The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
- Thread starter Walter Rodney Kinghorn
- Start date
Confusing for the border changes will there be a map in they future? Did Greece receive Smyrna or anything from western Anatolia, would make more sense then African colonies and could get anything that Russia/Italy doesn’t want on the Aegean coast. Edrine would be in Greece hands right, still a nice chunk of Thrace received.
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Fixed, along with some other things. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I was trying to make sure that the right things could boil over into fighting. The fighting is just beginning.
I cannot figure out how to make a map. I don't know anyone that can. If you can point out a way, I would be very thankful.
Edrine is in Greek hands in ATL.
I will edit the Greek conditions of the treaty once I post this. But Constantinople was a prize that Greece would give its right arm for. Having African colonies is the price to pay Thanks. But I do not know how to make a map.
That seems overtly excessive if it is military casualties and in addition the Greeks had a rather good medical service, in OTL their rate of killed in action to wounded was pretty consistently 1 to 4 throughout 1912-1922, even accounting for wounded dying you'd still not be much over 30-40% of total casualties. And I presume we are not counting civilian deaths from Ottoman persecutions here.
The Greek representative would be none other than Venizelos in person and no matter what someone's opinion may be on him he was one of the great diplomats of the era. He'd play his hand for all it was worth and above that. If he could not get Constantinople he'd try for international control, taking advantage of British fears of Russian control of the straits... and since he was actually even willing to accept a Russian Constantinople if Greece was sufficiently compensated elsewhere try to take his pound of skin for actually accepting that. Of course that's what's he doing here ain't it?
There is an obvious place to compensate the Greeks and it is not Togoland and Cameroon it is... Cyprus which after all Britain in OTL offered to Greece both in 1913 and 1915 and which the Greeks are certain to demand ahead of any colonies. In OTL Venizelos claimed a line going from Panormos/Bandirma to Makri/Fethiye the straits excluded in Asia Minor I would suggest he gets it. Now of course TTL the Greeks are in actual control of Constantinople and are supposed to leave it which should cost even more... like the colonies on top of everything else. So if I may so suggest Greece should be getting something like this:
1. Izmir, Aydin, Mugla and Balikesir provinces in Asia Minor (using here the modern provinces as you do the same)
2. Cyprus
3. North Epirus/South Albania (that's already controlled by the Greek army in 1914 so is de facto recognizing the facts on the ground)
4. The Dodecanese islands from Italy with Italy getting the Antalya province in exchange. (that's very much to the Italian benefit and the Greeks would be far more interested in their fellow Greeks in the islands than Antalya with its miniscule Greek population)
It goes without saying, also written British/French/Russian guarantees on their new territory in case the Ottomans get... ideas. Also guarrantees that the patriarchate of Constantinople and its autonomy will be respected by the Russian government (read it continues with a Greek patriarch)
As for the colonies... actually I don't think the Greeks should be getting any at all, after all they had no colonial ambitions at the time so instead they get what is described above. But if they are to have a colony no matter what let me propose an exchange... namely Italian Cyrenaica which after all the Italians do not completely control at this time for Italian Cameroon. Far closer to Greece, already has some Greeks and a Greek historical background and likely Venizelos would be able to reach a working accommodation with Idris which avoids the unpleasantness of the Italian colonization in the 1920 and 1930s.
Not sustainable, Western Thrace is Bulgarian at this time so no land connection between Greek Macedonia and Thrace. Give all of Eastern Thrace and the Chanakkale province to Russia. Or the Russians could choose to give Bulgaria its treaty of London border in 1913 (ie territory west of the Ainos/Enez-Medeia/Kiyikoy line) after all at this moment the Bulgarians are probably proclaiming what good friends of Russia they've been all along...
As already pointed above North Epirus/South Albania is under Greek control at the tine and would remain so and the Dodecanese should be exchanged for Antalya... even as part of a separate Greek-Italian agreement like the Venizelos-Tittoni agreement of OTL.
Montenegro and Serbia were supposed to unite under a dual monarchy OTL, this likely should happen here.
