The Time of Eagles

I am strggling to catch up with TTL and with limited time aggravated by computer problems it is proving daunting. One thing I would throw out is that you did go a little too far and too fast with the development of feminism. I would see a lot more resistance to women in elected office. And be careful of turning these women into 19th century Steinem's. My understanding is that first wave feminists were very opposed to what we consider "reproductive rights" with the change of course only coming with Sanger.

The maps are interesting and helpful. Fredonia and the Plains Indian entity are both a bit further to the north of where I was visualizin. Fredonia is also a bit larger.
 
I am strggling to catch up with TTL and with limited time aggravated by computer problems it is proving daunting. One thing I would throw out is that you did go a little too far and too fast with the development of feminism. I would see a lot more resistance to women in elected office. And be careful of turning these women into 19th century Steinem's. My understanding is that first wave feminists were very opposed to what we consider "reproductive rights" with the change of course only coming with Sanger.

The maps are interesting and helpful. Fredonia and the Plains Indian entity are both a bit further to the north of where I was visualizin. Fredonia is also a bit larger.

Things got a bit squiggly-squashed

Fredonia is larger but most of the Western 50% is unpopulated very rough territory

I realise I went further than most people would accept with womens rights, but from what I read a lot of the earlier reformers were pushing for female suffrage, and the logical corollary of that is the right to stand for election at state level. They may not number many, but they are forceful personalities

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Post what's already done to finish this off (1 of 2)

OUTCOMES

NEC wins independence

Bloody civil war

Union loses
- sees military coup
- Fredonia supports independent Trans-Mississippi Federation
- Fredonia signs a real treaty with the Indians
- Fredonia expands into California
- Columbia agreement with N Indians
- Columbia expands its influence S towards Indian fed
- Oregon - cut off, after the war expands into an independent republic
- SW Terrs - USA hold onto with great losses after the Mexican rebellion
- Miskitia - US hold with native consent to being an Indian Nation
- UPCA - US ally, US army subordinate to UPCA command, defeat Spain from South and Mexico from North

- - -

MEXICO

Failed rebellions to the North
Failed offensive to the South
Becomes a united state
Death to Juarez

SPAIN

DEFEAT !
Disaster !
Lose in the UPCA
Lose in California
Revolution = REPUBLIC

- - -

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Post what's already done to finish this off (2 of 2)

OUTCOMES 2

- - -

German War

-- France and Austria weigh in
- defeat for the Alliance (Denmark-Sweden-Prussia-Russia)
- Schleswig-Holstein and Swedish Pomerania annexed by Germany
- Prussia accepts loss of its Western territories
- Russia goes insular

Russia
- army reforms as a result of defeat
- social reforms, continued by Aleksandr II's son Nikolai II

Prussia
- caught up in its own affairs
- Wilhelm II dies and Regent Frederick becomes King Frederick III
- But his reformist gov't is too associated with the loss of the war
- As his interventionist foreign agenda fails, so too does his domestic reformist one
- he is succeeded by his son, Frederick IV, who is at heart non-democratic

Post-ACW Great Britain
- has good relations with the New England Confederacy
- mends relations with Canada
- confusion at the centre of its Columbia policy where London doesn't object to Vancouver's expansionist agenda

Cayley Controversy
- The British company had sold the rights to its designs to the USA
- The companies purchasing them were based in New England
- The British company, post-ACW, begins to rebuild its aeronautical reputation, using as its basis the designs it sold

By 1890, 3 different strands have emerged
- the British company is forging ahead with its designs
- the US military is forging ahead with its
- the NEC company is developing its own

As everyone sues everyone else, the world is caught up in the Air Race, with all three developing powered flight (aeroplanes) at the same time as several designs for viable airships reach fruition. The 1890s is a time of great rivalry and swift development

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
OUTCOMES

NEC wins independence

Bloody civil war

Union loses
- sees military coup
- Fredonia supports independent Trans-Mississippi Federation
- Fredonia signs a real treaty with the Indians
- Fredonia expands into California
- Columbia agreement with N Indians
- Columbia expands its influence S towards Indian fed
- Oregon - cut off, after the war expands into an independent republic
- SW Terrs - USA hold onto with great losses after the Mexican rebellion
- Miskitia - US hold with native consent to being an Indian Nation
- UPCA - US ally, US army subordinate to UPCA command, defeat Spain from South and Mexico from North

The many Nations of North America and Central America. :D
How powerful is the postwar-USA?

