Malê Rising

[Falecius]

British India borders Persia....and it is sort of their lifeline to Central Asia...

Persia borders the really useless part of British India, and Central Asia is useful to annoy the Russians mostly. However, I admit that Persia can turn into a major headache for Britain.

EDIT: thinking about it, is Baluchistan part of British India ITTL?

 

[Shevek23]

Persia borders the really useless part of British India, and Central Asia is useful to annoy the Russians mostly. However, I admit that Persia can turn into a major headache for Britain.

EDIT: thinking about it, is Baluchistan part of British India ITTL?

That strikes me as pretty important at the moment!

FWIW I read the post as saying the Ottoman and British agents in Teheran were both pretty much ready for a Russian-backed coup attempt and so I've been assuming when the dust settles, the pro-BOG regime--or anyway some kind of pro-BOG regime, even if it is a new one--remains standing. But obviously that's not a foregone conclusion and the conflict may be drawn-out and costly.

I don't think it matters how marginal Persia is to British interests, they aren't going to let the Russians have anything without giving them a fight over it. Well, they might let the Russians have a poison pill--Afghanistan, say, and welcome to it. But not Persia. If the Russians got hegemony over all of Persia they'd have access to the Persian Gulf; even if the country split into Russian and British spheres of influence the confrontation would be starker than ever.

The British can't afford to dispatch a huge army for a big showdown with the Tsarists--although if Persia turned into a big diversion that took the pressure off North Germany the Germans might be keen to have the British go ahead and tie down as many Russians as they could down there. But I suppose at the moment the British don't have a lot of force ready to send there, so it's a good thing the Tsar doesn't either. It's all proxy war.

At this stage--I don't know for sure which way Iranian sympathies would be leading. They hated and feared both the overbearing Christian superpowers who proposed to fight over whose doormat their once-proud little empire was.

ITTL though I think the Tsars have stuck their feet deeper into their mouths regarding the dignity of Muslim peoples. A very astute Russian agent, of the caliber of Mikoyan down in Yemen, might play the schismatic card and try to sell key Persians on the idea that Christian Russia's quarrels are all with Sunni Muslims but Shi'ite Muslims are totally cool as far as St. Petersburg sees it. That would be malarkey and anyone would see it, but a smarter Russian regime would give its agents on the south shore of the Caspian backup to demonstrate it is so, and perhaps over decades of really clever policy, a Russo-Iranian alliance might become reality--if the Russians are good enough to treat the Iranians with gratifying respect and scrupulousness.

Would I hold my breath for such sensitive, effective and fruitful policy coming from the Romanovs? No I would not! I think it would be a given that the Russian treatment of other Muslims would be what Iranians would expect is in store for them should the Russians gain the upper hand, and so on the whole when efforts to play both foreign Satans off against each other fall through, they will reluctantly turn to lining up with the British. Especially if the British are halfway astute. Perhaps they would be insincere in their promises, but at least the British would know the right promises to make, for what they are worth.

And ITTL, the British do have a track record of getting along fairly well with lots of Muslims. And if Persia can be held on the BOG side, they are safe from all their neighbors but Russia; the Ottomans and the British will be seeking their support. If Persia is an open pipeline to aid the Turkic rebels of central Asia--well, when the dust settles perhaps those peoples and lands will be Ottoman and Persia is that much more encircled, but could it be worse than having Russians there? And if the Central Asians are Ottoman-aligned, they must be preoccupied with holding off revanchiste Russian successor regimes from gobbling them up again; neither they nor Constantinople will have the luxury of trying to subjugate Shi'ite Persia. Better case--the Turkic peoples go off on their own and remember Persia as an ally rather than a nest of heretics.

So I think there's more than just spy versus spy to consider here; structurally the British are favored despite the many grievances Iranians have against them. The coup the Russians are backing will be a putsch and Persia will become, if not an open belligerent of the BOG side at least a very friendly neutral.

 

[Badshah]

Afghanistan is not going to be handed over to the Russians....I'd argue it's even more in the British interest to keep it under a light British hand than have it under Russian influence, more so than Persia....

But Persia in itself is important with regards to neutral ground, and as Shevek said, Central Asia....which is pretty important to the Turks, which means that it's in Britain's interest to please the Turks, at least.

