ITTL, Karl has three miracles associated with him- the preserved Host, the weeping statue, and the OTL miracle involving a cured Brazilian nun, IIRC- that's enough for canonisation, I believe.
Place In the Sun: What If Italy Joined the Central Powers? (1.0)
- Thread starter Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
- Start date
ITTL, Karl has three miracles associated with him- the preserved Host, the weeping statue, and the OTL miracle involving a cured Brazilian nun, IIRC- that's enough for canonisation, I believe.
When did the third miracle take place, though? Depending on when, even if he isn't canonized until 2017 ITTL, he could be beatified as early as the 1920s.
Miracles yes.
Canonization though, they kinda wait a few years after you die before even starting it.
Finally managed to read the updates I lost in the past weeks, I admit I got very hooked by them. That's quite a very interesting post Weltkrieg world, the one is starting to take shape.
Naturally, as Italian, I can't wait to see how is going to handle the victory and the immediate post war. I found interesting that over Kenya denied, it rose a rift between Rome and Berlin, but, I can suppose, is not sufficient to create a "backstab" or "Vittoria Mutilata" ATL myth in the peninsula. Let's be honest, Italy took the second lion's share in the war, and Germany essentially gave what the Italians asked for - and the war lasted only two years, and without negative or excessive strains; the Italians went bad essentially only in Somalia but that was expected, and a colonial route wasn't certainly a Caporetto. Sure, they had to pay for Malta, but they showed the Regia Marina could hold the Royal Navy - and after Lissa, that's quite a lot. With France Icarus falling and Russia and Austria/Danubia in trouble, and the Ottomans appearing more stable but not getting much aside from reasserted hegemony in Arabia, isn't Italy currently the third European power? Maybe this awareness and a more optimistic economic and social situation would avoid Italy to derange on authoritarian tracks?
And well... What happened to Vienna made me side definitely with the Austrians and the Federalists. Is probable the Hungarians would regret back harshly what they did also because at this point, who would want an hegemonic Hungary among the peoples of the Empire surrounding it? The Hungarians played wrong the indipendence card...
The Mexican war is very interesting. Carranza didn't play bad, but the warlord fragmentation of Mexico in the end made the difference and the Americans were able to take advantage in the end. But is very interesting the United States which are starting to emerge...
And Japan already started to build their co-prosperity sphere early. But, because the Empire is still on the laying grounds of Taisho democracy, maybe early expansionism and vanquishing European influence could still limit the risk of military and radicalized nationalist coups...
Naturally, as Italian, I can't wait to see how is going to handle the victory and the immediate post war. I found interesting that over Kenya denied, it rose a rift between Rome and Berlin, but, I can suppose, is not sufficient to create a "backstab" or "Vittoria Mutilata" ATL myth in the peninsula. Let's be honest, Italy took the second lion's share in the war, and Germany essentially gave what the Italians asked for - and the war lasted only two years, and without negative or excessive strains; the Italians went bad essentially only in Somalia but that was expected, and a colonial route wasn't certainly a Caporetto. Sure, they had to pay for Malta, but they showed the Regia Marina could hold the Royal Navy - and after Lissa, that's quite a lot. With France Icarus falling and Russia and Austria/Danubia in trouble, and the Ottomans appearing more stable but not getting much aside from reasserted hegemony in Arabia, isn't Italy currently the third European power? Maybe this awareness and a more optimistic economic and social situation would avoid Italy to derange on authoritarian tracks?
And well... What happened to Vienna made me side definitely with the Austrians and the Federalists. Is probable the Hungarians would regret back harshly what they did also because at this point, who would want an hegemonic Hungary among the peoples of the Empire surrounding it? The Hungarians played wrong the indipendence card...
The Mexican war is very interesting. Carranza didn't play bad, but the warlord fragmentation of Mexico in the end made the difference and the Americans were able to take advantage in the end. But is very interesting the United States which are starting to emerge...
And Japan already started to build their co-prosperity sphere early. But, because the Empire is still on the laying grounds of Taisho democracy, maybe early expansionism and vanquishing European influence could still limit the risk of military and radicalized nationalist coups...
TTL's first two miracles were confirmed in the 1920s TTL. The OTL miracle took place in 2003; Karl was canonised on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Thank you very much! I hope to keep it up!
