1911 and the outbreak of the Third World War

[Grey Wolf]

23

The King of Hannover was dead. The new King of Hannover stood at the window of his castle in Wolfenbuttel and thought deeply on the present. Georg VII, eldest son of his father, he was well aware that he too depended upon the British for almost everything - and those small things he did not depend upon London for, it was Copenhagen or Paris he had to look to. Even in its current parlous state, the German Empire could crush his kingdom if it came to a straight-out conflict. But of course it would not come to that. He could think of no reason why Britain, Denmark and France would all forsake him. The death of his father did not change their relationship to his nation.

But it was not going to be easy, not at all. Britain had made many undertakings at The Hague, and some of those she had met swiftly, and immediately, mainly those which were already in place, such as British troops as a garrison, British naval forces as a defensive screen. But the economic aid had not got far beyond beginning before it had ended - the Duke of Devonshire's government had sent the first payment, then parliament in London had become deadlocked over the issue of sending more of its much-needed tax revenues overseas, and with the Duke of Sussex's elevation to Prime Minister the whole issue appeared to have disappeared off the agenda. The Hannoverian ambassador had tried to remind the British of their obligations, only to be squeezed into a five minute slot in the Foreign Secretary's diary, squeezed that was between the Liberian ambassador and that horrible man who represented Georgia; Georg had already heard many tales of his boorish manners, and vulgar mouth, and the report of their ambassador to his father had made of rumour a nasty reality.

But Britain's failure to live up to its financial commitments was having a continuous, and highly negative, effect upon the viability of Hannover as a state. The British troops had trained a strong core of Hannoverians now, but without the money from Britain, his father had already been struggling to pay them. With his death, would they see the new king as a spirit of the future, or as simply someone who was not his father, and did not inspire any of the old loyalties? The secret service was largely funded through off-the-record activities; from prostitution to opium smuggling, from collaboration with desperadoes from across the border in Germany, or working with profiteers in France's puppet republic of the Rhineland. So funded it would survive whilst the monarchy survived, but even now it was beginning to report on dangerous instability amongst the port cities, dockers and sailors combining in a world in which few of them received their pay on time, or had enough work to tide them over. Revolution was in the air, and only the British cruisers and destroyers within his waters was preventing its eruption, but even here, he had heard from "a source" in London that French's government intended to withdraw the British naval contingent within months.

That "source" he was sure was Churchill; his intelligence agency could not confirm it, but Georg was enough a student of the recent war to know how the Duke of Marlborough worked, and a man who had been Secretary of War, Prime Minister and co-ordinator of the Joint Intelligence agency in succession during the conflict would know how to find out, and to pass on these things. Quite what he, Georg, was supposed to do with the information had not been clear - he had courteously asked Admiral Moore if he knew of any orders to recall him, but the veteran admiral had assured him not. But French would hardly signal it in advance, and even if aware of a leak would leave him suffering, rather than lose face in admitting anything before he was ready.

"Your Majesty", Albrecht had entered the room with an impercepible knock.
"It is time?" Georg asked without turning away from the window. There was comfort and familiarity in the gardens without, only uncertainty and trepidation in what he was about to do.
"His Eminence awaits without"
Georg swallowed,
"Please ask him in"
"Yes, sire"

Georg turned away from the window and smoothed down his jacket.
"Your Highness"
"Your Majesty", the Prince Imperial smiled his enigmatic smile, "I believe that you have a proposition for me?"
"Yes", Georg paused, "The Kingdom of Hannover offers you a full and complete alliance"
"Yes", the Prince Imperial lowered himself into a seat, "I believe my father will be most happy with this arrangement"
"Yes..." the King of Hannover was too tight to speak
"But I do not think that his counterpart in London will be very happy"
"No.." Georg looked down at his polished boots, "But with France's support..."
"Yes", the Prince Imperial smiled again, and Georg shivered down to those very boots he had been contemplating a moment before, "They would not dare to do anything..."


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Part 24

"What is this?" Roman Romanov looked at the printed text he had been handed by an aide, "The transcript of what exactly?"
Maxim shuffled his feet nervously,
"A British agent handed it to us at Novgorod last week"
"Hmmm", the Tsar looked into the flames ever present in the fire, "How did he enter the empire?"
"Through Estonia via Sweden"
"Our borders are so porous"
"Yes sire, but he brings this message from...."
"From ?" Roman waved it above his head, "Interested parties? What is an interested party? Moreover, who are they?"
"He did not tell us" Maxim admitted.

Roman sighed. Ever since the Valdimir Conference had agreed the reunification of the empire, with Roman as Emperor, Wiren as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and Makhno as First Minister, tensions had constantly threatened to pull the fragile coalition apart. There had been battles, shootings, assassinations and kidnaps by one grouping upon another, but the leaders had distanced themselves from each occasion, the most serious crisis coming when the self-styled Trotsky had assassinated Prince Putiatin and tried to manoevre himself into his position within the provision government instead. Makhno had sent his rebellious lieutenant to fight the Japanese in the East and Roman had quietly appointed a successor to the murdered aristocrat.

"Has the First Minister received a similar message?" Roman asked
"No" Maxim was certain about that; his cousin's bastard son worked in the communications directorate and had been keeping an eye out for them.
"I should wipe my arse with this?" Roman looked from Maxim to Yelena
She shrugged,
"If it came from French it is too good even for that"
"Yes" Roman growled; French's promises as to what British support would amount to if he worked for a few certain goals had proved to be trash. A single payment in promise of the rest, a cruiser "happening" into Saint Petersburg to promise the battle-squadron that had never arrived. No, Roman had the measure of the British Prime Minister now, and if he was promising more chimera he would suffer.

"I think this is something else" Yelena said quietly, and Roman looked at her.
"You have good instincts, Yelena"
She took that as permission to speculate, and did so
"French would be more direct, as he was before. This is somebody else"
"Acting on French's instructions"
"No"
"No?!" he was astounded, "I thought Sussex had Britain entirely under his thumb?"
"So he imagines" Yelena said, "Which is why some people seek to go around him"
"Who?" Roman asked in mystification.

Yelena shrugged,
“We could guess but we could easily be wrong. But this is an opening – we need to accept it”
“What if it is a trap?” Roman asked
“What do we lose if it is?” she said
He nodded; that was true. British promises were so much wasted paper these days. He just had to make sure that Makhno and Wiren didn’t find out about this before he was sure.
“You will take my reply to Novgorod in person” he decided
“Me?” she was surprised.
“No intermediaries, only people I can trust”
“Yes sire” she nodded, “I will handle it for you”
“Thank you”


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[LightInfa]

This is very interesting! In regards to Hanover, I suppose Churchill is trying to engineer a crisis to topple French...

 

[Grey Wolf]

New Horizon
3rd May 2023

As I look back on one hundred years of history from this vantage point of the Moon, I find myself wondering how things turned out so positive, after such a bad beginning, and after so many negative events in between. But Man is an adaptive animal, and we have survived, and prospered despite these trials.

Today we stand at the dawn of a great age, the threshold of a new era for Mankind. But we do so both because of, and despite our past. The Ventura stands upon the launch-ground, its fusion-engines the joint output of The Three Empires, its mission one that will bind the future to our present.

I am a child of the last decade of the old century, the product of those events exactly a hundred years ago today when the new age was forged in blood in the streets of London.

Becky is the only other Britischer here with me, but she is ten years my junior, a child of this century alone. To her the events of 1923 are older than ancient history, and why should she celebrate them now ? For my part, I was taught to venerate the names and deeds of those momentous years, for they turned us around from a spiral of decline towards the shining position we now stand in. To those of Becky's age it is all too obvious to wonder about.

As we wait and watch the Ventura I am reminded again of that scrapbook of my great-grandmother's, rescued from out of the shell of a burnt-out house ten years before I was born. My parents would sit me down as a child and talk through the entries - the newspaper cuttings and the hand-written notes, the occasional photograph. And it all began in 1923...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara

3rd May 1923

My God, is Churchill Jesus?! My father would beat me for saying that, but he has done the Rescurrection - again! We thought he was out for good when he lost the premiership, but he became back with the Joint Intelligence...what was it? Then he lost that and truly was in the wilderness. Was it forty months? Probably not exact - that would have been funny. The elections came, the Socialist leader got himself shot, and the king asked old man French to form a government - we should call it a dictatorship of the military. But now it is gone!

