The March of Time - 20th Century History

[Karelian]

31 days, 4,43 weeks, or 744 hours.
The war in the North was little more than a month old when the European powers begun to properly coordinate their reactions and consider their options. The much-applauded "spirit of Rome" that had enabled the Powers to formulate a joint policy and a coordinated intervention to the Macedonian Question had taken them months to negotiate, and in retrospect made the diplomats and politicians too focused on the fate of the Ottoman Empire to pay enough attention to Scandinavia.

The key actors in the old diplomatic system had naturally assumed that after being sternly told not to resort to violence, the Swedish government would naturally adhere the unwritten rules of post-Napoleonic European politics and play nice. The fact that they had so blatantly defied the clearly articulated will of the Powers was in many ways a revealing shock, as the old Concert of Europe once again assembled to meet the latest threat to regional stability and European peace.

Without any established set of rules or international code of laws to coordinate their actions, the representatives of the Powers went along with the well-established standards of Bismarckian Realpolitik. Unfortunately that meant that the same conflicts of interest that had affected the nature of the joint ultimatum represented to the Porte two months ago were again brought to the table.

But whereas the Macedonian crisis had been largely solved by coordination of Vienna and St.Petersburg, in Scandinavia British interests were met by German and Russian opposition, with Vienna watching the whole matter from the sidelines and France trying to balance her earlier treaty obligations from the days of the Crimean War to her later alliance with Russia.

When combined with the personal relations of the European monarchs and their views to the question of the Norwegian succession, the matter became extremely complex.

The ifs, hows and whens of the negotiations proliferated like the rabbits of Fibonacci, and the representatives of the Powers in Stockholm were far from ideal candidates to the task at hand.

But as September turned to October, the events on the battlefield placed new variables to the negotiation table. The Swedish General Staff was becoming increasingly desperate. Not because of the general strike, draft dodgers or unrest. Not because of the determined Norwegian resistance or ruined timetables. What kept the Swedish Generals awake at night was a small official report regarding the consumption of artillery ammunition, and the total number of remaining shell stockpiles. By October it was still an open question whether Sweden was running out of time diplomatically, but it was increasingly obvious that her Army was running out of shells, and fast.

 

[Karelian]

Ambivalent Attachés, Part I: Officers and Gentlemen
When the war between Sweden and Norway begun on 22nd of September, the military attachés observing Scandinavia were as a norm almost as surprised as the foreign diplomats had been. Many of the attachés had been originally tasked to deal with the matters involving the United Kingdoms as an extra task from their residences abroad: from Brussels in the case of the British military attaché, Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston, and often from St. Petersburg, as was the case of Paul von Hintze, the highly influential German naval attaché.

A new European war was big news in a time when the international press was growing very rapidly, and the major papers all over Europe urgently dispatched reporters to the scene to observe the events. Without knowledge of the local languages and the political situation, the reporters were regarded as a nuisance and consequently the Swedish government banned them from travelling to the front. Stuck to the cities, mainly Stockholm, the impatience of the foreign journalists grew, and they became increasingly hostile towards their Swedish hosts.

Sir Montagu Gerard was an old warhorse with a huge ego, good grasp of modern warfare and impeccable manners. In OTL he was sent to observe Russo-Japanese War and had chilly relations with his colleaque, Col. W. H. W. Waters. Unlike Waters, who was despised by Gerard as a desk soldier the British standing military attaché in the United Kingdoms in 1905, Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston, has served with distinction during the Second Boer War and gained the King's medal with four clasps. Thus he and the old General get along well.

Permitted to follow the operations as guests of sorts, the rapidly expanding ranks of the military attachés were a different story. To mark their different role and social status from the "reporter rabble", they had self-imposed to themselves an appropriate protocol and code of conduct. The Swedes had recognized Sir Montagu Gerard, the new British military attache shipped in to oversee the conflict as the senior officer due his rank. As an old gentleman who always seemed to preserve his traditional British stiff upper lip-imperturbability, he never neither asked for or complained of anything, and expected all other attachés to behave likewise. As an unofficial headmaster of sorts, Gerard had the ungrateful task of supervising a small “diplomatic community” of foreign officers hailing from Germany, France, Russia, Austro-Hungary and Italy, with a mixture of officers from smaller European states such as Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and the trans-Atlantic United States and Argentina.

The place where these men were initially stationed and where many of them actually spent most of their time in Sweden was at the smoky bar at the officer pavilion of Trossnäs military base, c. 18km west from Karlstad. Here the observers kept track of news and rumours from the front, and mingled more freely with the coming and going Swedish officers and civilians. The international atmosphere between the attachés and observers was remarkably friendly, considering the national tensions and Great Power rivalries of the day. Mostly this was due the strict diplomatic protocol and etiquette observed by the attaché community - the newly arrived officers were for example expected to call or leave their card to every foreign attaché who had preceded them, and anyone who wasn’t using their field dress on ceremonial occasions and on Sundays was also frowned upon by the others.

Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston had war experience from the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment). He hurried to Stockholm from his station at Brussels in 1905 to observe the unfolding war. His Boer War experiences affected the way he viewed the fighting in eastern Norway.

The firm and formal diplomatic protocols made the senior military attachés to focus more on gossip, and kept the potential conflicts between them muted and short, as the observer community quickly proved itself capable of whipping up unanimous formal demands for recall for personnel whom they believed to be "not up to the standards of their mission." The Americans were especially met with suspicion and disdain, as they refused or failed to follow the accepted etiquette by “stubbornly refusing to understand any other language apart from English.” They were also set apart from the rest of the self-defined military attaché community by their “semi-sporting style khaki-colored jackets where no one could distinguish their ranks.”

Diplomatically the presence of these attachés was a matter that divided the opinion of the Swedish government. On the one hand they were a clear sign that the individual governments that formed the Concert of Europe believed (or at least highly doubted) that they could not collectively enforce their will upon Sweden, a sovereign modern European state. On the other hand the presence of large number of Major Power observes, especially Russians, stressed the Swedish generals who would have preferred "not to wash their dirty Norwegian linen in public."

The status of Lord Brooke and other senior military men officially sent to Norway as media correspondents underlined the way the Powers approached the diplomatic status of the war with circumspection and mutual distrust.

But while the military attachés on the Swedish side were the only foreign observers with the access to the front lines, the situation in Norway was vastly different. Here the reporters found the Norwegian government too desperate to seek international support to care for matters of secrecy (at least initially), and too encumbered with the war effort to be fully able to coordinate the sudden influx of international media even if they had wanted to. At the same time the European diplomacy was pondering what to do with the unilateral Norwegian secession from the United Kingdoms. Sending official military attachés would require an official recognition of the Norwegian independence, and that was a step that the Powers were still unwilling to take.

Naturally the readers of various newspapers still deserved to receive qualified analysis of the events of the northern battlefields, and men like Leopold Grenville, a veteran of the Second Boer War and the former aide-de-camp of the High Commissioner Lord Milner were more than happy to help with the blessing of the War Office. The way former men like him worked officially as correspondents and unffocially gathered information for their respective governments blurred the division between free press and espionage.

 

[Karelian]

 

[Karelian]

The War in the North: The Last Hurrah
""Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our English dead....""
William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene I

By the end of October the war in the North seemed to be approaching a culminating point. The Norwegian border forts along the main Swedish axis of attack had failed to act as deterrent, but they had nevertheless performed their planned task as well as one could have reasonably expected.

Besieging, bypassing and storming them had been a hard and time-consuming task for the Swedish Army, and together with the well-organized guerrilla activities, the Norwegian resistance at the border had thwarted the Swedish plans for a coup de main against their rebellious subject nation.

The news of the heavy casualties and gruesome nature of the fighting had by now started to trickle back to the home fronts, with various effects: both the pro- and antiwar camps in Norwegian and Swedish societies had gained new momentum, while the military commands of the opposing armies had been alarmed to discover that the carefully prepared prewar supply manuals had been gross underestimations of the true costs of a modern war, both in manpower and material terms.

This had been especially nasty surprise for the Swedish military, as the consumption of artillery ammunition together with the difficult terrain between the Swedish border and Kristiania had turned the supply difficulties to an additional foe in the long list of obstacles and setbacks that had plagued the Swedish war effort from the beginning.

And yet the Swedish HQ could point out to the increasingly neurotic Crown Prince and the mortally ill and utterly depressed Oscar II that the main objectives of the campaign were now finally within reach. The southern delta of Glomma had been crossed, with the defending Norwegian forces engaged and ultimately routed after a failed local counterattack being reportedly little more than determined militias consisting of boys and old men.

This was not a time to be squeamish, the generals told the royalty in unison, and urged them to press on and ignore the diplomatic protests from abroad for just a little while longer. Once the Swedish flag - once again stained in gunpowder smoke and blood of young martyrs like in the glorious days of yore - would soon fly over Kristiania, it would be time to dictate terms and end this war.

29th of October, 1905, Sunday.
Rømskog, Norway.
The ground was shaking, as dirt, depris, shrapnel and wood splinters whirled through the air at the hillside. Men of the 2. Company of the Landværnet Jæger-Bataillon, having captured this position early in the morning after the Swedes had evacuated their wounded and retreated in disarray, were now pinned down just like the the previous defenders of this stony ridge had been a hour earlier. The few remaining pine trees were falling down as artillery shells exploded among them, and the men caught in this hellscape could do little but seek shelter from the shallow artillery craters in the stony ground and hope and pray for the best.

They had little idea how their brothers in arms were faring further north. Their earlier raid in the region had caught the Swedes by surprise, and had also signalled the beginning of the first a major Norwegian counterattack. The offensive was to advance towards southwest along the Rødenes-Rømskog road, sever the southern supply routes of the Swedish main offensive, ultimately moving the front to Swedish soil at Östervallskog.

The plan had been brought together in haste, and used troops that had been equally hastily refilled with reservists after the battles of Kongsvinger had decimated their prewar ranks. Yet it had managed to achieve initial surprise, and the Swedish reservist formations guarding what had been estimated to be a silent part of the front had been flanked and defeated with ease. But the Swedish high command had no intentions to allow the Norwegians to roll their flanks.

The artillery siege of Ørje, south from the Norwegian offensive, had been abandoned with the town next to the fort reduced to ruin but the fort itself still standing. The Swedish artillery and infantry units that had spent weeks within rifle fire distance of the Norwegian lines had been quickly dispatched northwards, to attack the southern flank of the Norwegians while Swedish reservists holding the supply depots along the few roads in the area had been ordered to hold fast and delay the invading Norwegians.

While the Norwegians had superiour reconnaissance and local guides due the activity of local Geriljahæren fighters, the same difficult roads and rainy autumn weather that had slowed the Swedish advance to a crawl were now just as troublesome for Norwegian supply columns and artillery units.

The nearby local supplies from the artillery forts of the area enabled the Norwegians to punch their way through the first Swedish positions, centered around the blockhouses they had erected along the roads, but after these stockpiles had been quickly depleted, the attack bogged down. Both sides discovered that the short engagement distances and hilly terrain turned infantry fighting to bloody skirmishes without chances to rapid advantage.

And while the regular Norwegian formations had better morale and small-unit tactics than the Swedish second-line reservists they were facing, the Swedish field artillery was able to even the odds with their steady and accurate fire support. After three days of fighting the Norwegians had created a 15km-wide salient to the Swedish lines extending to the western flank of Römsjö lake and a few hundred meters to the Swedish side of the of the prewar border of the United Kingdoms.

By then they were facing a solified Swedish frontline, manned by second-line reservists, exchausted from days of heavy marching from the Swedish railheads. With no more flanks left to turn, the Norwegian attacks were pinned down by infantry and crushed by artillery barrages.

By now the Swedes had the supply advantage, and the narrow dirt roads of the area resembled small muddy hillside streams rather than reliable supply routes for either side. The wounded suffered, the still combat-effective men shivered in the wet and cold conditions, and the attack had failed to turn to a region-wide sweep that would have rolled back the Swedish invasion.

Norwegian War Minister Wilhelm Olssøn and Chief of Staff General Hakon Hansen continued the mobilization of all available manpower, even though Hansen was still sceptical of the actual combat value of the Landstormen resevists, pointing out to their difficulties at the Glomma Line. But since virtually all of the regular army formations had fought and bled in a continuous combat ever since the first days of the war, the only way to amass reserves to the defence of Kristiania and for new counterattacks was by continued mass mobilization of all able-bodied men they could muster.

Reservists would man the defences on less critical sections, and the remaining refitted forces of the prewar Norwegian army would be transported to more critical sectors via railways. The nature of these operations was increasingly desperate in nature, but it nevertheless enabled the Norwegian army to fight on to another day. Still, neither Olssøn or Hansen had any illusions.

The formations gathered together from southern Norway were the last forces that could be reasonably expected to be able to mount any kind of major counterattacks. General Hansen summarized the situation in his typically calm and fatalistic manner: "Either these forces attack again soon and win, or our cause is lost."

 

[Karelian]

Ambivalent Attachés, Part II: Early reports and conclusions

“...it is difficult to find a more striking example of the disasters which attend the country in which an aggressive foreign policy has been allowed to proceed unchecked, far ahead of the strategic preparations for its continuity after the failure of diplomatic measures...”

“Fire is now, or should be, the all-important factor in a battle...”

“Judging by what I have seen here in the battlefields and of the German and Russian armies in times of peace, neither the one nor the other puts into practice the true theory underlying magazine rifles, namely, that their power of fire, both in attack and defense, enables fewer men to do greater execution than a large number can do with the single-loader, and tactics can be affected in consequence....”

“Machine guns must be brought up and entrenched...artillery must accompany the infantry to the very last stage of the attack...storming infantry must blast the enemy position with hand grenades as they move in to the final bayonet charge, while heavy howitzer fire must isolate the position under attack from enemy reinforcements...”