An excellent analysis; thank you so much for reading and commenting!
Italy is on the rise- the Danubian Civil War has only hastened this. In the coming decades, Italian policymakers will be looking to break from German influence somewhat...
Thanks to everyone for their continued interest in Place In the Sun
Also- the google doc I'm using to write this has just hit 100 pages and we're at almost 75,000 words. Thanks to all of you for helping me get here!
You are welcome!
Well, Germany hegemony in Europe is assured, and with most of the continent in chaos, Italy had no choice to priorize trade with Germany - the coal and the iron needed for Italian would essentially come from the Reich, especially now that Germany moved on the Moselle and with France going red soon, it won't come nothing more from it (and certainly French resentment towards Italy won't be lesser than the one towards Germany...) So if Rome wants to asserts from Berlin, must look over other markets to get the resources it needs.
By the way; with Nice would come along Monaco as well... The principate and the Grimaldi would have to work with the Italians and House Savoia from now on...
I imagine the victorious Italians could buy coal and iron from the 'States to at least help minimise their dependence on Berlin.
As of right now, Monaco is still independent... haven't really put that much thought into what I'll do with it ITTL...
Awesome timeline, one of my favorite on this entire website. You inspire me to write more, thank you.
My goodness, thank you so much! Humbled author here.
We writers must look out for one another!
I thought I could write on Election Night.
How naive of me.
Update will be on Friday at the latest!
How naive of me.
Update will be on Friday at the latest!
I know what you mean! The only reason that I can write on this election night is that I'm writing about an election of 40 years previous.
Carter and Reagan. The timeline's ASB, and started in 1976. Short form: I went to sleep on the Summer Solstice in 2019, and woke up in my 11 year old body on the summer solstice in 1976, knowing that, if I didn't change things, there would be mushroom clouds and tanks in the streets of major cities--as a start. Essentially, "I" need to prevent the end of the world as i know it.
If you're interested, it's here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/masquerade-how-hard-would-this-be.433844/
Chapter 22: The Rise of Georges Sorel
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Rise of Georges Sorel
"Soldiers of Dijon! For too long you have laboured under the harsh rule of one failed government after another. Now, the reactionary Paul Deschanel seeks to wipe you out and butcher your families- for what? For nothing; for the crime of standing up for yourselves! Take heart, comrades! If we fight now, if we put everything of our being into this moment, we can leave our mark on history, as the first shots of a great revolution..."
-Excerpt from Georges Sorel's address to the soldiers of Dijon
"If they want to fight, they may fight. Rebels will get what is coming to them, just wait and see..."
-Paul Deschanel, 28 October 1917, a few hours before the attack on Dijon commenced
It is a testament to Emile Loubet’s lack of foresight that when the city of Dijon erupted in October 1917, he was caught by surprise. On one level, it is hard to blame him. The creation of the Dijon Commune had been a minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow affair. Like a game of Chinese whispers, the facts on the ground were hopelessly distorted by the time they reached Paris. Conservative ministers urged Prime Minister Loubet to send troops in, fearing a repeat of the Springtime Mutinies which had forced France to exit the war, while liberals argued for restraint and negotiation. Never a decisive man, Loubet would spend hours making a decision...only to get the next report from the city that things had gone from bad to worse. Miscalculation, rash decisions, and a refusal to listen to or trust the other side had turned a riot caused by the imprisonment of three street urchins into a full-blown revolt in three weeks.
All this to say, Emile Loubet was completely out of his depth and was the worst possible candidate to sit in Paris at this critical juncture.
Meanwhile, the Dijon Commune was coalescing. In the third week of October, after repulsing an attack by central government troops, the rebels had kept the city under de facto martial law. The garrison hadn’t wanted to mutiny, but after they fought back against governmental authority, they had no choice but to carry on. Now, the self-styled Army of Dijon ruled the city, trying to figure out what to do next. Their leadership comprised a handful of soldier’s councils representing the men, but there was no overall platform as to what to do next. The soldier’s councils wanted nothing more than to negotiate their way out of this mess and get back to whatever they were doing beforehand. Yet, the arrival of one man would change everything.
A banner used by one company of the Dijon Worker's Army. This took me about forty minutes to get right.