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1. ATL fighting in the Balkans and the Dardanelles gave the Greeks such large numbers. Their actions on the first days of the Dardanelles Campaign had high casualties, as well as the struggle against the Austro-Hungarian forces. Also, their fighting in the Eastern Front (which they joined) also added to the casualty rates. No, the numbers do not count civilians persecuted by the Ottomans.
2. Your ideas of territory have been noted and changes have been made. Due to the contributions made by Greece, the African colonies remain in their hands.
Thank you very much.
The Italians probably want much more then one province from Ottomans in exchange for the islands and Cyrenaica and recognize Greece rights to its parts of Anatolia. Adana and Mersin should probably be added since in OTL the French beat the Italians to it. Hatay region is important because of the patriarch of Antioch so could see Russia, Italy and Greece wanting it. A land locked Ottoman Empire would be interesting assuming that all of the Black Sea coastline is in Russia or Armenia hands.
France might want some of the Middle East pie with Lebanon unders its protection.
Assyrians might want self determination and Kurds might want an independent state they could of possibly sent people to the conference.
interesting story overall keep up the nice job.
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Please note I'm not questioning the overall number of casualties. I'm questioning the ratio between combat deaths to wounded. To evidence the Greeks in the two balkan wars had in total 9970 dead and missing of all causes (illness, dying of wounds and accidents included) to 33082 wounded. WW1 was 5000 killed to 21,000 wounded... there is a pattern here. As for the first day at Gallipoli I did read your past posts... I don't know how you modeled your battles and combat casualties but 60,000 men killed in action on day on is excessive in the extreme. In OTL the allied forces lost roughly 9,400 men in the landings (2900 in Anzac cove and 6500 at Cape Helles) with roughly a third of them killed. How do the Ottomans manage TTL not just to inflict over 6 times as many casualties but to... kill them all on top of that? Lanchester's square law would be heavily favouring the allies here, at a rough calculation they'd inflict 3 times as many casualties for every single lost they took OTL and it would be getting worse as the battles progressed.
On territory... please give at least Cameroon to Italy. Frankly the Greeks may not have annexed Constantinople here but have stolen the whole rest of the shop on the "but I should have Constantinople" pretext. They have increased metropolitan territories by over 50%.
Overall a very interesting "allies win in Gallipoli" TL the last ones I really remembered were David Bofinger's and mine both of which are over 20 years old...
Got to agree. Italian Cilicia for certain... Italy was looking for it in OTL after all due to the combination of prime agricultural land and relatively low population, plus Cameroon at least. Greece neither needs colonies nor overextension and the government in Athens will be acutely aware of the danger, they need after all to integrate their new Asia Minor territories which include around 750,000 Muslims that won't be exactly happy to become Greek subjects. The last thing the Greeks need is a money sink in Cameroun or dispatching troops there to actually take control of the territory.
Just noticed the change here..., the treaty of London had Bulgaria controlling the territory not Greece. And Bulgaria is going to give their sole outlet to the Aegean and about 8% of their territory, to what is perceived as a hereditary enemy for two million pounds? Same Bulgaria that's claiming at this time all of Greek and Serb Macedonia and Thrace up to Constantinople? While it's army is intact (if less than modern) unlike the Greeks and the Serbs? What exactly is the Bulgarian government drinking that has turned them suicidal? Because any Bu;garian delegate proposing something like this would find himself hanging from a lamppost in short order.
This is frankly ASB. Not going to be happening.
Population exchanges between rump Ottoman, Russia, Italy should be enough Greeks to replace the Turkic Muslims. Attempt or forced conversions of the Greek Muslims should also help.
Whatever left of the Ottomans Empire it won’t be enough to hold the incoming refugee flood then there will be revanchism attempts later on. Agree that Greece doesn’t have the time/effort/money/people for colony like Cameroon and most likely will not keep it during decolonization anyway. Greece will be to busy filling Greeks into Anatolia/Cyrenica/Thrace.
