VIII) Commonwealth
(1886-1913)
The Dutch Commonwealth of Nations
Negotiations began on-and-off in 1886. Dutch generals tried to lay terms for surrender on the Boers. The Boers, under the command of Erik van Delft, continued their stance that the Boers would not surrender. Negotiations went nowhere in 1886 and as 1887 started, King Frederick III stepped in. He ordered the army to cease operations and only fire in self defense. Frederick suggested that perhaps they should take the same approach with the Boers as they did the Brazilians; personal union.
The Boers agreed to the self-governing status but refused to have a king. For decades, their republics were ruled by assemblies and presidents, all of which were elected. The Boers did not like the idea of having somebody in power who could not be removed, a throwback to memories of VOC rule. It was van Delft that made his own proposal, via telegraph, to Frederick III. The Boers would be ‘self-governing republics within the commonwealth’. His five words changed the history of the Dutch empire.
When the idea of Commonwealth came before the Staaten-General, it met with resounding support. Though the American Revolution long since passed from living memory, the effect on the British did not. If the Boers continued their rebellion and succeeded in winning independence, it might prompt India, the Indonesian islands and Abyssinia from declaring independence. It was but a minor alteration to personal union plan. The Boer Republics would remain in commonwealth with the United Provinces and Brazil, though they would not have a monarch.
The idea further developed into a league of Dutch states, all equal in status, bound together by common language, currency and market. Each member state would send their own delegation to meet in Amsterdam at least once a year. By 1888, delegates from Brazil, the United Provinces and the Boer Republics met to draw up a charter for the commonwealth. The member states need not be in personal union with the United Provinces, but the Dutch monarch would be recognized as the head of the commonwealth. This the Boers could agree to. Since the Commonwealth Charter declared that the Commonwealth Assembly would decide a common foreign policy, the Boer Republics were technically protectorates of the Commonwealth. As was the case, their texts referred to the reigning monarch as either Lord of Lady Protector.
In effect, the Dutch Commonwealth was an imperial federation. After the Boer Republics achieved statehood, Kapenstaaten soon followed. It was the only state that did not fight against the Hague or Recife during the Boer Wars. After its admission into the Commonwealth, it was soon discussed that perhaps other colonies should be granted statehood. Ceylon, Java and Formosa were at the forefront of possibility, and would all achieve statehood within sixty years, along with several other, less outstanding colonies.
With the potential to achieve autonomy, the colonies began to strive to improve their own infrastructure and governments. Like most political innovations of the Dutch during the Nineteenth Century, it stemmed from American ideals. Ironically, it was the United Provinces and their method of preserving Provincial powers that drove framers of the American Constitution to federation, along with the diverse nature of each of the original eleven states. The formation of the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations is the key factor for preserving Dutch unity to the present day, unlike disintegration enjoyed by British, French and German colonial empires.
Berlin Conference
Following the Boer Wars, the United Provinces entered into a monumental agreement with other European powers. The sole purpose; to carve up Africa. In 1884, European empires sent delegates to Berlin. Germany, Britain, the United Provinces, Austro-Hungary, France and Spain divided the continent into their own private playgrounds. Germany and Austria were both new to the colonial game and were granted the smallest portions. The Dutch received nothing new, only insured the Boer Republics, Angola, Mozambique and Abyssinia stayed within their sphere of influence.
The British stretched their empire across southern and eastern Africa, following both the Congo and Nile rivers. They expanded their holdings in western Africa, taking up the southern half of West Africa. The northern half was annexed to Algeria and left under the direct rule of Paris. France also gained suzerainty over Madagascar. The Germans were sandwiched between British West Africa, Central Africa, and Egypt-Sudan. The Austrians gained a small section of western Africa, which upon its independence, would make up the states of Nigeria and Biafra. Spain’s big keep was Morocco. Along with Puerto Rico, the Marianas, Marshals and Caroline Islands consisted of what remained of their once world-straddling Empire.
The Berlin Conference marked the last terrestrial burst of colonialism. After Africa was carved up, there was no land on Earth, save frozen Antarctica, that could be divided between European World Powers. With no more room to expand, conflict was inevitable. Two major wars would be fought by Europeans in Africa during the Twentieth Century. No matter the victors, it was the Africans who lost. Europe’s drawing of borders cut tribes in half and contained mortal enemies into the same colony. This marked the end of peace in Africa. Even after the next two world wars, Africa would be rocked by violence during decolonization and waves of nationalism in the newly independent nations.