"The field artillery of both sides was initially sited in the open, as it was thought this was the best way to fire for effect. But this tactic was soon abandoned, as it ignored the vastly improved range of modern Krag-Jorgensens and Mausers. The very large quantities of ammunition required to produce the prolonged barrages that determined the last phases of the war were deemed necessary to suppress the defenders, but this unforeseen new feature in the battlefield caused a major logistical strain that first burned away the pre-war stockpiles and then proceeded to overwhelm the logistical capabilities of the Swedish arms industry..."

“Owing to special conditions and the geographical and climatic peculiarities of the theater of war, the most recent war possess characteristics which only allow one to draw inferences and deductions from the study of the events of it up to a certain point...”

“...the tactics employed are necessitated by the peculiar circumstances of the campaign and cannot be taken as of general application...”

The conclusion that a modern army was tied down to railway logistics, and could only venture so far from prepared supply depots before the lack of ammunition and supplies would doom the attack to stagnate and fail. In a case of Sweden, a hundred kilometers from the border to the Norwegian capitol, Kristiania, had turned out to be a near overwhelming distance for a single campaign. By Clausewitzian terms a classical objective, the capture of enemy capitol, had been the rational focus of the campaign. But due mass mobilization of her trained manpower reserves, the Norwegian Army was still in the field as a fighting force, and both armies had witnessed a massive transformation from relatively small prewar standing army formations to massive organizations that had drafted to their service large percentages of the adult male populations of both countries.

The observers praised the Norwegian preparedness to meet a foe that had seemed overwhelming, as well as admirable Swedish military intelligence and espionage system that had clearly well informed Swedish General Staff of the quality and strength of the forces which Norway had in the field at the start of the war. The attachés deployed to Christiania equally praised the Norwegian capabilities to conduct an emergency total mobilization that had ultimately foiled the Swedish calculations.

Everyone remarked the role of firepower in both offense and defense, as well as the changing infantry tactics, the extension of frontages and the duration of fighting. The new means of communications, utilization of railroads and other aspects of the conflict created a stark contrast to the massive fortification efforts undertaken by both armies.

The French General Silvestre concluded that the battles had been drawn out because the Norwegians fought from fortified defensive works. Arguing that both sides would take the offensive in a future war in Europe, he expected that once contact was achieved, the future wars between Major Powers would be decided by one day’s hard fighting. Another French commentator De Négrier, stated that the quality of the French soldier would overcome any technological advances on the field of battle. His view was not as arrogant or uncommon as it may seem. The logical alternative, admittance that war would no longer be a practical mean of achieving fast political results between Major Powers of Europe, was simply unthinkable to any self-respecting professional soldier of the day. To all foreign observers present in Scandinavian battlefields, the unfolding scene of a tactical statemate was abhorrent, a warning example that was to be avoided by all possible ways - mainly by keeping all future wars short and victorious. And for that to happen, one had to attack. Élan and fighting spirit were necessities for decisive battles, and decisive battles were necessary for victory. And to obtain victory in a future war, one had to prepare the nation for the necessary sacrifices to avoid the fate of Sweden.

Not all professional soldiers agreed with this thesis. As the General Staffs of Germany, Russia, Britain, Austria-Hungary and France produced multi-volume accounts of the war, these well-researched postwar volumes contained the results of debates that started in the military academies and general staffs soon after the beginning of the Secession War, and carried on to the end of the decade. Ultimately the conflict spawned a huge volume of studies and other literature. Austrian “Epitome of the Swedo-Norwegian War” was an excellent condensed overview of the conflict, only equaled by the multi-volume US account. Many professional journal accounts accompanied the official military studies.

The exact nature of the lessons learned and conclusions drawn largely depended on chance, as many of the observers ultimately had grand careers in their national militaries. The future British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir William Nicholson, is the most well-known example, but the German observer lists also contained men who made a name for themselves later on: von Etzel, von Lauenstein (old peacetime attaché in St. Petersburg) and Max Hoffman.

 

[Karelian]

Between the rock and a hard place - Swedish Trade Union Confederation

‘...the very idea of a generals trike was tantamount to suicide for the trade union movement.’

Herman Lindqvist, September 1905.

Railroads were the arteries of modern war. They transported soldiers, horses, fodder, ammunition and other supplies, and enabled the commanders to move large armies from one place to another with great haste.

When the Swedish antiwar movement begun to organize resistance against the war, it was thus natural that their attention focused on the railways. The railway workers themselves had been initially reluctant to participate in any kind of strikes organized by the Swedish trade union organization, LO.

Their trade union was not affiliated to the LO, since most of them were government servants with their own uniforms and official ranks. Because of this hierarchy, their wages and pensions depended upon the time they had spent in the railway service.

As soon as the war begun, the government declared that any railway worker who would join to any kind of strike would lose his pension and be immediately fired, to be treated as new employees at the bottom end of the wage scale in a case of re-hiring.

Thus the railway workers had a lot to lose, and their union rejected the LO calls for a general strike with clear numbers. At the same time they made their antiwar stance known by contributing monetary support for the two unions that would bear the brunt of the strike: the steel and metal workers (Järn- och metallarbetareförbundet) and the factory workers (Grof- och fabriksarbetareförbundet.)

With the railroads and the postal
service remaining in operation, the LO leadership retained their ability to coordinate their nation-wide efforts. As the LO and Social Democratic leadership were slowly being swept along to the spontaneously rising tide of worker discontent and strike activities, they could take comfort from the fact that the war served as a clear topic for agitation and as a clearly defined goal for the strike itself.

With government intervention being the ultimate objective of the strike, it is easier to understand the way the LO leaders remained in contact with the Liberal party leaders and the business leaders of Sweden. As Branting and the LO leaders saw it, the liberals were now needed as a mediating partner between the right-wing government and the labour movement’s political branch, the Social Democratic Party. Thus neither the liberals nor the business owners should not to be scared away.

The LO leadership hoped that the sudden shock that hit society would force it the government to end the war and negotiate an acceptable peace arrangement to end the conflict. Society as such would not be threatened, since the strike should be non-revolutionary in character. Thus the LO leaders hoped to square the circle, and avoid violent government crackdown and violent labour unrest.

 

[Karelian]

9th of October, 1905, Thursday.
Lillestrøm, Norway, 11km East from Kristiania.
When the war begun in September, the eastern axis of the Swedish attack had managed to surprise the Norwegian Army that was still in a middle of mobilization. In the following weeks the Norwegian fortress garrison commanders and DFS paramilitary groups at the frontier had fought with "grim determination, admirable courage, and next to no strategic coordination", as one Dutch military observer had remarked. It was a frank assessment, but not entirely untrue. When the unthinkable happened and the carefully orchestrated Swedish invasion plan fell in motion, the fog of war settled in, and confusion initially overwhelmed the Norwegian high command. But by the time the defenders of Ørje had stopped the Swedes from crossing and Kongsvinger developed into the first major battle of the war, the Norwegian generals had had time to recover from their initial shock.

The Rømskog counterattack had begun as a battalion-level raid, but nevertheless already featured dedicated artillery support, tactical reserves, new (improvised) weapons in the form of kongoscars, and an orchestrated attempt to seize the initiative instead of just defying the odds in one hopeless holding action after another. Minister Wilhelm Olssøn and General Hansen had by then stopped their mutual bickering and focused to the task at hand, even though their disagreements with what was militarily sound and what was strategically necessary was still a strong factor in the command decisions they made.

Right now they both agreed that Lillestrøm was the place where the war would be decided.

Surrounded by rolling hills that were open and rather barren after centuries of continuous sheep and cattle pasture, the place had been little more than a mosquito-infested swampland and the delta of Leira and Nitelva rivers just a half century ago. After steam-powered sawmill industry started to utilize the local water transport capabilities to drive logs from upstream forests, Rømskog had witnessed a spurt of industrialization that had transformed the landscape from near-wilderness to a busy and growing sawmill community. Now the hastily abandoned area sat between the two warring armies, and in the way of the shortest Swedish route to the Norwegian capitol.

Harassed by a battery of four 105mm M/1904 Cockerill-Nordenfelt medium guns that used an observation balloon to guide the artillery, the Swedish engineers managed to keep their new bridges over Glomma in operational condition by using the massive amount of logs, planks and other timber available from the local sawmills. Since the Norwegians wanted to conserve ammo, they mostly fired at night, when the Swedes continued their own supply efforts, painfully hauling at least some of their lighter Krupp guns over Glomma. Unwilling to commit their remaining infantry to the fray before their artillery was ready to support it, the Swedes continued their advance northwards, using artillery from the eastern bank of Glomma to clear way for the rest of the available main forces of the I:a Armén.

The final battlefield, the swampy farmland valley roughly 10km wide in East-West axis and c. 20km long from the shores of Lake Øyeren towards North-West, still had a lot of the pre-war civilian population in place by early October. Many farmer families had valued their winter stockpiles more than the uncertain safety of refugee life, and had opted to take their chances at their own homes. The nights were getting frostly, and the wind howling at the corners was chilly. Up in the hills the shivering soldiers on guard duty gazed to the dim lights of the farmhouses down in the valley. The moon was like a small orange-yellow half-krone coin at the horizon, and mostly shone through clouds. Further back in the tents one could hear only snoring, and the silent humming of the stove fires. On the surface everything was almost idyllic, and awfully similar to prewar field exercises. Except for one crucial difference. No one was laughing anymore.

Leira River at Lillestrøm. The Swedish forces amassed to the hills in the eastern horizon.

Nitelva River at Lillestrøm. The Norwegians dug in to the hills at the horizon, at West.
Note the large stockpiles of logs driven from up-river, and transported with small steam tugboats via Lake Øyeren and local canals.

 

[Karelian]

10th of October, 1905, Friday.
Lillestrøm, Norway, 11km East from Kristiania.

Generalmajor Holtermann bit his fingernails, and tasted blood. The wooden outhouse he was sitting was the only place he had been alone for weeks, and despite the copious amounts of coffee and snus, he felt like a tired drunkard at dawn. Holtermann exhaled, scratched his hair absent-mindedly, and shook himself a little. Then he put his trademark gloves back on, corrected his cap, lifted his eyes and strided back inside to the white wooden two-story building that had been an ordinary, respectable local telefonsentral before everything had gone to Hell.

Typewriters. Ringing telephones, both regular and field models. Signalmen, clerks, adjutants, runners at the ready with their horses at the front yard. Holtermann knew that many, especially the younger signalmen felt a mixture of fear and loathing towards him. A gentler man would have explained to these boys the way things were, listened to their worries and instilled courage and patriotism to them with rousing rhetorics. Christian Holtermann was definitively not that type of a leader. But he was an officer who had had the guts to order three entire battalions to stand fast at the firestorm the Swedes had thrown at them at Fetsund, at the eastern shore of Glomma. Holding a riverline when Swedes had crossed to the northern bank weeks ago would have been a fools errant, but telling Jacobsen that his corps would have to stand and die so that Norway could live had not been a task for gentlemen. But it had to be done. That was the rationale Holtermann had given to Frithjof, that was the spirit Oberst Jacobsen had instilled to the men of Valdres. The orchestra at Lillestrøm had played that cheerful marching tune composed by Hanssen as the battalions disembarged and marched eastwards.

Destroyed buildings at Lillestrøm.

No one had been playing when the mained and wild-eyed survivors staggered and streamed back westwards in total disarray a few days later. Jacobsen was not among them. He had never asked his men more than he was willing to do himself. So when he ordered the last suicidal counterattacks that were torn to shreds by the Swedish artillery, he was at the forefront of the the last attack lines than fixed bayonets and charged forwards.

A gentler man, a true general of old, would have praised Jacobsen as a true patriot, and praised his bravery and patriotism to his troops. Holtermann had personally ordered all of his remaining obersts to stay alive and at their command posts. He had used the time bought by the delaying action at Fetsund to make a new stand at Lillestrøm. Ordering already tired men to dig covered parapets, evicting farmer families from their homesteads by force so that they wouldn't be caught to the middle of the upcoming battle, shouting to those jackasses at the War Ministry to secure at least some ammo reserve for his artillery...Holtermann had been a pain for both of his superiours and a harsh taskmaster for his troops, and he felt no need to explain himself to anyone. The army that was advancing towards his last line of organized resistance was shooting deserters, burning and looting everything they could get their hands on, and hanging old hags and little boys for cursing their bypassing columns. He had read the reports and heard the eyewitness accounts. Men he had known and considered his friends a year earlier had brought war and misery to his homeland, and a sovereign he had personally sworn an oath of loyalty had given them the command to do so. Everything he had held in high value had been stained in blood and desecrated.

Shrapnel shell hit at the side of a farmhouse.

The war was lost. The high command knew it, the spineless weasels at the government knew it, his men knew it. And yet here they were, he and every other little cog in this terrible machine, running with maximum efficiency even while the whole cursed apparatus was falling apart with a deafening rumble. He had been given the same order Jacobsen had received from him at Fetsund. There would be no withdrawal or retreat. He knew that many captains and lieutenants would try to spin this into a glorious last stand. Holtermann would have none of it. He had been ordered to send his army to a hopeless battle, and he respected every last beggar of them too much to lie to them about it.

Men of the 4th Company of Kristiania Infanteri-Bataillon af Linien waiting for the Swedish attack.