Give Bulgaria Togoland maybe in exchange, they also stayed neutral during the war losing land for joining understandable not for neutrality.
Greek policy at the time was actually one of respecting its Muslim minority's rights in hopes of accommodating them to Greek rule, hence the dozens of Muslim MPs in the Greek parliament ironically at the very time Greece was fighting it out with the Ottoman empire/Turkey. Also assuming Greeks in the Russian and Italian controlled provinces have no reason to move away the number of exchangees is drastically reduced. Smyrna and the Aegean coast are in Greek hands, Trebizond and the Black sea coast in Russian as is Constantinople... there's maybe ~350,000 Greeks in Anatolia outside Greek or Russian control.
I have, with much regret, altered the ATL Treaty of Versailles.
Italy will gain Togoland and Kamerun. Bulgaria will retain Western Thrace.
That is all. All comments welcome.
Italy will gain Togoland and Kamerun. Bulgaria will retain Western Thrace.
That is all. All comments welcome.
I'm thinking of the nightmares every single Greek officer must be having at the thought of defending Adrianople when the next war with Bulgaria comes, given how it's essentially a triangle of territory with a coast of maybe 5-10 km on the Aegean and something like 300km of land border with Bulgaria. Completely undefensible with any forces deployed there cut off as soon as the war is on.
First Ever Map By Me: Please excuse the mistakes
The lands should all conform to the terms of the ATL Treaty of Versailles. The circle of Pacific Islands north of the Equator are those that now belong to Australia.
All comments welcome.
His full name is Rafael Edward Cruz if you want to get really nitpicky, but Theodore has an air of distinction about it. This timeline has been an interesting read so far and these little tidbits add flavour. Still, I'm not sure if being the rumoured assassin of Friedrich Ebert is a step up or down from being the rumoured Zodiac Killer.
Keep it going OP, this TL is great stuff.
Thank you very much. The murder of Friedrich Ebert is in the same ball park as the "who was Jack the Ripper?". There were too many people in the crowd, everyone was running around the scene and it was chaotic enough for the killer to leave. Within this TL, many German historians will assume the attacker was a communist. But they won't be able to find out who.
Speaking of Theodore Cruz, there will be quite a few people who will change.
Anyway, normal posts on this TL and the ASB TL will return to regular posting.
Beating Communists Blue!
It was the “Year of Revolution” for Russia, according to Australian Ambassador (1972 - 1979) to Russia and Foreign Minister Shiela Fitzpatrick (1996 - 2002). What was meant to be the end of the fighting for the Tsar was instead the change of one set of opponents, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians and the Ottomans, for another set.
The first lot, who began to rebel on the 8th July 1917, were the peasantry and middle class East Prussian and Silesian Germans. Nationalistic, militaristic and above all angry at the Treaty, over 70,000 military age men assembled in pseudo-battalions, trying to fight a Russian occupation force of over twice the number. Armed with rifles with dwindling ammunition, the men also took on knives and farm tools and petrol bombs (dubbed “Prussian Poppers”) as they tried to fight by using ambush tactics and urban warfare.
The second lot were of Finland and other ethnic groups. On the 8th of April, 40,000 ethnic Estonians in Petrograd demanded autonomy from the Russian Empire. Due to the high and rising number of successes on the front, their demands were swept away. However, they heard news of the fighting in East Prussia and Silesia, they once again marched in force on the 4th of August 1917 in Petrograd. During the peace, British and French arms and foodstuffs continued to go through to Russia, as well as American supplies. The sight of tanks in East Prussia and Silesia had also alarmed the Polish, who were to rise against the Russians in revolt. On the 15th August, riots occurred in Warsaw and Krakow, to be then quelled by Russian soldiers cracking down. The supply of foreign weapons was enough for Tsar Nicholas to continue his reign, which would live to the moniker of “The Bloody” in years to come.
