A movement of the lips together as the countryside passed: I am thinking of him. A raising of the hands as the men stopped to rest: how much longer?

The campsite might have been beautiful in other times. There was water: a reflecting pool once, if now green with algae and lily pads, surrounded by palms. On either side was a temple, colonnaded structure of gray stone, low at each side but rising to three stories in the center and surmounted by five stupas. Ayo let his eyes travel up the stupas to each mossy layer in turn, and down to the pool, to the few clear patches in which they were reflected.

Was this where the gods of the enemy lived? It didn’t seem like the temples had been in use for a long time, and the prisoners in the camp gave them little regard. Maybe the people had abandoned these gods, or the other way round. Maybe the temples had been built by another nation entirely.

Ayo expected no answers to these questions, but all the same he would get one, after a fashion.

The Silent Ones had gathered after the evening meal, and their officers, their priesthood, came forward to dance. Ayo had expected a dance of mourning for the fallen; he had adorned his face with ashes from the campfire and had come prepared to join the procession. But it was a war dance instead. The officers faced each other in two lines, miming strikes and kicks; they charged, leapt over each other as they met, and whirled to face each other again, striking at phantom foes and making primal noises.

Ayo looked at Bola by his side and spread his hands. Why?

Bola pointed east, held his hands up, assumed a dejected and submissive position. The enemy – surrender. The officers were invoking a great one to speak to the enemy, to see if they were ready to give up.

And the air was changing above the dancers as they struck and leaped. It formed the shape of a man in elegant clothes, a whip in his hand. A whip in his white hand. His face was twisted with fury at having to come when the Silent Ones called: a great opponent rather than a great ancestor, but no less bound by the war dance’s power.

The commander leaped into the air with a shout, passing over two lesser officers who had crouched to make a strike, and made a gesture like unto Bola’s. He leaped again, pointing eastward with both hands, miming the speech he could not form. Go. Obey me. Speak to the enemy. The great one shrieked in primal rage, but went.

There was a flashing of light to the east, a thunder, then another thunder – that of gunfire. The light flickered a while longer and then died out, and as it did, the great one returned to the gathering. His ghostly arms were crossed over his chest: no, they will not surrender.

What did he really tell them? Ayo wondered, not for the first time, but there was no way for him, or even for the priests and generals, to know.

The gathering was beginning to break up, and he found himself at its edge. He didn’t know where he had intended to go: to his tent, maybe, or to a private place where he could mourn by himself. But his feet carried him in another direction, toward the entrance to the looming temple. He didn’t know what story they were trying to tell him, but he decided to hear it.

There was a low stone doorway, overgrown with moss, and a courtyard within. There were cracked steps leading up, and Ayo knew that was the direction he wanted to go. He climbed to the second story, the third, then the spiral stairs that led up to the highest point in the stupa. Above that were only the stars.

He emerged, and realized all at once why he had come. He would mourn the dead of this day, and those who would surely die on future days now that the enemy had vowed to continue the fight, but he also wanted an answer. Where are we going? What awaits us at the end? In the battle between the great ones, what part do we play?

He reached upward, as if trying to pull an answer from the stars. He reached up again with the other hand, and turned his face to follow them. He realized he was dancing, but it was a strange sort of dance: his lower body completely still, his waist swaying, his hands and eyes reaching toward God as if He were just above. He tried to remember the names: the compassionate, arms folded together, the merciful, open hands letting a weapon fall to the court below, the king, a crown traced around his forehead…

Something was in front of him now, and he could see it as he danced: an elephant with four arms and the hands and feet of a man, wearing a jeweled helm and golden trappings.

You are not Him, Ayo thought.

I am, came the answer, and Ayo’s mind was filled with an unfamiliar sensation: he heard the elephant-god’s thought. The answer registered as sounds, and the sounds had meaning.

The air moves, and it comes to your ear. Its movement tells a story, just as yours does. The elephant crossed its arms. This is the face by which the people of this land know Me.

What face do You have for us? Or have You abandoned us?

The elephant laughed. A striver, you are, like Abraham of old. Like the children of Israel who would challenge even Me. Let me show you another face, then.

And the figure standing before Ayo was different. A stocky man with gray hair and facial scars, dressed in a white robe and white cap. The Liberator.

Only a great one, then? I’ve come here only for that? This isn’t the dance to invoke him.

You seek liberation, do you not? Maybe all who dance with that in mind invoke the Liberator. But no, you have not invoked him. I am not him, although he sought Me. He is only the face I show to you, because I have none of my own.

Ayo looked back at the Liberator, or God… or was the shadow before him merely the fever-dream of a soldier who had been too long at war? If you are He, then, tell me. Tell me if we are fighting for truth. Tell me who we have become.

The shadow regarded him evenly – it was still in front of him, but it seemed to have engulfed everything and everyone. That, child of Israel, is something that your people must find out… together.

Ayo opened his eyes – he hadn’t realized they were closed – and the figure was gone. He looked east, listening, but the world was silent again and the moving wind told no stories.

 

[St. Just]

Deep update.

 

[Hnau]

And so another piece falls into place. Now we know why Argentina hasn't tried to reconquer Entre Rios up to now (or, alternatively, why its attempt at reconquest failed) - because Piratini would fight on Entre Rios' side. And that also means that if the British want to sacrifice Entre Rios in order to get the Argentines into their column, that could cause trouble with Piratini. This, in turn, could lead to other complications, because there are probably thousands of volunteers from Piratini fighting in the Italian army, and Britain wouldn't want to provoke them into going home. And if, as Admiral Matt says, throwing Uruguay under the bus would be a step too far, throwing Piratini there would also be.