And Churchill was here today! He met with my father and his boss, Sir Erasmus Pope, and I think they are both going to be in his government. Prince Louis has gone to see the king, who is ill and, I am not supposed to say it, but many think is like to die. The Prince of Wales is Prince Louis' friend - the younger Prince Louis, I mean. Why must they both have the same name? Churchill says that the coup is secure. The fleet will follow Prince Louis - the older one, I mean.

There were some people I don't know who they were with them. I don't mean they were just unfamiliar to me - I can usually find those out by asking one of the printers lads; they would do anything for me! But nobody knew who these people were - I don't think even my father knew. They seemed to speak with someone else's voice, as my father said of a young lieutenant once - its not the man the veterans follow, but the voice of an authority that is beyond him. That seemed silly to me, but I see what it might mean now. These people were nobody, but they spoke in the name of people who did not want to be there themselves. Though I wonder why not....


10th May 1923

The city is full of rumours! A week has gone and Churchill is back in Downing Street, but nobody has seen the king, and there are reports of secret court martials, and even that Clay has been shot. I hope so! I hope they blew bits off him first, then killed him!

My father said the Russian ambassador has been to Downing Street a lot, but I don't think he knows why. I don't know if Sir Erasmus even knows why - none of his newspapers made any mention of it... They did say that a special commission is drawing up a list of crimes that French will have to answer to in the Lords. That should be fun! Churchill has them all on side - my father says that Derby and Clarendon will head the commission and they will make minced meat of French. He laughed when he said that.

Elisa is being annoying - but this diary is supposed to be grown up, about the events of great import (as my father called them). I will not mention Elisa's name again. That is childish tittle tattle.


12th May 1923

The king is dead! I said so, didn't I ?! Oh, I just read back through - I never said what I thought. But that would have been risky if it wasn't true. I must just have said it to Elisa...oh, but that's tittle tattle!

The king is dead! Churchill and the Princes Louis (thats how Sir Erasmus wrote it in the newspaper the other dead, plural princes, single Louis) are at the palace meeting with the king - the new king, I mean. He's called Albert (again) but they will crown him as Edward (again) but instead of Edward VIII he will be Edward IX. His grandfather was also an Albert crowned as an Edward, I think... Yes, I just looked it up - they called him Bertie, but he was crowned as Edward VII. So that makes three in a row now we have Edward IX.

He's only Prince Louis' age and he's not married yet. I've never met him, but Elisa says she has and that he smiled at her. I think the silly girl thinks he wants to marry her. I doubt he remembers she exists, unless it is as Sir Erasmus' daughter. No, I shall marry an explorer - or an inventor. I don't know which yet.

Clay is dead - Sir Erasmus printed a report of his trial and execution. My father says it was a secret court martial, but I don't think he was upset - it was only Clay the bastard. I have got to make sure nobody else finds this book or I will be in a lot of trouble!


21st May 1923

They're going to call a new battleship King Edward VIII[/i] now that he's dead. It was Queen Victoria in the Second World War who decreed that henceforth (they used to like that word) no battleship would bear the name of the reigning monarch. I think one with her name on it got sunk and she was very upset. There wasn't another [/i]HMS Queen Victoria until after she was dead. There wasn't a King Edward VII until after he had died. Actually, I think there were two battleships of that name - didn't one get sunk in 1915? The other one must be quite new then. When they finish the King Edward VIII there will be a father and son in the fleet. I wonder if they will serve together, these two King Edwards? Makes it sound like a plate of potatoes!

Eaglethorpe shot himself! I couldn't remember who he was until I read it in Sir Erasmus' newspaper. My father said to someone on the telephone that maybe he was 'suicided' - I never heard it used as a verb like that before. Does it mean somebody killed him, or somebody made him shoot himself? His brains were all up the wall - my father said that too on the telephone. He better not read these lines! I well remember the beating I received after I overheard him on the telephone about choirboys and told Elisa about it...


31st May 1923

King Edward IX made a speech! They carried it on the radio but not many people have radio. Sir Erasmus does so we could all crowd round and hear it. He has a funny voice, the king. He sounds like he is sucking on a reed! Is it treason to say that? I hope not. I don't mind people sucking on reeds.

I don't remember what he said - I know I can read it tomorrow in The Britannic Herald so I will. I only remember the last part when he said that we were all British and all in this together. I think he was talking about the recovery. They ought to stop and make sure that people know what they mean. I know I wasn't the only one who got lost.


1st June 1923

I read the speech by the king in the paper, but it doesn't feel like the same speech I heard! I'm sure the words are a bit different, and the sentences shorter. I could make sense of this speech though now - maybe Sir Erasmus chopped it up for the people? Would the king allow him to do that?

He said there are going to be elections in July. I don't like elections! People get killed - lots of people! Women get bayoneted to death - I remember asking my father what getting bayoneted meant, and he hit me. I found out later - I always find out! Why can't Churchill just be Prime Minister and we can all be happy?

Sir Erasmus has printed that only three parties will be allowed to contest the election. The Socialists are now under somebody called Horn, Mr Horn I suppose. I don't remember his name from before. The government of Churchill will call itself the Party of Britain. That sounds silly to me, but who would want to vote against Britain? Elisa said that, and she's not stupid, though she is still annoying...

The third party can call themselves the Democratic Party. That's daft! No party would call itself The Undemocratic Party! I think it will have people who don't like Churchill in it. But a lot of those are dead - except French. His trial begins next week and should be over before the election. I suppose they want to get one thing out of the way before starting on another.


9th June 1923

French's trial has begun, but I don't understand the reports in the Herald. They let him go on and on about why he was right? They should just tell him he was wrong, and then shoot him - or have we got to chop his head off as he's a duke? If he says too much people might start believing him.

A bomb has already gone off. It was in a car - a Vauxhall I think, from the little company over the river. It killed nobody and only blew up the car and a shop that was closed. I think that meant it was closed down for good, not for the day. Why would you want to blow up a closed shop? I guess the bombers got scared and ran away.

Churchill says there will be no Terror on the Streets. I think he will do something about it.


10th June 1923

Elisa owes me lots of money! I caught her naked with a boy in one of the closed offices! She said he didn't put his thing... My father would really beat me if he read this! But now I have some money I don't have to ask him for!!!

The Duke of Clarendon called French a liar in the Lords, and French tried to challenge him to a duel! But Clarendon proved himself right with some papers and the Herald says that French's face fell, and he almost collapsed. Ha ! Ha !

Sir Erasmus is going to stand for election - he told everyone this today! I thought that Churchill was going to make him an earl, but Sir Erasmus said he wanted to win the votes of the people. I wonder how many would vote for him if I told them that his daughter was naked with a printers boy?! Elisa is going to give me lots and lots and lots of money!!!


14th June 1923

Elisa gave me five pounds and I went to The Bear and Staff on my own and met a very nice army lieutenant. I told him I was a lot older than I am. I think he wants to make love to me. Better an army lieutenant than a printer's boy!

It was funny being in the public house. People see the world differently there. There were posters on the railings outside for the Democratic Party and for the Socialists, but I asked where were those for the Party of Britain and people laughed at me! I saw some other newspapers, ones Sir Erasmus always calls rag-sheets and filth - I can hear his voice now saying those words! They seem to think the world is different from what it is! I can see why Sir Erasmus hates them so!

And people talk a lot of rubbish sitting at a bar. Some of them even had uniforms on, and said that French was being 'stitched up'. I had to ask what that meant and they laughed at me. Thats when my lieutenant came to my rescue and took me to his table. He's just come back from Cuba and fought his war in Mexico. He's not all that old though as he didn't start his war until 1916. I wonder if he thinks I am good breeding stock? I read an article in the Herald about eugenics, and how the best should breed with the best. I know he is the best! He's seeing me again next week... It tingles when I thnk of him!


21st June 1923

They're going to execute French. As a Field Marshal he was allowed to choose firing squad rather than the sword - I think he was relieved. In the public house, they think in strange ways and were angry. How can they be angry that French is going to die? Churchill will protect us - there will be No Terror on the Streets in this election. Why don't people believe him?

My lieutenant kissed me! I was going to say that first but this book is supposed to be for national things so I said about French first. But we kissed and kissed, and he said he will arrange a hotel for us next week!!! Elisa would be so jealous, but I won't tell her or she will stop paying me for not telling on her.