SPAIN

DEFEAT !
Disaster !
Lose in the UPCA
Lose in California
Revolution = REPUBLIC

Poor Spain. :(
I hope this disaster is the last low point of Spain in the 19th-century.

- Prussia accepts loss of its Western territories

Which size does has the post-war Kingdom of Prussia?
No Polish Uprising in Prussian Poland after the defeat?

- Russia goes insular

How much did Russia expand in Asia?
 
The many Nations of North America and Central America. :D
How powerful is the postwar-USA?



Poor Spain. :(
I hope this disaster is the last low point of Spain in the 19th-century.



Which size does has the post-war Kingdom of Prussia?
No Polish Uprising in Prussian Poland after the defeat?



How much did Russia expand in Asia?

China is stronger, no Taiping and some earlier reforms, less hassle from the British and French from the mid 1850s onwards so the Amur-Maritime Provinces are remaining Chinese

Regarding Khiva. Bokhara etc, it depends on how the various power plays come out - would the Sikh Empire back these as buffers against Russia, or would it agree with Russia to destroy them and gain lands for itself ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
China is stronger, no Taiping and some earlier reforms, less hassle from the British and French from the mid 1850s onwards so the Amur-Maritime Provinces are remaining Chinese

So, the Qing-Empire did establish an effective administration in the Amur-Maritime Provinces? They did not do this IOTL.

Regarding Khiva. Bokhara etc, it depends on how the various power plays come out - would the Sikh Empire back these as buffers against Russia, or would it agree with Russia to destroy them and gain lands for itself ?

I would expect the later. I think that the weaker, more regional Sikhs would act more pragmatic than the british ruler and will see the neighbouring hostile islamic tribes and not a mere theoretical russian threat as the main security problem.
 
1901

Randolph Churchill Junior stood on the steps of Blenheim Palace and waved listlessly at the motor car taking his father and uncle away to London. Nephew of the Duke of Marlbrough, the young Churchill had been expected to follow in the family footsteps and secure for himself a future in the Conservative Party, but direct involvement had never interested the younger Randolph. He was a student of the past, the recent past perhaps more than that more distant, but he was never more happy when buried up to his nose in reports, letters and communiques. The joy other men felt in the pursuit of a pretty girl, Churchill felt only in the pursuit of historical accuracy and, above all, historical understanding.

The Agincourt Model II was now out of sight, though its fumes were still lingering down the long driveway. With a last look round at those others of his family clustered upon the steps, Randolph junior took himself back inside. It was a matter of minutes to wend his way back to his upper level study, but once inside he stripped of jacket and tie, slung both lazily over the hat-stand, and fed fuel to the fire. Ahhh warmth, he settled back in his favourite armchair and sipped at a delicate French brandy that his best friend, and close companion, Lewis Cayley had brought back from the French Republic

The twenty-seven year old remained in such a pose for some moments, then agitated himself out of his chair, grabbing several piles of letters from off his desk, before collapsing in another armchair, this one close up against the fire. He remained stationery thereafter for some half hour, his quick eyes scanning letter after letter, missive after missive, until he was certain that he had the pattern held properly in his mind

There was nothing more complicated than a revolution, and the events at the end of the American Separatist War were nothing short of a revolution. The breakaway of New England, the betrayal, as many in Washington had seen it, of Fredonia, and the eventual independence for the Trans-Mississippi Federation, and after the loss of NW Louisiana of Oregon too... All this had brought dramatic and incredible change to the N American continent, the freeing up of the Plains Indians had brought undreamt of opportunities for the British dominion of Columbia, and in the remnant United States it had brought military rule

True, that as like the early French Republic political figures had acquired military commands, and that the figure who had emerged at war's end to seize power had started out as a senator, and ended up as a general, but by that time he was a military man first, a political man second. Oliver Morton had been the first Dictator of the United States of America, charting his country's path out of military defeat and economic disaster, his self-appointed ten-year period of rule seeing the gradual re-emergence of the Union as something other than a poor joke