With such a wide front to defend, he had ultimately trusted his guts more than anything. The Swedish force amassed against him had enough artillery and manpower to destroy his line at any given point, that much he had learned at the shores of Glomma. Deploying deeper back and counterattacking would be equally pointless, as the Swedes would simply stand their ground and utilize their artillery with murderous efficiency. So Holtermann had decided to defend the southern part of his line with the best he had, and the line battalion had taken positions at the southern end of his line. The middle section of his line was essentially a near-empty fire sack, with only token squads from the Landstorm battalion holding the waterfront. And his remaining battalion, the 1st-grade reservists of Landværnet battalion, had been ordered to dig a second line to the high ground, behind the forest-covered ridge where the bulk of Landstorm battalion covered the northern highway bridge crossing. Nordenskjöld, the Swedish commander of the Tredje Arméfördelningen had so far been wise and cautious enough to avoid frontal assaults. Holtermann had estimated that he would continue to follow this approach here as well.

The Swedish 7,5 cm Kanoner m 02 firing shrapnels to Norwegian lines, with the
typical small white puffs of smoke marking the point of detonation.

To his credit, Generalmajor Holtermann had been correct in his tactical view of the situation. General Nordenskjöld had indeed witnessed the same murderous barrages that had devastated the Norwegian counterattacks at Fetsund, and now sought to lure the Norwegian infantry to a standing battle so that the Swedish artillery superiourity could be utilized for full effect. But since the whole operation now had absolute priourity in the Swedish far effort and Nordenskjöld was no longer in talking terms with his own superiours, his preferred option, a deep hook and forcing a crossing further north was not approved. Hence the old general had opted for more straightforward approach. It was time to pay the butcher's bill. Two infantry regiments supported by a single artillery regiment each would attack the Norwegian line at two points, with the southern attack first clearing the town of Lillestrøm and pinning down the Norwegians to the western bank, so that the actual crossing could then commence at the northern part of the battlefield, with overwhelming artillery support and pioneers at the front.

The 15 cm Haubits m/1902 was the most modern heavy howitzer in the Swedish arsenal,
and proved to be the only artillery piece effective against entrenched targets.

 

[Karelian]

11th of October, 1905, Saturday.
The Billiard Room of the Royal Palace, Kristiania, Norway, 11km from the frontline.

The city was quiet. Wind whistled in the chimneys and swept rain to windows, soaking the mounted police patrols that rode back and forth along the empty cobblestone streets.
The men gathered around the ornamented fireplace at the Billiard Room smoked cuban cigarettes or decorated pipes in silence. They listened, just like all other inhabitants of the city.
Despite the rain and wind they could all hear it: a distant, rumbling noise in the east. "So, what news from the front?", a bearded, sullen-looking man finally said while stubbing his cigar.

Lieutenant-General Olssøn, standing in his uniform near the billiard table stopped his silent conversation, and turned around. "Nothing new. The enemy has more men and more guns, and they've committed them both in full force, as you can hear just as well as I. What more there is to say?", the round-faced, balding Minister of Defence said and waved with his hand dismissively. "I told you all that we couldn't win a war should it come to this, remember? That we weren't ready, and...?" The hall erupted to shouting. "The millions we poured to your vaunted border forts!" "Impregnable wall, indeed!" Another voice of a frail, old and angry man: "And how many times I told you all before Karldstad that we could still back down and get a deal where every second foreign minister would be a Norwegian, remember that?!"

"GENTLEMEN."

The man standing next to the billiard table didin't turn around, but instead leaned forward, closer to the table, and observed the game he and Olssøn had been playing. Yet the room fell silent, as Prime Minister Peter Christian Hersleb Kjerschow Michelsen rose up, and turned to face his government. "Now, are we a group of old fishwives or the government of Norway?" And before anyone could answer, he continued. "The old swagger is at his deathbed. Berlin and London are most upset. The Russians have sent their troops to Åland. And most importantly, the people are with us. We are united like never before in this historical test of our nation. We will prevail. So leave your childish bickering and hysterics inside these walls. Right now need unity, more than ever. Time is on our side."

"Goddamnit, Christian! I should punch you to the face right here and now! Stop it! Can't you see that we cannot talk our way out of this anymore! It is just as Olssøn said! We can hear their cannons already and you are mocking us from raising alarm, and calling for patience! You - You are a brazen liar, Christian Michelsen, and you have a lot of blood in your hands! And let me tell you something right here! I will not walk to the gallows as a fool who followed such a hustler as you! We must end this war, you hear me? We must end it right away, we must capitulate! I cannot allow a single soul to lose their lives for your lies, Christian! You'd let this city burn rather than admit that you have been wrong, and that your gambles and games and lies have brought doom and downfall upon Norway!

Jørgen Løvland was an old headmaster, and when he had lost his temper - which was rare before the war, the whole school could hear it. The empty rooms and corridors of the royal palace echoed from the shouting mach that erupted when Christian Michelsen, a Prime Minister with an ego to match the title, rose to defend his honour and policies against this tirade.

The 20-something adjutant who ran inside without knocking a moment later saw all eyes on the room to turn towards him, just when the towering figure of general Olssøn was standing between Minister Løvland and Prime Minister Michelsen, who both looked ready to expand their debate to a mêlée.

"Mr. Prime Minister, Sir! Several telegrams addressed to you in person!"
Michelsen corrected his jacket collars with a pompous move, walked towards the adjutant with a quick pace without even looking to Løvland, grapped the telegram envelopes, and tore them open with haste. And then he bursted to laughter.

 

[Karelian]

12th of October, 1905, Sunday.
Lørenskog, 10km East from Kristiania.

War Diary of the Tredje Arméfördelningen
22nd of September 1905 -
12th of October, 1905, Sunday.
+10C, wind from South-West, overcast.

"...The bridgehead established over Nitelva during the daylight hours was used as basis, from where the detachments sent in from reserve advanced in pursuit of the enemy around half past nine in the evening, when the bridge engineers of the K. Göta Ingeniör-Kår had utilized the timber and logs transferred from the Glomma by land to establish the first makeshift bridge over Nitelva. 1st Battalion of the K. Elfsborg Regiment pursued the enemy infantry that was retreating in a semi-organized fashion along the direction of the railroad, while the enemy infantry units engaged still stubbornly held their positions at the hills further south and west. Judging from the nature of the combat of previous 24 hours, it seems obvious that the enemy planned to fight to the utmost in their positions behind the river to check our advance. The only rational object of the continued resistance at this position is an apparent attempt to force us to a decisive battle, and it can be concluded that the enemy leadership is fighting desperately, as they have ran out of space to be traded for time."

The officer casualties of the engineer battalion had reached a point where senior lieutenants were field-promoted to captains. The growing doubt that someone in the unit had murdered their own officers during the battle could not be verified, but after Glomma the reported mood among the new reservists was near-mutinous, and several soldiers had been reprimanted for calling their task "a madmen's job that would get them all killed." Illegal leaflets were also found from field quarters, but their actual ownership or origin could not be verified. Desertions among the Bohuslän regiment rose to an alarming degree before the attack over the Glomma, as many men undoubtedly realized that fleeing after crossing the river would be considerably harder. Afterwards the mood has seemingly improved, and the men are almost eager - the general view among the whole Army seems to be that once Kristiania falls, the war will end.

The heavy artillery ammunition ran out during the day, and the resupply we received is totally inadequate. Same applies to the field artillery batteries. The infantry regiments sustained heavy casualties during the crossing, as the suppressive fire was not as effective as during the crossing of Glomma, and several enemy machine gun positions remained operational. General Nordenskjöld views the situation as totally untenable, and fears that a determined Norwegian counterattack could now roll through the whole bridgehead with ease. I do not share his worry. The bridgehead shall be expanded, and once the enemy has been routed from this line, our reconnaissance does not expect further organized resistance until the city of Kristiania itself."

Major Curt Vilhelm Rappe gestured his secretary to stop typing, took the paper sheet, added a stamp to the report copy, and turned towards the General's adjutant, Count Klingspor.
"Now when the official paperwork is done, I feel that everything is slowly unravelling, Carl. I had to order two more deserters shot for today alone. It cannot go on like this. We have practically no artillery ammo left by tomorrow at this rate! And ever since that ruffian Thord arrived to the K. Lifreg. Husarer, the cavalry has been all about skjut, bränn och tig in their anti-dødsgjenger operations. They are riding around the hills and countryside like an Apache warband! Have you seen the foreign headlines?!"

Klingspor took a sip of coffee, carefully keeping his moustaches dry, and sighted. "I concur with your general assessment of the situation, sir, I really do. But at the end of the day it has been enough, hasn't it? The rebels are beaten. We'll march to Kristiania and hoist His Majesty's flag, dictate terms, and march home to deal with all the rats that have crawled out while we were gone."

Major Rappe nodded, and rubbed his eyes a bit. "I suppose you are right, Carl. It's just this damn war. Every prewar calculation thrown out of the window, every one of them! The men are hungry, flat-out tired from forced marches, their boots are falling apart, and the weather is only going to get worse. It's the lot of the soldier, but things back home are a lot worse than we feared. This war needs to end, and soon."
"And it shall end, Sir, since we are about to win it. For victory. Se, vi går upp till Jerusalem." Carl toasted with his engraved hip flask, and passed it on to the major.
"Well said, Carl."

War Diary of the Anden Akershusske (2det) Infanteri-Brigade
22nd of September 1905 -
12th of October, 1905, Sunday.
+10C, wind from South-West, overcast.

"The general advance of the enemy against the whole length of our line continues unabated. Colonel Steffens was wounded in battle around six in the afternoon, and Colonel Petersen took command of the remaining forces of the Landstorm battalion, which was reorganized to a two-company strong unit and sent to the rear for refit after it had been rendered combat ineffective due the heavy casualties sustained during the fighting. Colonel Petersen further reported that the main elements of the Oplandske Landværnskavaleriekorps, with whom he arrived during the night, have now taken up positions along the road and surrounding hills.

The situation in the sectors of the 1st Landværnet battalion continues unchanged, with constant skirmishing with enemy reconnaissance patrols and harassive artillery fire tying down our forces to holding the current positions limiting the enemy bridgehead. The 1st Line Battalion further south has established contact to the Landværnskavaleriekorps, and thus the enemy bridgehead, under fire from our artillery, is again contained."

Generalmajor Holtermann chuckled. Cavalry Corps, my ass. A fancy name for a glorified battalion-sized collection of scattered groups of old cavalrymen with carbines, hasted here from northern bank of Glomma after they had spent weeks there as a delaying screening force. Fresh reserves indeed.

The Swedes had no reason to change a winning strategy. The bastards just attacked frontally, hammering the parapets and dugouts down with their artillery that no longer exposed itself but remained hidden behind crestlines. At the same time they were utilizing the terrain with great care, always finding and turning the flanks of even the strongest defensive position, time and time again. If they were pinned down by machine guns and rifle fire, as had often happened both today and before, they just called in more artillery, regrouped, and attacked again from a different flank. What was he supposed to do to that without actual reserves?

The mediecal church of Lørenskog shook a bit as a lone artillery shell landed nearby along the road, and tiny pieces white plaster fell from the roof. Holtermann didin't really pay attention to his surroundings now due his exhaustion, but had ordered his HQ to relocate to the church the moment the Swedes had crossed the river. Getting killed now would serve no purpose.

For the past weeks he had contemplated his memoirs a lot. What to write and whom to blame. He had ultimately opted to disregard the whole idea as vainglorious. The men he had sent to their deaths for the sake of Norway would not be writing their memoirs, so neither should he. He had instead decided to speak his mind to the next noisy reporter he'd come accross, but it seemed that now when he actually wanted to talk to one of them, they were all gone. Most likely running around at the battalion and company headquarters, putting their lives to danger while witnessing the "tragically heroic last stand of the doomed Nordic warrior nation", or other such nonsense.

A field telephone rang, and the signal corporal looked at him like a confused child and stuttered: "Sir, General Olssøn on line 1!"
Holtermann froze for a split second. He had hoped for the war to end for a long while, and had recommended negotiations at any terms - since outright asking for a surrender would have been an act of mutiny, and in any case beneath the honour of an officer - but now he suddenly felt just as lost as the corporal who gazed him with fear and confusion in his eyes. Olssøn had never called him directly like this, not in a middle of a night.
"Gimme that!", he muttered from behind his teeth and seized the receiver. "Holtermann."
"Yes. Really? Of course, Sir. Yes. Right away Sir. Over."

He felt dizzy. "Corporal." "Yes sir?" "Wake up the clerks, tell them to copy this message for every battalion HQ. In paper only, no signals!"
When the signal corporal left the sacristy, Holtermann noticed that he had taken his gloves off without really thinking about it. Damn fingernails again. He needed a drink. And all the reserves he could muster. Cooks, runners, cart drivers, anyone who could point a rifle to the general direction of the Swedes and hold the line until further notice.

 

[Karelian]

13th of October, 1905, Monday.
Furuholm, Strömstad.

Ernest Tunstedt liked his job. Here he was, sitting alone in an almost cozy signal room. The warm light of the kerosene lantern, monotonous drone of the generator at the background, and the static white noise in his clunky headphones. The miserable weather outside did not bother him one bit. His father had been right: technical school and applying for telegram service had been a good investment to his future. He, Agren and Gustavsen had the small cabin all for themselves, and the only other people in this small rocky island west of Strömstad were the half-squad of local reservists from Kustartillerie. Here they were, near-forgotten and at the same time performing a critical part in the Swedish war effort. Or so Captain de Champs had told them.

While they had despaired with the chaotic signal cacophony of the first days of the war, soon enough they and the other naval signal crews had created a working routine, at the same time when the enemy had opted to avoid further major naval engagements, sparing them the trouble of keeping the admirals informed by relaying messages back and forth between Karlskrona and the Norwegian coast. As of late they mostly just sent and received the routine test signals, and that was it. Ernest had no trouble with this state of affairs.

Nights like these were perfect for writing. "My dear Ida..." Ida was certainly quite something. Well-mannered and light-hearted, quick to laugh and ten years younger than him. Until this autumn the fact that her father owned a sawmill had meant that his chances had been less than stellar. An aspiring young technical student and a son of an accountant simply was not enough for that level.