Oh, and Sir Erasmus has sacked the printers boy, because he was caught with one of the older women in an empty office actually doing it! Elisa was red in the face when I laughed at her about this. The woman is being kept on because she is good at her job and because she has a company medal for doing something special but I don't know what.


22nd June 1923

She saved my father's life! That's why Sir Erasmus is keeping the woman on despite her unconscionable behaviour - I think I spelt that right. It was the words he used, but I don't know it as a word. I know what it means though!

Elisa is sulking, ha ha! That's tittle tattle though.

They fixed a date for French's execution - that's ha ha also! My father said they ought to get members of French's old regiment to shoot the bastard. I don't think they will though, in case it goes wrong. I bet one of the printers ten shillings that Churchill will get the Marines to shoot him.


28th June 1923

I am not a virgin anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My father won't just kill me if he finds this book. We did it four times!!!!!!!! I don't care if this is tittle-tattle!!!!!


30th June 1923

They shot French! I was wrong! They got the Horseguards to do it! I lost ten shillings and now Elisa is saying that since the printers lad got sacked for doing it I can't blackmail her because everyone will think I am making it up! I need money or I can't see Ralphy again...

Churchill said that French's death marked the end of a dark time for Britain and the start of a new time of hope and optimism. The election will be fair and safe and he said he was certain he would win. Elisa thought that funny, but I hit her. She's not talking to me now...


10th July 1923

The streets of London are running with blood! Churchill said that they would not be but he can't stop it. This time its not the soldiers killing everybody, its everybody killing the soldiers! Everybody is killing everybody!

Ralphy has been recalled to arms. We had a quick double in a hotel last week but he can't risk it - and I can't now either as my father is giving me an armed guard. The Streets of Blood one of the rival newspapers was calling it! Sir Erasmus seems to be pretending its not happening - are his newspapers as big liars as those I saw again in the public house? If so, who does tell the truth?

Why doesn't the king say something? What good is a king anyway if he doesn't have the real power?


20th July 1923

It is election day tomorrow. I got a note from Ralphy through one of the washer women. He says he has been called to Portsmouth to deal with a mutiny of the fleet!!! But there is nothing about a mutiny in The Britannic Herald and Prince Louis said that the fleet would support Churchill's government! I don't understand what is going on!

Elisa is scared too and talking to me again. She says that forgives me and wants to be friends again. Someone tried to shoot her father on the election platform and she is scared they will try again. I think she is really afraid someone will actually kill him! I wish we didn't have elections, but I kissed Elisa and we made up and talked like children for hours and hours. It seems funny now but it was nice. I think maybe he did put his thing in her because her eyes are like mine and we see each other now, and pretend we don't. Maybe we can still be proper friends.

My father is not happy. I don't know why. I know its not because of Ralphy or he would have beaten me to death! I know he doesn't know about that. But I don't know what is making him so unhappy...


21st July 1923

There is gunfire on the streets and running battles. Sir Erasmus went out early to cast his vote and hasn't come back. Elisa is crying in a corner. I don't know what to do...

* * *

Its six pm now and Sir Erasmus still has not come back! My father is going to take a posse out onto the streets. They have got guns from somewhere and look grim and determined. There are women with him, but I thnk these women will fight as strongly as their male colleagues.

We have had no real news all day. My father has been trying to run the presses but the telephones are down and when he sent someone to the telegraph office they came back bloody and with an arm in a sling saying everything is a riot there. There is smoke everywhere in the city, and explosions every fifteen minutes or so. I'm sure we even heard an aeroplane low over the streets not long ago...

Elisa is scared for her father and I am scared for mine. The old printers are being very kind to us today.

***

Its ten pm now and I know the polls have closed, but we have no communication. My father still has not returned, and an old hand is running meetings to decide what to put in the early edition. We have to have something, and it has to be the truth - I heard him say that! Does that mean that The Herald has not been printing the truth? That would explain about the mutiny. I ache to know how Ralphy is...

***

It is eleven pm now and the presses are rolling. The senior hands decided to report what they know as facts. It reads like London is at war, but if Sir Erasmus or my father come back they can stop the distribution. If not, we have to have something out there.

Elisa is exhausted. It is worse for her than for me, I think. Her father only went out to cast his vote, and should have been back by Midday at the latest. My father has gone out to sort things out and could be gone all night. I don't think it would be the first time. They looked very professional for amateurs.

The windows just rattled! Something big just blew up! I hate elections! I hate them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***

Its almost Midnight, I am exhausted. One of the old fellows gave Elisa some brandy and she is asleep in my lap. She looks so sweet and vulnerable. Maybe we will be friends for ever now.

There is still shouting from the streets and gunfire. The explosions seem to have stopped. I don't know where my father is...


22nd July 1923

They brought my father in this morning... He is shot up....

No news on Sir Erasmus


23rd July 1923

Doctor Meredith says that my father will live. He is very weak and has lost a lot of blood and they had to ....... cut off an arm

Nobody knows where Sir Erasmus is

Nobody knows what is going on. There are battles in the steets but everybody is fighting everybody. We haven't printed a paper in two days

Who won the election or did nobody?


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara

24th July 1923

They broke in singing 'Humpty Dumpty'. Dozens of men and women, wearing red scarves or bandanas, all armed with guns. They sang 'Humpty Dumpty' as they shot the old men who tried to stop them. Then they rounded us up and sung 'Humpty Dumpty' to us as well. I thought they were mad.

Later they took my father away to a hospital. Then they sent the boys home. They kept some of the men working the presses but called their new paper The Red Dawn. Finally they got around to me and Elisa. I thought they were going to make us choose boyfriends, but they just wanted to get rid of us. We pretended Elisa was my cousin, and told them my father was in the hospital. For some reason I told them I had a fiance called Ralph who was a lieutenant in the army. Elisa thought I was mad, but I convinced them to look him up, last known posting at Portsmouth.

We were locked in an office, funnily the one where I had caught Elisa with the printers lad. I told her all about Ralph now. She laughed a little, but I think she knows Sir Erasmus must be dead. I don't know what will happen to my father either.


31st July 1923

They let me keep my book but I didn't dare write anything during the journey. The king is dead. The princes Louis are dead. The Duke of York is dead. There is something called the 'Revolutionary Republic of Great Britain' instead. I don't know any of the names they tell me are their leaders. It is like something out of a treasonous novel. I remember Sir Erasmus was always denouncing treasonous novels in The Herald... It is The Red Dawn now and it says such novels are masterpieces of revolutionary spirit. I think that means they are still treasonous but they like them.

Everything is in chaos. Only half the trains are running and they are full of men and women with strips of red cloth about their person. We were placed in the baggage car by the men looking after us. One of them said something about how someone called Bobby Harmer was on board and how his men had a reputation for raping high-class women. I was happy to sit on kitbags away from them!

Portsmouth had been on fire. Later they told us that the warships in the port had fired on each other and some of them had fired on the town, and field guns in the town had fired back on them. The railway station was blackened with soot, and the buildings ruined, but the tracks still worked. They took us in a rickety old van down to the docks where half-naked sailors with red cloth around their heads leered and laughed at us. I know what they wanted to do to us! But our guards wouldn't let them. I heard someone say that Charlie Parker isn't a real revolutionary with his old-fashioned manners and his stupid songs. One of our guards shot the man who said that, and told the others that a real revolutionary was a man with a gun who wasn't afraid to use it.

They took us to where Ralph was being held. Most of his men had been discharged but the officers were being held because they were officers. One or two had agreed to swear loyalty to the Republic, but most had refused. Ralph had refused. Our guards offered him another choice - he could swear not to get involved in any action aainst the Republic, either military or political. Ralph said that since I was the prize, he would swear that. Some of the other officers said that they would swear that too and our guards got them out. I am sure that the sailors mean to kill the rest as soon as they get the chance. They are horrible!


4th August 1923

Ralph took us to his aunt's at Chichester. We walked a lot but sometimes the pass that our guards gave him allowed him to get us on a bus, or a lift from someone in a lorry. His aunt lives in an old cottage but it doesn't have roses around the door. The garden is overgrown as she has pains in her back and can't look after it, and nobody will work for anybody else now. The Revolutionaries are saying that work like that is demeaning. I think they're stupid. Half of Chichester is eating soup because they won't work. But they think its summer and warm and that things will soon get better. Its only been a fortnight, things will get better. I don't know.