The more I hear about this, the more I wonder if the politics are just too complicated - maybe Britain will throw up its hands and let the southern republics fight their own private war. But the prospect of Argentina opening up a second front against Brazil and relieving the pressure on Grão Pará must still be very tempting. I'm going to have to think about this a bit.

Well, I apologize if I threw off your momentum in any way. Remember, there is always the possibility that a political leader in Piratini could turn against the will of the people and throw Entre Rios under the bus in return for, say, British subsidies for industries the leader has invested in. The British could then say: "Hey, Argentina, we helped you get Entre Rios, now join that military pact with Paraguay and attack Brazil for even greater glory!" The maximum gains I see possible for Argentina in a war with Brazil would be a sliver of western Parana along the Parana River, which would be awkward as modern India's eastern territories and not hugely rewarding but it would lead to Argentina dealing with that inferiority complex. Paraguay, of course, could probably take the southern half of modern Mato Grosso do Sul but it would be a slog even with Argentinian assistance, as Admiral Matt suggested. I'm not as pessimistic as he is though. It's true that the terrain is not the best for a military campaign, but marching through the area of Mato Grosso do Sul adjacent to the Parana River would be not much different than marching through Parana or western Sao Paulo. I can delineate some areas on Google Maps to give you a better picture if you need me to.

To do all this, though, the British would have to play a fantastic diplomatic game.

 

[Falecius]

Well, I apologize if I threw off your momentum in any way. Remember, there is always the possibility that a political leader in Piratini could turn against the will of the people and throw Entre Rios under the bus in return for, say, British subsidies for industries the leader has invested in. The British could then say: "Hey, Argentina, we helped you get Entre Rios, now join that military pact with Paraguay and attack Brazil for even greater glory!" The maximum gains I see possible for Argentina in a war with Brazil would be a sliver of western Parana along the Parana River, which would be awkward as modern India's eastern territories and not hugely rewarding but it would lead to Argentina dealing with that inferiority complex. Paraguay, of course, could probably take the southern half of modern Mato Grosso do Sul but it would be a slog even with Argentinian assistance, as Admiral Matt suggested. I'm not as pessimistic as he is though. It's true that the terrain is not the best for a military campaign, but marching through the area of Mato Grosso do Sul adjacent to the Parana River would be not much different than marching through Parana or western Sao Paulo. I can delineate some areas on Google Maps to give you a better picture if you need me to.

To do all this, though, the British would have to play a fantastic diplomatic game.

Doubt it'll work. As it is, Piratini is the biggest partner of fairly cohesive regional bloc of the northern Plata which is also the Italian proxy/ally in the continent, as a whole (Piratini is the center of Italian influence, sure, but there'll be plenty of Italians in both Uruguay and Entre Rios, too... and less Syrians to balance things relative to OTL; they represent the closest approximation Italy has to a colonial empire, though not quite the same). These three countries have a somewhat shared culture, strong common interests both political and economical, and a not irrelevant European backer. Yeah, currently Italy has much more pressing things to worry about than South America; I expect she keeps a considerable diplomatic clout in the area, but OTOH, it's not like they can back it with military force if things go south there. I suppose that throwing any of the Platine republics under the bus to secure Argentinian support would piss off Italy ROYALL anyway. And London would be more concerned abou Rome's opinion than Buenos Aires's I think. Italy is already a key ally (arguably, even if they aren't doing that well, they're sucking enemy strength enough that could be otherwise be used to overwhelm North Germany) and keeping them in the war is quite high priority. Argentina is a useful potential ally and nothing more.
Of course, I don't think Italy would exit the war over Uruguay or Entre Rios (though she might over Piratini, that's Garibaldi's country after all) but protests will be very loud and relationship would be considerably strained.

 

[Falecius]

By the way, IOTL Italy has also a quite long history of cultural relationship with Paraguay (though not much immigration there). A considerable number of Jesuit missionaries in the Reducciones were Italians, including the composer Domenico Zipoli, who wrote the music of the first Guarani hymns and started quite a musical tradition in the area which IIRC continues to this day. Also, the history of the missions was made known in Europe largely through the work of the Italian Enlightenment scholar Ludovico Muratori.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Hmmm. The Paraguayans could always join an Argentine-led expeditionary force, and they have a good riverine navy that could be of use in Grão Pará, but both of those could pose command and logistics issues (the latter especially, given that it would be a non-trivial problem to get the Paraguayan river gunboats to the Amazon basin). So, yes, Britain's main interest in Paraguay would be to keep it from jumping Argentina while the latter is committed in Brazil, and to secure its industrial capacity for supporting the Argentine war effort. Which still requires an assurance that Argentina won't attack Paraguay either now or when the battle against Brazil is over.

Indeed.

And so another piece falls into place. Now we know why Argentina hasn't tried to reconquer Entre Rios up to now (or, alternatively, why its attempt at reconquest failed) - because Piratini would fight on Entre Rios' side. And that also means that if the British want to sacrifice Entre Rios in order to get the Argentines into their column, that could cause trouble with Piratini. This, in turn, could lead to other complications, because there are probably thousands of volunteers from Piratini fighting in the Italian army, and Britain wouldn't want to provoke them into going home. And if, as Admiral Matt says, throwing Uruguay under the bus would be a step too far, throwing Piratini there would also be.

The more I hear about this, the more I wonder if the politics are just too complicated - maybe Britain will throw up its hands and let the southern republics fight their own private war. But the prospect of Argentina opening up a second front against Brazil and relieving the pressure on Grão Pará must still be very tempting. I'm going to have to think about this a bit.

An alliance like that would be a very smart idea, but I'd be mildly surprised if there was one. It's the kind of high-minded diplomacy South America historically badly lacked. That said, it'd only take two men to make it happen, providing they're both true statesmen with firm positions in power. And even without an alliance Piritini might well be willing to defend the Riverlanders with Brazil so thoroughly occupied.