Georges Sorel was an odd bloke. After a hardscrabble childhood in Cherbourg, the quest to keep body and soul together had led him into a government engineering job. It was there, while travelling all around France, that Sorel had first gotten his hands on far-left literature, and he ate it up like there was no tomorrow. While admiring the revolutionary ideology of Marx, he came to disagree with certain aspects of his philosophy, and abandoned orthodox Marxism for syndicalism in the late 1890s. However, what set Sorel apart from most of the world’s left-wing intellectuals was that he held many aspects of traditional culture in high esteem. Claiming that “no great philosophy can be established without being based on art and on religion” (1), he rejected the more materialist aspects of Marxism. More unusual still, Sorel was perfectly willing to work with conservatives who shared at least some aspects of his economic vision. However, when the war broke out, Sorel fell out with mainstream politics and retreated into his own little world. At sixty-nine, he was far too old to serve even in the dark days of 1916, and spent much of the war in Bordeaux, slaving away at his desk, a bottle of wine never far away. Once the Treaty of Dresden crippled France and set hyperinflation in motion, Sorel got out as fast as he could; a few days before Christmas 1916, he booked a train to Nice, now under Italian rule. Ironically, that the city lay under enemy rule made it a popular destination for Frenchmen in the tumultuous months after the war; it spared it the violence and hyperinflation of the motherland. Sorel very much kept himself to himself, scribbling away on a new book. He completed his Reflections on the Potential for Revolutionary Action in a Broken Nation (2) in September. Totalling some three hundred rather dense pages, it spoke of the fragility of postwar France and Russia and called on the workers and intellectuals to rise up there. Its most famous line- that “evolution of the proletarian consciousness will not happen spontaneously, it is something towards which every individual must strive for with all his means if the revolution is to occur!”- was a direct refutation of Karl Marx’s belief in the scientific inevitability of the revolution. Having been a revolutionary philosopher for a long time, Sorel knew all too well that to attempt to openly publish his work would lead to Italian troops knocking on his door; thus, he kept mum. Ironically, considering that the Dijon uprising was only weeks away, Sorel became depressed in the wake of finishing his work. He read about the cruel extortions of Loubet’s government in its desperate attempt to balance the books and the violence this lead to, but he didn’t think the French people were ripe for revolution.
Thus, the Dijon mutinies only weeks later proved a pleasant surprise for Sorel. He slipped into France on 19 October and made his way to Dijon two days later. At that point, the Army of Dijon, preoccupied as it was with defending from a serious assault by the government, lacked the force to block every entrance into the city. The revolutionary philosopher has left no written record of his first impressions on entering the city, but he was underwhelmed. From the reports the Loubet government was putting out, Dijon was under the control of real radicals akin to those in Petrograd during the September Revolution. The goal in distributing such propaganda had been to inflame hatred for and fear of the rebels amongst the populace, but they raised Sorel’s hopes, and he expected to see some syndicalist utopia. Instead, Sorel found an atmosphere of de facto martial law. Most of the able-bodied men in the town had joined the so-called Army of Dijon, and the military was running everything. This atmosphere minimised production and commercial activity. Dijon appeared to be passively waiting for Loubet to make his next move, hoping that the whole situation could somehow defuse.
It was enough to drive Sorel mad.
Meanwhile, Paris was wracked by its worst political crisis since the war. The French Parliament tarred Emile Loubet as a scoundrel, an idiot, and- depending on whom one asked- a German agent. There was no truth in the latter accusation, but no one could deny that he had handled the whole crisis extremely poorly. The surprise was that when the vote of no confidence came on 23 October, Loubet had been in power for the better part of a year. Everyone from the centre-leftists in the Republican Union to the hard far-rightists heaped scorn on the Prime Minister- his own Democratic Republican Alliance, a centre-left party, offered only the meekest defence. They knew that Loubet’s failure to address the economy and the Dijon crisis had inflicted permanent damage, but hoped that by jettisoning him they could minimise the harm done. Ominously, the true radical leftists largely abstained from voting; many of them didn’t turn up. France had a handful of mainstream Marxist politicians who placed their loyalty to the Worker’s International above their loyalty to la Nation. To a handful of these radicals, the Dijon Commune represented the “inevitable” revolution Marx had preached; it was time to desert the reactionaries in the Chamber of Deputies and join the masses! In practical terms, this meant that the new government lacked a substantial left-wing influence, dragging its composition to the right.