It was around this time that Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronshtein) would arrive in Russia as things were heating up. The continuation of fighting had brought out protestors in the first International Women of War Day (7th August 1917, celebrated on the 7th of August every year), to represent all the women who were either mothers or wives of now dead soldiers. The protests began in Petrograd and Moscow, where the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets mobilised to free prisoners en masse. Liberal and anti-bolshevik socialists under Alexander Kerensky and others attempted to offer resistance when the army failed to quell the resistance. Having been pushed out by pro-Tsarist crowds, he retreated south with his followers and declared a Bolshevik revolt in Tsaritsyn on the 25th August 1917. The Black Sea Socialist Republic demanded among other things:
- The removal of the Tsar
- Peace with all people
- The redistribution of land
- The end to the Tsarist system.
With over 30,000 armed revolutionaries, Trotsky advanced his forces through the Caucasus region, sending feelers to the rump Three Pashas Regime (as the Ottoman Empire called the anti-Mehmed movement). These messages were intercepted by Armenian scouts by way of a border crossing. Following an altercation and the messenger being shot, the message (written in Arabic) was understood by the Armenians.
On the 2nd September 1917, over 70,000 Armenian volunteers fought against the Trotskyites, those that they claimed (it has not been proven) that they intended to kill all Armenians. These volunteers would fight across Russia, from the Trotsky-held regions to East Prussia and Silesia but also to Finland, as it attempted to declare independence on the 19th September.
With the fighting going on, many socialists and leftists began to dither and turn as Trotsky declared his revolution. The Bolsheviks had their territory, however fluid it may be, intending on declaring a worker’s republic like those in Germany. Socialists like Alexander Kerensky supported the Treaty of Versailles and openly declared their support for a constitutional monarchy. Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Kadets and even Octobrists stood out in force against the actions of Trotsky. Many of the rank and file even joined the army to fight against the Bolsheviks. This did not include the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions, who backed the Tsar to the hilt and did not appreciate the revolution on their doorstep. Over 50,000 Cossacks would fight against the Bolshevik cause.
It wasn't until October when things started to get interesting. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Trotsky’s police/Bolshevik militant wing “Cheka”, began to alienate moderate Bolsheviks under a 27-year-old Vyacheslav Molotov. The Cheka would subject the civilians of the “Black Sea Socialist Republic” with random inspections, strip searches, house invasions in the middle of the night, drunken celebrations, demands for the alcohol of each and every town, attacking women and young girls whilst under the influence of alcohol or cocaine as well as organising summary discipline.
It was stated, according to records in 2003, that 25,000 women between the ages of 4 and 85 were raped and or sexually assaulted by Cheka officials as they were the only law and order in the region. Suicide, as recorded by the Russian Institute of Health and Wellbeing, was the number one cause of death in the region from 1917 to 1926, to then rise again in the years of 1949 to 1965. Russia would remain a state with extremism, nihilism and doom holding it by the throat and the balls, from now until the end of the Second World War.
In a meeting on the 7th of October, Molotov declared that a counterrevolution had to be in order, as he declared Trotsky guilty of “perverting the revolutionary ideals that which we fought for”. It was here that the moderate Bolsheviks declared their open opposition to Trotsky. In Tsaritsyn, the capital of the BSSR, over 6,000 casualties were inflicted as hardliners under Trotsky and the Cheka ambushed associated and crowds that were linked with Molotov. Using Prussian Poppers, pro-Molotov supporters attacked the Cheka.