But a decorated war hero would certainly be totally another matter! A 1st-class signalist of Torpeddepartementet of the Kungliga Marinförvaltningen!
"I still cannot tell you any specifics about our assignments and duties, other than that they are of vital importance..." And he did not even have to exaggerate with this detail. Captain de Champs had stressed secrecy to a degree that his lectures had become a running joke, although he still had good reputation among his men. Rumour was that de Champs and friherren Dahlgren, that uppity bastard and the commander of the entire department were merely waiting the war to end to fight a duel because of the way de Champs had mocked and blamed the coastal artillery for the failed summertime tests at Gotland. Well, military honour and wireless signalling were no laughing matter.

And due the diligence and resourcefulness of Ernest and his coursemates, the signal detachments established by the Torpedo Department of the Royal Swedish Naval Materiel Administration had so far served His Majesty's Navy well. The systems they operated were technically limited as far as their range and reliability were concerned, and only de Champs and a handful of other specialists trained in Germany and Britain were fully initiated to their mysteries. But they were still a giant leap forward as far as commanding a naval force at war was concerned.

And their efforts would be appreciated. Ernest wanted to believe his gut feeling that despite his personal feud with his superiour, Captain de Champs would have a bright career ahead of him. And as the best student of the first signal course, Ernest would only have to do his duty and look forward to a bright future career. And with that part of his life in order, eventually Ida's father would surely also come to his senses, and...

The static bursted to life, with a sudden cacophony of traffic. Ernest nearly fell from his chair from surprise, but quickly re-adjusted his headphones, scrambled to grap a formal message sheet, watched the clock for time, and at the same time kicked the door at his left and shouting to Agren and Gustavsen to wake up.

13th of October, 1905, Monday.
Skagerrak, c. 30km west from Strömstad.

SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II was leading the column. Since all ships of the squadron had their searchlights on, the scene at the North Sea reminded Grossadmiral von Koester of a street with Christmas lights. It had all been much simpler before electricity, he thought to himself. Back in the day in Plymouth. Good, happier times. But the modern world was remorseless. One had to adapt or perish. "Any new signals?" "Sir, we are picking up a lot of W.T. traffic. Its seems that everyone is testing their signal equipment or receiving instructions from mainland." The old admiral merely nodded. He was happy that Alfred was taking care with this aspect of the whole endeavour. Personally he longed back for the time when a ship at sea was still a realm of its own once it had sailed away from port. Now he had to live with the fact that those scheming oafs from Wilhelmstraße could constantly bombard him with instructions and inquiries. Hans von Koester watched how the more distant column of searchlights at the horizon in their starboard side was slowly fading to the darkness as a constellation of stars in the otherwise dark night.

He consoled himself with the thought that every captain equipped with some type of wireless were most likely having similar trouble with their diplomats at home. It had taken more than a month to turn the rumours of possible action to actual orders, and weeks of bored waiting had turned to utter haste in a span of days. Well, he had been sailing long enough to know that was just business as usual. And the end result pleased him. He kept his political opinions to himself and knew when to shut up, but privately he felt good about the whole enterprise. Sailing with the Royal Navy was preferable to sailing against it.

13th of October, 1905, Monday.
Furuholm, Strömstad.

Ernest begun to compose and send report message to Karlskrona. His face was pale, but otherwise he was focused on the task at hand, just like the rest of the team. The paper tape recorders were still rolling like film reels, spewing out garbled bits of morse code that Agren and Gustavsen wrote down as it kept coming. He had no idea whether everyone outside of their small island knew about this already - the Kustartillerie supply boat delivery did not include newspapers - but he had to get the message out to Karlskrona and Stockholm as quickly as possible. The spark gap transmitter was ready. He started to operate the signalling key, focusing on getting the whole message out as clearly and quickly as possible. "..-. .-.. . .-. .- / -. -.-- .- / ... .. --. -. .- .-.. ... - .- - .. --- -. . .-. / -.. . - . -.- - . .-. .- -.. . .-.-.- / .. -. ... - .-. ..- -.- - .. --- -. . .-. ..--.."

 

[Karelian]

A Conference of Ambassadors had so far been a panacea of European diplomacy in the face of a mounting crisis where multiple Great Powers were directly or indirectly involved. These diplomatic events had a century-old roots as a cornerstone of post-Napoleonic European diplomacy, with the first meeting of ambassadors having taken place at Paris in 1815. They had since been assembled for various reasons accross the continent: at Frankfurt to define the territories of the states of German Confederation, and at London to abolish the slave trade and suppress piracy, and again later on to settle the Belgian question in the 1830s. The latest, recently concluded conference at Rome was just the latest of the kind in a long list of meetings involving matters of the Ottoman Empire, joing to the ranks of conferences of 1853, 1860, 1869, 1876, 1880, 1896 and 1902. Recently the Boxer War settlement had also been dealt with with an ambassadorial conference in Peking. Thus the 1905 Conferences at Rome and London merely followed a well-established tradition of international European diplomacy.

In autumn 1905 the regicide followed by a virtual revolution and local uprisings in the Ottoman Empire had raised tensions and locked the Powers to a dangerous impasse in the Near East. Fixed on the matter at hand, they had failed to foresee and forestall a suprising new regional war in the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. Since then the armies of Sweden had fought their way to the outskirts of Kristiania, while the Powers had been preoccupied with finding a settlement to the future status of Macedonia. This was finally achieved by October 1905 with the start of an international military observer commission led by General Degiorgis. With the partially mobilized Russian Caucasus Military District now officially chasing Armenian ARF Dashnaki combat detachments while still unofficially standing ready to invade at the borders of Ottoman Anatolia, tensions remained high. The Royal Navy was also once again out at sea in force, sailing to the two strategic straits at the outlets of Black Sea and the Baltic as a strong arm of the British foreign policy. The situation in the Ottoman realms was thus precarious, and the tensions in the region made the Powers willing to tread lightly in their mutual relations for the time being.

But having seemingly stabilized the volatile Balkans with a joint effort for now, the Powers now focused their attention to Scandinavia. Known as the Marlborough Conference, the international mediation effort aimed to end the war in Scandinavia with invitations for both Swedish and Norwegian representatives. While both governments dutifully accepted the invitation to attend, hopes of a quick armistice followed by an early peace in the beginning of October were found to be unrealistic.

The Swedish military leadership wanted to seize Kristiania to conclude her war against the rebellious Norwegians with a clear victory, while the Norwegian government refused to surrender their capitol. Meanwhile the daily work of the ambassadorial meetings at the conference was slow. A wide range of issues, including the future of the Franco-British guarantees of the territorial integrity of the now-separated United Kingdoms as per the Treaty of 1855 were now on the table. This matter interested the governments of Britain, Germany, Russia and France way more than the fate of Norway per se. The Norwegian naturally wanted all possible guarantees for their independence, integrity and neutrality - but in their current situation, they had no real position to bargain from. Hence the Michelsen government saw no alternative but to show defiance in the face of defeat, and to continue armed resistance against the Swedish invasion while urging the Powers to intervene.

Unfortunately for Norwegians, their fate was only a part of a larger Baltic puzzle. The juridical position of the Danish Straits was much more murky than the status of the Black Sea Straits, and it was in reality unclear whether Denmark and Sweden would be obliged to keep the entrances to the Baltic open for belligerent warships in a time of war. While Britain and France wished to avoid upsetting the balance of power and the current status quo in the Baltic, Russia viewed the post-Crimean War dictates and the disarmament of strategically important Åland with disdain. While the French government recognized the Russian wish to abrogate the neutralization of the islands, Britain was able to secure French support for their mutual cause of trying to keep Berlin and St. Petersburg from getting too close in the Baltic.

The Spencer government in Britain was willing to renew the security guarantee for both Sweden and Norway separately, provided that such new treaties would not be directed explicitly against Russia. Meanwhile both British and German diplomats favoured German participation to the new treaties. And at the middle of this Wilhelm II was busily conducting his own personal royal diplomacy with Nicholas II at Björkö, while also publicly discussing the topic of Norwegian succession. And in his personal quest for glory Admiral Alekseyev had brought the Åland question to the fore as well by sending a small naval contingent to the islands. So while the German diplomatic and political leaders sought to rein their erratic monarch in and the Russians were caught in their own internal power struggles regarding the course of their foreign policy, the conference was getting nowhere.

Ultimately the only thing the various ambassadors could immediately all agree upon was the fact that the Powers wanted to preserve their unity of purpose and action. Mutually frowning upon the idea of any kind of unilateral intervention out of the fear of unforeseen escalation and pure mistrust of the true intentions of such initiatives kept the situation manageable, but also prevented any further military action at all for the time being. The conference ultimately endorsed a program of a neutral, autonomous Norway, jointly guaranteed by the Powers and capable of independent economic development. Even though general agreement that Norway should be independent to avoid further antagonism between the Powers was found quickly, the general details and postwar borders and status of Norway made the Powers again disagree among themselves, especially since Swedes showed no willigness to yield territory occupied with a heavy loss of life.

And since Sweden had a critical status regarding the future of the Danish Straits and the wartime naval access to Baltic, neither Paris, Berlin, London or St. Petersburg were initially willing to strong-arm Stockholm to a deal. But they could not tolerate open defiance to their agreed-upon Norway plan either. The future of Norway thus gained new significance just when the frontlines were quickly approaching the Norwegian capitol. “If Sweden marches to Kristiania, Russia might then feel forced to march against Sweden, and Britain might then in turn have to march against Russia, with Germany and France drawn in as well - all this on account of Norway. It would be intolerable", as one British diplomat remarked in early October when the conference was assembling for the first time.

 

[Karelian]

"The guarantee of integrity alone need not be held to prevent one of the guaranteeing powers from temporarily occupying Norwegian territory without any intention of retaining it."
Foreign Office clerk Eyre Crowe, 1905.

A joint naval demonstration was ultimately viewed as a necessary first step for forcing the warring Nordic states to a truce. The war was front-page news in Europe, as the international news agencies of Wolff's Telegraphisches Bureau, Agente Havas and Reuters Telegram Company were all sending constant stream of news from the battlefields.

Headlines all over Europe wondered whether the international naval action would succeed in eliminating the growing possibility of a wider European war. Frustrated by the snail-paced diplomacy, First Sea Lord Fisher ordered the Channel Fleet to descend to the Norwegian coast, where they were told to wait for the arrival of other contingents. After initial hesitation, the German Navy send the I. Geschwader to join the British-led force, and the French, Italians and Austrians followed suit with a token few ships.

Russia sanctioned the actions of the demonstration, but Admiral Alekseyev wanted to use the Russian Baltic Fleet for a separate, simultaneous demonstration at the outskirts of Stockholm archipelago and Gotland. The Powers then shortly debated the scope of the blockade, with the French and other arguing for a more restricted zone around Kristianiafjord. Ultimately the operation was limited to the area between Kristianiafjord and the Swedish border, effectively preventing any further Swedish naval troop transportation.

The ambassadors showed unusual harmony in their insistence that "the will of Europe had to be enforced." They advised the Norwegian government to ask for an armistice without delay. The British government did not believe that the situation warranted immediate military action, and hoped that a financial lure could eventually induce Swedes to withdraw from the occupied territories. Meanwhile the Powers termed their joint naval blockade "pacific", emphasizing that the international squadron had strict orders to remain neutral vis-a-vis the Swedo-Norwergian war, and to fire only if fired upon.

The British admiralty stated that the blockade "does not imply any kind of warlike action such as the occupation of places." Ultimately Elgin was also privately willing to agree for "one or more of the Powers taking measures to implement conference decisions in which Britain had joined." British diplomats assured the Swedes that "reasonable compensations" would be in order in a case the Swedes accepted the terms agreed upon by the Powers; and in a case of further Swedish intransigence Britain might have to be forced to leave Stockholm to the mercy of Russians, at least as far as the status of Åland was concerned.

The Russian government, unwilling to admit that Admiral Alekseyev had acted without orders from the Supreme Autocrat, now insisted on abrogation of the ‘Åland servitude’ of 1856, and stated their intent of refortifying and occupying the islands. The British reacted by stating that the treaties of 1855 and 1856 would then have to be revised at the same time. Russia favoured the permanent neutralization of Denmark, to be guaranteed jointly by Germany and itself, with the obvious intent of using this as a mean of keeping a hostile naval power (Britain) out of the Baltic. For Britain, this was totally unacceptable.

The British main concern was to ensure the right of belligerent vessels to use the Straits. This could be achieved by two means: merging the two old treaties to one new treaty, or by adding a specific reference to the Danish Straits to a renegotiated treaty. By merging the Treaties of 1855 and 1856 Britain could continue to have a voice in Baltic affairs, alongside with France. But this course of action might enable Germany and Russia to demand the inclusion of the Straits of Dover and the Channel as an entrance to the North Sea - since if France and Britain were to be treated as Baltic powers, what stopped Russia from demanding herself to be treated as a North Sea power?

So the Åland convention held special importance. The British cabinet ultimately opted to go with the reference to the Straits in an old treaty, with a statement that specified the borders of Baltic and North Sea. With Denmark increasingly written off as a German client state in a case of war, Sweden was now seen as the only reliable guarantor of the free navigation of the Straits.