Paranoia was rife in the streets, with rioting taking place as people feared the establishment of a far-right government that would restrict their liberties under the guise of “emergency powers”. France had not had a general election since a few months before the war, and there was a fear amongst the people that a new tradition was being established- that of the men in suits forming governments without the consent of the people. If they couldn’t express themselves at the ballot box, they would do so with their fists and clubs. All throughout the third week of October, haggard riot police clashed with furious demonstrators in the streets of the capital. For the genuine socialists in Paris, the week was tremendously exciting, as the revolution really appeared to be en route. Socialist propaganda spread around the city as if by magic, and young workers formed gangs to redistribute some wealth to themselves. However, despite the fears of many, there was no second Paris Commune in October 1917. The police kept order while the politicians debated what to do.
No one could seem to agree on the composition of the emergency coalition. The right wing argued that the danger to France had never been greater, that the country’s peril was even worse than in 1916. Defeat in the war had been awful, yes, but for all its harsh extractions the Treaty of Dresden had left France’s political and social fabric intact. Armed revolution, rioting in the streets, and a city in the hands of traitors was a greater threat, and it was all coming from the left. A government of the far-right, reinforced by an emergency powers bill, so they said, was necessary to combat the existential threat the motherland was facing. To the moderates, this was dangerous talk. Of course they recognised the gravity of the situation, but handing power over to la Federation Republicaine (3), to say nothing of strengthening them with an emergency powers bill, was a recipe for dictatorship. If the centrists feared a Marxist revolution, they had no desire to hand unlimited power to the reactionaries. Ironically, many of the leftists remaining in Parliament- who were of a more moderate disposition than those who’d left- were inclined to back the rightists, if only to show that they really weren’t the threat everyone imagined them to be. Thus, the two sides reached an impasse. Neither side wanted to give any more ground and few imagined that the other side was acting in good faith- to the moderates, the far-rightists wanted to use this as an excuse for a dictatorship, while the far-rightists suspected the moderates of seriously underestimating the peril the country found itself in. However, as the twenty-fourth dragged on into the twenty-fifth, a growing sense emerged that something had to be done. Going without a functioning government for two days was bad at the best of times, but with Dijon in the hands of insurgents, riots in the streets, and the Army imperfectly loyal, something would have to give. Deliberation continued well past eleven PM on the 25th until they reached a compromise. Paul Deschanel, one of the more right-wing figures in the Democratic Republican Alliance, was offered the top job. As his party was a centrist one, the moderates respected him, while his conservative views meant the more rightist figures in the government considered Deschanel to be on their side. Of course, many had their gripes with the man and his government was fated to be an unstable one, but France at last had a functioning government without recourse to a military dictatorship.
Paul Deschanel, the French prime minister who attempted to suppress the Second French Revolution. Rebel troops were fond of comparing his moustache to that worn by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
It was far too late.
While the men in Paris had bickered, the men in Dijon had nominated one of their own as leader. Jean-Jacques Famride (4) was a brigadier general who had distinguished himself during the Great War. Famride had earned a Croix de Guerre in 1915 and fought honourably during Verdun and the subsequent Kaiserschlacht. He had been the second-in-command in the force tasked with assaulting Dijon on 20 October; after the men had mutinied and killed their officer, Famride had taken control and switched sides. He was not a socialist himself, but he hated hyperinflation and the feckless Loubet government just as much as anyone else and the idea of crushing the defenders of Dijon rankled his sense of honour. Now, the leaders of the Dijon soldier’s councils had elected him their leader. Famride knew that another government attack could come crashing down on the city any day now, and was bitterly aware that Dijon might not have the strength to repulse them- the news on 26 October that Paul Deschanel was in charge in Paris only confirmed his fears. Declaring that “we don’t have enough troops to defend- we must attack!”, Famride met with the leaders of the soldier’s councils in the afternoon of the 26th. Reports suggested that an attack on the city was imminent, and if they were to survive they needed to take the initiative. With the village of Quetigny to the southeast under the control of the Army of Dijon, Famride wanted to strike northwest towards Paris. If the rebels could capture a sizeable town, it would cripple government morale and enable them to, in the commander’s words, “think long-term”. The phrase marks something important; Famride harboured no illusions that he could calm the situation. The fact that this whole revolt had started almost by accident was neither here nor there; it no longer mattered who had made what mistakes or the intentions of the participants. In killing soldiers of the French Government, the Army of Dijon had crossed the Rubicon. It was win or die, kill or be killed.