There are only two bedrooms here and Ralph's aunt doesn't care if we sleep together in the other one. I don't think she cares about anything anymore. Her husband was killed in the war on a merchant ship. She showed me his photograph but it must have been from twenty years ago. Elisa sleeps in the sitting room, which is the only real room downstairs apart from the kitchen. Its a very small cottage but I like it.


10th August 1923

Some men came and made Ralph put his name down on a labour list. He showed them his papers but they didn't care and said that every free male had to register. Why was it only men? I saw lots of women among the revolutionaries. I thought they liked equal rights.

Elisa is being a pain, moping about and complaining. She is sure her father is dead but wants to know. How can she get proof here with everything in the hands of revolutionaries? I want to know about my father too but I tell her we have to wait. She says its alright for me, I have to sleep with and make me feel better. I told her to get a man then. I'm sure there are many who would have her!


16th August 1923

We've thrown Elisa out. She tried to get Ralph to sleep with her. I caught her sitting naked on him in bed. He said he had been asleep until then. I hit her and beat her and threw her out. She called me stupid and other things.

Our friendship didn't last for ever.


3rd September 1923

I hate this place! The labour board came for Ralph and he has to spend his days in the fields helping to get the harvest in - or they will shoot him! He says its useful work and that Britain is going to need all the food it can get. He leaves just after dawn and comes home at night exhausted. We don't do it very much. I'm very bored!

I even decided to tidy up the garden for his aunt but she got mad at me and said that Benny wouldn't have liked it the way I was doing it. I don't know who Benny is! I don't care!


9th October 1923

I haven't felt like writing for a long time. Why should I? I never see Ralph in the day and when he comes home he thinks I am lazy and stupid. He said that! He even said he wished I hadn't disturbed Elisa and he would have seen if she was a better bet than me! I hit him but he hit me back and made me sleep downstairs.

I'm not going to stay here...


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[The Gunslinger]

Those diary entries are awesome, even though each one is more depressing than the last.

 

[LightInfa]

Interesting that on the list of people who were killed, Churchill is not mentioned...

 

[Grey Wolf]

Interesting that on the list of people who were killed, Churchill is not mentioned...

That's a long game! He won't be mentioned for a long time, but that doesn't mean he's not around...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

1927

Washington City
United States of America
3rd April 1927


Editorial in The Washington News

Richmond is in chaos, and the world laughs for the irony of it all. The West has secceded and the Confederate government calls it treason! From Albuquerque, from Denver and from San Antonio come resolutions of sovereignty followed by a vote to accede to a new political structure. President Howarth in his stupendous hypocrisy denounces them. His government says that the CSA has moved on from a time when such actions would have had legitimacy. Only echoes of the words of American politicians from the First World War sound in our ears. The 1860s was by far too late for notions such as these within the United States. We lost our struggle only because of the faithless intervention of Europe. The 1920s is no further in the life of the Confederacy than the 1860s were in the life of the Union. Will they lose their struggle?

It is not the policy of this newspaper to support secession, where-ever it might come from. We rightly denounced that of California at the end of the Third World War, and we stand upon that principle. We have no great love for the Confederacy, but over the last few years President Durant has worked tirelessly to rebuild relations with our Southern neighbours, and to open up trade to our mutual benefit. The Western Union may make grandiose claims about how their independence will bring prosperity to the USA as well, but if Richmond opposes their secession all it will bring is war, ruin and the end of that bounty which recent years had brought.

President Durant must needs play a careful game. For historical reasons he cannot denounce the new Union in the West. The enemy of mine enemy is my friend, they say. But is the CSA still our enemy? All of his administration's policies have been aimed at ending that constant yoke that binds us to the Confederacy as immortal enemies, for ever battling it out time after time after time. If that template is no longer the one for us to use in our relations, then Richmond should be treated no worse than Mexico or San Francisco. The ordinary person does not like them, and our pride refuses to allow them parity, but we do not seek to intervene in their affairs to their ruination.

If there is no civil war in the Confederacy then the USA will be happy to work with the new Union on an equal basis as the CSA, and if there is a short sharp war that brings defeat to Richmond and victory for the new association, then the USA should take both their hands, and assert our natural mastery of this continent. We will help both of them, and their trade will help us.

But if there begins a long and bloody war? We denounce the idea, but hot heads in Richmond and in the Western capitals are talking it up. If such a war comes, then the United States of America reserves the right to enter upon whichever side would give us the greatest gain. That is the policy which we would urge upon President Durant. And that is the warning we would urge him to give to President Howarth.


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara

1st October 1930

Our house was bombed by Western Union aeroplanes! I lost two of my books and only saved the earliest one. I hate the Western Union as much as I hated the Germans when I was little. Their war is unfair!

Clyde has been called up again. This time I think it is for real - how could it not be with WU aeroplanes dropping bombs on us?! Rapid City was supposed to be a trading centre, at the triangular corner of the USA, Canada and the Confederacy, but the WU seccession and their victory over the Confederates have made us a frontier post against WU aggression!

The world has gone mad - again! Do we blame the British Revolution, or the Franco-Japanese Alliance? The combination allowed the Western Union to defeat the CSA. President Durant kept us out of the war, but could only watch with dismay as France and Japan sided with the WU. British power is still only slowly recovering, I am glad to have gotten out of their when I did!


2nd October 1930

Oh, but now nobody will know how I came to be in Rapid City!!! I hate the WU for bombing our house, but it wasn't just our house. Whole streets got hit by their aeroplane bombs. Even the school was hit but Thank God it was early evening. WU bastards!

I just looked at the end of the surviving journal - October 1923! Seven whole years ago! Seven years of memories lost in the firebomb. WU bastards!

How can I sum up seven years in the hour I have til Clyde comes home from drill? I suppose I can try.

-1- I walked out on Ralph. I reckon now he was not pretending to be asleep until I opened the door on him and Elisa. He was unfaithful! And he became rude and cruel. I was glad to be out of that cottage!

-2- An old farmer gave me a lift in his truck, he was taking stuff to Bristol and would take me if I would....service him. He didn't want to do it just be serviced so I didn't care. We reached Bristol two days later - I think he had made the journey longer as the Revolutionary Guard asked how come he was so late! Then he saw me and laughed

-3- I got a job in an inn on Bristol docks, and made extra by fully servicing men of my choice until I fell pregnant. The innkeeper, an old ruffian called Sam Moore, wanted me to have an abortion but I refused so he sacked me. Another establishment took me on, Mrs Flaherty saying that a pregnant girl was an exotic attraction. So I was an exotic attraction for some months, until I was too sick to do it.

-4- My baby was born on sacking in an abandoned warehouse but died within hours. I wanted to die too but a Revolutionary Guard found me the next day on an inspection tour. I wanted him to keep me he was handsome but he said he was married and gave me to his commander. Jack Baker was smelly and had black teeth but everyone respected him because he had been a cousin to Randy Baker, the dead Socialist leader. I didn't care about anything anymore and I don't even know what date it was. Mid 1924 I suppose.

-5- Jack was killed on Christmas Day 1924. That's easy to remember as it was when the Irish cruisers bombarded Bristol. I didn't even know we were at war but it didn't last long until some agreement was reached. That Winter was long and hard and cruel and people began to crowd aboard upon passenger ships that President Durant had sent across the Atlantic to help the starving British. I got aboard one by selling Jack's pistol to a sailor and spent the voyage in his bed. It was better than Third Class!

-6- New York was another ruined city being rebuilt. Were all the world's cities in ruins? I came ashore and registered with the authorities. For ages I had been pretending to be older than I was after everything with Ralph, but I told them now my true age for what did they care? I didn't have any identification or anybody who knew me. I was given a place in dormitory with other unmarried women. Some of them were like children though they were older than me! I hated it there.

-7- I ran away and found work in a whorehouse where I met Clyde. He was working as a lawyer and hated it and we were soon too often together that Mrs Shaw who ran the place for the Irish mafia told me to get out. Clyde took me home to see his parents in Cincinatti telling them I had just arrived on a refugee ship from Britain (which was true apart from the just bit) and that he had met me in a coffee shop (!). They liked me, a fresh young virgin his mother called me!!!!!!!!!!