Certainly, nobody in Lisbon wants to get in a war with the BOGs. But the way things are going, an incident could easily happen in the field - for instance, a frustrated colonial governor might attack an "arms shipment" that turns out to be an ordinary North German supply train - and if so, the adults will have their hands full trying to keep things from spinning out of control.

There are other possibilities too - if the BOGs play their cards right, they might be able to get Portugal to come in on their side in exchange for help conquering Katanga. Of course, that would require the BOGs (which, in practical terms, means Britain) to take on another significant commitment at a time when they're already spread very thin.

I'm actually not sure how that particular situation will play out, but by the time I get there, sometime partway through year three, I should know.

In any event, the next update will be a literary one, to tide you over until I've finished figuring out Argentina.

I recall that the British actually spent quite a bit of effort trying to prevent Portugal from joining their side during the OTL Great War. Circumstances are different here, but what remains unchanged is the Portuguese empire - more loot than strength.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Of course, I don't think Italy would exit the war over Uruguay or Entre Rios (though she might over Piratini, that's Garibaldi's country after all) but protests will be very loud and relationship would be considerably strained.

You think?

From what'd been said it sounded like that relationship was still forming and to be built substantially upon the memory of this war. But that aside, no conceivable Italian government could survive abandoning the war over a country in South America. On what basis? The few thousand Italians living in it and a short chapter in Garibaldi's autobiography?

 

[Falecius]

You think?

From what'd been said it sounded like that relationship was still forming and to be built substantially upon the memory of this war. But that aside, no conceivable Italian government could survive abandoning the war over a country in South America. On what basis? The few thousand Italians living in it and a short chapter in Garibaldi's autobiography?

It was discussed that the relationship is significantly deeper. However, Italy has surely bigger concerns than South America, I grant that.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Argentina: Given the political considerations that all of you have explained, I suspect that Britain's diplomatic focus thus far may have been to prevent the Argentines from going to war too early. Argentina would have wanted to grab Entre Rios as soon as Brazil became involved in Grão Pará, but that wouldn't serve British interests, because Piratini and Paraguay would jump in and they'd all be too distracted to help the BOGs later on. So up to now, the British minister in Buenos Aires would be using every stick and carrot at his disposal to convince Argentina to hold its fire.

Now, though, is crunch time. Matters have reached the point where Britain can credibly say that the tide is turning, or at least that the Franco-Brazilian advance has stalled, and that Argentina wouldn't be joining a lost cause if it entered the war. But for that to happen, the British will have to meet Buenos Aires' demands, which will include a free hand to annex Entre Rios, while simultaneously persuading Paraguay and Piratini to go along with the annexation. And there will also be Italian political consequences to consider - Italy probably wouldn't bail out of the war over South America, but it might become very cool to any further BOG requests for offensive action.

It's going to take months of diplomacy, at least, to square that circle - and heaven forbid if any British promises concerning Entre Rios get leaked before the negotiations are complete. I think the status quo at the end of year two will be that highly sensitive talks are in progress, and that the talks will either come to fruition or blow up in London's face fairly early in year three. I suspect a great deal will depend on exactly who is representing Britain in Argentina.

BTW, I hadn't realized that Italy had such a close relationship with Paraguay. I suspect it will be even closer in TTL, given that it will be part of a bloc of Italian-influenced republics, and that there might be a somewhat greater Italian cultural and religious presence or even more immigration.

Portugal: I think the BOGs might be a bit more eager to get them in the war than the Allies in OTL - the Portuguese are still weak, but they're strategically placed. A Portuguese attack north from Angola could threaten French Congo and Gabon, and force the French to call off their offensives from those colonies into Kamerun and Ubangi-Shari. Portugal could also help the British stabilize the Omani empire and subdue the Congo. The question is whether the BOGs are willing to do what it takes to bring Portugal on-side (i.e., whether an Anglo-German commitment in Katanga would cost more in troops and resources than Portugal could bring to the table), and whether things spin out of control before then.

Another thing the Portuguese could do, BTW, is give covert support to one of the contenders for the Omani throne, or offer an Omani prince the throne of the Yeke kingdom if he helps them conquer it. There are a lot of princes looking for patrons, and this is something Portugal might be able to pull off without ending up at war with the BOGs.

And thanks, Massa Chief - does anyone else have any thoughts on the story?

 

[Faeelin]

Ayo looked back at the Liberator, or God… or was the shadow before him merely the fever-dream of a soldier who had been too long at war? If you are He, then, tell me. Tell me if we are fighting for truth. Tell me who we have become.

This sounds considerably more jaded than Ibrahim seemed during his pieces. Is something going to change?

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

This sounds considerably more jaded than Ibrahim seemed during his pieces. Is something going to change?

As mentioned, Ibrahim tends to be idealistic and visionary when writing about spirituality and cynical when writing about war. When he writes about both at once, the mix of tones is complicated.

He's basically cheerful, but he's seen a lot of people die, get maimed or break down from shellshock, and he'll see worse on the Northwest Frontier. He comes from a nation with a recent history of oppression. And his father was prime minister of Ilorin for twenty years, so knows very well that the reasons for war are never as straightforward and honorable as the soldiers are told. He's too aware of these things to regard war as a glorious adventure, although as we've seen, he can find adventure within it.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Diane Carroll, Wartime Politics of the Great Powers (Dublin: Trinity, 1975)

​

… Where urban Russians faced conscription of their young men, peasants faced conscription of entire families. The men of military age were drafted into the army, women and men too old to fight were sent to the factories, and the children and old people tagged along to the growing camp-cities that were set up to house the labor conscripts. By the spring of 1895, some 1.5 to 2 million peasants had been put to work mining, logging or building war materiel – enough that some rural governors openly worried about whether there would be enough people to get the harvest in.