Over the rest of the month, house invasions became regular, with some houses desecrated before attacking the homeowners for perceived slights. The cult of personality around Trotsky began to fail, for several reasons. The first was the failure to attract a wide enough group of the proletariat, the illiterate peasantry and workers that would have fought in the First World War. The second was a lack of foreign policy and trade problems to exploit. Russian civilians received fuel and food that was still coming overseas, which was highlighting the need for further domestic production. The third was the land itself, which was the homeland of the Cossacks, who were loyal to the Tsar. The Culling of the Cossacks, a 1933 book written by Labour MP, British Catholic and future Prime Minister Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 - 1991), described much of the atrocities which killed over 7,000 ethnic Cossack men, women and children as he travelled the region between 1925 and 1930. It was one the moments that drew him towards crusading for human rights and for the CLE, the Consistent Life Ethic, which was to be held up by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
As the civilian harassment and abuse rose, so did the paranoia within Dzerzhinsky. Armed with the entire Cheka, he continued to approach Trotsky with lists of possible traitors to execute, in order to fulfil the goals of the BSSR. As Trotsky was building popular support, Dzerzhinsky was tearing it down. As the Polish Flu arrived in the region during November, the Cheka began to shoot civilians based on paranoia and fear of having the virus. The instability for the Cheka was marked by the kangaroo courts established by delegated lieutenants, acting under orders from Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky as well as Dzerzhinsky himself obtaining a heavy addiction to cocaine and amphetamines simultaneously. It was this that allowed the so-called "Iron Felix" to work 40 hours in a row without sleep. According to The Red Files, a 1936 book written by former Cheka officer and later the architect of the "Nightmare of Bloody Nicholas" Lazar Kaganovich, he developed a cocaine addiction after working with Dzerzhinsky during this period where he also claimed that Felix worked for eighty hours straight in one week.
November 1917 would place Finland back within Russian control, after having its Parliament dissolved by the Tsar and claiming no international relief. 590 deaths would occur between Russian soldiers and anti-monarchist Fins. East Prussia and Poland and Silesia would begin to feel the uneasy tensions again, as 20,000 deaths occurred during this time before rebellion was stopped completely in February 1918. A majority of Silesians and East Prussians emigrated to whatever remained of Germany, joining whatever revanchist party served to bring their homes back or to make Germany great again. Either one suited them.
December 1917. Deaths began to rise in the BSSR. Molotov was cornered in a hotel overlooking the Black Sea coast by Cheka officials on the 7th December. For a total of five hours, he was beaten to a pulp before being shot fifty three times and having his body buried in an unmarked grave. Said grave was not discovered until 2011. Upon hearing the news of Molotov's death, the moderate members of the BSSR held a meeting without Trotsky's approval and demanded the expulsion of the "Hardliners" under Dzerzhinsky on the 14th December. With the Cossacks and the anti-bolshevik forces gaining ground on all sides, Dzerzhinsky ordered a round of mass shootings for those deemed to be "subversive" on the 19th December. As the killing went on, the moderates either surrendered or fought the Cheka in the fields and streets that were still under their control. It was not until the 26th January 1918 when the BSSR would be dissolved.
Polish Flu victims numbered 46,000 dead, with victims of the BSSR regime numbering between 25,000 and 150,000. Dzerzhinsky, upon realising how cornered he was, consumed the last of his cocaine and amphetamines before attacking the Tsarist forces on the 22nd January 1918. He and the 9,000 Cheka soldiers inside Tsaritsyn held out for 14 hours against 100,000 Tsarists. Felix himself would kill close to a thousand men before he died from a drug-induced heart attack, aged 40. His body was incinerated and . Every man who followed the Cheka, excluded those that hid like Lazar Kaganovich, was shot dead.
As for Trotsky himself, he and a total of 300 followers fled the country on the 2nd December 1917. Crossing every European country off the list, he instead moved to a colony. Four months later, he would arrive in Batavia. The capital city of the Dutch East Indies.
NEXT POST: THE POLISH FLU
The first lot, who began to rebel on the 8th July 1917, were the peasantry and middle class East Prussian and Silesian Germans. Nationalistic, militaristic and above all angry at the Treaty, over 70,000 military age men assembled in pseudo-battalions, trying to fight a Russian occupation force of over twice the number. Armed with rifles with dwindling ammunition, the men also took on knives and farm tools and petrol bombs (dubbed “Prussian Poppers”) as they tried to fight by using ambush tactics and urban warfare.