-8- We were married in Spring 1926 and Clyde and I moved to Chicago where things were better. Most of the damage had been repaired and the economy was booming under President Durant's New Programme. He got a promotion as a trade lawyer and we were posted to Rapid City in a company house where he would deal with commercial agreements between the three nations.

-9- 1927 saw the start of the Confederate Civil War. Nobody called it that until it was several months old. President Durant was able to keep the USA out of the conflict, but when the Franco-Japanese alliance entered on the side of the Western Union the CSA cause was doomed. President Howarth shot himself, and General Beauregard, acting as CS President signed the Armistice in Summer 1929.

-10- Clyde and I remained in Rapids City doing a lot of business with Canada and negotiating with whoever held the territory opposite us until after the Armistice it became properly the land of the WU. That's when problems began. The WU capital in Albuquerque repudiated a score of past treaties and demanded that the border arrangements made in the aftermath of past wars be opened again for discussion. The West, they said, had had no say in the distribution, and now that it was in a position to have a say it did not agree with previous arrangements. Clyde explained to me that this was bunk, but that didn't stop Albuquerque from making demands.

-11- Over the Winter there was a food shortage in a lot of the Western Union and the WU government in Albuquerque started calling US trading firms exploiters of human misery for demanding to be paid to ship food. It wasnt fair! President Durant agreed to subsidise the shipments and we only charged 50% of what was the real price, but the WU wanted it for free! They're always complaining!

-12- Eventually Japan shipped thousands of ships of rice and other Oriental foods to the WU through the Republic of California and the famine eased but Albuquerque continued to blame us! Clyde said they were posturing, like boxers before a bout, but now they have attacked us! No doubt the Japanese and the French have put them up to this! I hate the WU![/i]


12th October 1930

I see now why President Durant did nothing for over a week. He was waiting for the receipt of the formal declaration of war by the WU which they finally sent out yesterday. Immediately he has invoked our defensive alliance with Canada - which I didn't know we had! I don't think France or Japan knew about it either! Ottawa doesn't seem very keen to go to war and are talking about brokering a peace, but the Canadian parliament has passed a mobilisation order!!!

The company is thinking of pulling us back to Chicago. There won't be any trade coming through Rapid City with Canada now in the war. Clyde was reluctant talking about his pals in the State Militia but I told hm that Chicago has a City Militia all of its own, with greater chances of promotion for a man of his skills. I think he really wanted to go back there after all and was just saving face. There's nothing left for us in Rapid City.


31st October 1930

Our new home is a comfortable townhouse on the lake. Clyde has to work mornings at the company headquarters and drills afternoons with the City Militia in which he has been able to secure a commission as lieutenant. He is very pleased and thanks me for helping him change his mind.

You wouldn't think there was a war on here, apart from the grey shapes of Canadian warships manoevring upon the lake. The settlement of the Third World War forbid us to have any but we don't need them now the Canadians are on our side. But I can't see what good they will do against the WU whose frontier is something like 800 miles away!

The President is coming here next month. I am very excited never having seen him, but having lived in his country for five years I admire the great work that the man has achieved. It is not his fault that the WU are bastards!


17th November 1930

I think I am pregnant. It is no surprise as Clyde and I have been doing it every night and most mornings in case he is sent away. The war is not going well and the newspapers say that Rapid City has fallen to the enemy. That is who the WU are - the Enemy, capital E. The WU are bastards! Where is Platte City? That is also fallen to the enemy and the city is excited about it - too excited about it I think. Maybe something bad is happening.

Richmond have declared their neutrality. President Beauregard (he got elected afterwards) said that the CSA is simply in no state to make war on anybody and I suppose he is right. The WU already beat them.[/i]


5th December 1930

President Durant came to Chicago and the company secured Clyde and me seats near the front. The president looked very drawn and tired, but then he is an old man. I was surprised to learn he was 71! He has been in power so long you forget he gets older with each coming year. I don't think he will give up though. There is steel in him.

I am definitely pregnant but haven't told Clyde. I don't want him to stop though I have to guide him round behind. He says the preacher says its unnatural but its so much fun he can't see how it can be. He was surprised it was easy to get in there but I don't tell him everything about my past.


21st December 1930

The world is covered in snow and I am beginning to show. Clyde just thinks I need some exercise out of bed and has suggested we go ice skating. I don't want to! I already lost one baby, but he doesn't know about that. He doesn't know I've got another one coming.

Where is Sioux Falls? Everyone panicked when it was announced that it had fallen to the WU but when I asked the shopkeeper where it was he said somewhere in Dakota. So was Rapid City and nobody panicked then. I will have to buy a map.


4th January 1931

I had to tell Clyde I was pregnant and as I feared he doesn't want to do it anymore. It is very frustrating! We can't even go out much in this weather and when we do he now acts if I was older than the president!

The newspapers have taken to printing maps. I now know where everywhere is. There isn't much movement now that Winter really has the world in its grip but I can see where Sioux Falls is - its right across the state from Rapid City meaning that the WU must have occupied almost all of Dakota! That means they are almost half way to Chicago but they won't have it so easy now. The editorials make it clear that Southern Minnesota and all of Iowa are a lot more populated than Dakota was and that no army is about to steamroller its way across those states.


25th January 1931

I've met a man who likes me pregnant and we go to his apartment every afternoon when Clyde is out drilling with the City Militia. I tell him I am out shopping or with other wives and he doesn't care. His mind is too taken up with arms and tactics and news from the front - which hardly changes week after week in this weather.

I read my first journal and laugh when I read about tittle-tattle! I wanted to be so grown up and not talk about little things, but all I ended up talking about was darling Ralphy, the bastard! How could I know that pregnant in a snowed-in city, tittle-tattle would be all there was? Lionel doesn't treat me as if I was made of ice or eighty years old! He knows where to put it in a pregnant woman and says I am the best thing thats happened to him this year. I told him its only the 25th January and he laughed and we drank wine and did it again and again!


4th March 1931

I've not written for some time. France has declared war on us and President Durant has called up all of the militias. I didn't know Lionel was in the Reserve. He has had to go too. I am all alone and it is so boring.

I tried it on with Betty Risler's husband, James with the dodgy knee but he was repulsed by my pregnancy. I hit him and he had to pretend he had slipped on the ice to explain the redness.

There was gunfire on the lake last night. The shopkeeper said that it was against WU aeroplanes which were attacking the Canadian warships. I wish he wasn't married with eight children. Life is very depressing.


31st March 1931

I got a letter from Clyde saying that he loves me and hopes I am taking good care of myself and the baby! He is in Boston, I don't know why. The French fleet is attacking our coast but the Canadians have taken the French islands in the St Lawrence and one newspaper even said that Canadian warships sank a French cruiser off Newfoundland. The newspapers think it is ironic that we rely on the Canadians, but it seems natural to me. I ask about news from Britain sometimes but nobody knows anything, the newspapers never mention there.


4th April 1931

Aeroplanes attacked Chicago today! I thought they were WU of course but they had red circles on their wings. Mr O'Leary who runs the laundry says he knows that symbol from the last war when he was fighting in China for the British - it is the Japanese! I can hardly believe it. Are we at war with Japan now also?


9th April 1931

I pretended to slip on the sidewalk outside the laundry and Mr O'Leary helped me. Later he said it was against God's law what we did after that but I think he enjoyed it. His wife died of fever back in 1921 and his children are all grown up.

The President spoke on the radio tonight and told us true. Japan had entered the war weeks ago but denied they had until now. They kept saying that their aeroplanes had simply not been repainted by the WU but after the Canadian cruisers in our city port shot one down they found that the pilot was a Jap. Bastards!

For good news the radio said that Canadian army forces had advanced into Dakota, our Dakota from their Dakota. It didn't say if they had reached anywhere or were attacking anywhere, only that they had crossed the border. Is that good or bad?


21st April 1931

Mr O'Leary said the church must be wrong and its a lot of fun. I see him every evening now and we listen to the radio together afterwards.

The radio said that the Canadians were besieging Rapid City! But Mr O'Leary explained that it must mean that the city is under constant bombardment and probably faces famine. There won't be anything left standing and few people left living. He says he saw the same thing many times over in China during the last world war.

Lionel said he would write but hasn't. I suppose he doesn't see the point as we can't go to bed in a letter. I have only had the one letter from Clyde also. Mr O'Leary says that railways are always seriously disrupted in war. I remember seeing that during the Revolution in Britain.