The labor conscripts worked for a soldier’s pay, with meager food and shelter provided by the government. They were also under military discipline, which meant in theory that labor organization was treated as insubordination, leaving a job was desertion, and any strikes or slowdowns were considered sabotage. In fact, the full rigor of the military regime applied only in the most critical factories. In the others, it was common for employers to offer illegal “sweeteners” of cash or goods as an incentive for hard work – although these were still low enough to drive down industrial wages as a whole – and to tolerate a certain amount of organization lest they otherwise have to shoot their entire work force. Labor actions that were too confrontational were dealt with harshly, especially if they had revolutionary overtones, but many employers and managers would resolve low-key grievances informally rather than reporting them to the authorities.

Russian trade unionists thus found themselves on a tightrope: they had to judge carefully between activities that would secure benefits for their members and those that would get them sent to Siberia or stood in front of a firing squad. This led to a sort of natural selection that favored the narodnik methods of organization that the peasants had brought with them from the countryside over the Marxists and anarchists of the cities. The urban unionists had greeted the labor draft with calls for strikes and outright sabotage, which landed many of their leaders in the dock for treason. The narodniks, on the other hand, organized around issues that were theoretically apolitical, such as working hours and safety, and – given that they saw the industrialists as opponents of the moment rather than permanent class enemies – were more willing to use cooperative forms of conflict resolution.

The marriage between the narodniks and the Marxists wasn’t always, or even often, a happy one: the urban workers resented the way the peasant draftees had depressed their wages, the peasants considered the urban unions to be high-handed and condescending, and each thought the other politically unreliable. The struggle between the peasants and workers for control of the trade unions led to fights and sometimes deaths. But over time, each learned from the other, with the Marxists and anarchists seeing the advantages of narodnik methods of organization, and raising the peasants’ revolutionary consciousness in their own turn. And the sharing of revolutionary ideas would go both ways: the peasants drafted for factory work included Buddhist Kalmyks and Muslim Tatars, and some of the latter brought with them the ideas of Şinasi and Abacar. Russia’s understanding of working-class politics, and even of who belonged to the working class, was changing…

… In the winter of 1894-95, the Tsar decreed military conscription at an unprecedented level in order to raise a new army for the planned spring offensives. This, in turn, drove draft resistance to unprecedented levels. By this time, despite military censorship, the people had heard of the horrors of trench warfare, and knew that even the carnage of the War of the Balkan Alliance paled in comparison to the fighting in West Prussia and Posen. Entire peasant villages were mysteriously absent when the recruiters came, and men of military age were nowhere to be found.

The Tsar’s court responded predictably – it remembered the way rebellions against the draft had forced it out of the last war, and was determined to nip any renewed resistance in the bud. The Russian army unleashed a campaign of terror: several villages that dodged conscription were singled out as examples and massacred, and impromptu military courts shot anyone who showed the slightest sign of disaffection. This had its desired effect among the peasants, with the terror leaving them at least temporarily cowed. But the extension of the draft to the Kazan Tatars and Kazakhs would have different results.

The flashpoint would prove to be Abay Qunanbaiuli’s January 1895 arrival in St. Petersburg to warn the government that Central Asia was on the verge of open rebellion. His first meetings, with bureaucrats and military officers who were familiar with the Central Asian peoples, actually met with some success: Abay was promised a six-month deferral of conscription in exchange for livestock, milk and a reduced number of volunteers. But word of this deal made the ultra-nationalist faction livid, and they arranged for Abay’s arrest on charges of sedition. Even they were careful not to charge the Kazakh teacher with anything that carried the death sentence – which there was no evidence for in any event – but in March, as the Tsar’s newly raised armies marched west and south, he was sentenced to exile in Yakutsk…

​

… In the Ottoman Empire, civilian morale was generally holding out. Although the empire was on the defensive and several provinces remained under enemy occupation, its core was not in immediate danger, and the people were proud of the fight the army was putting up against heavy odds. On the margins, however, the situation wasn’t nearly as secure, and the border populations that had always been discontented with Ottoman rule were becoming more so.

The Russian colonel, Valentin Mikoyan, was first to exploit this discontent, raising armies among the Za’idi clans of Yemen and the Bedouins of the Nejd to support his campaigns in Aden and Oman. His appeal to the Bedouin recruits, curiously enough, was as much religious as political. Many of the Nejd clans had by this time adopted a Wahhabi-inflected form of Belloism – or possibly a Belloist flavor of Wahhabism – and saw themselves as politically independent communes and the empire as being in the grip of dangerous religious innovation. Although they still accepted the Sultan as religious overlord, they believed that the Ottoman ulema had become corrupt, and Mikoyan – who, virtually alone among Tsarist officers, tried to understand the enemy cultures – was able to recruit them to fight the Ottoman Empire in the name of purifying it.

Such ideas had little purchase in the cities or among settled rural Arabs, most of whom were content enough with Ottoman rule. But the cities had discontents of their own, brought on by wartime industrial growth and its attendant labor migration. The urban trade unions were increasingly numerous, and their members had lost patience with both the ruling conservative faction and the paternalist-liberal opposition. Many of them had supported more radically democratic parties in the prewar elections, and they had sent observers to the Fourth Labor Shura in Ilorin where a Belloist version of labor organization became ascendant. In January 1895, the unions of Stamboul and the growing industrial cities of northwest Anatolia submitted a joint platform to the Porte, demanding that their contributions to the war effort be recognized by allowing universal suffrage and incorporating the labor jurisprudence of the Ilorin and Sokoto qadis into Ottoman law. With the Sultan, as always, acting as arbiter, the unions and the government entered upon difficult negotiations concerning their postwar relationship.