The second lot were of Finland and other ethnic groups. On the 8th of April, 40,000 ethnic Estonians in Petrograd demanded autonomy from the Russian Empire. Due to the high and rising number of successes on the front, their demands were swept away. However, they heard news of the fighting in East Prussia and Silesia, they once again marched in force on the 4th of August 1917 in Petrograd. During the peace, British and French arms and foodstuffs continued to go through to Russia, as well as American supplies. The sight of tanks in East Prussia and Silesia had also alarmed the Polish, who were to rise against the Russians in revolt. On the 15th August, riots occurred in Warsaw and Krakow, to be then quelled by Russian soldiers cracking down. The supply of foreign weapons was enough for Tsar Nicholas to continue his reign, which would live to the moniker of “The Bloody” in years to come.
It was around this time that Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronshtein) would arrive in Russia as things were heating up. The continuation of fighting had brought out protestors in the first International Women of War Day (7th August 1917, celebrated on the 7th of August every year), to represent all the women who were either mothers or wives of now dead soldiers. The protests began in Petrograd and Moscow, where the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets mobilised to free prisoners en masse. Liberal and anti-bolshevik socialists under Alexander Kerensky and others attempted to offer resistance when the army failed to quell the resistance. Having been pushed out by pro-Tsarist crowds, he retreated south with his followers and declared a Bolshevik revolt in Tsaritsyn on the 25th August 1917. The Black Sea Socialist Republic demanded among other things:
- The removal of the Tsar
- Peace with all people
- The redistribution of land
- The end to the Tsarist system.
With over 30,000 armed revolutionaries, Trotsky advanced his forces through the Caucasus region, sending feelers to the rump Three Pashas Regime (as the Ottoman Empire called the anti-Mehmed movement). These messages were intercepted by Armenian scouts by way of a border crossing. Following an altercation and the messenger being shot, the message (written in Arabic) was understood by the Armenians.
On the 2nd September 1917, over 70,000 Armenian volunteers fought against the Trotskyites, those that they claimed (it has not been proven) that they intended to kill all Armenians. These volunteers would fight across Russia, from the Trotsky-held regions to East Prussia and Silesia but also to Finland, as it attempted to declare independence on the 19th September.
With the fighting going on, many socialists and leftists began to dither and turn as Trotsky declared his revolution. The Bolsheviks had their territory, however fluid it may be, intending on declaring a worker’s republic like those in Germany. Socialists like Alexander Kerensky supported the Treaty of Versailles and openly declared their support for a constitutional monarchy. Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Kadets and even Octobrists stood out in force against the actions of Trotsky. Many of the rank and file even joined the army to fight against the Bolsheviks. This did not include the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions, who backed the Tsar to the hilt and did not appreciate the revolution on their doorstep. Over 50,000 Cossacks would fight against the Bolshevik cause.
It wasn't until October when things started to get interesting. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Trotsky’s police/Bolshevik militant wing “Cheka”, began to alienate moderate Bolsheviks under a 27-year-old Vyacheslav Molotov. The Cheka would subject the civilians of the “Black Sea Socialist Republic” with random inspections, strip searches, house invasions in the middle of the night, drunken celebrations, demands for the alcohol of each and every town, attacking women and young girls whilst under the influence of alcohol or cocaine as well as organising summary discipline.
It was stated, according to records in 2003, that 25,000 women between the ages of 4 and 85 were raped and or sexually assaulted by Cheka officials as they were the only law and order in the region. Suicide, as recorded by the Russian Institute of Health and Wellbeing, was the number one cause of death in the region from 1917 to 1926, to then rise again in the years of 1949 to 1965. Russia would remain a state with extremism, nihilism and doom holding it by the throat and the balls, from now until the end of the Second World War.
In a meeting on the 7th of October, Molotov declared that a counterrevolution had to be in order, as he declared Trotsky guilty of “perverting the revolutionary ideals that which we fought for”. It was here that the moderate Bolsheviks declared their open opposition to Trotsky. In Tsaritsyn, the capital of the BSSR, over 6,000 casualties were inflicted as hardliners under Trotsky and the Cheka ambushed associated and crowds that were linked with Molotov. Using Prussian Poppers, pro-Molotov supporters attacked the Cheka.