Randolph junior skimmed over letters from that period, a not inconsiderable number belonging to his family, the Conservatives finally in government, in alliance with the Reform Party, after years of SDF stagnation. Churchill family diplomats had joined with those from other noble lineages - the Percy, the Courtenay, the Cavendish, the Stanley, the various Fitzroy, and the Seymour - to spread their webs once more over the world, and to be part once again of a global international that had been too long denied to them

They had made the most of it, never trusting to providence to affirm the permanency of their revival. A Churchill had been Ambassador to the vibrant reformist Chinese Empire at the time of the Amur Crisis, had even played a bit part in supporting Peking in standing firm against Russian ambitions. Another Churchill had been deputy at Constantinople during the Turkish Revolt of the mid 1870s and had seen at first hand how the Greeks and Armenians had joined with the Russians in chasing down Turks of noble lineage and slaughtering them, their guilt or involvement in the plot irrelevant to their extermination.

Young Randolph's eyes alighted on a letter that had always puzzled him, not an official communique at all but from the late 7th Duke of Marlbrough (died 1883) to the Prime Minister of the day, Thomas Coke, 3rd Earl of Leicester. Randolph's grandfather, for such the 7th Duke had been, had passed on certain intelligence gleaned during a highly unofficial visit to Khiva, at that time at the centre of Russian, Chinese and Sikh intrigues. The 7th Duke had died at Calcutta on the way back, and the exact frames of reference of his letter had never been clearly established in the aftermath, but to Randoph's eyes it read as a secret mission, a confidential deniable political approach that the Khan had tried to take up, but had ended up losing out from as the duke's death had robbed him of the expected British support and his khanate had fallen to a three-cornered war of which there was only one obvious loser - Khiva

But of the letter had reached London, why had Coke not acted ? It hardly needed Marlborough alive to verify the report, and Khiva clearly was in a desperate situation. Randolph could only assume that Coke's government had decided that things were too desperate for Khiva, and that whilst perhaps Marlborough's personal relationship might have managed to create a viable policy, the absence of it would have meant they were scrabbling in the dark...pissing in the wind, as it were

Either way the khanate had not lasted many years after that, nor too the emirate of Bokhara. Indeed, only the Chinese vassal of Khokand remained, and that on a similar footing to Mongolia or Tibet, self-governing until Peking decreed that something else ought to happen.

A knock came upon the door, tentative but certain, if that could be. Randolph rose and set down the letters, throwing back the bolt. His cousin stepped forwards, beautiful raven-haired, unobtainable, but... They kissed

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1902

Louis Ferdinand sat at his mountain-top retreat in Eastern Switzerland and brooded. Twenty-five years it was, to the day! Twenty-five years since his claim to the German throne had been smashed, defeated and destroyed. The nascent imperial court he had founded at Bayreuth in a rivalry to Frankfurt had lasted almost two years, and then...this

He drank deeply of his Bavarian beer, seeing again the past dance before his eyes. Only forty-three, half his life had been spent in defeat, all of his adulthood as a loser and an outcast. It was not much of a legacy from his imperial father.

Upon the death of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse of Hesse-Kassel in 1867, the German Electors had chosen Adalbert of Bavaria, born 1828, uncle to King Ludwig II and a strong military man. The threat of Prussian revanchism, of Swedish or even Danish intervention had been prominent in everyone's minds, and a caretaker, military man had been what the electors had been after - and what they had achieved. There had been some rattling of sabres, but the German Empire had remained at peace, unmolested, and Kaiser Adalbert had seen out his allotted span until his death in 1875

But he had attempted to weight the Election, to bribe the Electors into accepting his sixteen year old son as his heir, and the Electors had split evenly. Half had acquiesced in the choice of the young Louis Ferdinand, half had taken the view that continued Wittelsbach rule would deliver the Empire to Bavaria alone, and that a different candidate must be chosen, but they had not been able to come up with one - not for two years. During that time Bayreuth and Frankfurt had faced off, the latter ruling by emergency act from the Diet, the former by decree. Armies had clashed, men in their thousands had died, French and Austrian Volunteers had faced off, their presence alone dissuading Prussia from pressing its claims, despite the divided empire

Then in 1877 had come the Agreement of Wurzburg, the Habsburg King Ferdinand of that state agreeing to take up the imperial mantle in return for signing a declaration that he would not support, nor promote, anyone from his own dynasty for his own succession. The king-cum-emperor had been forty-two then, was sixty-seven now, and maybe had one, even two, more decades of life within him.