Another group of Ottoman citizens who were discovering a newfound sense of independence were those in besieged “pockets” behind enemy lines, both in the Balkans and the Caucasus. These were an eclectic mix of ultra-conservative hill clans who defied the Austrians and Russians due to their territories difficult terrain, and urban merchants and craftsmen who formed self-defense militias in besieged cities. The latter included what would later become known as the “Sarajevo Commune,” in which a quasi-democratic assembly of notables organized a militia and took control of the Bosnian city after the Ottoman army was forced to evacuate. The commune was notable for its Abacarist political organization, in which meetings of the city assembly were held in public and all citizens had the right to speak before a decision was taken, and for the relative harmony that prevailed between Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Serbs and Jews. It was in towns like Sarajevo, and in the industrial cities, that a bottom-up liberalism was emerging to challenge the top-down politics that had prevailed during the early parliamentary era…

… Morale in the core areas of Austria-Hungary likewise remained steady during the second year, notwithstanding the defeats in Bohemia and the Balkans. There was some grumbling among the Hungarians that the Honvéd was bearing the brunt of the fighting – usually by those who had boasted the loudest when the same army was winning – but this did not yet reach the level of serious disaffection. More dangerous were the complaints among Austrians that the Hungarian army was to blame for the defeats – complaints which often centered on the large number of Jewish officers in that force – but this too had not yet gone beyond the level of background noise.

Along the margins of the empire, in regions populated by minorities, the situation was very different. Bohemia, Galicia, South Tyrol and the Slovak regions of the Hungarian kingdom were under martial law, and the military authorities enforced conscription strictly and responded harshly to any objections. The civilian governments in these regions were suspended, and although they retained their representation in the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, their deputies’ immunity was construed very narrowly, and several deputies who complained about the army’s measures were expelled and arrested for sedition.

With political avenues of redress largely closed, the minorities turned increasingly to passive resistance, and in some cases, began to rethink their allegiance to the empire. This tendency was strongest in Bohemia, where Wilhelm II had promised the Czech nationalists a client kingdom. The nationalists were split on this offer, because it did not include the Sudetenland, but by early 1895, a large minority of them had come around to thinking that independence within a reduced territory was better than repression and martial law.

The Poles were in a tougher spot, because Wilhelm – who had his own restive Polish population to deal with – was unwilling to make concessions similar to what he had promised to the Czechs. Poland, as always, was on its own, and in recognition of that fact, the Galician Polish leadership had begun to meet with their nationalist counterparts behind Russian lines…

*******​

Didier De Clerck, “The Neutrals,” from Essays on the Great War (London: Astoria, 1993)

​

… The second year of the war was a difficult one for the Netherlands. Holland was able to remain formally neutral, although it leaned heavily toward the North German Confederation and a great deal of its industrial production went to serve German wartime needs. At the same time, it had to keep its borders under heavy guard lest France be tempted to violate its neutrality, especially after Belgium granted transit rights to the French army. This required it to recall many of the troops stationed in the Dutch East Indies and even some of the colonial auxiliaries.

The Javanese – especially the santri class, which was the center of discontent with Dutch rule [1] – were well aware of the weakened Dutch position, as were the vassal kingdoms on Borneo and Sulawesi, which were smarting from the prewar punitive expeditions. Under the circumstances, every skirmish between Dutch troops and the outlying sultanates’ armies had the potential to be explosive, and in October 1894, an explosion did in fact occur.

The Boni sultanate on Sulawesi, in which the Abacarist preacher Raden Mas Abdul Gani Diponegoro was influential [2], had been under serious pressure before the war from Dutch authorities who wanted to prevent its influence from spreading through the maritime network of the Bugis people. When war broke out, the Dutch sought to compensate for their reduced local strength by isolating Boni, interdicting its shipping and moving in to control traffic through border towns. The Sultan’s army attempted to dislodge the Dutch, who responded by mounting an expedition toward Boni’s capital. But this expedition had too few men to do the job – or, possibly, the Dutch army had too few men to send – and the Sultan was fighting on his own territory. By January 1895, the Dutch were retreating in disarray, and by February, the Bugis had turned the tables and put the fortress of Makassar under siege.

News of the defeat on Sulawesi galvanized the Javanese, who had hitherto been quiet, and some called for open rebellion. The majority of the santri and the Hadhrami merchant class, however, decided to follow the example of the All-India Reform Congress and demand reforms as the price of their continued tolerance of Dutch rule. In March, a council of santri leaders met in Batavia to begin preparing a list of demands.

The Dutch colonial administration reacted to these developments with a predictable panic, and they also prompted hard feelings between the Dutch government and the BOG alliance. Many Dutchmen blamed the British and North Germans for putting the Netherlands in a position where it had to weaken its colonial forces, and it also blamed Britain for recruiting exiled East Indian nationalists rather than handing them over to Dutch authorities. Nazir Ali Hydari’s seizure of the Society Islands on behalf of Queen Victoria, with an army made up heavily of Javanese, was a particular source of tension, with the Dutch fearing that Tahiti would become a rallying point (albeit a distant one) for nationalism. And as for the Ottomans, who had supported Aceh against Dutch rule and to whom many Javanese looked for religious inspiration, the less said the better.

There was no open rift, because the Dutch realized that they had no real choice but to remain friendly with the Anglo-German alliance. But they made clear to the British and Germans that continued friendship after the war would depend on how much help they were given in regaining control of their restive colony…

​

… Two neutral countries on opposite sides of the world – Japan and Argentina – were partners in a relentless British diplomatic dance aimed at persuading them to join the war. If Japan attacked Korea, the Russians would have to defend it or face being deprived of a friendly neutral trade route, and if Argentina attacked Brazil, that country would have to divert troops from the Grão Pará theater. But in both cases, these efforts were complicated by local politics.