25th April 1931

I finally got a letter from Clyde. It is dated two weeks ago and he is still in Boston. He doesn't say why. He doesn't say much other than paint a picture of his barracks with words. I now know all about Faghead, Whitey, Buttons, Burper, Slash and Monkey. I wish I didn't!

Mr O'Leary says he can take me to the opera! We can do it afterwards as usual but nobody will think it strange an older man escorting a woman whose husband is at the front. They will think he is keeping me safe from rapacious Canadians, many of whom now flood the city at night from their warships.


1st May 1931

Mr O'Leary and me met with a Mr Capone tonight over dinner. Mr Capone owns restaurants and whorehouses, I think. He didn't say that to me but I think he thinks I am a lady and a pregnant one. I wouldn't want to sleep with him, his face is ugly.

But I did understand the conversation that Mr Capone thought he could have with my being in ignorance - the stupid man! Opium and Hashish are being imported from the Confederacy and Mr Capone needs a distribution network. Mr O'Leary said he would - the idiot! But I don't want to jeopardise what we do in bed so I said nothing. After all, the police probably have too much to do looking for traitors and deserters to worry about drugs.


10th May 1931

Mr O'Leary has been arrested! Police raided his laundry at six o'clock this morning and found tons of drugs! He's been taken down the city jail and nobody is allowed to see him. There's no point me going down there anyway is there?

A friend of Lionel's bumped into me the other day. I wasn't going to bother writing this as he is the past, but without Mr O'Leary I don't have a present. The man only has one leg so works in an office. He said that he had heard that Lionel had been transferred to Omaha. They think that the next big WU attack is going to come through Nebraska.

Some Japanese aeroplanes still attack but the Canadians now have aeroplane squadrons of their own that we are allowing them to base in Minnesota. Chicago will never fall the Mayor assures us.


21st May 1931

I'm too big to do it anyway, but I want to. I bet I could find a way too. I don't feel sick like I did in Bristol. It must be because I am eating proper food and live in a warm house. Bristol is like a ghost of a memory to me now.

The newspapers say that WU forces are being held in their push across Nebraska. I can only think of Lionel in Omaha wondering when his unit will be called into action.


31st May 1931

I got another letter from Clyde! It was dated 10th May. I find that ironic as it was the day that Mr O'Leary was arrested. I don't know what has become of him. The newspapers do not say, but I saw Mr Capone in a car the other day. Nobody arrested him!

Clyde said that Faghead was dead. I had to find his last letter to read and remember who that was. It wasn't anyone interesting. Apparently Pogo and Burper also got wounded. He can't say how or where or why. What use are stupid letters like this?! I suppose I know he is still alive.


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Blair152]

The Third World War started with a surprise attack. Perfidious Albion, showing its true colours, launched a shocking and sudden attack upon the German Empire, blasting apart its Northern battle squadron in its morrings in a Norwegian fjord. The six fast battlecruisers of Admiral Lord Fisher's Rapid Force, backed up by a round dozen fast attack craft, secured a great and easy victory, if one can word it in such terms. Destroying Admiral Holtzendorff's flagship, the Thuringen within the first few minutes, Lord Fisher's force went on to sink the remaining three battleships, two cruisers and five large patrol boats, hunting the last of them down outside the town of Narvik, and blasting it apart as the locals watched on, some cheering, some crying, as befits the polarised populace of this Northern colony of Berlin.

The same day that the German battle squadron was blasted into fiery oblivion, Secretary of War, the Duke of Marlborough made a statement in the House of Lords. Denouncing German moves into Morocco, and the recent German-Japanese alliance, his grace, Sir Winston Churchill, said, and it deserves to be quoted, "The Kaiser had it coming".

1911, and the world was to be convulsed by the third global conflict in fifty years. It was the curse of the age, war upon war, decade after decade of hostilities, both hot and cold. Ever since the Great European War of 1861-3, latterly renamed the First World War after the entry of the United States in 1862, and of the CSA in opposition, the fate of states has been in the hands of an increasingly small number of individuals.

Prime Minister the Earl of Derby would later reinforce his Secretary of War by issuing a statement from Number 10 Downing Street that said that "German support for the rebels in Ireland, and for anti-British positions in Mexico, and in China, created this crisis". On the back of the declaration of war, and without doubt sanctioned well in advance of it, British forces from Belize, Cuba and Miskitia invaded the Mexican Empire, and the Army of the Yangtse, under the command of Field Marshal, the Earl French, invaded China.

China, the eternal battleground, war front in both 61-63 and 79-84. But its neighbours, how much changed can a couple of decades make them. By the time of the Second World War at the end of the 1870s, Japan was a new country, an empire under an emperor, having kicked out the Shogun in the wake of its disastrous involvement in the First war. By the time the Third came around, Japan was a world power, possession of the Philippines having catapulted it to starburst qualities, and naval victory over China in 1889 having brought with it regional hegemony. But a hegemony always challenged by Britain, and with the Chinese Empire collapsing irredeemably in 1902, the instability of the warlord states meant that Brtain and Japan were always heading towards that fatal clash. But come 1911, and Japan was the power raging ahead, Germany its new ally, and Britain playing catch-up, its Army of the Yangtse barely holding onto the balance of power in Shantung.

Defeat, what did defeat matter? By 1911 all defeats of the past were now but way-stations on the way to the future. Russia, the USA, even Japan in its Shogunate form, had all risen again from 1863 by the time of the Second conflict. The Second war, 1879-84 saw a defeat for France, for Spain and for Italy, but by the turn of the new century all had been forgotten. France was again risen from its eternal ashes, Spain under its new Hohenzollern dynasty powerful without, yet weak within, and Italy under the breakaway Savoyard splinters stronger than it had been when fully legitimate. Abyssinia, Tunis, Greece, all had now been subdued and the new king was riding high in his martial glory.

Thus did Italy now cleave to Britannia's side, fighting to hold on to what it had, to keep at bay the rapacious wolves of a risen France, and the covetous hands of a Germany whose positions in Egypt and increasingly in Morocco, made it look back towards the centre. France, in Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Tripoli ruled with rods of iron and loins of gold, but Italy with its newer hold on Tunis, intrigued against by the French, and hated by many they had come to rule, looked a tasty morsel. German merchants, German warships had in recent years become more popular within this colony of Italy, and the Kaiser's choice of envoy, in choosing his close personal friend THE GAY BLOKE, for the Italian King's Tenth Anniversary Celebrations in Tunis, had shown not how much Berlin thought of Rome, but how much it valued its growing interests within the colony.

Spain was bound by blood Romanian to the German Empire, the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns having spread wing and taken root in Madrid upon the collapse of the Carlists in 1884, and the failure of the generals to agree a republic. With other branches of the Borbon dynasty devastated by combat, and with the French and Italians in disarray, Berlin had pushed for its candidate and in the chaos of peace, with Cuba under the British boot, and the Philippines a possession of their Japanese ally, Madrid had seized upon the proferred hand of friendship, and installed the Hohenzollern with pomp and hatred.

Japan would build upon victory secured on the coat-tails of Britain, to move from the Philippines in 1884 to a resounding defeat of the Chinese five years later, a regional conflict that precipitated the collapse of the last vestiges of power within that empire. For a decade peking would fight to hold onto its provinces, but with the European powers landing armies, building bases and reinforcing their positions directly, it had little chance. For a time Russia tried to play the richer cousin, lending money to the Emperor, selling warships at cut prices, but the death of Tsar Nikolai II and the accession of his nephew Nikolai III, meant that the mid 1890s saw a turning point there as well. A convulsive civil war erupted to end in 1902 with the eclipse of the central authority and the proclamations of the generals in the provinces that henceforth they would rule their own affairs, and pay tribute only to Peking - tribute that very rarely began to be paid, and where it did begin, very quickly ceased. The Emperor did not even rule his own domain, a general of the new school having established his rule over the land from Peking down to Tientsin; he was but a symbol of unity for a state that knew none, a man whom half the world still professed to believe ruled his dominions, but for the other half had ceased to be important. The United States of America, to mis-name the half-country, was foremost amongst those who severed all ties with the Imperial Court and accredited directly ambassadors to the strongest of the generals in their provincial powerhouses.

