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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Amerika - The 2nd Great War 1885-90 Since the Russian move into the Balkans and
the establishment of an independent Bulgaria with the 1878 Treaty of San
Stefano, taking advantage of the British preoccupation with the war in Canada,
and facing down and buying out the Austrians with Bosnia, Herzegovina and the
Sandzak of Novi Pazar, international war has seemed more and more certain.
Localised conflicts in Burma, Central Asia, Egypt and Macedonia pile up tensions
that finally produce the Great War. It begins as a rather localized conflict
when Bulgaro-Serbian tensions over the Bulgarian acquisition of Macedonia in
1878 finally boil over as the Bulgarian refuse to compensate Serbia. It ends
with a Serbian invasion of Bulgaria in 1885. As the Serbian army initially makes good
headway, Turkey declares war on Bulgaria, too, with a view to regain some
territory. With the Balkans being the battleground for nations that it is, soon
Austria, Russia, Great Britain and France join in quick succession, pitting the
Continental Coalition (France, Russia, Romania and Bulgaria) against the
Alliance (Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro, Austria-Hungary and Great Britain).
Initially, there are some peculiarities to the war, though: despite most of the
major powers being engaged, very little in the way of actual warfare takes place
in Europe. Sure, the Balkans are a mess soon fought
over by armies from Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Turkey, but the refusal
of Germany and Italy to join a war between Austria and Russia over territory
that neither of them has any interest in (Bismarck physically kicks out the only
one of his ministers who dares propose a declaration of war on Great Britain),
the Balkans also remain the only land theatre for the first two years of the
war. True, there is also Turko-Russian fighting
in Anatolia, Franco-British fighting when the Royal Marines land on Corsica, and
extensive colonial fighting around the world as French and Russians combine to
support whichever native tribe or nation that wishes to attack the British
possessions. In the end, British naval superiority makes sure Great Britain can
drive the French and Russian fleets from the seas and ship in reinforcements to
deal with any trouble, though, and thus the war keeps pretty localized for the
first two years of the war. That changes during the late fall and early
summer of 1887, however. In July Italy joins the Austro-British side, thus
opening up a land frontier with the French who so far have mostly been confined
to send out raiding vessels to prey upon British trade, and otherwise fight off
British naval bombardment of its harbors. By the time of Italy's entry, the
scope of the war has already been fundamentally changed, however: EA entry in
May and following invasion of the Kingdom of Canada thus broadens it to the
North American continent, but it is in between, on June 21st, that Great Britain
receives a blow the likes of which she hasn't seen before. As queen Victoria, surrounded by
well-wishers, is seated in Westminster Abbey to observe a thanksgiving service
on the occasion of her 50-year jubilee, several hundred pounds of nitroglycerine
stored in the vaults beneath the abbey go off. In one blow, the Fenian
terrorists manage to not only kill the queen, but also all but two of her
male-line heirs, and half the British cabinet. Even before the rubble comes to
rest, other Fenian cells go to work, using up the stocks of nitroglycerine
produced by an underground factory in Birmingham. Among others Parliament, Big
Ben, Tower Bridge and Scotland Yard are to large extents reduced to rubble.
Nothing larger than fist-size pieces are left of the Nelson Column. As the 4-year-old prince Arthur (son of
Arthur, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn) is placed on the throne, the
Fenian plot keeps developing, however: From a failed rebellion in Ireland over
Fenian merhcant raiders to the sudden appearance of the first practical
submarine The Fenian Ram, that immediately sets to work sinking ship after ship
in the Royal Navy blockade of EA, the Fenians inflict blow after blow on the
British. Though they in the end fail to achieve their aim, they provide a window
of opportunity for another escalation of the war: the Sikh uprising in the
Punjab and Kashmir under the last Maharajah, Dulip Singh, and the invasion of
India through Afghanistan by a 40.000-man strong Russian army. Accompanied by
like risings in Burma elsewhere in India, India draws away substantial numbers
of British troops and resources that would otherwise have gone to the Balkans
theatre – which of course is the Russian objective. Accompanying Russian offensives into
Galicia and Anatolia bring large gains, as the Austrians are thrown back across
the Carpathians and the Turks catapulted out of Armenia by a combination of
Armenian rebellion and Russian offensive action. That proves to be the high watermark for
the Russian participation, though. As the investigation of the Jubilee
Massacre, as the assassination of queen Victoria becomes known, revealing a
certain Russian collaboration with the Fenians, the gloves come off. Fast. From the get-go there has been no doubt
that the Royal Navy is in control of the seas (and indeed, upon EA entry of the
war, the EA navy is quickly sunk or confined to its harbors), so the British
seize upon this as the basis of their revenge. To begin with the RN confines
itself to conventional bombardment of Continental Coalition harbors, but by the
time the Indian rebellion has been contained in 1888 (finally being beaten in
1889), the Continental Coalition begins being subjected to new forms of warfare
that have so far only been thought about. Already in the Crimean War, some 20 years
ago, attention was paid to the idea of using gas to kill the enemy, though it
was turned down as being too ”heinous”. Not so anymore. So now the
bombardment of Russian coastal cities (French are excepted after a few initial
attacks, as it is pointed out they didn't have anything to do with the Jubilee
Massacre) with gas grenades becomes commonplace. As the war progresses, initial
designs using sulphur and charcoal are exchanged for various arsenic compounds
(oxide, hydride), and by wars end chlorine is even considered. This, coupled
with general loathing of president Grants incessant anti-British wars, lead to a
military coup in EA, deposing the president and asking for terms. In Russia, the gas attacks coupled with
British-sponsored risings by Poles, Finns, Georgians and Tartars, quickly aided
by landing Turkish (in the case of the Tartars in the Crimea) and British
troops, as well as the strain that 4 years of war have placed upon the country,
this produces a series of peasant uprisings, strikes and general unrest from
late 1888, that saps more and more of the Russian strength. While the Russian
army sent into India is finally crushed in the final Siege of Multan, and most
Russian troops are pulled out of Bulgaria, the Russians hold on to Galizia and
Armenia, however. With Mikhail Katkov, the Russian strongman
who maneuvered Russia into war dead of natural causes in 1887, and with the
(British-sponsored) assassination of Czar Alexander III in the spring of 1889
that might have changed, were it not for the fact that rioting and desertions
begin spreading in Austria-Hungary and Turkey, too, as war weariness takes hold.