Paul Deschanel would have agreed with that statement… he was determined to kill first. Upon taking office a little before midnight, he had reviewed at the country’s military situation and muttered something uncharitable about Emile Loubet, the Treaty of Dresden, and the Springtime Mutinies. The victorious Germans had wanted to abolish the French military, but this was of course an impractical aim and they had settled on letting France keep 75,000 men under arms. The Japanese landgrab in Indochina had cost France several thousand colonial troops, and the country needed thousands more to keep a lid on Algeria and Central Africa. This left approximately forty thousand men in mainland France- all career military, few of whom had lives outside the armed services. Faced with the demand to cut the military, the government had been very selective, and they selected those who were kept on for their skill and record. The subsequent hard times had of course affected them, but considering that they were being fed and housed by the government, the hyperinflation didn’t harm them as much as it did civilians. This small force had been stripped of modern weaponry and aeroplanes- and over three thousand were in open revolt in the heart of France.
If Deschanel was going to nip this treason in the bud, time was of the essence.
To head the assault on treasonous Dijon, Deschanel tapped the young Georges Humbert. Humbert had performed reasonably well in the Great War and had passed the most important test for a French commander- he had stayed on after the Treaty of Dresden forced France to massively downsize her armed forces. He was outfitted with fifteen thousand men- all that could be spared- and told to have at it.
Conquering a city full of hostile inhabitants has never been an effortless task. Knowing what their fate will be in the men ahead fail, they will do everything in their power to bolster the defence. The defenders of Dijon were even more committed. They had done nothing wrong, and the ignorant central government had sent troops in to oppress them. Now, it appeared they were about to meet a dreadful fate as aiding and assisting armed rebels. Expecting no quarter, they could not afford to give any in return. Thus, as Sorel noted, “all of Dijon mobilised”. Men too old or too young to for wartime conscription grabbed old guns and joined their comrades on the perimeter; women and girls made sandwiches and prepared to take on the role of ad hoc nurses. Of course, few of these were professionals and there was a great deal of inefficiency and mistakes made, but morale was on the side of the defenders.
Thus, on the 28th of October 1917, the Battle of Dijon commenced. Central government troops came down from the north and west into the valley. As they did so, passing through some of the most scenic countryside in all of France, they encountered small villages. Tellingly, these villages were empty- the inhabitants had mostly fled to rebel-held Dijon. Fighting began a little before ten AM, and it rapidly became clear that the military restrictions imposed on France had been bloody effective. Government troops lacked the artillery to conduct a modern advance and the aeroplanes necessary to reconnoitre properly; by the same token, the defenders lacked machine-guns or landmines. Ironically, this was a good thing for the inhabitants, as it meant that unlike at Artois, Ypres, or Verdun, towns were not destroyed in meat-grinding battles. In 1914, officers had spoken of the importance of elan and traditional bayonet charges; these illusions had met a grisly death in the Great War. Now, with the Germans having crippled France’s military, both sides were forced to revert to such tactics. It might’ve been a refreshing change for some of the older commanders, but it largely led to confusion amongst the men- and confusion in the heat of combat is all too often fatal.
Regardless, it became clear very early on that one thing had not changed since Verdun- the men were not especially eager to fight. These 15,000 government troops had been selected to stay on because they were career military. They had been through the disastrous retreats of 1914, the debacle of Verdun, and the paranoia and instability of the Springtime Mutinies. And now the government wanted them to charge headlong at their fellow countrymen whose only crime was not to have treated the workers of Dijon like traitors when they clearly weren’t? To the average man in General Humbert’s assault, this simply wasn’t worth dying over. There had been murmurings of mutiny since before the attack went in and some of the brass hats had recognised the possibility, but there were no serious plans in place for if the men refused to do their job. However, 28 October saw no full-fledged mutiny. Instead, the attacking force manifested its displeasure in other ways- they gave themselves up after firing a few perfunctory shots, they “got lost” and somehow materialised ten miles away, or- in the most extreme cases- wounded themselves to get away. There were a few isolated incidents of men outright refusing to fight, but military policemen were able to quickly and quietly deal with them. By contrast, the defenders put everything they had into it. Marked as traitors, and urged on by General Famride, they had nothing to lose. Throughout the afternoon, they steadily gave ground, trading space for time. It would be possible to fight a street-by-street battle in Dijon but there were emotional factors making that unlikely- many of these men were fighting for their hometown with their wives and children only a few kilometres away, and it certainly wasn’t worth bringing those things into harm’s way for the sake of a tactical advantage.
