Of Rajahs and Hornbills: A timeline of Brooke Sarawak
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My sympathies. Take the time you need- some things are more important than a timeline!
1905: The Great (World) War
Charlie MacDonald, Strange States, Weird Wars, and Bizzare Borders, (weirdworld.postr.com, 2014)
I had a lot of trouble writing this piece.
At first, I thought it would a simple thing to dovetail into the Great War; just talk about the major incidents and some of the underlying causes that sparked them, and that’s it. Easy-peasy. But the more I looked into it, the more info there was, and soon I was overwhelmed by a ton of footnotes. My deskscreen was covered in a matter of weeks, bit to numbered bit, by a wall of pictures and references that talked about everything, from the Habsburgs to Africa to the Italian Navy to the Korean court and even to the Dutch East Indies!
So I stopped writing. I started drawing instead.
Doodling has always been a comfort for me, and I figured that a map of Southeast Asia in 1905 was enough of a project to ease my mind. Plus, it’d be helpful to have a map that could orient us to the situation down there when the War began.
As I continued filling in the details, the work quickly became more and more cluttered and complex, as all maps should. And that was when it hit me.
Complexity.
Just look at that. Look. At. That. I don’t think the empire-builders of London or Amsterdam in 1810 would’ve imagined their playground to get this complicated when they started expanding there, and I don’t think Siam and Brunei ever imagined their futures to end up being constrained by neighbours whom lived and worked an entire continent away.
And that’s also what happened to the rest of the world. I think, if there is one word that summed up how the Great War exploded, it's complexity. No one in Europe or the Americas expected the 19th century to be the mindbender that it was, and none of them really knew how to deal with it, besides making sure things don’t blow up in their faces every decade or so. Heck, how many times do we want our world to be simpler? The rise of Italy and Germany, the American Civil War, the age of New Imperialism, the equivocation of colonialism with both resources and prestige, the entanglement of East Asia and Africa to Great Power politics, the influence of native states, and so on and on…
Perhaps the main question the historians should ponder is “why wasn't there a global conflict during the 1890’s or 1880’s?” Then again, we can also ask whether Napoleonic France could've imagined that an assassin would target Archduke Ferdinand during the 1900 Paris Exhibition. The future is unknown, and hindsight is a cruel mistress to all.
So then, where do we start?
Well, how about with the Horrible Compromise of Tunisia? [1] When the Ottoman Beylik was carved up in an effort to appease everyone, it effectively pleased no one, and the manner in which the partition happened made all the Great Powers reconsider themselves. For a long time afterwards, the affair lingered in the minds of Europe and the Near East, squatting in the dark corners of diplomatic meetings whenever some mustachioed gentlemen proposed a new partnership or defence pact. It’s not prominent, and there were many many other factors that precipitated the multinational alliances of the Great War [1.5], but the Horrible Compromise was always there, brooding in the shadows of official rooms like some spider-legged, shattered mirror; a reflection and reminder of what could be, and what shouldn't be.
And with that, everyone began forming their own little posse. Italy linked up with Greece and Serbia, while France did the same for Russia. Britain courted the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary out of stability, and everyone else drifted to whomever could help them best. The Sahelian states and Aceh began orbiting the Porte, while Sarawak stroke a deal with London and Vienna over oil and naval defence. Siam courted Russia, of all empires, to maintain independence, while East Asia got entangled with the wider world over a bunch of issues.
Things didn't help with the death of Queen Victoria. No one expected her to live for so long, and as she progressed with age, Vicky herself became sort of a representation of the 19th century and what it stood for, maturing and ageing before bowing to the inevitable. Her eventual death in June 1904 after a long battle with rheumatism signaled a change in the wind, and it wasn't for nothing that many statesmen privately saw her passing as an ominous portent, even if they were tight-lipped in public. As for her own understanding, let’s just say there were rumours…
“‘After me, the Deluge’? Your Majesty, did you write this for the Jubilee?”
And indeed, it was as if all the pressures of the world fountained over once Vicky passed. Bismarck famously stated that the next big conflict would be “on some damn foolish thing in the Balkans.” While correct, he also missed the part where Europe, Asia and Africa got in on the action. There was the Ferdinand Inquest, where the Habsburgs publicly questioned the investigation behind the attempted assassination of the archduke during the Paris Exhibition, souring Franco-Austrian relations [2]. Then followed the Rabat Affair, when diplomatic leaks showed the sultan of Morocco bargaining with the British and Ottomans for protection, pissing Paris off even further. After that came the Ok-Gyun Murder, where a Korean court official was publicly assassinated by Japanese agents for his pro-Russian leanings, angering St. Petersburg.