The Japanese court of the time – the weak legislature’s powers were confined to domestic matters – was closely divided between the militarist faction, which favored aggressive expansion via conquest, and a rival faction that preferred to broaden Japanese influence through diplomacy and economic power. The militarists’ next target was Korea, and the prospect of Anglo-German help in its conquest was a powerful temptation. But the pro-diplomacy faction was uncertain that Japan was ready to take on Russia, even in a distracted state. They believed that Japan needed more time to consolidate its gains in Formosa and extricate itself from the desultory war along the Chinese coast, and argued that it should improve its position in Korea by developing Japanese economic interests there and giving aid to pro-Japanese Korean nobles.

In South America, the sticking point was the small gaucho republic of Entre Rios, which had broken away during the Platine Wars and which Argentina considered part of its historic territory. Any invasion of Entre Rios would, however, trigger intervention by Piratini, which was a fellow gaucho state and a close ally, and Paraguay, which feared rightly that it would be the next target if Entre Rios fell. For the first eighteen months of the war, Britain had been occupied with restraining Argentina, lest a regional war break out that would prevent all the Southern Cone countries from entering the larger conflict on the British side. But by the latter half of 1894, the Anglo-German position in Grão Pará had stabilized and even showed signs of improving, and matters had reached the point where Britain could credibly ask for Argentine aid. Its diplomacy now shifted toward squaring the circle of regional politics, looking for a way that Argentina could absorb Entre Rios without provoking Paraguay or Piratini – or for that matter Italy, which had close cultural ties to all the Southern Cone republics.

As the second year of war ended, the negotiations at both ends of the world were ongoing, with many points of contention still to be ironed out. During the third year, several of these contentious points would prove fateful…

… The United States was the largest and strongest power not involved in the war, and the majority of Americans were happy to keep things that way: they weren’t dying in European trenches, and they were making money trading with both alliances. An increasingly vocal minority called for American entry into the war, however, and the flashpoints were Grão Pará and Hawaii, both of which had deep-seated, and newly threatened, American interests.

During the early stages of the war, both the Anglo-German and Franco-Brazilian forces in Grão Pará had avoided attacking neutral rubber plantations, and had allowed neutral shipping to navigate the Amazon unmolested. Now, however, the Grão Pará government – which by this time was a puppet of the British and North German military command – had concluded an alliance with the quilombos and the rebel Army of Angelim, neither of which had scrupled to attack rubber plantations in the past. Their deal with the government called for them to halt such attacks, but their discipline was loose and raids sometimes continued. Moreover, the treaty of alliance required Grão Pará to enact land reform and progressive labor legislation, both of which affected the American-owned rubber concerns.

In Hawaii, the American missionaries and whalers of the early nineteenth century had been the thin end of a wedge of commercial interests which, by the 1880s, controlled most of the economy and exerted a strong influence on politics. The Americans had pushed through a constitution that sidelined the Hawaiian monarchy and gave them effective control of the legislature. But as Hawaii became a flashpoint in the Pacific naval war, both France and Britain began to court its government – and although both dealt with American interests respectfully, they also offered the monarchy an alternative base of support that it might use to regain its position.

Both the rubber barons and the Americo-Hawaiians had the ear of influential people: lurid atrocity stories began to circulate in the yellow press, and Congressmen from both parties began to wonder if the United States should act to protect its interests abroad. To be sure, they were divided as to which side to join: American cultural sympathies lay with the BOG alliance, but the Anglo-German-backed government in Grão Pará was the greatest threat to the United States’ commercial interests. A few argued that the United States should enter the war as a side in its own right, securing its Amazonian and Hawaiian interests against both alliances while staying out of the theaters where American assets were not at stake.

Those clamoring for war were still a distinct minority in early 1895, but they spoke loudly enough that the anti-war faction believed that an organized peace campaign was necessary. The first meeting of the American League for Peace took place in early March at the Manhattan home of its founder, Theodore Roosevelt. The meeting brought together an eclectic collection of politicians, businessmen, journalists and writers from both major parties and all parts of the country, famously including both Harriet Tubman, the director of the South Carolina Freedmen’s Circles, and Rebecca Latimer Felton, the white-supremacist Georgia progressive. Both women, and others such as Missouri journalist Samuel Clemens, would put their stamp on the peace movement during the coming year…

___

[1] See post 1310.

[2] See post 1310.

 

[Falecius]

snip

Damn interesting.