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

In honor of your return:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGlY3ubGzUY.

(BTW, Roots will look different in TTL).

Thanks! The trip was amazing - my first time in Asia - and was also a look at a country that modernized largely on its own terms and picked and chose from Western culture as it wanted. It gave me some ideas for what TTL's twentieth century might look like in parts of the non-Western world - we already know that the Malê aren't strong enough to have that degree of freedom, but the Ottomans potentially are. Among other things, there might be some very selective romanization and some interesting twists on Western popular art forms (although of course in TTL that will go both ways).

Roots - well, TTL has, and will have, two distinct slave/freedman narratives: the Gullah and Geechee, who largely kept their language and culture, and everyone else. The Gullah will have more cultural importance than OTL due to their prominence in South Carolina politics, and the greater commerce with West Africa during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries will affect African-American perceptions of the mother continent. I expect that the Roots-type stories from lowland South Carolina will focus on the reunion with Sierra Leone, while those from elsewhere will focus on cultural loss (as with the OTL book) and continue with the families' rediscovery of Africa during the Jim Crow and civil rights periods.

As to the latest update; looks like Persia is in for some... interesting times. I would *not* want to be in Tehran when the Russians' duplicity is uncovered...

Oh man, things don't look good in Persia...

Persia is going to be ugly. Since we don't know how the two sides compare in strength, a civil war seems like the most likely option. That would seem to benefit the FARs, since the Ottomans are already stretched and a Persian civil war would probably demand at least an increase in strength along the border. Plus, shipping weapons through a civil war would probably be difficult.

The Ottomans might end up stretched much more thinner than they can afford to.

The Ottomans, true, but Britain will be stretched a lot more as well....perhaps to breaking point....how many more concessions can they make to their colonies, the way things are going?

Persia will be at least as much of a headache for the Russians as for the British and Ottomans. Russia wanted a clean coup; instead, it will get at best a civil war which will be an endless drain of money, materiel and possibly troops (which, at this point, they can't spare any more than the BOGs can). They need Persia just as much as the British do, both for defensive reasons (interdicting arms shipments to Central Asia and denying a refuge to southern Caucasian clansmen and feudalists who defy their rule) and offensive ones (opening a new front against the Ottomans and gaining a sea corridor to Oman and Yemen), so they'll have to commit resources they can ill afford to spend.

Overall, the traditionalists are stronger than the modernists; however, the modernists' strength is disproportionately concentrated in the cities, and control of the capital means something. Also, several provincial governors are aligned with the modernists, and some of the provinces they control are strategic, so there's no side with a clear advantage. The outcome may well depend on the majority of army officers and provincial officials who have no clear leaning toward either side, and the failure of the initial coup will be greeted with a flurry of bribery and mini-coups. It may end relatively quickly, if one side can secure the allegiance of the neutrals; on the other hand, it might not.

(BTW, the Russians' role in setting things off will be one of the great historical controversies of the early twentieth century, until archival research in the 1950s conclusively proves that they were the ones who forged the documents.)

EDIT: thinking about it, is Baluchistan part of British India ITTL?

It's nominally part of the Omani empire, although the British are "temporarily" occupying and administering it in order to prevent it from falling to the Russian-backed prince who holds much of Oman proper. By this time it is part of British India de facto, with the de jure situation to be settled after the war.

At this stage--I don't know for sure which way Iranian sympathies would be leading. They hated and feared both the overbearing Christian superpowers who proposed to fight over whose doormat their once-proud little empire was.

ITTL though I think the Tsars have stuck their feet deeper into their mouths regarding the dignity of Muslim peoples... Would I hold my breath for such sensitive, effective and fruitful policy coming from the Romanovs? No I would not! I think it would be a given that the Russian treatment of other Muslims would be what Iranians would expect is in store for them should the Russians gain the upper hand, and so on the whole when efforts to play both foreign Satans off against each other fall through, they will reluctantly turn to lining up with the British. Especially if the British are halfway astute. Perhaps they would be insincere in their promises, but at least the British would know the right promises to make, for what they are worth.

