The Rainbow. A World War One on Canada's West Coast Timeline

This Reporter
Aug 20, 0600 hours, Victoria BC.

Premier McBride and Captain Trousdale shared the morning Victoria Daily Colonist at their early morning situation meeting.

“ Barbaric Huns Bombard Swanson Bay.
4 Dead, 7 Missing and Presumed Dead, 18 Wounded.
Industry and Port Facilities Burned. CPR Liner Princess Beatrice Sunk.
Hospital ship SS Prince George rendering assistance.

“This reporter arrived at the pulp mill town of Swanson Bay, on board the Union Steamship SS Cowichan, to a scene of utter devastation. The bay was shrouded with smoke, the shattered remains of the wharf were still burning. The once proud Canadian Pacific Sulphide Pulp Company Ltd. Mill was reduced to ruins.

“ Upon landing, we found numerous wounded laid out in drawing rooms and on the town boardwalk. The town doctor was bandaging the casualties with torn bed sheets, on account of all the medical supplies having burned up with the aid station in the mill building. Wounded men stoically endured, with no painkillers available to sooth the effect of their terrible wounds.

“Mercifully, the hospital ship Prince George, bound for Prince Rupert, appeared an hour later entirely by providence. She was flagged down and moored in the bay to attend to the casualties. The survivors of the terrible bombardment are now recovering in the most modern medical facilities available.
“Wounded mill machinist Elliot Knox gave this account of the action…

“Ocean Falls Shelled by German Cruiser.
Corsairs of Admiral Von Spee’s Far East Squadron Strike Again.
Dozens wounded.
Number of Dead Unknown.
“Million dollar Crown Williamette Pacific pulp mill reduced to ash.
Broken windows throughout the town gave testament to the savagery that the remote industrial town had endured…

“Heroic Russian Allies Defend Prince Rupert Against All Odds.
Over 100 Russian sailors dead or missing. 40 wounded.
Merchant cruiser Anayr battles Nürnberg at point blank range in fog shrouded harbour. Russian ship goes down fighting…

“Reprinted from the Anyox and Alice Arm Herald
Aug 16, 1914. Ernest Moss

“This evening, on Anyox’s Wharf Number One, I interviewed Captain Karl Von Schönberg of the German Navy cruiser Nürnberg. As a backdrop, the warship was obscured by a haze of dust as its bunkers were being filled with stolen Crowsnest Pass Coal. The SS Prince Rupert, now armed and flying a German naval flag, stood nearby. My impression was of a man who was at once cultured and dangerous, serious and humane. I asked him what brought him to Anyox.

“ ‘You know there is a war,” he said, “and sometimes the war happens where you do not expect it. Everyone is surprised when it comes to their personal world. My orders are to carry the war to the enemy, wherever he may be. We are engaged in cruiser warfare, which means disrupting the commerce of the enemy, who now happens to be the British Empire. Copper is a Strategic War Material, ergo, we are here to disrupt the trade in copper.”

“I asked him about the legality of the German actions: taking coal, supplies, and even the SS Prince Rupert.

“ ‘Our presence here is explicitly permissible under the Hague Conventions of 1907. This same Convention protects the civilians of your town from harm as long as you do not obstruct our men or vessels… The Conventions indeed allow us to seize ships of a belligerent power. The food here we purchased with cash. The shopkeeper can attest to that. The coal also was purchased.”

“ ‘I asked further questions about the German’s intentions, but the Captain remained tight lipped, and said he was not about to share military secrets. He did however invite me to interview the recently released crews of the merchant vessels Nürnberg had captured.

“ ‘We were in the Gulf of Alaska on August 6,” said Durward Carmichael, the captain of the Canadian barquentine Ballymena. “We did not even know war had been declared. Then from nowhere, the Nürnberg stopped us, ordered us off, and sank our ship.”

“ ‘How were you and your crew treated?” I asked him.