Louis Ferdinand watched and wondered from his mountain eyrie. His cousin King Ludwig II had died in 1898 after something of a troubled reign, but had sired two children from his distant cousin, Elisabeth, despite rumours that his sexual tastes, if his not his affection, had lain elsewhere. The first, a girl, was now married to the Duke of Teschen, the second now King Ludwig III had refused to allow Louis Ferdinand home...but the former Emperor, as he viewed himself, was not going to accept that

Louis Ferdinand had been working these last couple of years to recreate a powerbase within Bavaria, not too difficult since his father had been the first Wittelsbach since the mid eighteenth century to bear the imperial title. He was ready to strike - one step at a time, first Bavaria, then the Empire, preferably should the damned Habsburg die, if necessary without or before his death. Either way, Louis Ferdinand was convinced that his future was better assured than at any time within the last two decades

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
William Jefferson Sherman had followed Oliver Morton into the Oval Office under the New Constitution of the Republic. Eleted by Congressional Remit for ten years, Sherman had concentrated upon building on Morton's good work in stabilising the Union, whilst also swallowing the hate and reaching out to New England, to Trans-Mississippi, to Canada and to Columbia to re-establish full bi-lateral relations.

By the end of Sherman's term in the late 1880s, the USA was once again one of the foremost industrial powers in the world. Virginia and Georgia were the powerhouses of the Union, many interests that had been sequestered to the federal interest during the AWS having been sold on to independent companies during the Sherman administration. The navy which had collapsed dramatically in the 1870s and managd only a brief revival in the early 1880s was finally set back upon the road to recovery with the New Navy Act of 1888. Very much the last act of Sherman's administration it was to prove a far-reaching and fateful one

Sherman had in turn been succeeded by Nathan B Forrest, last of the commanders from the Civil War to rise to office. In his late sixties, this veteran from Tennessee had presided over the rebuilding of the US Navy, the final rushing of the Mexican Revolts in the SW Territories, and a final return to civilian rule

Forrest had changed his ten year term into a five year one, and in the mid 1890s had guided the birth of two competing parties out of the military fusion establishment. The National Democrats and the United Republican Party had been born, and the NDs had gone on to win the 1896 election. Their first term had been one of fraught energies, unleashed partisan spirit thradhing about as if in a sudden vacuum. Despite his initial liberal tendencies, President Adam Johnson had fallen back on tried and trusted means, outlawing all socialist organisations, strictly delineating trade unions, and banning foreign financial contributions, organisational aid, and members.

By the time the 1901 election had come around in the new five year cycle, Johnson was an old man, his spirit broken by constant battles with the House of Representatives. His successor had no chance against Raphael Semmes II, son of the victorious wartime admiral. The URP had swept to victory in 1901, and now in March 1902 was about to take power.

It was a vastly different United States, but it was still the United States. And it was a USA steadily growing in power, recovering its self-confidence and beginning to be able to focus away from the South-West, which for thirty years had been its only active front. Now, the USA was once again looking outwards, looking West, looking North, and looking East across the Atlantic. Tristan de Cunha, long neglected as an American naval base was now taken up again, in the face of competing British and Portuguese claims, and President Semmes ordered the armoured cruisers USS Virginia and USS New Orleans to base themselves upon the mid-Atlantic island.

The first act of his presidency, it was one which would have far-reaching consequences

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1903

Tsar Nikolai II celebrated his birthday with a party at the imperial palace on the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus. The multitudinous Grand Dukes of the Romanov family were in evidence, as were foreign dignatories from allies, friends, and hostile powers alike.

Prince Henirich of Prussia moved slowly throughout the throng. Nephew of King Frederick IV, he was a younger one here, only in his early twenties, not an official observer, let alone diplomat, but a powerful statement as to the continuining alliance between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. He was able, therefore, to move with little notice amongst the various diploatic parties, talking to Hungarians, Swedes, Britons and Neapolitans

And amongst this mass moved others...