This is all correct, but the Russians do have the anti-modernist card to play - the British and (especially) the Ottomans are identified with the sort of liberal, modernist Islam that is the bane of the traditionalist faction. That faction may well figure that as a client state of Russia, they would be spared the sort of persecution that exists in the Russian Empire itself, and that however bad the Russians may be, an alliance with them is a lesser evil than a surrender to modernism. So while the structural factors probably do favor the BOGs, they don't do so overwhelmingly.

As for Central Asia, the British and Ottomans will both have agendas there - I promised a Lawrence of Uzbekistan, and we're getting two of them - but the Central Asians themselves won't necessarily subscribe to either one, or at least not fully.

Afghanistan is not going to be handed over to the Russians....I'd argue it's even more in the British interest to keep it under a light British hand than have it under Russian influence, more so than Persia....

No one really wants to rule Afghanistan, but it's strategically important to both powers because it's a corridor to the Northwest Frontier. The Russians are spreading money and arms among the Afghan chiefs and nobles, with consequences that will become apparent later in the war.

 

[chr92]

Thank you for this splendid Near East update. Yusuf and Mozorov are both very interesting, and I hope they turn out as well as they'd wish.


Fingers crossed for both the Ottomans and Persia!

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Italy and Piratini, July 1895

​

“You there!” Captain Alfred Dreyfus shouted. “You in the house! Don’t you know you can be shot for looting?”

He took stock of the situation quickly. There were four men in the house and another two about to enter. The house itself was empty; most likely, it belonged to a civil servant who had evacuated Turin with the rest of the Italian government. Dreyfus didn’t know if there were still valuables inside, and he didn’t intend the would-be looters to find out.

As he watched, the men in the house turned around in alarm, and realized that the captain was indeed talking to them. One began to reach for his rifle, but thought better of the move when he saw that Dreyfus had a whole company to back up his threat. They whispered frantically among themselves for a moment, and then fled.

Dreyfus watched them go, and let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Ninety-nine looters in a hundred ran when they were discovered, but when they didn’t, it could get hairy.

Especially when their commanding officers back them. That didn’t happen often, but one time was too many, and it had happened more than that. Dreyfus knew that he’d been picked for this job because he was one of the older captains and a steady man, but to his right-wing commander, it had also been a way to keep a Jewish officer out of the front lines, and there were others who shared his colonel’s attitude. Not every officer took the side of discipline when a Jew interfered with his men.

Dreyfus didn’t care, though – the French army had to discipline its men, if it didn’t want to face partisans in every town like the Austrians were already facing in their zone. The Italians hated them enough already as occupiers; if they were seen as thieves too, or worse yet murderers…

“Signor! Signor!” The woman who had run up to the company was about ten years older than Dreyfus and obviously very excited, shouting at him in rapid-fire Italian.

“Who speaks Italian?” Dreyfus called. “Mamadou!” A Senegalese sergeant answered; he’d been a police officer in Nice before the war, and he’d picked up some Italian from interrogating smugglers.

Mamadou conferred with the Italian woman briefly. “Her name is Grazia. She says that French troops and Italian men are rioting a few streets over. There’s a big fight.”

If so, it was a good sign that the woman had come to a French captain for help – or maybe it was just a sign of desperation.

“Should we send a squad, sir?”

“Yes, take one… wait a second. No, we’ll all go. We’ll surround the block in case it’s a set-up. We’ll take this woman with us too – no need to risk her tipping someone off.” He turned to the still-excited informant and used some of his few Italian words. “Come along with us, mad… signora.”

The company double-timed in the direction Mamadou pointed. Well before they got to where the trouble was, they could tell it was no ambush – or that, if there had been one, it had been sprung long since. The sound of brawling carried for blocks. Dreyfus listened for gunfire, but heard none. Thank God for small blessings.

As they turned the corner onto the street where the fight was taking place, Dreyfus could see that Grazia hadn’t exaggerated. There were at least forty off-duty French soldiers fighting with an equal number of Italians; no one was using guns lest they harm their own side in the close-quarters brawl, but the knives and clubs were out, and at least three men were on the ground.