The German foreign office, with Holstein and Chancellor Eulenburg in a rare agreement on this course of action, was especially sensitive to British policies, and offered an arrangement of a North Sea status quo treaty as a possible compensation for Britain. Britain, hardly expecting to prevent closure of the Baltic by herself, thus opted to support the German views of a status quo convention. Britain then sought to France in to the North Sea convention, and through that to the assurance of Sweden against possible future Russian expansion, playing the two Contintental allied Powers against one another in Scandinavia. Germany was thus suddenly in a whole new situation, being courted by both Britain and Russia regarding her future choices in Scandinavia. For his part, the Russian Foreign Minister Muraviev aimed to "Éliminer toute influence éntrangère de la mer Baltique" in a fashion of Catherine the Great’s Neutrality League of 1780. Meanwhile Britain knew that Åland Question was a point of contention between Germany and Russia, and hoped to use this issue as a wedge to keep Wilhelm II from realizing his grandiose schemes of a new continental alliance. Swedish adherence to the Russo-German entente seemed imminent. The French, from their part, were especially alarmed by the evidence of Russo-German cooperation and by the fact that Russia had disputed the Åland issue without consulting the French government beforehand.

But Russia was not the only Power suffering from out-of-step, self-contradicting diplomacy. The German diplomatic corps were cautious to avoid too close a relationship with Russia if the cost would be the alienation of Britain, that was markedly nervous about a possibility of a German-Russian combination in the Baltic. Holstein was firmly aware that a revision of the status of Åland would mean an ultimate exclusion of Britain from a position of influence in the Baltic region. Meanwhile Chancellor Eulenburg was firm in his conviction that Germany should to avoid entaglements in any such policy offensives towards Britain, Russia or France at such a volatile international situation. This left Wilhelm II and his personal royal diplomacy as a problem to be managed. Holstein proceeded with his usual tactics, leaving the actual work of cajoling and distracting the Oberster Kriegsherr to Eulenburg. He merely supporting the Chancellor with a memorandum that assured Wilhelm II that while the planned post-war guarantees from three Great Powers were something on paper, in reality the planned post-war status quo would made Sweden depended upon German support and goodwill in her future foreign policy.

Meanwhile Elgin’s warnings, international isolation, and the threat of a Russian presence in Åland strained the Swedish government to a breaking point. With the fatally ill Oscar II no longer seen in public, it was left to the Crown Prince to guide the realm towards an uncertain future. The beginning of the international blockade had led to a general strike in Stockholm and rest of Sweden, paralyzing the economy and society of the country and threatening the supply efforts of the frontlines. In the face of bitter opposition of the war faction, the government had to concede that Sweden would have to cease her offensive to Kristiania, submit to the "will of Europe", and ask for a ceasefire in order to secure a settlement that would not seem like a total humiliation.

Meanwhile Norwegians were kindly informed that the Powers, led by Britain and Germany, would now proceed to jointly occupy Kristiania and "possibly other southern ports that are necessary for the supply and operations of the international fleet." The collective note from the conference at London stated that the king’s action was "a real contribution to general peace and is in the true interest of Sweden." Simultaneously, the admirals of the international fleet were instructed to prepare for the occupation of Kristiania as soon as they could gain Norwegian maritime pilots to safely guide them through the minefields of the fjord. The state-sanctioned part of the war in Scandinavia was seemingly drawing to a close.

 

[Karelian]

John and Fritz are at it again, Part I: The Venezuelan Crisis

"Germany views our refusal to build up a large navy as a sign of weakness...in a few years they will be in a position to take some step in the West Indies or South America which will make us either put up or shut up on the Monroe Doctrine."
US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge in 1900.

"If any South American States misbehaves towards any European country, let the European country spank it; but I do not wish the United States or any other country to get additional territory in South America...I told him [the German consul general in New York]...that...I have a hearty and genuine liking for the Germans both individually and as a nation;...that I was delighted to see South America kept open commercially to Germany and to the United States on an equal footing; that if a big German-speaking community in a South American state could not stand misgovernment, and set up for itself, there would be in that fact by itself nothing to which I should object; but that I did not desire to see the United States gain any territory in South America itself, and that...I would do all in my power to have the United States take the attitude that no European nation, Germany or any other, should gain a foot of soil in any shape or way in South America."
US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt commenting his discussion with the German ambassador von Holleben in 1902.

"Castro is an unspeakably villainous little monkey."
Theodore Roosevelt, 1905.

To understand the wider geopolitical context of Great Power relations regarding Scandinavia in autumn 1905, one has to keep in mind the previous instances where the Powers had been able to put aside their differences and act together. While the Boxer War is the most famous example of this development, the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902 was another event that postwar world would look as a sign of things to come. The way Germany and rest of the Concert of Europe interacted during this formative years of the 21st Century had a lot to do with the persons of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his loyal Chancellor, Prince Eulenburg. For Chancellor Eulenburg, the years at the beginning of the new century had been marked with his worries about the deteriorating state of the Anglo-German relations. The Navy Bill of 1900 had gone through after Tirpitz and the German navalists had worked hard to gain enough support at the Reichstag. Meanwhile Holstein at the German Foreign Service still felt confident that there was no need to hurry regarding initiatives towards Britain, since London would ultimately have to align herself with Berlin in any case, and time was on the side of Germany. Eulenburg disagreed, but for the time being could do little to outmaneuver the "monster of the labyrinth" while at the same time keeping Wilhelm II in line without alienating His Majesty.[1]

Appointed to implement Weltpolitik, he viewed his primary domestic task as patching together workable coalitions from the fractious groups that vied for power and influence in Wilhelmine Germany to cement the personal rule of Wilhelm II. His approach to this goal was based on his own extensive client networks and behind-the-scenes approach. In foreign policy Eulenburg wanted to avoid continental coalitions against Germany at all costs. He maintained Bismarck’s alliance with Austria-Hungary, and sought to improve relations with Russia and France. Yet Russian focus to the Balkans was forcing Eulenburg to wooing Britain as a counterbalance to the rising power of St. Petersburg.

At the northern side of the Channel Joseph Chamberlain thought that some sort entente with the Germans could be useful, at least in order to avert the threat of a wider anti-British Continental coalition. Wilhelm, with his mixed love/hate-relationship with Britain, found the idea quite attractive. The however, the anti-English tone of the German press coverage of the Boer War had outraged the British. The German press magnates kept the Boer War in the headlines since the public outrage was selling well, just like their French and Russian counterparts. The matter culminated when Chamberlain’s October 1901 speech, comparing the conduct of British forces in South Africa to the actions of German soldiers in the war of 1870 was soothed over by Eulenburg, much to the dismay of German nationalists.

It was at this moment that Venezuela came to the fore. Nothing unites like a common foe, and Caracas had managed to raise the ire of London, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Washington - a no mean feat by itself. The handmark of Eulenburg and his attempt to steer a new course to German foreign policy in uneasy, but working cooperation with Holstein is clearly seen in the way the Germans approach the situation of Venezuela, a country that was mired in internal unrest and civil conflicts since 1896. The sinking prices of coffee, the main foreign export, would have been bad enough even without any internal unrest. But with new loans contracted in London in 1881 and Berlin in 1896 being lost to corruption and fiscal mismanagement, the reign of military leader, formel congressional deputy, lawyer, journalist and local strongman Cipriano Castro was on a collision course with the international debtors. Ruling with the support of the military and his urban middle-class client network from Táchira province, Castro was widely loathed for his lavish lifestyle and disregard of the foreign claims and complaints about the internal situation of Venezuela.

From the point of view of Venezuelans and especially Castro himself, the foreign powers were hypocrites of the highest order, and he had every right to defend his position and the national prestige of the people of Venezuela by standing firm. After all, he had done so before.
After the rights to the rich Guanoco Lake asphalt concession had been contested by Warner and Quinlan of New York in 1900, the old monopoly of the Asphalt Trust and their power in Venezuelan economy had suddenly been put a risk. The influential New York and Bermúdez Company reacted by joining forces with the French Cable Company in the clandestine funding for la Revolución Libertadora, a revolt that the wealthiest man in Venezuela, Manuel Antonio Matos, had set up against Castro after he had paraded Matos through the streets of Caracas when he had refused to loan money to the government. Castro had just crushed this uprising at the cost of twenty thousand deaths in November 1902, when new trouble was already on the horizon. Warner and Quinlan representatives contacted Castro, and provided evidence of the support that their competitor, Bermúdez, had provided to Matos. Castro seized their properties, and began actions against them in the Venezuelan courts.[2]

What Castro failed to take into account was that the second vice president of Bermúdez, General Avery D. Andrews, was a friend and associate of President William McKinley and his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt. When Warner and Quinlan realized that the U.S. Legation in Caracas would therefore not support their interests in the country, they quickly enlisted the support of a few Congressmen from mainland US. Bringing the matter to Congressional attention made it a point of interest to President McKinley, who would have otherwise preferred to avoid further costly foreign adventures at the region.

Meanwhile matters were moving ahead in Europe.
"The principle at stake is of the first importance", the British Foreign Office stated in a report regarding the behaviour of Venezuela in violating the rights of the British citizens and the negotiations about the $15m debt that Venezuela had defaulted. News of German initiative in the Hague arbitration afford made the Chamberlain more active, namely in order to avoid a situation where Germany - or perish the thought, Italy - defended the rights of their citizens while Whitehall idled. Thus British Foreign Office approached the German ambassador about the possibility of “common action.” Lansdowne was interested in improved relations with Germany, and eagerly told the ambassador in Berlin to sound out the Wilhelmstrasse about German intentions in Venezuela. Thus the joint action was well under way after the end of the Boxer War in January 1902. The German chargé Pilgrim-Baltazzi and British minister Haggard in Caracas acted in concert, and had actually lobbied their governments for cooperation for some time.[3]

The elephant in the room was the attitude of the United States.
Chamberlain, firmly aware how Willian Lindsay Scruggs had used his political and press connections to lobby the Cleveland Administration to intervene as an arbitrating power in the border crisis of 1895, treaded lightly. Luckily for the European creditor nations, the way Castro had challenged the power of the US-based companies of the Asphalt Trust had made President McKinley nominally supportive to the Europeans. The President urged Castro to make a good-faith effort to repay his foreign loans, while Secretary of State John Hay publicly stated that the Monroe Doctrine was never intended to shield “wrongdoing states from justice.” Vice President Roosevelt took a harder stance, and conveyed his views to the German consul general in no uncertain terms.

Eulenburg reacted with caution. After the issue of Samoa had been put to rest, there were no major disagreements or direct confrontations between Berlin and Washington. Wilhelm II had actively courted US during his whole reign, but the McKinley administration mainly focused on domestic issues, putting little attention to foreign squabbles or the shifting alliance systems, enjoying just the kind of splendid isolation that was becoming increasingly difficult goal for Britain. Several key US politicians, especially vice President Roosevelt, viewed German ambitions in the Western Hemisphere with suspicion. Desperate to find ways to please the whims of his erratic Autocrat while at the same time maintaining working relations with the United States, Eulenburg sought support from London. Luckily for him, it was forthcoming.

1. In OTL Bülow wanted to unify the nation through Anglophobia, while cultivating relations with Russia to gain an offensive alliance directed against Britain, so that Germany could expand her influence in South America as Wilhelm II envisioned! Thus Bülow sabotaged all negotiations with London in 1900-1901 and actively supported anti-British sentiment at the press circles at home as a means towards achieving national solidarity. Meanwhile he wanted to play a waiting game, maintaining “a free hand” between London and St.Petersburg.
2. In OTL they made this move a bit later. Here news from Europe alert them to act earlier.
3. In OTL Disputes between British colony of Trinidad and the disagreement over the sovereignty of the island of Patos were only making matters worse. In OTL Haggard managed to argue that the island, "a little better than a mass of rock" as a hydrographer attached to the Foreign Officer reported, had strategic value. In TTL Chamberlain is more cautious due the different diplomatic position of Britain.

 

[Karelian]

John and Fritz are at it again, Part II: The Blockade
"We consider it of importance to first of all let the Government of the United States know about our purposes so that we can prove that we have nothing else in view than to help our citizens who have suffered damages...We declare especially that under no circumstances do we consider in our proceedings the acquisition or pernament occupation of Venezuelan territory."
Ambassador von Holleben in a memorandum delivered to State Secretary Hay on July 1902.

In a marked fashion of Eulenburg, Wilhelmstrasse was exceedingly cautious regarding the crisis at Venezuela. Estimating the expected reaction of the US in every major piece of correspondence on the Venezuela affair was a policy approved by both Holstein and Albert von Quadt, the ambassador in Washington. Ambassador Holleben expressed doubt. Tirpitz was reluctant to volunteer for any unnecessary endeavour before his fleet had been built to the full strength. Wilhelm was cautious, but Eulenburg was able to talk him over despite the Kaiser’s doubts that the British would not be reliable allies. He scrawled permission to explore joint action with the British “only if we can be sure that they would not take advantage of these approaches in order to place us in a suspicious position with the Americans.” Only the “iron-clad” agreement forged in Sandringham soothed the mind of the Kaiser. Once he was certain that the alliance was firm, Wilhelm welcomed it. The ability to use British ports in the region for recoaling and resupplying would reduce any risk to the German ships, while partnership with London would reassure Washington. Italy was vexed in as well, when the British ambassador managed to link the question of Somaliland together with the Venezuelan case.[1]

Rear Adm. Henry Clay Taylor, the new chief of the Bureau of Navigation and the senior uniformed naval adviser to the President wrote a memorandum, stating that the powers would likely bombard port facilities and invade custom houses. In a case the Powers would then demand indemnities to cover the expense of the conflict, and “Castro could then offer nothing but territory.” With Venezuela located to the key approaches of the Panama Canal, a German naval base or even an active colony would be a clear and present threat to the US prestige and interests in the region. Vice President Roosevelt was fuming, as McKinley viewed the trouble at Philippines as a warning proof of the burgeoning costs of foreign engagements. For him, the European blockade against Castro would be little different than the matter of Guatemala in the previous year, when Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Belgium delivered a joint protest to Guatemalan government to collect the debts they were owed. Europeans were otherwise active in the region as well - in June 1902 the French cruiser Suchet had already seized a Venezuelan gunboat.[2]

Dismayed by the course of events he attributed to the passive attitude of the current POTUS, whom he had privately referred as having "no more backbone than a chocolate éclair", Vice President Roosevelt hosted a private dinner for a small group at his residence to honour Baron Speck von Sternburg, his old friend and the German diplomat in Washington. Using this channel of personal diplomacy, Roosevelt conveyed his intentions and views to the German administration in no uncertain terms. Roosevelt made a particular point by inviting Admiral Dewey, who was known for his strong distaste of Germans after his tense standoff with the German flotilla in the Manila Bay. Unable to convince McKinley to take a more active stance, Roosevelt regardless reminded von Sternburg what his own view to the matter was, and made it known that the US naval circles had already ordered the Culebra Island, a thickly wooded, six-mile long islet sixteen miles east of Puerto Rico fortified and turned into a forward operating base. This message was heard loud and clear.