Frederick Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby had seen the manoevrings of the Prussians and the Russians, the Sikhs, Chinese and Egyptians and thought little of it. The Conservative government in London, midway through its term, had seen it all coming, and its focus stood half a world away. Constantinople was too-long Russian, too far-gone for London to have much care, and as such his Consulship there was but a minor office as far as his superiors were cocnerned. True, it was the meeting point of Asia and Europe, but with Anatolia in Egyptian hands, and Constantinople in Russian, then the city was simply a mirror of events in Cairo or in Saint Petersburg or Moscow.

But he had a job to do, and Derby was if anything a stickler for duty. As instructed by London he sought out Grand Duke Alexei Konstantinovich, first cousin of the Emperor, albeit third of three brothers of his late uncle. The man was a notorious drunkard, a womaniser and a sadist, but he was also commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and a man whose recent dealings with Tsar Nikolai II had been anything but cordial. Somewhat younger than his cousin, AK, as he was known, had fallen foul of the reformist politics that Nikolai had kept in vogue across the empire. Requests for ironclad battleships had gone unheeded, and now even Constantinople, last bastion of the old imperial ways, was seeing a personal visit from the Emperor. AK was depressed, sitting with a pretty young thing (some distant cousin no doubt) upon his lap, and drinking heavily. Derby smoothed into action...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1903

Raphael Semmes II, President of the United States of America, looked down at the mass of reports upon his desk and sighed. Some days his naval career seemed a world away from this, this dutiful plodding through paper that was the bane of his existence. But he kept himself loyal to the cause, remembered the frustrations and concerns of his former, active days, and read each paper in the light of that. It was not only the Navy, of course, that he had to concern himself with. The Civilised Tribes needed careful handling, the South-West Territories were, as always, a powder-keg even if full-scale revolt was no longer a likelihood, and the army in the UPCA was always asking for more, more, more as if they had read that British novel whose name escaped him.

His eyes alighted upon a report from Rear Admiral Lucien Maverick, commander of the squadron he had sent to Tristan de Cunha, flying his flag in the new New Orleans. They had served together, durign Sherman's presidency had been part of the new cohort of officers fast-tracked to command positions when the fleet had finally begun to get the attention it deserved. Now, old friends, Maverick must know what the president would make of his report, which had to mean there was more to it than the standard gripe about supplies.

"Madelaine !" Semmes yelled
A moment later his secretary, unflustered and soberly-dressed (not like those doxies in New England, he thought with a stab of anger) came in
"Sir ?"
"Take down this message for the commandant of the Norfolk base"
"Yes sir", she was in her late forties, a calm mother of six now seeking employment to put her youngest through university, a widow of fifteen years since her husband had been killed in action at Caohuila during one of the interminable rebellions in the South-West.

He proceeded to lay out complex instructions, certain that her keen mind would turn his rambling drivel into precise orders. Norfolk must find the resources to outfit a convoy for Tristan de Cunha, if it could not he would send in the auditors to see where all the money had gone, this convoy must include Marines, artillery for mounting upon the island, as well as provisions and a certain amount of bullion for unspecified "Extra Duties" that were to be Maverick's concern alone. Semmes had no doubt that this missive would put a thunderbolt up the backside of the Norfolk port commandant, but the fact that the mission to Tristan de Cunha was already suffering from a lack of supoprt indicated to him that Norfolk needed such a jolt.

"Will that be all sir ?"
"Yes", Semmes found a smile for Madelaine and watched as she left.
He then picked up the next report in the pile, and sighed. What the Hell was he to do about the situation in the Mediterranean ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Stephen Bickley picked over the remains of his dinner and waited. It would not be long - they could not afford to keep him waiting for long. As if in response to his thoughts the far door opened, and the Senator from Los Angeles invited him to join them in the Red Room

The room lived up to its name, gaudy, bawdy, and brass. Seated in a half dozen armchairs, bottles and goblets in numerous attendance, were the luminaries of the governing party. Bickley nodded to a couple, men whom he had known through his father, and then sat in the seat indicated, a straight-backed bastard of a chair uncomfortably close to the crackling fire - for all that this was late Summer in California.
"Gentlemen ?" he cast his smile around

Nobody smiled back, but the Senator for Los Angeles had clearly been chosen as spokesman. He coughed and then ummed and awwed, and then said the only words which were possible,
"After long deliberation, we are prepared to back your campaign for the presidency of Fredonia"
Bickley nodded graciously. Since the alternative would have been his running on an independent platform and destroying them (even if he did not win the election himself) he had not expected anything else. He looked each man in the eye, then nodded,
"This is a great day for the Republic" he told them