A recently colourised photograph of government troops preparing to attack Dijon. Note the absence of machine-guns or heavy weaponry.
Fighting bogged down at two PM at the village of Hauteville, a few kilometres west of the main city. The rebels didn’t know how demoralised the central government forces were and saw only their own weakness. Ammunition was running low, men were dying in horrible ways, stray bullets were killing innocent women and children, and the fighting hadn’t even reached a built-up area yet. The leaders of the soldier’s councils saw their men being gunned down in fields and firing pits and worried that they would either mutiny or simply be ground down first. An hour after the battle reached Hauteville, the leaders of the councils announced that they would meet in the town hall at sunset. They didn’t openly state what for, but the obvious implication was that they were planning a retreat. Dijon, it seemed, would be in government hands by the end of the day, and just as Tsar Michael had crushed the September Revolution, so Deschanel would crush France’s popular movement…
... Which brings us back to Georges Sorel.
Sitting in his apartment in Dijon, listening to the sounds of gunfire, the French philosopher became despondent when he heard the news of this planned convention. Everything was going wrong! The people were supposed to revolt and grab their chance at liberty with both hands, not roll over and die after a few hours fighting! Fear gripping his heart, aware that he might die in a few hours and that he had to do something, Georges Sorel scribbled his “Exhortation to the People of Dijon” on the back of a letter which ought to have gone to the old woman downstairs. Maniac energy possessed him as he spent hours setting down his message to the people, getting every last detail perfect, and as the sun set down he trooped off to the town hall, the din of combat growing closer and closer.
The meeting between the soldier’s councils was as panicked as Sorel had feared, No one had any expectation that they could repulse the government assault- commanders spoke of their units taking unsustainable casualties, ignorant of the bleeding the enemy was doing. Men grimaced at the fate awaiting them- if the city fell, the government would surely treat them as traitors, with the ensuing blindfold and cigarette. Officers told stories of women and children fleeing to the southeast and soldiers leaving their posts to protect their loved ones. As the greying man pushed his way into the building- there were a handful of civilians present- General Famride said the dreaded words, “we must prepare to evacuate and look after ourselves first in the coming days.” Sorel stood up and trudged to the rebel officer, pressing his proclamation into Famride’s hands. “Read this”, he said, “and let your men see it. It will be what they need to hear- what we all need to hear.” The officers were naturally pressed for time and didn’t read this stranger’s rolled-up message; it was handed off to a subordinate. The bored sergeant unrolled the manifesto and read it silently before muttering “Mon Dieu!” and handing it over to an officer. The officer was suitably impressed and asked Sorel if he’d written this himself, before instructing that it be sent to the men fighting. In a bizarre yet iconic scene, Dijon’s printing presses were put to work churning out copies of Sorel’s manifesto.
At six PM, with the defences of Hauteville beginning to crumble, officers sent couriers to the troops bearing copies of Sorel’s proclamation. Enheartened, they cheered and returned to the fight with renewed vigour. The postwar French government widely disseminated the so-called “Sorelian Miracle”, commemorating it in poems and paintings. Even today, many far-leftists in France speak of it. (5) The story of the “miracle” is that it was Sorel’s inspiring words which rallied the men for one last, victorious push against the foe. However, the story is just that- a story. The fact that the government’s attack faltered shortly after Sorel addressed the troops was incidental, and military historians have established a solid consensus as to why it occurred; the government troops were worn out. They had been on the offensive all day with next to no artillery, charging across flat plains. Morale was shot and with night coming closer some men were slipping away. By the same token, a day of defensive combat without the benefit of land mines or machine guns had exhausted the defenders of Dijon, and they surely couldn’t have repulsed an attack by fresh troops. Thus, the end of the first day of the Battle of Dijon was an inevitability. However, the defenders didn’t see things that way. Ignorant as they were of the enemy’s condition, they assumed themselves to be outnumbered- which they were- and outgunned, and more than a few considered the cause hopeless. Thus, when the enemy pulled back after a day’s fighting, it seemed to these men like a great triumph. Flush with victory, they looked around and saw this pamphlet by a “Georges Sorel” commending them for defending their rights so gallantly. Despite having taken heavy casualties, Dijon’s defenders cheered that night as they searched for this obscure Georges Sorel.