Over the rest of the month, house invasions became regular, with some houses desecrated before attacking the homeowners for perceived slights. The cult of personality around Trotsky began to fail, for several reasons. The first was the failure to attract a wide enough group of the proletariat, the illiterate peasantry and workers that would have fought in the First World War. The second was a lack of foreign policy and trade problems to exploit. Russian civilians received fuel and food that was still coming overseas, which was highlighting the need for further domestic production. The third was the land itself, which was the homeland of the Cossacks, who were loyal to the Tsar. The Culling of the Cossacks, a 1933 book written by Labour MP, British Catholic and future Prime Minister Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 - 1991), described much of the atrocities which killed over 7,000 ethnic Cossack men, women and children as he travelled the region between 1925 and 1930. It was one the moments that drew him towards crusading for human rights and for the CLE, the Consistent Life Ethic, which was to be held up by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
As the civilian harassment and abuse rose, so did the paranoia within Dzerzhinsky. Armed with the entire Cheka, he continued to approach Trotsky with lists of possible traitors to execute, in order to fulfil the goals of the BSSR. As Trotsky was building popular support, Dzerzhinsky was tearing it down. As the Polish Flu arrived in the region during November, the Cheka began to shoot civilians based on paranoia and fear of having the virus. The instability for the Cheka was marked by the kangaroo courts established by delegated lieutenants, acting under orders from Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky as well as Dzerzhinsky himself obtaining a heavy addiction to cocaine and amphetamines simultaneously. It was this that allowed the so-called "Iron Felix" to work 40 hours in a row without sleep. According to The Red Files, a 1936 book written by former Cheka officer and later the architect of the "Nightmare of Bloody Nicholas" Lazar Kaganovich, he developed a cocaine addiction after working with Dzerzhinsky during this period where he also claimed that Felix worked for eighty hours straight in one week.
November 1917 would place Finland back within Russian control, after having its Parliament dissolved by the Tsar and claiming no international relief. 590 deaths would occur between Russian soldiers and anti-monarchist Fins. East Prussia and Poland and Silesia would begin to feel the uneasy tensions again, as 20,000 deaths occurred during this time before rebellion was stopped completely in February 1918. A majority of Silesians and East Prussians emigrated to whatever remained of Germany, joining whatever revanchist party served to bring their homes back or to make Germany great again. Either one suited them.
December 1917. Deaths began to rise in the BSSR. Molotov was cornered in a hotel overlooking the Black Sea coast by Cheka officials on the 7th December. For a total of five hours, he was beaten to a pulp before being shot fifty three times and having his body buried in an unmarked grave. Said grave was not discovered until 2011. Upon hearing the news of Molotov's death, the moderate members of the BSSR held a meeting without Trotsky's approval and demanded the expulsion of the "Hardliners" under Dzerzhinsky on the 14th December. With the Cossacks and the anti-bolshevik forces gaining ground on all sides, Dzerzhinsky ordered a round of mass shootings for those deemed to be "subversive" on the 19th December. As the killing went on, the moderates either surrendered or fought the Cheka in the fields and streets that were still under their control. It was not until the 26th January 1918 when the BSSR would be dissolved.
Polish Flu victims numbered 46,000 dead, with victims of the BSSR regime numbering between 25,000 and 150,000. Dzerzhinsky, upon realising how cornered he was, consumed the last of his cocaine and amphetamines before attacking the Tsarist forces on the 22nd January 1918. He and the 9,000 Cheka soldiers inside Tsaritsyn held out for 14 hours against 100,000 Tsarists. Felix himself would kill close to a thousand men before he died from a drug-induced heart attack, aged 40. His body was incinerated and . Every man who followed the Cheka, excluded those that hid like Lazar Kaganovich, was shot dead.
As for Trotsky himself, he and a total of 300 followers fled the country on the 2nd December 1917. Crossing every European country off the list, he instead moved to a colony. Four months later, he would arrive in Batavia. The capital city of the Dutch East Indies.
NEXT POST: THE POLISH FLU