Nobody seemed to believe him

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1904

King Gustav VI of Sweden looked out morosely through the windows of the royal yacht Vasa and wished the weather better - either that, or he wished himself safely ashore, happily dealing with missives from Helsingfors or Saint Barts. Anything, but this sailing into a squally gale that seemed to be his fate for the day

Why the Admiralty had thought to have a fleet review upon the eve of Winter he did not know, the presence of the visiting American squadron not seeming, to his way of thinking, to require such an ostentatious turn-out. Had not the USA been carved apart in its vicious civil war ? Was not what was left merely the sad remnants of a once-great empire ? It seemed as if the American admiral had delusions of grandeur, and it seemed as if the Swedish Navy had decided to accomodate them

He sighed again as another trough saw his ship sucked down then spat out again. It was a good job he had earned his sea legs in decades past or he would have disgraced himself by now. It was merely uncomfortable, and all very unnecessary to his eyes

"Your Majesty" some nameless aide from the Navy Office staggered towards him, "the New Orleans is in sight!
"Oh jolly good" murmurred the king and grabbed a handhold to raise himself aloft, "I don't suppose we can actually read her signal flags from here ?"
"No, sire"
"Oh what a waste of time..."
But he allowed himself to be led aloft

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
"War is coming, have no doubt about that !"
King Frederick IV looked across at his Minister for War and snorted. Young Bismarck was always spouting off such nonsense in typical Junker fashion. Maybe one day he would be right with his doom-mongering, but not today.
"Shut up" he told him, and turned to his Foreign Minister, "What is the real situation Adam ?"
Adam Poniatowski was one of the Eastern Prussians, a man of Polish origin who despised the old Junker nobility as much as the king himself. He grinned wickedly at the unhappy cunt, and noded,

"In realty, Your Majesty, Maverick's visit to Sweden is merely one small step upon the road to a new alliance system. Semmes' USA is attempting to forge an international identity for itself - we saw its first steps at Tristan de Cunha, where this same Maverick saw off both Britain and Portugal, and stood off the island until Washington saw fit to send a garrison and artillery brigade. That was enough to put the Old Empires on warning. Now, he takes his 'fleet', and I use the word advisedly, to Sweden, and no doubts delivers certain letters into the hands of Gustav's government"

"For what reason, if I may enquire ?", Prince Sigismund was the king's younger brother, and a man with a diplomatic background, such as it was, various Balkan consulates and an ambassadorship to Etruria.
"Of course", Poniatowski knew better than to antagonise a Hohenzollern, "The USA no longer has any strategic reason to side with Russia. Having lost its Eastern territories and seen both Fredonia and Columbia grow into real powers on its flank, there is little to be gained by any continuing pretense that an association with Russia will bring it benefits. Since the Anglo-Russian Treaty of last year this has been emphatically more so, and with Anglo-American tensions over Tristan de Cunha risen, and refusing to go away, it behoves the Washington administration to cast around for new allies. Maverick's visit to Sweden is just one small part of this."

Count Bismarck puffed upon his noisome cigar,
"If that is so", he drawled, "what are the others ?"
"Certainly Guinea", Colonial Secretary Mackensen was determined to get his point in at the earliest opportunity, "We see American interference off the Grain Coast, indeed General Streicher has written a memorandum on the subject of potential American threats to our holdings in West Africa"
"Yes, thank you" Poniatowski waved him silent, "I am very much aware of Streicher's 'opinions' on the subject and find them alarmist and uninformed"

Bismarck looked from one to the other, then waved his fuming cigar at them,
"It seems as if this Streicher may have a point" he said
The Foreign Minister sighed, looked to his king for support but found only an amused interest. He sighed,
"Three US trading posts - THREE", he emphasised, "and a squadron of ancient sail cutters..."
"I think it would be wise to remember that Washington has authorised a mission to the interior" Mackensen rumbled
"If you will" Poniatowski allowed, "-this so-called mission has not even received funding as of yet, and probably will not until the coming year. Its aims are...well, to any reasonable person they are non-sensical, to establish a colony for freed blacks, so that the USA is not swamped by such individuals as emancipation bills are presented in the various states."