So which are we now? Dreyfus wondered. Soldiers or police? If this were insurrection, he needed to crush it as quickly and decisively as possible – but if he treated Italian citizens as rebels when they weren’t, he risked igniting the city. He took another look at the fight – the soldiers half out of uniform, both sides clearly drunk – and decided that for now, he was a policeman.

He waved the sergeants to him. “Break it up – use rifle butts if you have to, but don’t shoot unless someone uses guns or knives against us.” As they dispersed, he raised his voice and shouted at the brawlers. “Break it up! Stop fighting! Everyone up against a wall!”

Some of the men obeyed, or tried to obey; others fled. About a third of them tried to continue the fight, but Dreyfus had arrived with overwhelming force, and it was less than a minute before they were subdued.

The captain found one of the French brawlers who was wearing a sergeant’s tunic. “Who started this disgrace?”

“I don’t know, sir. I saw men from my company fighting, and I went to join them.”

A few others, both French and Italian, told the same story before Dreyfus found one who’d been there at the beginning. Slowly the reason for the fight became clear: a couple of Frenchmen had propositioned an Italian woman and hadn’t taken “no” for an answer, and the men on the block had rushed to protect her.

“Take the Italians’ weapons and let them go,” he told his sergeants. “Same with the Frenchmen who did nothing more than join the fight. The two who tried to assault a woman are under arrest.”

“Sir, that isn’t fair,” called the off-duty sergeant, still speaking up loyally for his men. “Arresting them and letting the Italians go, I mean. We can’t have them thinking they can attack us…”

“We can’t have our soldiers thinking they can attack Italian women, sergeant. If enough of that happens, we’ll get shot at every time we go out on the streets, and we’ll need half our reserve troops to hold this province down. Do you want it to be like Venetia here?”

The sergeant started to say something, but then cut himself off. He’d heard about Venetia.

“Take charge of those two, Mamadou,” Dreyfus said, and signaled for his men to form up. Turin wouldn’t become Venetia today. But the military police couldn’t be everywhere, and the captain had a sinking feeling that the city wouldn’t stay calm for much longer…

*******​

​

General Rochon looked through his binoculars at the Italian positions on the Apennine foothills. He’d surveyed them for hours, looking for obvious weaknesses, but there were none. It wouldn’t be easy to dislodge them.

We have to try, though. As a major-general in charge of a division, Rochon wasn’t part of the high command, but he was close enough to know of the debate that had raged for much of the spring: make another all-out attack on the North German Confederation, or attack the weak links of the alliance and come back to the Germans after they were knocked out. They’d probed the German defenses in the Ruhr during the spring, decided it would be too costly, and decided on the latter option; by May, the full force of the French army was turned against Italy while the Austrians bore down from the north.

It had worked, in the beginning. They’d finally broken the Italian trench lines in the Alps – the front that Italy had held for two years, and where the French and Austrians had suffered three casualties from cold and hunger for every one in battle – and the cities of the north had fallen in quick succession: Turin, Venice and Ferrara were occupied, Milan and Parma under siege. The Russians still held the North Germans at bay, and the German command was afraid to move troops from the west for fear of another surprise like the one they’d got last autumn; the Ottomans, who were facing an offensive themselves, couldn’t do much to help, and the British were spread far too thin.

But that’s where things had started to go wrong. France had offered Italy generous terms, and had strong-armed the Austrians into agreeing, but the Italians hadn’t surrendered; instead, they’d dug in along the Apennines, where they could establish a shorter and more concentrated front. And there weren’t as many troops available to break it as there should be: Austria had held some men back for a planned counteroffensive in Bohemia, and they’d made such a hash of things in Venetia already that four of their divisions were tied down with occupation duty.

Rochon knew that he was racing against time – France would only be able to bluff so long before the British and North Germans realized it was fully committed. If they hadn’t broken the Apennine line by then…

But how different is that, really, from the war we’ve been fighting all along? It’s always been a race between our men and their industry, and sooner or later, we won’t have the men where we need them. He looked through the binoculars again, and hoped there was a weak point somewhere.