The European blockade plans wanted to avoid infringing on the Monroe Doctrine, and instead opted to seize the gunboats of Venezuela. Hay, the US Anglophile Secretary of State, regretted “that European Powers should use force against Central and South American countries”, but added that the US “could not object to their taking steps to obtain redress for injuries suffered by their subjects, provided no acquisition of territory was contemplated.”

The acceptance of McKinley Administration was achieved by an old hand at the Foreign Office, Julian Pauncefote. Having tactfully handled both the Venezuela-British Guyana boundary dispute and the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty regarding the Panama Canal of 1901, he was a well-respected voice for detente between London and Washington after a century of tensions and distrust.

Francis Villiers, first to establish official contacts on January 1902, had convinced Lansdowne that the other European creditors stood behind London, and that the United States would also raise no objections. Lansdowne, however, had consulted Washington just in case after Selborne, First Lord of the Admiralty, had warned him of the possible consequences of a British operation in the area covered by the Monroe Doctrine. Selborne referred to a report drafted by the Colonial Office and forwarded to the Colonial Defence Committee, the War Office and Admiralty for comment. Raising questions about the defensibility of British possessions in the Western Atlantic in the event of a conflict with the United States, the Admiralty had compiled a response, entitled “Strategic Conditions in the Event of War with the United States”, expressing doubt that “it would be possible to dispatch a sufficient naval force to maintain sea supremacy” in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean “if at the time of the outbreak of war uncertain or hostile relations existed between this country and a European power.” The US would be in a position to “stop our supplies from Canada”, and to secure all food import from the US itself, cutting off two-thirds of the food supply of British Isles. Maintaining good relations with the United States was thus a necessity. Armed with this information and supported by courteous diplomacy of Pauncefote and von Sternburg, the European powers went ahead with their plans on 7th August 1902.

Commodore R.A. Montgomerie commanded the ´Particular Service Squadron´, an international fleet where Germany had only tertiary importance after Italy. As Venezuelan students marched in the streets with banners that called for the United States to uphold la doctrina Monroe, Castro reacted by ordering the imprisonment of all male British and German citizens and the seizure of their property. On 9th of July the Venezuelan gunboats, vital for Castro in his attempts to keep the foreign arms smugglers from arming local revolutionaries, were seized by the European warships. Castro quickly chose U.S. Minister in Venezuela, Herbert Bowen, to be arbiter for Venezuela, immediately agreed to all demands, and authorized Bowen to sign protocols to that effect. Pleased with the swift humiliation of Castro, the Powers accepted, with Commodore Montgomerie commenting that the Germans “ran straight as far as we were concerned.” [3]

This positive experience from Venezuela was a strong factor in the negotiations at London three years later, when the Powers were finding solutions to the postwar order in Scandinavia.

1. The TTL deal is essentially similar to the OTL Sandringham treaty, but signed earlier in the summer due lesser mistrust from both sides.
2. Both incidents are OTL. In TTL Crête-à-Pierrot does not capture the Markomannia, avoiding the incident that drew ire in the US press.
3. In OTL Bülow and Wilhelm II were hoping to use the crisis to gain a toehold of Venezuelan territory, and rejected this first offer arbitration. Here Eulenburg manages to convince Wilhelm II to accept as a gesture of goodwill towards "his good friend Roosevelt", and the whole affair ends rather smoothly. Roosevelt, however, is not amused.

 

[Karelian]

7th of October, 1898, Friday.
Schloss Liebenberg, Löwenberger Land, Germany, 50km north from Berlin.

He had received his guest as was fit for his status as a member of higher landed aristocracy. The hidebound, ritualistic and excessive pheasant shooting festivities of the Prussian Junkers had certainly made an impression - his guest had immediately felt hopelessly out of place. He - A cosmopolite, journalist, playwright and a Viennese urbanite. Him - an imposing figure of old Prussian Junkers nobility in his full hunting gear, with icy blue eyes, open contempt thinly masked by courtful manners.

The shooting season was on its prime, he had told him over dinner, after touring him around the castle decorated with a sizeable art collection and various displays of medieval weapons and coats-of-arms. His host had been most courteous, but also rather open in his general hostility. And his guest already knew as much - von Eulenburg had always been most open and categorical in his anti-Semitism.

Aristocratic and ennobled rich families with Jewish roots - such as Richters, Meyerbeers, Meyerheims and Lindaus - were to him to be held in contempt as much as the poorest Russian and Romanian Jews who had been fleeing westwards in increasing numbers as of late. For Eulenburg, revoking the civil rights of German Jews, deporting them or kicking them back to the status of aliens were thoughts that Eulenburg had both publicly and privately brought up to his friends time and time and. And yet to him there were “Jews and Jews.”

Nathaniel Rotschild, head of the Viennese branch of the family and a bachelor with a certain kind of reputation remained in warm terms with Eulenburg as “his beloved Nat” even after the end of Eulenburg’s tenure as an ambassador in Vienna (he ultimately inherited a hefty sum of money when Rotschild died on June 13th, 1905.)

Eulenburg had seen the tactics employed by Karl Lueger during his tenure in Vienna, and during that time his letters to Wilhelm II, especially his account from a Jewish charity concert in Vösslau near Vienna employed virtually every anti-Semitic cliché in circulation, and were so venomous in content that his guest (and readers) were better off with only a general picture of the contempt that this high lord held towards him.

For Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl, that was a good sign, especially since his previous correspondence and inquiries about this man had confirmed him that Eulenburg wielded a lot of power behind the scenes of the court politics of the German Empire.

"The Kaiser is fire and flame for the matter. I was able to get him really worked up about it. That is the only way. He has to be passionately interested in something, otherwise he quickly loses sight of the matter because there is so much going on."

Eulenburg seemed genuinely happy to inform his guest that he had been busy at work with his Sovereign, promoting the ideas of Herzl to a degree where he considered the whole idea as more or less as a foregone conclusion. Given the warming relations between Germany and Russia, von Eulenburg was confident that the latter country would be favorably disposed to the idea of a German protectorate.

He was so happy that he had met this enterpreuting Jew Herzl! The sheer, insolent simplicity of it all! Purification of the Germanic race, while enhancing her status internationally! No more young revolutionary firebrands, an influx of fresh life to the moribund Ottoman Empire, establishment of Western civilization to the Holy Land, and first and foremost - what a divine historical role for His Imperial Sovereign!

On his way home at the carriage Herlz himself was especially pleased with his closing remark after a fine discussion about specifics of his plans: "Our movement exists. I expect that one or another of the great powers will espouse it. I once thought it would be England. It lay in the nature of things. I would like it much more to be Germany!" The look on the face of Eulenburg, and the way he had urged him to hurry with his plans to meet with the Kaiser Himself! What an auspicious day for the Zionist movement!

Only the end of their conversation puzzled him.

After he had expressed his gratitude in a few warm words, Eulenburg had suddenly gazed him firmly, and remarked that "Perhaps the the time will come when I, in turn, will ask you for favors."
"Henceforth you have in me a devoted and grateful man."
"I am glad that this the way you take it."
"Your Excellency may count on me. Perhaps you will allow me to give you proof of it right now?"
"No, not yet. The occasion may possibly arrise someday, but this is not the case at present."

 

[Karelian]

The Evangelical Connection - William Hechler and birth of the Christian Zionist movement

The road to Liebenberg and von Eulenburg’s graces had been long and arduous for Herzl. His quest would in fact have been near-hopeless without aid from a most unlikely direction. His paths had crossed with a key ally when Rev. William H. Hechler, chaplain to the British Embassy in Vienna, had contacted him. Hechler, born in British India to a German-British missionary family was proficient in English, German, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and two African dialects. He was a decorated veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, and critically for Herzl and Zionism, a zealous supporter of the theological theory of Christian Restorationism.

Hechler was certainly an extremely eccentric personality.

He believed that the time for the project of Herzl was right because of his own Biblical prophetic studies had led him to the conclusion that this was the year when the events foretold in the Scriptures would begin to occur. This led him to firmly believe that he was fulfilling his part in a Biblical prophecy and God’s plan. He was most eager to discover the Ark of the Covenant, instructed Herzl where exactly in Palestine the Jews should build their new restored Temple, and openly told Herzl that the Jews first had to return to the Holy Land so that they could finally accept Jesus as their Messiah.

Despite of this he also had some unusually influential contacts that proved critical for Herzl and the Zionist project. Hechler had been the household tutor of the children of Grand Duke Frederick I of Baden, the uncle of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and had managed to convert the old monarch to his theological views. He thus managed to introduce Herzl to the Grand Duke. Deeply religious old monarch felt that fulfilling the ancient prophecies was a most favourable endeavour, and he brought Herzl and Zionism to the attention of his nephew.

Immediately after Herzl had met with Hechler and the Grand Duke in April, Hechler had secured permission for the meeting to be told abroad. Hechler, excitedly, told shocked Herzl that he had in fact already posted a letter of announcement to the members of his native Anglican church.[1] After that, the matters had been moving with a quickening pace. The Grand Duke Frederick had submitted an exhaustive account of the Zionist movement to his nephew, and Wilhelm II had in turn instructed Count Eulenburg to study the matter and report on it. Eulenburg, influenced by Herzl personally but first and foremost seeing a chance to serve his Sovereign and promote his own anti-Semitic agenda had then started to use Herzl to advance his own plans.

[1] In OTL Hechler mentioned that he had already written such letter and was just about to post it, and Herzl forbade him to do so, most likely out of fear that even more Christian fundamentalists like Hechler would take over "his" movement. Here the cat gets out of the bag earlier, and due the following events the Restorationist movement starts to expand in Britain and the US much earlier than in OTL.

 

[Karelian]

"After studying the material you kindly sent me I have now come to the conclusion that we are dealing here with a question of the most far-reaching significance. I have therefore had careful approaches made to the promoters of this idea and have thus been able to find out that the transfer to the land of Palestine of those Israelites who are ready to go has been most excellently prepared for and is even perfectly financially sound in every respect.

I have therefore said in response to a questions from the Zionists whether I would be prepared to receibe a delegation of them in audience, that I would be happy o receive a deputation in Jerusalem on the occasion of our visit there...the settlement of the Holy Land by the wealthy and hard-working nation of Israel would soon bring to the former unsuspected prosperity...the Turk would then get well again, i.e. he would receive money in the natural way, without needing to borrow, then he will no longer be sick, will be able to build his own roads and railways without having to rely on foreign companies and then it won't be so easy for him to be partitioned. Q.E.D!

In addition, the energy, creativity and efficiency of the Tribe of Sem would be diverted to worthier goals than the sucking dry of the Christians, and many an oppositional Semite now supporting the Social Democrats would clear off to the East, where there is more rewarding work to be done...

Now I realize that nine-tenths of all Germans would recoil in horror if they were to discover that I symphatized with the Zionists or would even, as I intent to do if asked, place them under my protection!

Our dear God knows even better than we do that the Jews killed Our Saviour, and he has punished them accordingly. But neither the anti-Semites nor others, myself included, have been asked or empowered by Him to bully these people after our own fashion in majorem Dei Gloriam! One should love one's enemies.

And from an earthly, realistic political standpoint it should not be forgotten that, considering the immense and extremely dangerous power which International Jewish capital represents, it would after all be of huge advantage to Germany if the world of the Hebrews looked up to it in gratitude?! Everywhere the hydra of the coarsest, ghastliest anti-Semitism is raising its dreadful head, and the terrified Jews - ready to leave those countries where danger threatens - are looking around for a protector. Well then, those who have returned to the Holy Land shall enjoy protection and security, and I shall intercede on their behalf with the Sultan!"

From letter of Wihelm II to Frederik I, sent in October 1898

What would happen in the event of its seizure by one of the ex-
isting powers? That is another question. Palestine is not only the
home of the loftiest of ideas and the unhappiest of peoples ; but it is
also of great importance to all Europe because of its geographical
situation. The time cannot be distant when it will be traversed by a
cultural and commercial highway to Asia. Asia is the diplomatic
problem of the coming decade. Let us recall in all modesty that we
Zionists, whom people readily declare to be lacking in practical
penetration, foresaw and proclaimed this development of the Euro-
pean contest several years ago. Already the trend of things is ap-
parent. You know how closely every step which any one power
takes in this direction is watched by the others. Now that the most
modern of princes of the inhabited globe is about to undertake a
journey to the Holy Land, we detect anxiety and, in some cases,
open hostility in the expressions of public opinion in all countries.
The land in question cannot and will not ever pass into the possession
of any one power, for it is guarded with extreme solicitude. Not only
its present owner but all the powers watch over it carefully.