In Italyalso, troops have to be pulled out of the line to fight a rebellion by
Sicilians and Calabrians discontent with what they see as the north of Italy
treating the south as its colony. While the rebellion is subdued, the weakening
of the line is enough to open a way for the French into the Po Valley, and thus
into the back of the other Italian troops manning the Alps front, leading to the
veritable dissolution of those Italian units that aren't outright taken
prisoner. It is only in the Appenine Mountains that the Italians are able to
rebuild a front strong enough to stop the French. The French occupation of the Po Valley has
far worse consequences than smacking around the Italian, though. When ordered
into northern Italy to stop the French advance, Hungarian units of the
Austro-Hungarian army refuse, not wanting to spill another drop for protecting
what they see as Austrian, not Hungarian interests. With most of the Austrian
units still tied up in Galizia and Romania, riotous mobs begin wreaking havoc in
Vienna, forcing emperor Franz Joseph to abdicate in favor of his son, Rudolph. Seen as a dangerous Francofile liberal by
Bismarck, who anyway does not like the chaos on his southern border, German
troops are sent in to defend the southern Austrian border, invited in by
substantial elements in the German population of Austria. It doesn't take long
to have the Austrians accept Rudolphs brother, Archduke Karl Phillip, as emperor
in his stead, thus splitting the empire, as Rudolph remains emperor of Hungary.
While both would rather govern both halves of the empire, none of them have the
support needed to go through another grueling year or more of war, so in all but
name, both Austria and Russia are out of the war. In Turkey, the Young Turks
purge a military so thoroughly weakened by 4 years of warfare, that it also
leaves the war. Which essentially only leaves Great Britain
and a France that is winning out in Italy. This, of course, is something Germany
cannot tolerate. Still with fond memories of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870,
Bismarck needs little time to engineer a pretext for an actual declaration of
war on France, and the German army invades France in early 1890. With France
already weakened by four years of bloodshed, and with the German introduction of
gas on the battlefield (albeit only tear agents), even the nationalist hatred of
Germany cant keep the French army going. As anarchist agents agitate among the
French pouillous, who are deserting in growing numbers, French state finances
collapse, and by early 1890, German armies have thrown the French out of Italy
and are on the Seine, within range of Paris. In the east, German troops have been put ashore in Estonia and Curonia, and large swaths of Poland are under joing German-Polish rebel control. Getting there has proven exceedingly costly, though, and Bismarck is anyhow not interested in upsetting the balance of powers too much. It would, after all, lead to trouble with Great Britain. In the end, the Treaty of den Haag of 1890 is a reasonably sound attempt at making clear who won and who lost, yet still refraining from outright dismemberment of the losers. Summed up, the results are as follows: 1) Hungary gains its independence, but loses both its total control over Croatia-Slavonia and partial control over Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria. There, both are joined with Dalmatia to form the kingdom of Slavonia in the empire of Austria-Slavonia. 2) Austria, on the other hand, cedes Bukovina to Romania. 3) In between Austria and Bukovina, Galicia is ceded to a newly constituted Poland, to which is added Congress Poland from Russia. Provided with a Saxon prince, the new Poland is considered as taking the role of a Belgium, ie: neutral, and acting as a buffer between Germany and Russia. 4) In the same vein, but fundamentally just to siphon off Russian territory, an Estonian-Livonian-Curonian confederation likewise attains its independence, getting another Saxon prince along with it. 5) To further weaken Russia, she has to cede Bessarabia to Romania, the Crimea to Turkey, and Finland to Sweden. As a small consolation price, Armenia is granted independence in a personal union with Russia. That is also all the union there is to be, though. No common administration or army, just a common head of state. 6) From France is cut two large chunks of land, giving Germany the remainder of Elsass (the departement of Belfort) and central and western Lothringen (the departements of Meurthe-et-Moselle and Meuse), while five Breton departements are joined to form the independent British client state of Bretagne. Two thirds of the 3 million inhabitants are not French, anyway. Colony-wise, Dahomé goest to Germany, Tunisia to Italy and Madagascar to Great Britain. 7) In the Balkans, Macedonia is restored to Turkey, but she loses the Sandjak of Novi Pazar, that goes to Serbia along with an outlet to the sea at Scutari. 8)
Finally, just to make Great Britain happy, Germany and Austria
acknowledge the clause in the 1864 peace treaty with Denmark demanding a
plebiscite to draw the new border. As a result, it moves some 65 kilometers
south. And thus, peace again comes to the world. For a time.
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