Still wearing his helmet, the greying Marxist had spent the late evening of 28 October wandering the streets, his pamphlet in hand. When a soldier asked him if he knew of this Georges Sorel, the response was, “well, of course I know him! He’s me!” The stunned- and evidently rather trusting- soldier led Sorel back to his trench and introduced him. Someone produced a glass of wine, and the troops cried “Vive le Sorélianisme!” He spent several hours chatting with the men, discussing his philosophy, and encouraging them as they prepared for the next day’s combat…
...they were soon to get a surprise.
At four AM, a terrific racket woke the defenders of Dijon. Expecting an attack, they grabbed their rifles and stood ready, but no government troops advanced. The fighting was audible...but no bullets were flying anywhere near them. As only veterans can do, the men assumed this to be a ruse and maintained their guard. An hour and a half later, enemy forces leapt over the top and crossed what passed for No-Man’s-Land, seemingly confirming their suspicions. However, something was wrong. These men weren’t firing, and they were advancing with their hands up. A lieutenant walked up to the rebels, two armed men fixing their guns on him, and asked that they accept his entire platoon’s surrender. A rebel officer agreed, after which forty haggard government troops came across the lines disarmed. Scenes like this repeated themselves all throughout the small hours of 29 October.
It was the Verdun mutiny all over again, and it doomed the attack on Dijon.
Suddenly, Georges Sorel found himself popular beyond all reason. The men, genuinely inspired by his words, had adopted this eccentric septuagenarian as their patron. He had put into very eloquent words the cause for which they were fighting and dying, and they loved him for it. As 29 October stretched on and government troops surrendered to the Dijon rebels- who often agreed to treat them well if they fought on their side- an amazing elan set in amongst the men. Against all the odds, they had beaten the foe- David had triumphed against Goliath. Of course, the reasons for the victory had nothing to do with Sorel’s exhortations, but they cheered for him regardless. However, there was one man who was unhappy, and that was General Jean-Jacques Famride. As president of the soldier’s councils, Famride was a de facto military dictator. Of course, his position was far from rock-solid and he had to appease his fellow soldiers, but the fact remained that he ruled by the sword. Famride’s situation was compounded by the fact that he was not seen as “one of us” by the men. This was due to the fact that he had been a government commander who defected. The soldier’s councils respected him, especially in the wake of his successful defence, but to the average Dijonite he was nothing more than a faceless name. All of this contrasted with the popular, eloquent Sorel. If the people of Dijon and the soldier’s councils decided to follow the philosopher instead of the general, trouble could ensue… Deciding that the best thing to do was to nip the problem in the bud, Famride shared lunch with Sorel on 1 November. His message was polite but unmistakable: he was the leader in Dijon and any attempt to build a power base amongst the men would not be appreciated. Of course, Famride couldn’t afford to snub the influential Sorel too openly, but the message got across. Sorel would later claim that the general would’ve had him killed were he not afraid of the repercussions which would’ve ensued from the men, and this author is inclined to believe him. The two established a modus vivendi, but trouble would ensue…
Meanwhile, in Paris, Paul Deschanel was furious. Georges Humbert, his young point man, had totally disgraced himself, and was sacked. Bringing in a new commander, however, changed little. Deschanel had thrown fifteen thousand men against Dijon; they were now either dead, mutinied, or had fled into the countryside. Of course, Humbert’s force had bled the rebels heavily, but the damage was done regardless. This left approximately twenty-five thousand men left in France. However, no more could be stripped from their posts. The reason was simple: Deschanel rightly feared a true popular revolt and needed to maintain a heavy military presence to keep a lid on things. Contrary to what the postwar French government would say about him, Paul Deschanel was not a heartless strongman. He did not wish to enrich himself and oppress the French people, nor was he especially heavy-handed in disposition. Nonetheless, the rebels painted him as the archetypal villain as defined by Karl Marx: the cruel leader crushing the proletariat whose overthrow was inevitable according to the so-called laws of history. This was quite unfair, but it was accurate in one key respect: Paul Deschanel was afraid of his own people.