Must it then remain in its present condition to the end of time?
This would surely be regrettable for all concerned, for the very reason
that a developed Palestine is indispensable from the point of view of
both culture and commerce. In the recent war the Ottoman Empire
has again demonstrated its indestructible vitality. The Turks have
excellent qualities. They are brave, magnanimous, capable of sacri-
fice; but they do not possess those qualities which are requisite for
industrialism and the cultivation of a country. This is a fact. There-
fore they would be both strengthened and enriched by the acquisition
of a peaceable, enterprising national element endowed with the very
qualities which they lack.

Consequently, the task before us, for the accomplishment of
which we are continually working, is to create conditions favorable to
an adjustment of this nature. We may state that the Turkish gov-
ernment is well aware of the thorough uprightness of our efforts.
We neither want to smuggle in settlers nor to engage in any creative
work whatsoever without a previous agreement. In fact, we should
have no interest at all in helping to strengthen Turkey economically
if we were to receive nothing in return. The whole thing is to be
done according to the simplest formula in the world: Do ut des (I
give in order that you may give).

Excerpt from a Congress address Herzl delivered at Basle, August 29th, 1897

"Your Imperial Majesty, I am very happy at the honor conferred on me", Herzl stated and made a deep bow to the German Emperor, dressed to his trademark Hussar uniform. The Emperor seemed enigmatic, but keenly listened as nervous Herzl waged an internal battle to keep his nerves in check as he sought to convey the views he had already presented in the letter he had sent to Wilhelm as credibly as before. Marschall was also present, and as the three men sat down together it was soon clear which role each one of them would play in the discussion.

"Do you think that the Jews are going to give up and leave their stock exchange and follow you? The Jews, who are comfortably installed here in Berlin?"

The first question of Staatssekretär Marschall von Bieberstein, the German foreign minister, set the tone for rest of the discussion between him and Herzl. Yet Herzl thought that he had presented his case to the weary German diplomat credibly. He had replied that the richest Jewish families would not most likely follow him, at least initially, but that the poor and desolate people would surely flock to his colours. And Herzl soon realized that while his foreign minister had strong reservations about the Zionist project, Wilhelm II was totally another story.

On the one hand he totally open in his own misgivings and anti-Semitism: "There are elements among your people whom it would be quite a good thing to settle in Palestine. I am thinking of Hesse, for example, where there are usurers at work among the rural population. If these people took their possessions and went to settle in the colonies, they could be more useful." Herzl replied that Zionism would take the Jews away from the revolutionary parties. Secondly, unlike weary and cautious Marschall, Wilhelm II was visibly impressed, and soon openly expressed his confidence that the German Jews would support the colonization of Palestine once they knew it was under His protection. When Marschall raised a doubt as to the attitude of the Porte, the Kaiser brushed aside his misgivings, convinced that he could certainly strike a bargain with "his good friend the Sultan - after all, I am the only one who still sticks by him!" When Herzl spoke of plans of a new overland route to the Persian Gulf and Asia, he noticed that this part of his plan certainly interested otherwise sceptical Marschall as well. Marschall soon realized that this was one of those moments where Wilhelm II had made up his mind for the time being, and from that point on he merely focused on additional questions: how much land the Zionists would be claiming, and did their planned settlements extend as north as Beirut or even beyound? Did Herzl want to establish a new state, and how he thought the Ottomans would respond to such initiatives?

When the lengthy interview was nearly over and Wilhelm II was about to leave to the German Embassy to prepare for the evening gala with the Sultan, he vigorously shook Herzl's hand. "Write out your address and give it to Marschall. I will then work it out with him." And then, suddenly, almost casually he turned towards Herzl and asked: "Tell me in one word: what should I demand from the Sultan?" Shocked by this frankness Herzl hastily replied: "a chartered company under the protection of His Majesty and the Sultan."[1]

And with that he was gone.
As soon as the Kaiser had left the room, Marschall von Bieberstein made it clear to Herzl that personally neither the Reichskanzler Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, nor he himself had been especially convinced. Yet Marschall made sure that he did not completely damper the hopes of Herzl. The thruth was that neither Marschall nor Hohenlohe - men who in theory were in charge of German foreign policy together with Wilhelm II - had not been consulted on the Zionist question before this! Naturally such behind-the-scenes meddling greatly annoyed them. For his part, Hohenlohe was an old man, suffering from severe asthma. Upon hearing the news, he merely meekly complained his that his peculiar relations with the Sovereign had made him to conclude that His Majesty's acts of thoughtlessness and want of consideration were signs that He purposefully avoided his Ministers. And this was not far from the real state of things - after all, Wilhelm II had always wanted to "be his own Bismarck", and this new course in German politics had been eagerly supported by Eulenburg.[2]

Marschall felt that it was his duty to convince Wilhem II of the dangers of alienating Abdülhamid II and the Sublime Porte with utopian Zionist projects. Having failed that, he now sought to save what could be saved in the upcoming meeting.[3] But since both of these men were no longer in favour of their erratic Emperor, in the end Eulenburg had managed to do the same thing he had done with Houston Steward Chamberlain - he had cajoled Wilhelm II to meet a man he would most likely never have granted an audience otherwise, slighting and sidelining his sitting ministers in the process.

The meeting with Abdülhamid II was a historical event. While charmed by the autocratic nature of his rule, Wilhelm II chose to hear what he wanted to hear: that the Sultan was most pleased his own Jewish subjects, and that they were happy under his reign, and that he wanted to remain in friendly terms with Germany. Wilhelm II thus reacted to the not-so-subtle rebuff of Abdülhamid II for any kind of Zionist settlement in the Holy Land by stating his sincere awe and praise to the Islamic piety and devotion and dropping the topic from further discussion in the evening. The discussion steered away to other matters at hand, and Abdülhamid II escorted Wilhelm II and his royal entourage to sail away towards Haifa with the view that he had dodged a bullet.[3]

Wilhelm II was the first German monarch since Crusader King Friedrich II in 1228 to set foot on Palestine. His state visit was a massive event: 100 coachmen, 600 drivers, 120 carriages, 230 tents, 12 cooks, 60 waiters, guarded by an Ottoman infantry regiment in land by visiting German warships in the coastline.

The dedication ceremony of the Church of the Redeemer took place on October 31, 1898, at 10 o’clock in the morning, in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Empress Augusta Victoria, his entourage, Ottoman emissaries, church representatives, foreign diplomats and a large local crowd. The royal couple appeared in the square in full regalia, the church bells pealed, the choir sang and the crowd joined in.The Kaiser was a devout Lutheran who saw himself as the patron of Protestantism. Just as the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great had embraced Christianity and built the first churches in Jerusalem in the 4th century, Wilhelm sought to establish the first Lutheran religious institutions in the Holy City and strengthen the Lutheran presence there.To give substance to his dream, the Kaiser endowed three churches: the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, the Protestant Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Ascension in the Augusta Victoria compound on Mt. of Olives (dedicated in 1910). This was a natural continuation of Wilhelm’s activity in Germany, where he had restored the Wittenberg church of Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation.The date of the dedication of the Redeemer Church – October 31, symbolized the Reformation Date – the founding of Protestantism by Martin Luther (16th Cent.)

It was here that Wilhelm II, seeing himself as the modern-day Cyrus the Great, delivered what was known as the Jerusalem Declaration, announcing that in this holiest of cities he wanted "seize with joy the opportunity to render thanks, above all to the Sultan Abdul Hamid for his hospitality. May the Sultan rest assured, and also the three hundred million Mohammedans scattered over the globe and revering in him their caliph, that the German Emperor will be and remain at all times their friend!
And with that, Wilhelm II stated that his deepest desire as to guarantee a peaceful, prosperous future for the Holy Land. Therefore he was from henceforth offering personal protection for all German citizens in the Ottoman Empire regardless of their religion, and to the Jüdische Landgesellschaft für Syrien und Palästina.[4]

Marschall would resign soon after the official state visit was over. The speech, news that the Kaiser had also sent telegram to the Pope announcing his willingness to take over the protectorate of the Catholics of Holy Land, and rest of his attics started a media spectacle in Germany, culminating to the anti-Semitic poem composed by Frank Wedekind and publisched by the satirical Simplicissimus magazine that had devoted an entire special issue to Palestine. The caricaturist and the poet were both charged with "insulting a royal majesty." The state would not stand for such direct derision of the Kaiser and the whole issue was confiscated and banned shortly after publication. The state prosecutor′s office also issued arrest warrants for the publisher Albert Langen, caricaturist and the composer of the poem. The artists fled in exile to Paris, but the editor soon decided to hand himself in and returned to Germany. He and and the caricaturist were convicted of slander of the Kaiser, and spent six months in captivity at the Konigstein Fortress in Saxony. Whereas both of the surrendered prisoners were pardoned after some six months, Langen stayed in his Paris exile until 1903 and was not allowed to return to Germany until he had paid a fine of 30,000 marks.[5]
This clash with the rising power of German media was a sign of things to come, although few realized it at the time.

For Herzl, the Jerusalem Declaration was far from the panacea he had hoped it to be. The Ottoman authorities who contated him soon after the state visit was over made it adamantly clear from the beginning that while the German Emperor was fully entitled under treaty rights to protect his own subjects, Palestine was not open for widespread Jewish colonization. Instead the Zionists and Ottoman authorities soon started to negotiate about a plan to buy Ottoman bonds and appointing directors to the Public Debt Commission. The idea came forward from Daoud Effendi, an Ottoman Jewish assistant of Nuri Pasha. As the Ottoman Sovereign discussed the matter with Herzl via letters, Herzl adjusted the written plans of the Zionist movement towards an autonomous vassal state under the explicit suzerainty of the Sultan, with all immigrants embracing Ottoman nationality upon arrival and settling in Palestine at the express invitation of the Sultan, paying tribune of one hundred thousand pounds, rising to one million annually, pari passu with the increase of immigration, in return of local autonomy.[6]

But while the Ottomans kept stalling with these negotiations, the Jerusalem Declaration had quite an effect on the international level, as Herzl and rest of the Zionist movement soon found out.

1: In OTL Bülow was jealous about his influence and access to Wilhelm, and in he strongly objected the Zionist policy on the basis that it was brought up by Eulenburg. He also felt that Ottoman Empire was a lost cause, and was dismayed of Wilhelm's excessive ethuasiasm for everything Turkish and Zionist. Marschall was an old hand in the German-Ottoman diplomatic circles. He wanted to facilitate Germany's peaceful penetration of the Ottoman Empire to avoid other Powers from disturbing the status quo. The French were constantly alerting Russians about the alleged German plans of colonizing Asia Minor, and Marschall, who was aware of Ottoman sensibilities, wanted to focus on the Baghdad Railway project first and foremost. Yet he did not by any means share the open hostility and scepticism of Bülow.

2: In OTL Herzl replied that he was looking for "a chartered company under German protection."

3: In OTL Marschall was not present in the meeting, and it was left for Bülow to play the devil's advocate. Even then he failed to steer Wilhelm II away from his ethuasiasm, and the matter was really brought up with Abdülhamid II. Marschall, who was also present as the German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in OTL, had scant foreknowledge of this topic and was strongly opposed to it due his posting and past troubles with the erratic Emperor. Here he has stuck around in want of a replacement, and tries to promote the interests of German Empire. In OTL Wilhelm was out of the influence of the Grand Duke and Eulenburg, and Bülow and Tewfik Pasha, the Ottoman Ambassador to Berlin managed to sway him away from his fleeting interested in Zionism. Here Wilhelm II is stuck with a foreign minister he wants to get rid off, and he stubbornly refuses to change his mind as was often the case in similar situations in OTL before Bülow era.

4: The speech contains features from the speech Wilhelm II held at the Tomb of Saladin in Damascus. In TTL Wilhelm II speaks off-script (like he often did), and seeks to placate his generous host while also promoting his own agenda in the region.

5: All per OTL. The historical lyrics found in the description are eerily fitting to this TTL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Wedekind,_"Im_heiligen_Land"_(Simplicissimus_1898).jpg

6: The details of this plan are from OTL

 

[Karelian]

"You must not talk to him about Zionism. That is a phantasmagoria. Jerusalem is as holy to these people as Mecca is."

Arminius Vámbéry, born Hermann Wamberger, had an Orthodox Jewish family history. Crippled at birth, he was on crutches when his mother sent him out to fend for himself at the age of twelve. As an apprentice to a tailor he won a scholarship to the St. George Gymnasium in Bratislava, discovering his phenomenal talents as a polyglot. After he had limped his way across the whole length of the Hapsburg realm, he had started a new life in Constantinople as a cabaret singer. Within the year, he had climbed from French tutor in the Sultan’s harem to secretary and adviser of Grand Vizier Fuad Pasha, befriending Sultan Abdülhamid II in the process. He had received a grant from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to study the ancient history of the Magyar tribes, and spent three years roaming through Turkestan, Samarkand, Bokhara and Persia. His fame as an adventurer had made him an instant celebrity in Britain, and he met with Disraeli, Palmerston and Edward VII himself. By the end of the century he was working as a professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Budapest.

The old orientalist and traveller was fluent in twelve languages. He had changed religion like common men change their shirts - he been a Muslim as a young man in Constantinople, a Protestant as a Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Budapest, and his father had been an Orthodox Jew. A personal friend of Sultan and King Edward VII and an expert of Central Asia, he had carried out several diplomatic missions and espionage for both the Ottoman and British governments. When Herzl met him he was as 70-year old atheist, a man who was no longer sure whether he was an Englishman or a Turk. Yet he genuinely wanted to help Herzl, and boasted that he could arrange a meeting with the Sultan.

When he got in contact with the Hamidian administration Herzl soon discovered how clandestine and rottenly corrupt it was. He also found out that the fear of intervention of the Powers was the aspect that mostly frightened the Ottomans in the Zionist project. The logic was that influx of freely admitted Jewish immigration would be followed by military intervention of the Powers and loss of the Holy Land. Hence the local governor in Palestine was enforcing a strict policy that forbade foreigners to stay in the area longer than three months, with a complete ban on immigration.