Some thoughts more about the South Cone situation.
In my opinion, the obvious course of action for Britain would be "Fuck Argentina". I mean, it's the group of states between Brazil and Argentina that is worth courting. It is made of four states: the three Gaucho Republics that are in an at least loose alliance dominated by Piratini, with overall Italian backing, and Paraguay, which is probably the strongest of the bunch, though no match for either Brazil or Argentina and thus forced to join the rest. I can imagine some squabbling between Piratini and Paraguay over hegemony and maybe borders in Entre Rios (where of course, both Brazil and especially Argentina are going to happily play). But in the end, all the parties involved realize that the only way to survive is to stick more or less together.
Over time, some sort of alliance has likely become close to a habit for all the four republics. This is not easy, I expect border bickering and foreign influences changing the balance continuously. An example is NATO, where all the powers where fairly coherent face to Soviet Union (with exceptions) but there was and there is constant lower level squabbling (think of Turkey and Greece as one of the most glaring examples). I expect the situation in the Platine "alliance" to be messier.
Italy, the distant patron of the whole thing, is likely to have given more than one arbitration on contentious issues. In this, the "alliance" has clearly two layers, with Piratini and Paraguay as the largest powers and Uruguay and Entre Rios as the underdogs.
I expect the relationship between Piratini and Paraguay to be structurally unbalanced, as Piratini is likely to dominate Uruguay; in Montevideo, Paraguay is forced to support Piratini's hegemony, lest Argentina (common rival) get the upper ground. Entre Rios is the place where Piratinian, Paraguayan and very likely Argentinian influence compete almost freely, except that even here, Piratini and Paraguay probably cooperate to some extent to keep Argentina at bay.
In all this, Italy has some clout and good relationship with everyone in the area, but it's clear that Piratini is the partner of choice in Turin.
The demographics of the area are interesting. IOTL, Italians were a large group of immigrants in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, together with Levantines (mostly Christians) and Germans. AFAIK, they were the largest group in Argentina and Uruguay, followed by Levantines, while in Southern Brazil there were more Germans. Little immigration went to Paraguay IIRC. I have not statistics for Entre Rios specifically, but the areas has attracted a lot of people from my home area at least. A lot of families I know here have some story about relatives in Argentina, and most relate to Entre Rios or the immediately opposite side of the Parana River. ITTL, it will be different, in way that encourage a leaning of the Platine republics to the BOG side I guess...

 

[Hnau]

Highly plausible, in my opinion! Marxists and narodniks joining together in solidarity, Muslim revolts in Kazan and Central Asia, Indonesian revolts against the Dutch, Japanese wavering on getting involved, diplomatic games among the gauchos of the Southern Cone, it all seems to progress in a way I imagine it would. I wish I knew more about Austria-Hungary to be able to give my opinion on the plausibility there.

Still, this is only the second year of the war that is wrapping up, the equivalent of mid-1916. It is bound to get much worse if the equivalent of 1917 and then 1918 is approaching... Due to military technology not being as advanced and with American involvement looking even more unlikely, the war will probably stretch on longer than it did in our timeline, so things could get much crazier here than they did in ours. I have a feeling things are going to get quite apocalyptic.

Interesting how some Americans were proposing entering as a third side. Now wouldn't that be interesting? Three-sided war on this kind of a scale would be an allohistorical oddity. But, I wouldn't wish even more suffering on this world. I suspect Roosevelt, Tubman and Twain will accomplish what they set out to do. If there isn't another war coming shortly thereafter, the United States will go down as a country that has never experienced large-scale industrialized warfare (Civil War doesn't count! even though it does). I wonder what effect that will have on culture.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Some thoughts more about the South Cone situation. In my opinion, the obvious course of action for Britain would be "Fuck Argentina". I mean, it's the group of states between Brazil and Argentina that is worth courting.

That may well be so - however, Argentina is Britain's traditional partner in the region and it has the largest army, so both history and simplistic military thinking will favor Argentina. My gut feeling is that the British will court Argentina first, and possibly turn to the gaucho republics and Paraguay if their Argentine diplomacy fails, but by then the train may have left the station.

Over time, some sort of alliance has likely become close to a habit for all the four republics. This is not easy, I expect border bickering and foreign influences changing the balance continuously. An example is NATO, where all the powers where fairly coherent face to Soviet Union (with exceptions) but there was and there is constant lower level squabbling (think of Turkey and Greece as one of the most glaring examples). I expect the situation in the Platine "alliance" to be messier.

This sounds right - the four republics are between two much larger countries, and once Argentina coalesces into a real state, they'll have to hang together or hang separately. There would be lots of intrigue, with all the republics looking for Argentine, Brazilian or European backing in their internal squabbles, but under most circumstances, they'd join together against an external threat.

Upon checking what I've written about the region in the past, it seems that all four were indeed on the same side in the Second Platine War, in which they fought alongside Brazil against Rosas. In the Third Platine War, Paraguay and Entre Rios were on opposite sides, but Argentina was in chaos at the time and Brazil was facing rebellion, so the republics in between were essentially taking sides in the regional powers' civil wars. Since the end of the Third Platine War, I'd imagine that the situation has reverted to the more usual informal alliance between the four.

Italy, the distant patron of the whole thing, is likely to have given more than one arbitration on contentious issues. In this, the "alliance" has clearly two layers, with Piratini and Paraguay as the largest powers and Uruguay and Entre Rios as the underdogs.

How would this have worked before the Risorgimento? Certainly, once a unified Italian state came into being, it would be the natural European arbiter, especially on matters where neither the Argentines nor the Brazilians can be trusted.

What you say about the relative balance of power between the four republics, and their respective relationships with Italy, seems on the mark.

The demographics of the area are interesting. IOTL, Italians were a large group of immigrants in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, together with Levantines (mostly Christians) and Germans. AFAIK, they were the largest group in Argentina and Uruguay, followed by Levantines, while in Southern Brazil there were more Germans. Little immigration went to Paraguay IIRC.

Every Uruguayan I know, and all but one of the Argentines, has an Italian family name (as does the Argentine Pope!). From what I understand, the cultures of the two nations, and especially Uruguay, are as much Italian as they are Spanish. I assume Piratini and Entre Rios would be similar, although Piratini would have more of a German flavor, while Paraguay would be a Spanish/Guarani republic with some Germans (no Mennonites yet) and a light Italian cultural influence via interaction with the other countries in the region.

Interesting how some Americans were proposing entering as a third side. Now wouldn't that be interesting? Three-sided war on this kind of a scale would be an allohistorical oddity. But, I wouldn't wish even more suffering on this world. I suspect Roosevelt, Tubman and Twain will accomplish what they set out to do. If there isn't another war coming shortly thereafter, the United States will go down as a country that has never experienced large-scale industrialized warfare (Civil War doesn't count! even though it does). I wonder what effect that will have on culture.