*******​

​

Carlo Michelini didn’t like to come into town too often: he was a true gaucho, and preferred to be with the herds on the open pampas. But there were times when a trip to the city couldn’t be avoided, and as he sat at an outdoor table with a freshly grilled steak and a glass of dark beer in front of him, he was prepared to admit it had some compensations.​

“Come fight for Italy,” someone in the square was calling. “Garibaldi’s homeland needs its sons’ help now; come fight for it in its hour of need!”​

Michelini looked out across the square and saw the recruiter at the center of a buzzing crowd. The Sons of Garibaldi had recruited volunteers from the beginning of the war, but since the fall of Turin, they’d been all over the place, even here in Santa Maria. No doubt they’d find some recruits for the cause today. ​

Carlo wouldn’t be one of them. He’d heard enough stories about the European trenches to know that nobody sane would volunteer to fight there, no matter the cause. That, and every man who went to Italy wasn’t doing the work that needed to be done here. The Michelini ranch had lost two hands to the recruiters already, and although he’d told his men not to join, he couldn’t stop them doing so if they wanted.​

The noise from the square became suddenly louder, and changed its timbre. Carlo looked around and saw that the recruiter was no longer the center of attention; instead, the crowds were gathering around a man waving a broadsheet, and seemed distinctly angrier than they had before. ​

“You lying bastard!” he heard someone call, and the answering shout was lost amid the general outcry. In spite of himself, Michelini got up from the table to see what all the fuss was about, and by the time he was halfway, all had become clear.​

“SECRET DETAILS FROM THE TALKS IN BUENOS AIRES!” the broadsheet screamed. “BRITAIN PROMISES ENTRE RIOS TO THE ARGENTINES IF THEY JOIN THE WAR!” The crowd seemed evenly divided between those who thought the leak was a ploy and those who were sure it was real, and as fights began to break out, Carlo realized that it might not matter.​

If Entre Rios thinks the Argentines are about to grab it, that means war. The three gaucho republics and Paraguay might quarrel among themselves, but one thing that was sure to unite them was an Argentine attempt to expand at their expense. Whether or not the story was true, enough people would think it was for it to be explosive - especially since Britain had been also trying to bring the gaucho states into the war, which meant that any promise of Entre Rios to Argentina would be the ultimate betrayal. Carlo cursed whatever British or Argentine diplomat was responsible for the security breach, because the war had just come home.​

Will we be fighting on both sides now? Piratini would never forsake Mother Italy, and would always favor the British side in Europe, but if war with Argentina were coming, then that might drive the gaucho states into the arms of Brazil here in South America. Michelini prayed it wouldn’t come to that, but as the tumult spread, he knew that prayers might not be enough.​

 

[Badshah]

Very cool. Interesting to see how Piratini's being tugged at by both sides....definitely something that will no doubt cause problems.

 

[Grand_Panjandrum]

Good to see *Alfred is having a considerably better time in this TL. The Apennines will be a hard nut to crack for the FAR, to be sure. Are they planning any marine landing to the south or are both their army and navy forces too tied up?

 

[Neoteros]

Italy's in deep shit.

 

[Ed Costello]

Hmm... whilst part of me wonders whether France and/or Brazil have taken a leaf out of Russia's book after the events in Persia, I suspect the BOGside have a diplomatic disaster on their hands. Assuming they survive the war intact, I wonder if Paraguay and the Gaucho Republics might pursue a more independent foreign policy in the aftermath (insofar as that's possible in the wider geopolitical climate).

 

[Nassirisimo]

Well, the new frontier in Italy seems to be defensible, but realistically speaking, just how able is Italy able to defend it? They must have lost a huge portion of their industrial areas, and I can't imagine the moral shock their armies must have suffered.

 

[Falecius]

Dear God, Italy is in Trouble. With capital T. A line on the Appennines can be held strategically, but there is basically no industry to speak of south of them. Well, very little. The FAR troops are going to be spread really thin across the whole Padan plain, but still, Italy will need to purchase almost every bullet and rifle from the British, the Germans or the Ottomans. All pretty hard pressed on their own.
Manpower is not lacking, but that line is a last stand that cannot hold long without industry.
I think that ITTL, industrial development is going to be slightly more evenly distributed, so that Florence and Naples for example (probably Ancona as well) are more important industrial centres than IOTL, but still, the Italian industrial core was mostly between Turin and Milan in real life and will be there here too.
If there is even a limited breach on the Appennines, and Florence proves untenable, that would likely lead to Italian surrender.
(By the way, most people in Turin will speak very little Italian at this time, though probably, again, more so ITTL than IOTL; many people in Turin used to speak French, and most would speak local Piedmontese, which is not really that mutually understandable with standard Italian).