The conditions in France were appalling and were only getting worse. A year after the war’s end, hyperinflation, poor harvests, and violence wracked France. Faith in the central government was at an all-time low and people didn’t have an iota of respect for their new, unelected Prime Minister. Serious urban violence had already broken out while Deschanel was being appointed behind closed doors; only armed police had brought a stop to these demonstrations. Given the recent defeat and mutiny, the potential for armed unrest was very real.
Paul Deschanel was terrified of mass uprisings all across France, and wanted to establish a military dictatorship in all but name to ward such a thing off. If asked about it, he would’ve vociferously denied it, but it was true nonetheless. This policy has been hotly debated over the past century, with no consensus forming as to its wisdom or lack thereof. While tying down massive numbers of French troops certainly didn’t help, the fact remained that popular uprisings were imminent and having them on-hand to quell dissent was a good thing. Regardless, it makes little difference, for the French regime was about to fall…
...the first uprisings were only days away….
Comments?
- An OTL quote from the Wikipedia page on Sorelianism
- Fictitious
- The largest right wing party in the Third Republic
- The first of many fictitious characters ITTL.
- Think of the Battle of the Dadu Bridge and the way Mao trumpeted it as fact; many tankies in IOTL 2020 swallow the legend up.
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Goodness what a mess.
This whole series of events is one of those things that could have been avoided (if you ask a historian) but will be widely regarded as a inevitability by almost everyone else.
One key difference between Russia going Red (like in OTL) and France going Red is that I see nothing stopping Germany and even Italy from staging a intervention to remove the communist from power if the revolution is successful. France is a shadow of its former self and doesn't have the manpower or equipment to stop Germany from reentering the nation to defeat the communist and place a puppet leader in charge and announcing the creation of the French Fourth Republic. Very different situation from OTL.
Granted, Germany is still very much weakened from the Great War and currently has most of its military controlling the situation in Africa and in Eastern Europe, but I don't think it would take much to topple this France and Germany would never tolerate having a far-left state in its borders. Same goes for Italy and maybe other nations like Spain or even Britain.
A weird tangent:
I know some people want it, but I don't think anyone in Europe honestly desires France to balkanize in the post-intervention conflict. Germany proclaiming a German-led Duchy of Normandy or Italy trying to form a subservient Kingdom of Occitania out of France is not only quite implausible but would also never be accepted by the French people. It's a admittedly original idea, but would also be very unrealistic.
I would only buy it if the idea is brought up and quickly dismissed or implemented and ending in abject failure for the empire in question.
This whole series of events is one of those things that could have been avoided (if you ask a historian) but will be widely regarded as a inevitability by almost everyone else.
One key difference between Russia going Red (like in OTL) and France going Red is that I see nothing stopping Germany and even Italy from staging a intervention to remove the communist from power if the revolution is successful. France is a shadow of its former self and doesn't have the manpower or equipment to stop Germany from reentering the nation to defeat the communist and place a puppet leader in charge and announcing the creation of the French Fourth Republic. Very different situation from OTL.
Granted, Germany is still very much weakened from the Great War and currently has most of its military controlling the situation in Africa and in Eastern Europe, but I don't think it would take much to topple this France and Germany would never tolerate having a far-left state in its borders. Same goes for Italy and maybe other nations like Spain or even Britain.
A weird tangent:
I know some people want it, but I don't think anyone in Europe honestly desires France to balkanize in the post-intervention conflict. Germany proclaiming a German-led Duchy of Normandy or Italy trying to form a subservient Kingdom of Occitania out of France is not only quite implausible but would also never be accepted by the French people. It's a admittedly original idea, but would also be very unrealistic.
I would only buy it if the idea is brought up and quickly dismissed or implemented and ending in abject failure for the empire in question.
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