“ ‘The German sailors and officers were polite. We were their prisoners, no doubt, but they apologized for it, and we ate the same meals they did. We were kept below at night, but spent time up in the light and air in the day. The cruiser got right crowded by the end. They captured six more merchants after us, so we were squeezed in like sardines, until they captured the Prince Rupert on the 16th. Then we got to stretch out some more…”

“Rubbish! It just goes on like this,” said Premier McBride indignantly. “The friendly German navy taking them on a pleasure cruise.”

“There is some useful intelligence in that article,” said Trousdale.

“The reporter is giving aid and comfort to the enemy!” insisted McBride. “How is that useful? There is a war on!”

“To be fair,” said Trousdale, “this article was written and published before the Germans burned Anyox down the next morning.”
 
This could turn into Sink the Bismarck Nurnberg if the population is enraged... also, don't forget your threadmark.
This is Canada we are talking about.
The only way to have them (The civilian population) worked up that much is if the Germans start bombing breweries or insulting our hockey teams.
 
To date our German friends have been very lucky in ducking enemy forces, and have been able to get through such difficulties as they have faced relatively quickly. I would be most impressed to see how they conduct themselves when something goes truly sideways.

Fans of Mr. Radl may wish to brace yourselves. Commissioned or not, legally his actions from before then could still be held against him in a military tribunal. If taken alive, he might hang yet, assuming the Canadians don't just shoot him on the spot. Every nation in the war did that sometimes, to men they saw as traitors or war criminals.
 
To date our German friends have been very lucky in ducking enemy forces, and have been able to get through such difficulties as they have faced relatively quickly. I would be most impressed to see how they conduct themselves when something goes truly sideways.

Ducking enemy force is more...well, the entire situation is like a rather more deadly game blind man's bluff.
 
Ducking enemy force is more...well, the entire situation is like a rather more deadly game blind man's bluff.

Hence why I say they have been lucky. Neither side is at all fully aware of what the other is doing, and so must proceed on the basis of fragmentary intelligence and rumors, and the Kaiser's boys have been lucky to date. I'm just curious how they will perform if their luck truly and catastrophically fails.
 
Hence why I say they have been lucky. Neither side is at all fully aware of what the other is doing, and so must proceed on the basis of fragmentary intelligence and rumors, and the Kaiser's boys have been lucky to date. I'm just curious how they will perform if their luck truly and catastrophically fails.
I think they will perform like the proffessionals that they are. They know that they living on borrowed time. Getting home is not an option, and the only question is how much damage the can do before the end.
 

ferdi254

Banned
And I do not see a „lucky“ German ship. So far the enemy forces consist of 1 in words one ship being able to give the Nürnberg a fight. One should be getting pretty unlucky to meet it given the size and nature of the area.
 
I think they will perform like the proffessionals that they are. They know that they living on borrowed time. Getting home is not an option, and the only question is how much damage the can do before the end.
Well technically getting home is possible if you manage to roll 5 natural 20s in a row, if nothing else WWII showed getting past the blockade is possible for a warship the question becomes one of getting there and having enough range to do so.
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Well technically getting home is possible if you manage to roll 5 natural 20s in a row, if nothing else WWII showed getting past the blockade is possible for a warship the question becomes one of getting there and having enough range to do so.
Sadly they are in the wrong ocean and just reaching either the Panama chanel or the Magallanes pass is going to be epic. Reaching the North Atlantic from any of this options practically impossible. and then they have to breack the blockade. Not impossible but nearly so
 
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Driftless

Donor
More of a thought excercise: how long could one of those 1910's era ships go before needing to take the boilers completely off-line for maintenance and to have other routine work like scraping the hull to remove drag causing barnacles and seaweed?
 
Sadly they are in the wrong ocean and just reaching either the Panama chanel or the Magallanes pass is going to be epic. Reaching the North Atlantic from any of this options practically impossible. and then they have to breack the blockade. Not impossible but nearly so
Hence why 5 natural 20s in a row are needed for success
 

Driftless

Donor
A lot longer than the week TTL has lasted so far.

The opening post is dated Aug 30, with the Nurnberg at Honolulu. They've been at sea since then. I don't remember if YYJ has given a date for their last routine port maintenance. The Nurnberg did get to do some ad hoc work while beached near Anyox. Leipzig at least has been able to stop in San Francisco briefly.
 
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