Edit: ninja'ed.

 

[Falecius]

Italy's in deep shit.

Hell's bottom deep, I guess.

 

[Falecius]

What I posted above is under the assumption that "Milan and Parma under siege" refers to pockets, not a frontlines and the Appennines where the fight is going on now are the Tosco-Emilian Appennines.
There are some North Italian cities north of this assumed line that you have not mentioned, most notably Genoa, Bologna and Brescia.
Genoa is across the Ligurian Appennines from Turin; if the line is there, Italian situation is much better than previously assumed. If the frontline runs to Milan from Parma, it separates Austrian and French forces with a salient across central Emilia and Lombardy that includes Modena, Brescia and Bologna, with Brescia as a critical place since it was (and is) an important center of Italian arms industry.
If the Italians hold Brescia and a lifeline through Modena from there, they keep the Beretta factories, which make pretty much of a difference. Of course, it is not a tenable frontline in the long run: either Brescia falls, or the Italians make a counter- offensive to relieve the salient and secure at least a larger part of Lombardy.

 

[Unknown]

Good update.

Dreyfus is doing better than OTL.

 

[eliphas8]

Good update.

Dreyfus is doing better than OTL.

Its hard for him to not to do atleast a little better.

 

[Dragos Cel Mare]

This should be a published novel, just saying.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Yeah, it's not surprising that the FARs could break into Italy, nor that a reformed line would be on the Apennines. What is surprising is that a reformed line would be made up of Italians at this point, that there's no mention of the Italian government, and that there would be cities holding out behind the lines.

For the former, not only would Italy be stripped of the majority of its industry and rail net (exacerbated by the placement of the capital), but there are also the people to consider. Evacuating Italy's military strength successfully would be a Herculean task even if all the civilians stayed home, and in practice they'll have flooded the roads south. Given a sizable population and industry behind them, armies in this time period were effectively indestructible in a stand-up fight. This was largely true even in a salient flanked slightly. But when fronts collapsed it became a different matter entirely - then an army could cease to exist in a matter of days. And while the calculus of war may have counted individuals as replaceable, armies were not. They'll have lost irreplaceable commanders. Untold stocks of equipment, munitions, food, rolling stock, raw materials, draft animals, trucks, and artillery will have disappeared at a stroke. Losing half your armies is much, much worse than losing half of each army, because you are denied veterans for use as training cadres. In this hour of greatest need, Italian authorities are going to be grabbing every seventeen year old with thumbs, driving them through far-insufficient training, then pouring them into the Appeninne Line. They can't make new units, because it'd be essentially leaving holes in the line against veteran FAR troops, so they'll put them into existing formations, whose effectiveness and staying power will be wrecked for months. Bodies are not enough.

It'd be nice to hope for a really thoughtful and effective response by the Italians, but it's also impossible. Even if 100% of the top of the government made it South, a great deal of bureaucratic structure will have fallen casualty, both military and civilian. We're talking about a Red Army partisan situation: a lot of enthusiasm amongst hopeless disorganization. Not even that good, as they're without the genocide to motivate, the space to hide, and the superpower to supply them. So the Italian lines will initially be a thrown-together mess, with local commanders determining effectiveness, position, and supply as much as or more than central authority. That means that in all likelihood there are places that are poorly disposed to resist a FAR attack due to a poor local commander, miscommunication, or personality issues.

The long and short of it is, sure the Franco-Austrians can be stopped there. It's just can't be the Italians making it happen.

Also.... How does a major modern city like Milan sustain a siege, even in the short term? Totally out of local supply for everything but water, sheltering huge numbers of refugees, defended by haphazard military formations, and everyone eats. It'd take some serious Swiss cooperation to prevent an immediate humanitarian disaster, and even in the short term it seems pretty hopeless. For one, how much support would the Swiss allow? They've probably been moving into the French orbit since the Franco-Prussian War. Now completely encircled by the FARs....I sense they'd be very proper about what they were willing to have cross the border.