Bismarck looked from Poniatowski to Mackensen to King Frederick IV, and then frowned,
"So..." he said, "in a few years we could see the Grain Coast over-run by niggers ?"
There was silence. The king coughed,
"Er, in essence" he allowed, "but it seems hardly likely"
"It already is over-run by niggers" Prince Sigismund said, unhelpfully
"But not American ones !" protested the young count
"I think we should move on" King Frederick directed

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1904

Christmas Day ! Charlotte Bonaparte was not feeling at all festive. Senator of Massachusetts within the New England Confederacy she had certain responsibilities that would not go away, regardless of the time of year, and the report that had landed upon her desk was one of them

She thumbed its pages, and looked out into the New York rain. Outside jack hammers and work gangs were still going at it twenty to the dozen, new skyscrapers to erect, old ones, barely a decade old, to pull down to make way for yet taller constructs. Her view of the coast was now obliterated by the half-complete Vanderbilt Tower, at thirty storeys already the tallest building in the world, for all that it was not scheduled to be completed for another twenty months

But that was outside. She looked again at the report before her. As Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee within the NEC senate, she had duties, the import of which few New Englanders even understood. Perhaps that was just as well, the new wave of misogyny sweeping the land, coming out of a Europe grown complacent with its half-baked reforms, was giving women politicians a bad name. But she had family, and she had tradition on her side, and she was not about to bow down before such shit

Ahhh, but the report ! West Connecticut was a great state for information, its past as Northern Ohio tying to the remnant US state of that name, and the division of families and of property across the new border meaning that many people from either side came and went without suspicion to the other. Of course it worked both ways, and she did not doubt that some of New York's lesser political lights sold information to Semmes, shipping it through W Conn, but she reckoned that she had the better of the bargain, the information finding its way from Washington up through her sources being pure gold, even at the worst of times.

And these were not the worst of times. Semmes was ging for re-election, the five-year terms set by Johnson in the mid 1890s upon the French model now having bedded down within the Union. His greatest trump card was his foreign policy, his holding onto the Tristan de Cunha, his ambitions with regard to West Africa's Grain Coast, and Admiral Maverick's tour, such as it was, of various Northern European nations. But she knew more, the report before her givign her a deeper insight into the twists and turns of the White House mind than even Semmes' own advisors had. She smiled, ahhh what a boon was family, even distant family, at a time like this !

"Yours Ever, M", she smiled at that final line. Women together, working for the common cause and in the USA that cause was so far retarded it was almost unbelievable, but the victory for the NEC and the subsequent military rule had brought both a fear and a hatred of female suffrage to the fore in Washington. It was not even now being addressed, perhaps would not even be tabled for a couple of decades without help - and she would provide that help, whilst her cousin paid for it in information. In gold dust, in inside data that few but the President of the USA himself even saw, let alone understood

She marked a red line in the margin. Now that was more important than even her cousin realised ! It needed her own understanding of foreign affairs to put two and two together, but sure as egges were eggs she was making four. She rose from her chair and strode to the window. Idly she watched something fall from the top of the Vanderbilt Tower, before realising that it was a workman. Frowning she considered what she knew - yes, this was dynamite indeed. But how to play with it ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1905

The Egalite automobile swept into the Palais de la Revolution, spitting out Foreign Minister Alfred Dreyfuss almost like a pip from an apple as it paused, turned and then rushed away. One of the few modern automobiles in the ministerial pool it was always in demand, and the drivers had scarcely a moment between assignments to themselves.

Dreyfuss did not care about that, or about the drivers, or their families, damn them all, come to that. He was a single-minded individual and his sole pre-occupation was the Republic of France and her role in the New International Order, as his aides insisited on capitalising it as if they were all Germans !