Iturbide's reborn empire was a child of the First World War, of French martial glory and of chaos wrenching the United States, as was, apart. Convulsion was a word that the Mexicans knew well, rebellions, revolution and coups d'etat a common place, always under the Emperor who sat above such things, but still controlled them. Oft-times it was whispered that he meddled in the coups themselves, backed one general over another, met in secret with rebel leaders, or with elder statesmen, always balancing thinly on the rail, but always there after the next convulsion has shaken the country down. But age sets in, and the greatest challenge is now upon him - invaded by Britain, how can he react?

This war would be the first with the new technologis of the air, of the road, and of under the sea. All wars see new technology, but many would argue that the outbreak of the Third World War would be more significant than anything that had come before. This would be the first war where airships played any part - true Italy had had some at the turn of the century in their conquest of Tunis and both Britain and Germany had deployed a few in China, but this would be as nothing compared to the war to come. Automobiles now ruled the road in technological terms, trucks and vans the vehicle of choice, where choice was possible, and amoured tractors a new development in artillery; and it would be a prescient man indeed who could predict where this might lead.

Battleships and battlecruisers ruled the waves, but the submarine was now taking up its place of palatial residence beneath it. A few prototypes had seen action in the Second World War, and Japan had even used one in 1889 to enter Kiaochau harbour and sink a Chinese corvette, but this new war would see the submarine given full and free rein. Whilst in battleships and battlecruisers the scores were easy to achieve, with the order of prominence being simple, in submarines it was far more complicated as many states had older models on the navy lists, some of which would prove to be just hulks, others serviceable but obselete, and yet others surprisingly useful in the early phase of the new conflict. An example of the first was the CSA with around twenty submarines on the list, but only a bare handful of any serviceable quality. Japan proved to have around a dozen serviceable submarines, but it quickly became apparent in operations that they were vastly out-classed, and a crash programme of new construction was ordered. Surprising the world, the Ottoman Empire made great efforts to get their five old submarines, dating back to the mid 1890s into action, and every one secured a kill, two of these ancient vessels going on to control swathes of the Aegean in the early months of the war, the most celebrated sinking the Italian battleship Pisa after almost ten hours of patient stalking.

But it would be the new submarine fleets that would make their mark on history, just as on the surface the modern battleships and battlecruisers were doing. With regard to the latter, the silver and grey behemoths of the blue, it was with them that Britain would start the war, and it was with them that it would anchor its hopes for the coming conflict. Nobody could deny that the annihilation of Holtzendorff's squadron was a bitter blow for Germany, not only removing its offensive power, but leaving the whole of their Norwegian colony open to British attack. Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, was loathe to send any further ships to the furthest North, but a raging, ranting Kaiser convinced him to detach Admiral the Graf von Spee's 1st Battlesquadron from the fleet. It would not be taken off-guard, and made the journey escorted by two other battle squadrons, which then returned to home waters. The Graf von Spee made the most of his unwanted honour, soon taking charge of the Northern cruiser patrols and setting up raiding squadrons, and sorties into the Atlantic that soon began to have a paralysing effect upon British trade.

A coup de main cannot easily be repeated once the enemy are on their guard, and though Admiral Lord Fisher once again closed with the Northern fjords it took only a submarine's torpedo to drive him off, the antiquated rust-bucket out of Trondheim firing not very accurately at the London but almost hitting the Albion that was making up the rear. Fisher ordered his ships home, not knowing that one shot was all that the ancient submarine was capable of, and not knowing that one submarine was all that the German navy had in these waters. Five days later a division of German troops put ashore at Narvik, setting up coastal defence batteries, and putting prototype aeroplanes up into the air. Who knows what would have happened if Fisher had pressed the attack - all one can be sure of is that there would not have been any further submarine attacks.

A month later that too was not to be the case. The Imperial Yards had been busy, and six submarines would reside at Narvik by late May 1911. The same could be said in reverse for many of the other powers involved in the Third World War; starting from a low, or non-existent threshold, by the time that three months had gone by Britain, France, Russia and Italy all had up-to-the-minute models of submarines coming out of their yards and into operational service. Some would score spectacular one-off successes - the sinking of the Swedish flagship by the Russian Krelbe or the two Spanish scout cruisers that the Italian Aquila sank in the space of two hours. Many would achieve nothing - the entire French Northern submarine squadron sank a grand total of three ships in the first twelve months of the war.

Trade warfare would change things. It was far from a taboo subject, though internationalists would like to point to treaties that the combatants had signed in previous decades. Once in a war, none of the powers felt bound by such high-minded agreements, and it was not long before rules that they had in fact fought for were being ignored by the very powers which had made the biggest fuss about them. From Narvik, Admiral the Graf von Spee organised the cruisers into effective trade warfare units, whilst in Queenstown, Ireland, Rear Admiral Roger Keyes did the same for the first tranche of British submarines to come off the slipways and into service. By mid 1912 everybody in theory wanted to sink everybody else's merchant ships and hang the laws that said otherwise. It would take only a year from the British attack on Narvik in April 1911 to the British attack on a German convoy to the USA in April 1912 for a new way of doing things to fully bed in - the five heavy and six scout cruisers under Admiral the Lord Hood would totally devastate the German convoy, despite Britain's signature on agreements outlawing such actions in international treaties of 1890 and 1905.

The next generation perhaps would not be so gullible, would not believe that what a country signed up to in peace time it would abide by in war time. Certainly no country ever really believed another, and it was only the poor mugs who had the misfortune to be citizens of a signatory country who might find themselves truly disillusioned. Certainly neither Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, nor Admiral the Graf von Spee, ever expected Britain to abide by its treaty obligations, and this lack of such expectation of course enabled them to more quickly respond to and counter British actions in these areas. The same can be said if turned around, and for many countries who found themslves dragged into this war. But there were those who had assumed that treaties meant agreement, or who had hoped it did because they could not afford the alternative, and chief amongst the nations disappointed in a rude manner was to be the United States of America, misnamed Northern powerhouse, sandwiched between British Canada and the always unpredictable Confederacy.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Isn't this entire scenario ASB?

 

[Grey Wolf]

Isn't this entire scenario ASB?

Why should it be ASB?

Or are you just trying to make me give it up?

Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara

4th June 1931

Mimi! I haven't called myself that since I was thirteen! I hit Elisa the last time she tried to call me that! Ancient history! But I need a name to use; I could hardly tell them what my real name was. The Madame understood. She said I could work for a couple of months and that they would only put trusted, known customers my way who understood what I needed. Its good to be back at work again!

A building exploded in the city today. The Mayor said it was a gas main but one of the customers for other girls was chatting, I think he is a police captain. He said it was definitely a terrorist bomb. He said it was like those going off in London! I have not heard any news from London for years. I asked the Madame if he could be my customer but she said he only liked girls of a certain age. I was angry but she is the boss.


19th June 1931

The newspapers say that Rapids City has fallen to the Canadians, and that WU forces in Sioux Falls are now cut off! The Mayor even made a speech promising that Chicago would do its bit to end that stage of the war.

I have between four and six customers a night and they all know what to do. They are very caring but not timid. It is good to go back in time this way, and one of them even said that if I got a letter saying my husband was dead he would marry me. The madame would be very cross about that, but I didn't tell her of course. I said come back next week and we laughed.


21st June 1931

I really am big now! But my customers know what to do.

There was news on the radio about a French landing but it was cut off by an opera. I am worried. Everybody is worried!


26th June 1931

I asked him his name. He didn't want to tell me it but I pointed out that if my husband really does die I need to know who has proposed to me. He was very solicitous after that and asked where Clyde was based. I told him Boston and he told me everything about himself. I don't know why.


28th June 1931

I know everything today! Mark came to get me from the whorehouse and we had supper in one of Mr Capone's restaurants. That's his name - Mark. Mark Catermaul, Agent of the USSS. He lives alone with a dog he tells me, and has his orders from the president in advance. There won't be any surprises with him, he says. He will know well in advance what has to be done. I think that makes a good change.

The French have landed in Massachussetts. The President is keeping it out of the news for fear of the effect it would have and he is concentrating everything he can there. And so are the Canadians. Its about equal, Mark says. If Clyde was still there he is right on the frontline.

We made love at his apartment and he told me that if Clyde is dead he will marry me and be the legal father of the baby. Not long to go now...