And that was just in 1904! Come the next January, and there was the Rome Proclamation, where Prime Minister Delfino Cambareri authorised a build-up of the Italian navy, deeply unsettling London and the Habsburgs. February saw the sudden illness of Kaiser Wilhelm’s son, Wilhelm (yeah, the Hohenzollerns have a theme) with tuberculosis, making the monarch more unpredictable even to his own general staff. March saw the Port Arthur Massacre in China, where members of the Crimson Sword Society gruesomely beheaded 25 Orthodox worshippers and their Russian priest during a service [3]. With every new incident, with every new affair, the tensions heighten and the noose tightens. With each new crisis, the alliances bonded closer and turn more hard-headed.
So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that, come summer, it all finally went over. Three events tipped the scale, the first of which occurred in the Upper Nile. No one thought the Great World War would begin in Africa, of all places.
Then again, no one imagined what’ll happen if caliph Al-Zayn finally kicked the bucket.
Or for his forces to be made into children’s toys, for that matter.
In truth, the man’s health was on the wane since the turn of the century. It’s just that everyone thought he would make it for another few years, instead of slipping away on the field from sleeping sickness. His expedition to Equatorial Sudan in May 1905 to drive off the Germans was a hasty one, and he never noticed how the tsetse flies were also buzzing around due to the early rains. It took some time before word got around, but once news got around on April the 29th that the caliph didn’t wake up, everything fell to pieces. 1*
Naturally, many neighbours saw this as an opportunity to get some revenge, but the first nation that did anything concrete was actually France, which sought a connection from French Ubangi-Shari to their Red Sea port of Obock. That meant ploughing through Darfur, Ouaddai, Dervish Sudan, and Ethiopia, and an expeditionary force was hastily assembled to race towards El-Obeid before anyone else did. But their see-though plans pissed off the entire Sahel and their entry to the Nile region got the entire force massacred by similarly pissed off Darfuris and Ouaddaians by mid-June.
A shocked Paris quickly demanded an invasion of the sultanates, but the Ottomans spat back that any attack on them would be answered back with Turkish bullets, especially since both states were close military recipients of the Turks. In impasse was born, and such was the Sahel Crisis.
Fast forward a week, and another incident flared. On a cloudy night on June 21, on the other end of the world, two ships were found trespassing in each other’s territory off the coast of Borneo. The Austro-Hungarian SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia (boy is that a long name) was found chugging in the Spratly Islands before bring spotted by the Enrico Dandolo, an Italian ironclad. Later documents would reveal that, surprise!, both states wanted to claim the islands to procure an oceanic base and secure their oil ports, even preparing flags and equipment to claim some of the atolls themselves.
In truth, the Spratlys were claimed by a bunch of nations during that time, but almost everyone agreed that China was the region's sovereign, for what was worth. What wasn’t on the memo was “what do you do if you meet your colonial rival?”, and the accounts of what happened next are dubious on both sides. Nevertheless, the sunrise of June 22nd saw only the Maria Theresia bobbing on the waves. The Dandolo and her sailors littered the seafloor beneath.
Italy screamed for an explanation, with politician after politician lashing out at the Kriegsmarine’s “trespassing” and violent engagement. The Maria Theresia retorted that the ironclad was equally guilty and that it blew itself up in a freak accident. Columnists in Rome quickly penned whether the Habsburgs have inbred themselves too much to remember what happened, and the discourse went to the gutters after that.
The quality of the propaganda paintings of the incident, however, are unsurprisingly excellent.
And lastly, there were the Balkans. Tsar Nicholas II and his government were getting busy down there over the decades, casting political webs with Serbia and the Bulgarians in an effort to outmaneuver Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian control. The thing was, Russia didn’t expect their new chess-pieces to move themselves without their say-so, which was exactly what happened when a mass-revolt broke out in Sofia on July 1st. Serbia, then Greece, then Italy offered aid. Not wanting to be seen as weak by the world after China, the Russian government intervened 5 days later. St. Petersburg called for a new state to be carved from Ottoman Rumelia, only to be met with predictable outrage from the Porte.
For me, it’s actually really interesting and tragic to see how it all unravelled. These were states that were trying to either defend themselves, help others, or just increase their prestige and overall strengths. None of them really expected their conflicts to be so entwined with the wider world, and none of them wanted to. The whole Great War was about many things, but perhaps the worldwide firestorm would be less of a destructive affair if everyone just kept their heads cool and think it all through. But then, we won’t have wars at all if that were the case.
In anyways, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Serbia on July 7. Italy and Greece sounded off the next day. Russia followed the next week, France 3 days later, while Aceh and the Sahelian states proclaimed jihad by the fortnight. With the Sicily Straits and the Suez Canal in danger (aka. London’s route to India), the British Parliament voted to close the latter to any belligerent Powers, which backlashed in the Battle of Port Suez between a Russo-French force against the British and Ottoman bases there.