But perhaps it deserved its capitals, they certainly helped to focus the mind. US nationalisation of the railways had hit France badly, whilst revolution in Spain had had unforeseen effects in the overseas viceroyalties, a surge of manarchist feeling supporting British merchants against their French counterparts, for all that the SDF government of the time had been almost as republican as Paris itself. London's eventual swing away from years of one-party rule and the coming to power of the reformed aristocracy had cemented Britain's relatrions with the Spanish Republic's uncertain dominions, whilst France had sat on the sidelines and vegetated

Germany's rise, the victory for the Wurzburg Habsburgs and the stupid role played by both French and Austrian volunteers in the short civil war, aghhh but he was so ashamed and appalled by all that ! What an opportunity to destroy Frankfurt, but the Paris of that time had hoped to control it, and when defeated had abandoned its Bavarian ally and rushed to affirm the Wurzburger in the hope of picking up boons from the high table. So stupid ! Vienna of course had first pick, but Frankfurt was so independent it did not even allow the new emperor's Austrian allies much by way of the spoils of victory. And France ? He cringed to think

Up the steps, and down the corridor, Dreyfuss strode with purposeful stride. He alone understood reality, he was by now certain of that, numerous insane and ill-educated missives from his department heads had confirmed him in that belief. He alone saw the threat from across the water, saw where France's true interests lay. He paused on the threshold and got a hold of himself before opening the door

"Count Bismarck !" he grinned, "It is good to see you !"

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1905

The five fighters of the First Half-wing landed, bumping down upon the airfield like so many swans coming in upon the water. Air Minister, Sir Giles Bradshaw, watched it with a gleam in his eye, and turned to his German counterpart,
"Can you match THAT, Your Highness ?!"

Prince Otto of Bavaria, Aviation Minister in the Frankfurt government merely snorted. After a moment he found a more civilised voice,
"We have faith in Count Zepellin's airships" he snapped

Bradshaw frowned,
"But surely, the FUTURE..."
"Is undecided !" the Wittelsbach prince shot back
An uneasy silence fell between them

Out upon the field, Air Commander Lucas Villiers took off his goggles and shook hands with his navigator. he might be second son to the Duke of Clarendon, but he knew proper flying etiquette, that was for sure. Henry Fielding shook his hand, and smiled back at the Number One,
"That was a good flight, sir" he said
Villiers agreed,
"All five aeroplanes performed well - as indeed they should !"
"Yes sir" said his Navigator, "We have ten years behind this design"
"I fancy the Minister is trying to explain that to the Kraut" Villiers nodded towards where Sir Giles Bradshaw could be seen
"Without success, I think" essayed Fielding
"Decidedly" agreed the Air Commander

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
1905

It was dark. Something stirred the water, something rose up from underneath the water, and then having broken the surface sat there. Long minutes passed then at last came a grating sound, an unscrewing of a hatch, and a man appeared upon the smooth half-seen rectangle that jutted up from beneath the waves. Dressed in oil skins and with a pair of high-quality binoculars around his neck, the man surveyed the darkness. There was little to be seen in most directions, only one offered any light, and that was East. He put the binoculars to his eyes...

- - -

San Diego bustled, even after dark. Premier port city of the United States upon the Western coast, it had survived everything - from Fredonian assault in the dying days of the civil war, to repeated Mexican revolts. It was an American city, an island of the Eastern coast, and always would be. Its generous harbour contained scores of merchant ships, vessels from a score of nations - from Russia as equally as from the Kingdom of Hawaii, from the Republic of Chile as equally as from the Dominion of Peru, from China, Japan, Columbia or Manila, from the UPCA, Mexico (though viewed with suspicion) and from France, even from distant Egypt, they all found their way here.

US armoured cruisers sat anchor within the naval base, whilst armoured corvettes patrolled the coast North and South. All new construction this last ten years, it was another sign that the US Navy was back. But only coastguard cutters patrolled the sealanes themselves, those and in daytime a half dozen Cayley aeroplanes.

But it was night now...

- - -

Admiral Chong let go of his binoculars and descended the ladder back into the stinking interior of the submarine,
"Down ten !" he snapped
And the vessel lurched and staggered to that depth.
Away out to sea, its mother vessel the apparently innocent merchantman Shanghai stood off, awaiting their return. But they had a sacred duty to do.
"Course ninety" he ordered, "Prepare the missiles"
Men ran forwards to push the heavy cylinders into their tubes.

Prince Chong leant back upon the periscope and breathed a heavy breath. What they were embarked upon was insanity, but it was an insanity he could agree with.
"Begin the attack run !" he barked

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
All for now - in case anyone wonders, the USA is establishing alliances with Sweden, Germany, Japan etc

Proper details will follow in the next story pieces (whether anyone reads these or not :))

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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