To his own surprise, Herzl ultimately gained an audience with sizeable bribes and help from Vámbéry, and met Abdülhamid II in person.[1]
For starters, Herzl thanked the Sultan for his benevolence towards the Jews - a rather factual statement, as the Ottoman Empire had been and still was wide open to Jewish refugees and they had a reliable reputation in the eyes of the Porte. During their cordial conversation, quoting the story of Androcles and the Lion, Herzl then offered his services to help the Sultan with the matter of Ottoman public debts. Abdülhamid II in turn gave Herzl the permission to make his pro-Jewish sentiments public, stating that what his realm needed most was the industrial skill of the Jewish people, promising “permanent protection” to those Jews who sought refuge in his lands.[2] But aside from this PR stunt and a diamond pin offered as a gift and token of personal friendship, Herzl got little more from the regime of Abdülhamid. The Ottoman middlemen kept milking his movement for cash, while the viziers and pashas made a lot of promises and did nothing.

But while he was talking to the Ottomans and getting nowhere, Herzl was also pleased to find that the bombastic declaration and the following loss of interest from Wilhelm II had bought the Zionism a lot of international credibility and media attention. Just like the Ottomans had feared, the Jewish Question was now gaining attention the international media. In October 1902 Joseph Chamberlain, then acting as the British Colonial Secretary had met with Herzl, accepted his analysis of the Jewish question, and agreed with his proposed solution. El Arish, a largely empty region of the British-controlled, nominally Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt at the Mediterranean coast of Sinai Peninsula was considered for Jewish settlement despite Egyptian reservations of the endeavour. This plan caused bitter divisions within the Zionist movement as it was seen as betrayal of the goal of securing access to Palestine. For Herzl the negotiations were a valuable lesson for the complexities of Great Power politics around the issue. Yet the growing mass of Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution from Russia and Romania pressured the governments of Europe to act, and gave Herzl himself a sense of urgency to bring his grand plan to fruition at last.

He soon discovered that for the time being, the bitter hostility aroused by the Boer War, mutual press wars, and the Navy Bills had made true Anglo-German rapprochement seem impossible. Yet a German-British joint protectorate for Zionist Land Company, its financial institutions seated to London and political activities centered in Germany and Austria-Hungary was not something out of the realms of possibility. The British press had viewed the Near Eastern tour of Wilhelm rather favourably. And after he had visited Germany and discussed with Wilhelm II in 1899 (after his journey), Cecil Rhodes famously stated that "Asiatic Turkey ought to be turned over to Germany, since England can not rule the whole world and needs a buffer area between herself and Russia."[3] Thus the problem was neither in London or Berlin.

The final stop in his journey was personally the hardest. News of pogroms abhorred him, but Herzl saw no alternatives. He had to gain Russian approval to plans to allow the Russian Jews to emigrate to Palestine, and to lift the legal restrictions imposed on the Zionist Organization in Russia. He had courted Nicholas II and his key ministers for a personal audience since 1896 had so far been in vain, until Sipiagin, the Minister of Interiour received Herzl on 8th of August 1903. “The Jewish Question is a vital question to us.” Sipiagin stated that until the Minsk conference he had been sympathetic towards the Zionist movement, but this new trend about talking Jewish nationalism, organization and culture - that wouldn’t do. Russia desired homogeneity of its population, but a massive assimilation of Jews was impractical. Thus the emigration was a logical answer. Herzl was eager to help, stating that the quicker he could reach land, the quicker the defection to the Socialists would end.

Sipiagin agreed on all proposals of Herzl. The Sultan was to be pressured "with an effective intervention" in order to obtain a charter for the Jewish colonization of Palestine, the Russian government was willing to provide a financial subsidy for Jewish emigration, and facilities for the Russian Zionist societies to act in conformity with the Basle Programme. In August they met again, and Sipiagin stated that "the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine, capable of absorbing several million Jews" suited the Russian Government best.

The same man who was busily propagating the Protocols also had the gall to say that in its treatment of the Jewish question the Russian Government "had never abandoned the accepted principles of morality and humanity”, and expressed hopes that as emigration would increase, the lot of the remaining Jews in Russia would improve. Herzl took this as a thinly-veiled threat.

The next step was meeting with Witte, a fierce competitor of Sipiagin. Satisfied with the promise that the Holy Places in Palestine would remain inviolable, Witte eventually agreed that the Zionist solution would be “a good one, if it could be carried out”, and promised to lift the restrictions on the financial activities of the Jewish Colonial Trust.

Herzl followed up by approaching Count Muraviev. But to reach him, he had to wade through the Russian court politics. the Jerusalem Declaration and following rumours made Russians mistrust all German political initiatives in the Orient. Muraviev was adamant in the Russian interests towards the Holy Places in Palestine. The Imperial Russian Palestine Society took great pains to extend its influence, organizing pilgrimages, maintaining missionary schools, erecting churches and acquiring landed property in the region. Herzl thus begun by appealing to General Kireyev, the aide-de-camp of Nicholas II. Having met him before, he managed to convince Kireyev to introduce him to Nikolas de Hartwig, head of the Asiatic Department and President of the Imperial Palestine Society. Hartwig, like Sipiagin, told Herzl that his cause was favored by Petchovski Most. By December 1903 Sipiagin informed Herzl that Count Muraviev had agreed to inform the Sublime Porte that the Russian Government viewed the Zionist project of resettlement of Jews in Palestine favourably, and that a friendly response from the Porte to the Zionist request would attest to the “bond of friendship that exists between the two empires.”

In the final document that Sipiagin drafted with the approval of Nicholas II the absence of any mention of Sultan’s sovereignty, specifically mentioned by Herzl, and the emphasis on an “independent state” reflected the general line of Russian policy. The document clearly aimed at dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, while it also sought to gain Russia international clout as a champion of religious minorities living under the “Turkic Yoke”. As an immediate measure the Russian Government levied an extra tax on the Jews to facilitate the work of the emigration societies and providing their needs - how much of these funds actually reached the societies themselves was another matter. They also gave protection to the Zionist emissaries at Ottoman territories.[4]

Internationally Sipiagin’s letter served as a key to the Great Power diplomacy for Herzl. He finally met with his own Government authorities at the highest level, when von Goluchowski granted him an audience. A strong critic of anti-Semitism in the Dual Monarchy, he felt that Herzl’s project was so praiseworthy that every government should support it financially. He furthermore stated to Herzl that no petty or half-way measures would do - asking the Ottoman Empire for land and legal rights for 5-6 million Jews was the only way to stir the Great Powers into action!

Despite of his strong support, Goluchowski was unwilling to bring Vienna forward as the leading Power in the initiative - the relations with the Porte were too critical for that. It would be better if Britain took the lead - and Herzl should also secure support from Budapest first, especially from Count Tisza. This reluctance rose from the desire to maintain the secret agreement with St. Petersburg about keeping “Balkans on ice”, and avoiding moves that would unilaterally disturb the status quo. Here Goluchowski was already contemplating the future of the Balkans, and the idea of a Jewish Palestine was only part of a larger puzzle, where the hope of reviving the 1887 tripartite Mediterranean Agreement loomed large.[5]

With the Sipiagin Letter Herzl could finally court France, strating by letters to her foreign office representatives and the Ambassador at Vienna, stating that since her Russian ally had already de facto renounced any claims to Palestine, French motives for further protests on religious grounds would no longer be credible. With the Combes Cabinet working with a Chamber that was Republican, Radical and Socialist in majority, the pressure to act jointly with Russia in Palestine gained new urgency as the questions of the future of Suez, Egypt and Lebanon were raised in the French colonial lobby. Herzl was thus able to tour Paris on his way to Rome, meeting with representatives of the French government and receiving assurances that the Dreyfusards were now firmly at the helm - and that France had to be included to any potential arrangement involving Palestine.[6]

Herzl met further success in Rome in January 1904. King Umberto I proudly stated that his realm had no racial discrimination: Jews held posts in the Diplomatic Service, and almost every government included a Jew. Italy thus had no Jewish problem, but Zionism still had its positive attractions. Palestine “will and must get into your hands”, the King told Herzl. "It is only a question of time. Wait until you have half a million Jews there!” Tommaso Tittoni, the Foreign Minister of Italy, wanted to avoid any reneval of Austro-Russian constellations at the expense of Italy, and promised to proceed jointly with the Russians in this issue. Meanwhile the Vatican remained defiant. Anyone who denied the divine nature of Christ could not be given possession of the Holy Land without giving up the highest Christian principles...Gerusalemme must not get into the hands of the Jews.”[7]

Back in Germany Wilhelm II wanted to stay true to his self-proclaimed role as a friend of the Sublime Porte, and stated strongly that Germany had no wish to see the Ottoman Empire lose control of Palestine because of this endeavour. This was not inconsistent with Herzl’s ambition, as charter for a Jewish Colonization Company guaranteed by the European Powers was all he was after.
And with Britain willing to benevolently watch from the sidelines and lend a hand at El Arish, Herzl stated to Eulenburg, the new Chancellor, that he “would gladly let Wilhelm II have the glory of placing himself at the head” of the Concert of Powers on the Zionist question. And just when the international diplomacy seemed to be aligning towards a potential solution, ARF Demonstrative Body assassinated Abdülhamid II on Friday, 21st of July 1905. The matter was however a joint topic of discussion, and the "spirit of Rome" that resulted to the implementation of the Mandelstam Plan had a lot to do with the fact that the Powers had a single topic where they were more or less in general agreement. Lifting the ban of Jewish settlement in Palestine was thus part of the August Ultimatum the Powers jointly represented to the Porte in 1905.

1. As per OTL
2. As per OTL - note that Abdülhamid II made no promises to stop the immigration restrictions to Palestine.
3. As per OTL
4. In OTL it was Plehve who championed the Zionist solution to Nicholas II. Sipiagin, who holds the post Plehve had in OTL, is just as eager to promote a program that can be used to advance his own anti-Semitic foreign policy goals. The tax was discussed as a possible measure in OTL as well.
5. As per OTL
6. Herzl never travelled to France in OTL. Here the success with Wilhelm II encourages him to overcome his prejudices and approach the French authorities - much to his surprise the domestic politics of France turn the matter into a point of policy, and France is willing to go ahead due her extensive economic involvement to the Ottoman finances.
7. As per OTL - with the difference that Umberto I is alive and well

 

[Karelian]

"Your concern about the Kaiser's spiritism is quite unnecessary. When he was still Prince Wilhelm, we spoke about these matters -- just as you speak about everything to the person who is your friend. How can the Kaiser now suddenly stop talking about them?..I cannot help the fact that, by the time I got to know him, Prince Wilhelm already firmly believed in ghosts and other such things; it is a part of his mystical inclination."

Prince Eulenburg to his sister in a private letter, 1889

Prince Eulenburg's life had been defined by his early and eager interest to occultism. By the time he became Chancellor, Eulenburg—while nominally Lutheran—genuinely believed in the reality of ghosts and spirits, and spent much of his time consulting clairvoyants, mediums and spiritists in attempts to contact the spirit world. Eulenburg had not been the only occultist at the Liebenberg Castle. The place had been a virtual stronghold of table-turning and other spiritist activities ever since Countess Stubenberg, the mother-in-law of eldest son of Eulenburg, had brought with him a young private tutor named Edmund Jaroljmek, a charismatic Bohemian who soon became the private secretary of Prince Eulenburg himself. With his lead, the children of the family had taken the habit of organizing seances. Because of his influence, the youngest son, Karl, eagerly studied Rudolf Steiner’s theosophic ideas. Karl ultimately spent days in a darkened room, meditating alone in an attempt to make himself receptive to higher perceptions. This eccentric period in the family history ended aruptly to a hushed-up scandal when Eulenburg’s daughter Augusta (Lycki) ran away with Jaroljmek (they were both born on 1882), and Karl Eulenburg left the family home together with them. Worst of all, Jaroljmek stole a bunch of private letters when he left, and this compromising evidence prevented Eulenburg from doing anything about the matter. This situation infuriated Eulenburg to no end.

Spiritism and liberal attitudes for sexual matters seemed to go hand in hand. Sigwart, brother of Karl Eulenburg, was mesmerized by the spiritist teachings of Natasha, the Russian wife of Axel Varnbüler, a family friend and part of the Eulenburg's entourage that was collectively known as the Liebenberg camarilla. Since Varnbüler himself was a notorious womanizer, he kept silent about the fact that Natasha and Sigwart spent a lot of time together when Varnbüler had to spent weeks and months at Berlin as a part of his work. Eliza von Moltke, the Swedish wife of General von Moltke, was also part of this “spiritist coven”. A daughter of von Moltke also ran away with her music teacher after becoming pregnant, and the teacher himself divorced in order to marry her. But scandals in the ranks of old Prussian nobility were nothing new or out of the ordinary.

What mattered was the fact that Eulenburg himself kept in contact with high-ranking fellow spritists in the German high society, asked them for advice in matters personal and political, and also brought them to the attention of Wilhelm II from time to time. For the court and other influential politicians, this state of affairs reminded them of the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm II, who had been an avid occultist. Another spiritist-minded Hohenzollern at the throne was an alarming thought, so they took solace from the fact that Wilhelm II seemed outright rational when compared to Eulenburg. He did not consult, signs, numbers or mediums before making decisions, and kept his interest to spiritism more as a hobby rather than religious worldview. Yet he often talked about the topic with Eulenburg, who in turn was eager to entertain His Majesty by describing his latest experiences. But while Eulenburg himself found it it difficult to believe in the decline of Prussia's star, his own star was already on the wane.