3rd July 1931

I had spasms this morning but it turned out to be nothing. Mark works odd hours and now I am living in his house. He does have a dog, a small spaniel who is quiet but funny. He also has a housekeeper, an Indian woman who doesn't bat an eyelid to see me there.


12th July 1931

I had a lovely baby girl!

Russia attacked Japan!

I don't know which is the more amazing!!!!



Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

12th July 1931

Richmond
Confederate States of America
12th July 1931


Editorial in The Richmond Times

World War Four! That is what they are calling it today. Everything changed. It is what they call a paradigm shift.

Even the most unseasoned observer can detect an atmosphere of nervousness around the Confederate capital today. Russia's entry into the war on the side of the USA and Canada has thrown the conflict wide open. Whereas until now, the US efforts at defence had been sterling and sound, and the Canadians had been bold and solid, there was always the feeling that the combined weight of the Franco-Japanese alliance would sink their common cause, as it had done ours. The Western Union is a puppet in a play, and we all know whose play.

But today Tsar Roman has declared war on Japan. One can only wonder at the immensities of negotiations that underlay this action, but President Durant is an intelligent and devious man, but one thing he is not is stupid. This paper has been bold enough in the past to call him a friend of the Confederacy, in so far as the US president is a businessman who sees no enemies in a nation which is helping his business to grow. We do not think he has feelings one way or the other for the Confederacy, and that is why we have always been warm to him. His attitude has been pragmatic and even in the heat of war when the Franco-Japanese alliance threatened to lay the CSA so low that even Mexico could tear at our soul, President Durant spoke up in favour of continued neutrality, and urged the same in both Mexico City and San Francisco.

The president is not an enemy of the Confederacy. Indeed, we know now only too well who is an enemy - not just of the CSA but of the USA also. The Western Union and its French and Japanese puppet masters! In this we have common cause with the president in Washington City.

But we do not advocate war. President Beauregard was without a doubt right when he said that the CSA had neither arms nor money nor the wlll to fight another round just right now. It would be our doom and we shall never embrace that fate.

Yet we can cheer from the sidelines. Hurray to Tsar Roman, and let us hope that his intervention will bring a swift end to this conflict. World War Four or the whisking of the rug from under the feet of the Franco-Japanese Alliance? Let us hope for the latter, but let us the meanwhile prepare for the possibility of the former. If indeed it is the outbreak of a new global conflict then at some stage there can be no doubt that the Confederacy will be dragged into it. President Beauregard has already announced that he will be taking a Rearmament Plan to Congress. Let us all give it our full blessing



Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[LightInfa]

Again very interesting, although I can't get a good sense of how large the Western Union is. In regards to the Confederacy, did it just take Arizona and New Mexico, or did Texas also leave the Confederacy?

 

[imperialaquila]

A map would be very nice. It's hard to get a good sense of what exactly is going on. It's very well written, but a map would be very nice.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Again very interesting, although I can't get a good sense of how large the Western Union is. In regards to the Confederacy, did it just take Arizona and New Mexico, or did Texas also leave the Confederacy?

I wrote myself some VERY rough notes on this, so I'll post them here for you:-

Roughly, the British took:-

Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, N Dakota

when we say British this is all part of the virtually independent Dominion of Canada by 1930



Independent California includes :-

California, W Nevada, SW Arizona



The CSA took :-

the rest of Nevada, the rest of Arizona, Utah, Colorada, New Mexico, Kansas, Wyoming

These areas together with Texas seceded in 1927 to form the Western Union

The CSA also has :-

Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, & of course W Virginia which never seceded



The USA has :-

S Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska

It is these areas that the Western Union go to war with the USA over in 1930


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

Extracts from the Scrapbook of Mary Martha O'Hara

9th November 1931

It didn't become World War 4 though some people say it should have done. Russia was defeated but the Japanese had to pull back from North America to do this. This allowed us to secure the West. France negotiated a peace and went home. What was the war for? No territory has changed hands. The WU are worse off than ever. They say another famine is coming their way. Everybody lost.

Clyde is coming home. I don't want that. He has been in a French prisoner-of-war camp but now they are releasing everybody. I have moved in with Mark and we are raising Emily Alethea together. We named her after my grandmother and Mark's mother. Clyde won't be pleased. Mark said he might be able to get a transfer back to Washington City before Clyde gets home. I hope so!


12th December 1931

We finally reached Washington today! Clyde's train won't be getting into Chicago until next week so we made it out in time. I left him a letter and hope he isn't too mad!

Mark has got us accommodation in the government quarter. There is some damage here from French naval bombardment and a man Mark spoke to said that France had some ships which carried a lot of aeroplanes and flew them off a flat deck. Apparently President Durant wants us to build some of them, but the naval yards are all wrecked by the French. Mark said that he thinks the president will go behind Congress and order one from the CSA!


24th December 1931

A man was very rude to me today. He said that as I was still married to Clyde, I should have stayed with him. Mark hit him for me. It made me feel better but it wasn't fair we had to tell them anyway! I like to pretend that Mark is my husband and Emily is his. Clyde shouldn't have gone off in that stupid war.

Its Christmas Eve and the city is trying to be festive but its cold and damp, and Emily is crying a lot. I hope she gets over it soon. She was such a good baby back in Chicago. Mark says he will get her something really special for Christmas. I hope it makes her quiet!


26th December 1931

Mark has taken Emily to the park. Its snowing and he wants to play with her. I told him she's a baby and not a dog but he laughed. I think he really just wants to take her off my hands and let me get some peace. Clyde would never have done that!

The president made a speech on the radio yesterday afternoon. He says that the end of the war was a victory only for common sense and that there was no sense in it starting at all. Everybody is worse off, not only us but as the victims we suffered worst, but we did not lose. He promised us that he will spend the next year helping us to rebuild again. Then he dropped a bomb! He won't be standing for re-election in December!!! He says he's too old and should focus on rescuing what remains of his business and let a younger man take over the presidency. I wasn't the only one who cried when he said that. He has always been the President for me!


31st December 1931

Emily is finally settling down. Mark is very good with her and we went to see a cousin of his who works at the Admiralty. There were fireworks and her little eyes lit up. I don't know how much she can take in at her age. But it was a magical night. I am glad Clyde wasn't there.

They say on the radio that Canada has declared its independence from Great Britain. It will no longer be a dominion but an independent republic. How could it be a dominion anyway without a king in London? But they pretended that the Earl of Inverness at Bermuda was really King George V of Great Britain, just living in exile. It was a joke really. Now he can't even pretend to be King of Canada.

Its a New Year tomorrow. I know that Man will never stop going to war but it would be good if the USA could remain out of the next one - or two or three or four!


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Grey Wolf]

3rd May 1933

Washington City
United States of America
3rd May 1933


Editorial in The Washington News

Barbarians! Yesterday morning before dawn a gang of British murderers swarmed aboard the Earl of Inverness' yacht in Bermuda harbour and killed him, along with all his family. His wife, his sons, his daughters, even the baby, they were all slaughtered by these demons of the Revolutionary Republic. London does not even deny that it has carried out this heinous crime. It announced on its radio that the assassins will be awarded the highest honour. Barbarians! As we say.

What lessons can be learnt? The role of king is clearly dead in the modern age. First America cast it off, then the British themselves, then the Canadians. The poor fellow living in exile did not deserve to die as he did, but he ought to have been more like his brother and found something useful to do in life. Pretending to be a king is no job for a grown-up.

But the true lesson is that Britain can not be trusted. President Roosevelt got a solemn assurance out of their ambassador at his inauguration that the Revolutionary Republic will not do anything to disturb the peace in the Western hemisphere. Let them raise Hell in Europe, but on our side of the Atlantic they were to stay quiet. The threat he gave was that if not then somehow the British possessions in the Caribbean and in Central America will be at risk. Apparently the British have now called our bluff. The ambassador has been ordered to depart, but Roosevelt cannot hide from the fact that barely a couple of months into his presidency he has been defied by a gang of cut-throats, and that all his posturing was but shadow.

A clearer contrast with ex-President Durant could not be found. Even now, Willy as he insists everyone calls him, is fast at work rebuilding the remains of his motor company and talking about opening new plants in Indiana. The banks are backing him as a proven magician. Good times are on the way.

We wish we could say the same for the United States as a whole, but President Roosevelt will really need to up his game if he is to approach anywhere near the normal level of competency of his great predecessor.


Best Regards
Grey Wolf