 

[Falecius]

Yeah, it's not surprising that the FARs could break into Italy, nor that a reformed line would be on the Apennines. What is surprising is that a reformed line would be made up of Italians at this point, that there's no mention of the Italian government, and that there would be cities holding out behind the lines.

For the former, not only would Italy be stripped of the majority of its industry and rail net (exacerbated by the placement of the capital), but there are also the people to consider. Evacuating Italy's military strength successfully would be a Herculean task even if all the civilians stayed home, and in practice they'll have flooded the roads south. Given a sizable population and industry behind them, armies in this time period were effectively indestructible in a stand-up fight. This was largely true even in a salient flanked slightly. But when fronts collapsed it became a different matter entirely - then an army could cease to exist in a matter of days. And while the calculus of war may have counted individuals as replaceable, armies were not. They'll have lost irreplaceable commanders. Untold stocks of equipment, munitions, food, rolling stock, raw materials, draft animals, trucks, and artillery will have disappeared at a stroke. Losing half your armies is much, much worse than losing half of each army, because you are denied veterans for use as training cadres. In this hour of greatest need, Italian authorities are going to be grabbing every seventeen year old with thumbs, driving them through far-insufficient training, then pouring them into the Appeninne Line. They can't make new units, because it'd be essentially leaving holes in the line against veteran FAR troops, so they'll put them into existing formations, whose effectiveness and staying power will be wrecked for months. Bodies are not enough.

It'd be nice to hope for a really thoughtful and effective response by the Italians, but it's also impossible. Even if 100% of the top of the government made it South, a great deal of bureaucratic structure will have fallen casualty, both military and civilian. We're talking about a Red Army partisan situation: a lot of enthusiasm amongst hopeless disorganization. Not even that good, as they're without the genocide to motivate, the space to hide, and the superpower to supply them. So the Italian lines will initially be a thrown-together mess, with local commanders determining effectiveness, position, and supply as much as or more than central authority. That means that in all likelihood there are places that are poorly disposed to resist a FAR attack due to a poor local commander, miscommunication, or personality issues.

The long and short of it is, sure the Franco-Austrians can be stopped there. It's just can't be the Italians making it happen.

Also.... How does a major modern city like Milan sustain a siege, even in the short term? Totally out of local supply for everything but water, sheltering huge numbers of refugees, defended by haphazard military formations, and everyone eats. It'd take some serious Swiss cooperation to prevent an immediate humanitarian disaster, and even in the short term it seems pretty hopeless. For one, how much support would the Swiss allow? They've probably been moving into the French orbit since the Franco-Prussian War. Now completely encircled by the FARs....I sense they'd be very proper about what they were willing to have cross the border.

As I understand it, the Italians are managing this stand only because their opponents are really bootstrapping their offensive with barely adequate forces and got terrible losses in the process of breaking through. I agree that an Appennine line cannot be held for long, though. If the Italians somehow manage to resist through the summer (which is not going to be pretty) they can make a hell for their enemies in winter and regroup enough to resist again next spring. Still, a lot of Italian manpower, industry, rail network will be lost, and the Franco-Austrians too can use the winter to fill their holes. Then, the line will be tenable only with major British (read Indian) commitment when the likely offensive comes in 1896.
I seriously doubt Italy can pull back in 1896 with her forces as her enemies can, if not attack again (most likely) at least dig in deep, on a shorter front than before (this true for Italy too, but does not make for the loss of industry).

I don't know whether Milan can sustain a long siege. If it happens, is going to be a massive hell of urban warfare, à la Leningrad in WWII (well, maybe not that hellish).

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Hurrah for a happier Dreyfus!

Yeah, no matter how overextended Austria and France are in Italy, I think the've knocked the BOG's little partner out of the fight. The Italians surely can't avoid a collapse if the bulk of their industry and a huge part of their population is occupied.


Though with the French so overextended I wonder if Paris might consider very quietly extending peace feelers? There can't be much love lost between the Liberal Bonapartist regime and the despotism of the Romanovs, after all.