That pissed off London, and it (along with the Empire and Sarawak) joined on the anti-French/Russian side shortly thereafter, which earned it lovely war declarations from the Italio-Greco-Serbian pact. Germany stayed out, due to Kaiser Wilhelm’s preoccupation with both his son and a military scandal that I’ll talk about later. Austria-Hungary wanted to keep out, but the Spratly incident and suspicious uprisings in Tyrol and Vojvodina pressed their hand, with Emperor Franz Joseph reluctantly declaring war on Serbia and Italy on the 20th, whom quickly returned the favor along with their allies. Japan, seeing the conflict as a way to beat Russia ahead in East Asia, followed by July 31st, joining neither side. Korea and China held their breaths for the bloodbath.
By August, the world was at war.
“And now, the Deluge.”
1* How so? Locally, Al-Zayn’s Dervish Caliphate was a far cry from the Islamic powerhouse he envisioned. Running an empire based on conquest and mass-slavery was becoming a nightmare (not believing in bureaucracy tends to do that), but the guy managed to hold it up by using his overbearing charisma and proclivity for head-chopping. With Al-Zayn gone, old rivalries returned, and the phrase, “let’s choose a successor” quickly translated to “I will stab you!” amongst the tribes. Internationally, Dervish Sudan was practically THE enemy of the eastern Sahel, and the fact that the Dervishes managed to stay afloat for over two decades is a testament to their tenacity and cruelty. With Kordofan now in turmoil, everyone from Ethiopia to Darfur to even the German-colonized south began gearing up for some revenge raiding, at least before France tried beating them to it..
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Footnotes:
[1] See post #710 For the Tunisia Crisis
[1.5] See post #1116 for more detail on European politics
[2] See posts #1111 and 1116 for the attempted assassination of Ferdinand
[3] For more context, see post #1141
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Crossing my fingers hoping that Sarawak gets Italian Sabah when this is all over.
Excellent- I spotted though that the battleships engage on June 21st, but the battle is finished by June 6th.
It is most definitely happening now. Certainly with all those events pushing everyone to war it seems pretty much unavoidable. I have a feeling that the war is going to grow further...
Yeah, but what about Rule Britannia Bro?
Yeah, but what about Rule Britannia Bro?
to hell with the sea mongols and their menagerie of turks and magyars
Also Germany managing to escape this bodes well for them -- although I'm sure some Junkers are salty about not being able to war
I'm a little concerned about the Austro-Hungarians. Russia to the East, Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgars to the south, and Italy and the French to the west are going to put the empire to a crunch. Only thing going for them is that at least a large portion of their northern border is protected safely from the Germans.... and while Germany may not be joining the war, might the British be able to ship some war goods through Germany to the Austrian Fronts, preventing them from having to run the Mediterranean gauntlet.
Also, excellent map!
Also, excellent map!
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
It lives! And we finally have the Great War. The lack of a "first" before that seems to indicate that there won't be a second- but the survival of Sarawak to the modern day seemed to indicate that from the beginning.
It's an interesting match up because logically austria-hungary and the ottomans seem doomed against a french-russian alliance. But well the Uk can't lose surely, not when our main focus is on a british satelite state.
Well, without German support, Austro-Hungarian prospects look dark given their OTL performances in the Great War.
Nice update; as said by other A-H it's not in a nice place, without serious reform the army it's not up for a long modern war...expecially a three front war (even if Serbia it's weaker than OTL, but Italy seem in a better shape so thing compense each other).
While the terrain, as OTL demonstrated, it's very favorable to the defence, there is a lot to cover (and ITTL Dalmatia it's in italian possession); Wien general situation will be relieved if she can coordinate with the Ottoman as they will also heavily involved in the fight in the Balkans (even if the revolt in Bulgaria will create havoc in their logistic line)
While the terrain, as OTL demonstrated, it's very favorable to the defence, there is a lot to cover (and ITTL Dalmatia it's in italian possession); Wien general situation will be relieved if she can coordinate with the Ottoman as they will also heavily involved in the fight in the Balkans (even if the revolt in Bulgaria will create havoc in their logistic line)
This is quite the alliance system! Have France-Russia officially tied themselves to the Italo-Greco-Serbian Alliance or are they simply co-belligerents atm?
any fronts in the south pacific or will that be tied to the SEA front?
any fronts in the south pacific or will that be tied to the SEA front?
Warning
Plus Brunei, of course. They are an italian protectorate, after all... whatever THAT is worth... [who'd have thought the spaghettis actually capable of protecting someone
]