Joining as a third side would be one of those things that seems like a good idea at the time - "let's kick them both out of the Amazon and Hawaii, and they're too busy with each other to mess with us elsewhere, right? Right?" In practice, it wouldn't be very good for anyone.

I imagine that if the United States doesn't participate, it will come out of the war very rich and very resented, and that both of these will tend to reinforce American isolationism. Of course, there are subsets of the United States with more of an interest in the outside world, and they're already conducting some freelance foreign policy (you'll see some of it in year three), so there will always be cracks in the isolationist facade.

The second half of the war - and especially the last year - will, as you say, be apocalyptic. On tap for year three: high times in Central Asia, things going to hell big time in the Indian princely states, Italy under siege, intrigue and turmoil in Tehran, the Omani civil war and its spillover in southern Africa, the further wanderings of the lost Hungarian battalion, the Battle of Bornu and more.

(And I'll be childish and ask one more time if anyone has any thoughts on Ibrahim Abacar's story. I like doing the in-universe literary excerpts, and there are a few layers to that one. If no one has anything to say this time, I'll shut up and move on.)

 

[Neoteros]

(And I'll be childish and ask one more time if anyone has any thoughts on Ibrahim Abacar's story. I like doing the in-universe literary excerpts, and there are a few layers to that one. If no one has anything to say this time, I'll shut up and move on.)

It was a nice story, and I liked how his trip to South-East Asia influenced his literary work. If no one has nothing to say, it might be because your in-universe literary excerpts are perfect and there aren't flaws to point out.

As for the "history" part of your timeline, I don't understand why Italy seems to have so much influence over the gaucho republics. Is it because of cultural (since a whole fucking lot of Italians emigrated there) and historical (Garibaldi) ties?

 

[Falecius]

How would this have worked before the Risorgimento? Certainly, once a unified Italian state came into being, it would be the natural European arbiter, especially on matters where neither the Argentines nor the Brazilians can be trusted.

Every Uruguayan I know, and all but one of the Argentines, has an Italian family name (as does the Argentine Pope!). From what I understand, the cultures of the two nations, and especially Uruguay, are as much Italian as they are Spanish. I assume Piratini and Entre Rios would be similar, although Piratini would have more of a German flavor, while Paraguay would be a Spanish/Guarani republic with some Germans (no Mennonites yet) and a light Italian cultural influence via interaction with the other countries in the region.

Well, as discussed previously, Piratini is likely to be a safe haven for Italian patriots before unification.
To a lesser extent, several South American states played that role IOTL, especially Uruguay IIRC.
However, I can't see any Italian pre-unification state having any significant political clout in South America, if not in the form of protesting with local states about extradition of seditious elements. After unification, I think relationship will be considerably warmer.
A point to be considered is whether Italy would have been involved in the last Platine wars, on whichever side Piratini supported. I think most likely not militarily, if not maaaayyybe in the form of volunteers.


Nowadays in the Italian parliament has representatives elected in South America. Almost invariably, some of them come from Argentina and Uruguay; a couple of them had their fifteen minutes of celebrity in Italian politics in recent years. And this only about those South Americans that have kept Italian citizenship. In Brazil, an Italian vernacular has come to be officially recognized (in Sao Paulo IIRC). I am not sure of the total number of Argentines and Uruguayans with Italian ancestry, but according to Wikipedia they are majority in both countries. This will be probably lessened a bit in Argentina and strengthened in Uruguay and Entre Rios ITTL.
OTOH, I expect a very large amount of Poles, much more than OTL, coming to the Cone. This might prove very influential in the cultural makeup of the Alt-South America.

 

[Falecius]

As for the "history" part of your timeline, I don't understand why Italy seems to have so much influence over the gaucho republics. Is it because of cultural (since a whole fucking lot of Italians emigrated there) and historical (Garibaldi) ties?

Basically yes.

And since I've been a bit insistent on this point in my comments, I apologise. To summarise, I suggested that the role of Garibaldi in helping securing Piratini's indepence first, and Italian unification later, would lead to building stronger bonds than IOTL.
In our universe, while there was really A LOT of Italians going to the Cone from the unification up to the sixties, Italy never showed a great deal of interest in the area, except when it comes to soccer (Messi is very probably an Italian surname by the way, as obviously is Bergoglio).
I was shocked to discover in 2010 that we had not an Italian Cultural Institute in Asuncion, for example.

 

[The Sandman]

The literary interlude was interesting for what it seemed to say about Ibrahim's religious views; acknowledging what seems to be a Hindu-influenced deity as a local interpretation of the true God rather than as pagan nonsense is a noticeable departure from the standard monotheistic attitude towards such things.

I also wonder if this was a thinly-veiled version of Angkor that his characters were wandering through; more and earlier exploration of that civilization should be interesting.

The mention of a dance troupe in Ilorin as early as 1901 is also interesting, given that such an institution requires enough of a well-off population to both patronize it and to support the construction of the necessary bits of architecture, as well as there being the infrastructure to train and maintain the dancers. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything similar arising in any OTL colony/protectorate that wasn't built by and for the European colonizers, so a colony having major cultural institutions of its own might have a substantial impact ITTL.

Two other literary interludes that might be interesting to see would be another Flashman interlude (seeing as how the OTL version of the character was, IIRC, dead by the time of the OTL Great War) and a Mark Twain piece.

As for the United States getting pulled into the war, a grab for the Spanish colonies seems a distinct possibility. The OTL desire to seize Cuba and the Philippines should still be there, the OTL rebellions against the Spanish are probably still occurring and thus providing a fig leaf of justification for the attack, and depending on just what Spain's relations with the BOG and the FAR look like at the time it could end with the war expanding despite US intentions to keep it limited.