King William VII
Two years after the Berlin Conference, Frederick III’s health began to decline. By 1888, his son, Willem Maurice van Oranje took up the role as regent. He ruled in the name of his father. Frederick’s body might be ailing him, but his mind was still sharp. He made certain his son did not take the throne until after he died. He resisted pressure from his own family and the Staaten-General to abdicate and allow his son to rule as King. All in good time was his response. Not until January of 1891 did Frederick finally relinquish the throne and his own life. Four days after his death, his son was crowned King William VII.
Canals
By 1913, the world saw two more canals, these linking Atlantic and Pacific. The northern one was built by the French in the colonial Mexican department of Nicaragua. Though not the shortest possible route from the Carribean to the Pacific, Lake Nicaragua offered a convenient gap to allow for shipping. All that was require was a bit of dredging and some locks to connect the lake with both oceans. In 1879, the French began construction of the Nicaragua Canal.
Though completed first, its construction took far longer than the Panama Canal. The French spent twenty-six years working on their colossal project. IN truth, the French simply supervised, planned and designed the canal. Tens of thousand of their colonial ‘citizens’ toiled in the jungles of Central America, upwards to thirty percent dying during the time of construction. By annexing Mexico, France’s canal opened several years before the American’s project. Since the Confederates were allied with France through Britain, the French monopoly on canals was viewed as a threat to American national security.
In 1899, a year after the tremendous victory over Spain, and six years before the Nicaragua Canal opened, the United States pressured Grand Colombia to sell the province of Panama to the Americans. The province was quickly annexed to the state of Costa Rica. The Isthmus of Darien offered the shortest distance between the Carribean and the Pacific. It was the ideal choice for a multi-lock canal, but the Americans could not afford the project alone. They spent until 1903, searching for fiscal support.
Their strongest ally, Germany leant them support, however their arms race with Britain consumed too much of the budget. Though Germany would assist in the defense of the Panama Canal, they could ill afford to help pay for it. The Dutch, on the other hand, were friends but not allies, and were interested in a short cut to the Pacific. Though the Commonwealth had no holdings in the eastern Pacific, various Dutch interests saw they could profit from the amount of traffic that would flow through the canal. It also gave Dutch ships an alternative to paying the French or taking the long way around.
The two canals in Central America were vital to the war efforts of both alliances, though neither side attacked their opposite’s waterway. The Panama Canal was protected merely by the Dutch interest. Interfering with Commonwealth shipping was the surest way to get the Dutch Commonwealth into the Great War, and the Dutch long since learned there was little profit in war. During the Great War, each of the world’s greatest canals were given a wide berth by all the belligerents.
Emperor of India, King of Ceylon
By 1911, Ceylon were ready to take its place a nation among equals. Its economy flourished over the past fifty years, though industrialization was minimal. The Ceylonese established its own Staaten-General, which held its initial session on September 3, 1907. Though it formed its own government and written its own constitution, the Ceylonese Staaten-General entered a debate whether or not to petition for admittance. For the Commonwealth’s part, the Commonwealth Assembly had to accept the petition. The Boer Republics were concerned that Ceylonese admittance might disrupt the balance of power between the Republicans of South Africa and the Monarchists of Brazil and the United Provinces.
A minority of politicians on Ceylon wanted to establish a republic, but the majority were in favor of personal union with the mother country. In 1910, an island-wide referendum voted overwhelmingly for the creation of a monarchy, and the Staaten-General made quick to ratify the vote and elect Frederick III to be Frederick I, King of Ceylon. In January of 1911, Ceylon was granted the status of a realm within the commonwealth.
Given its location, Ceylon was the natural overseer of India, which the Indians were keenly aware of. Since the establishment of the Dutch Commonwealth, the land owners and vassals sent India into a crash course of modernization. The elite of India would do anything to not become a colony of the upstart Ceylonese, even if it meant reforming the system that gave them power. IN 1894, princes and governors of the Indian provinces met in Delhi, a city conquered only thirty years prior, to form a provisional self-government for the colony.
Up until the Delhi Conference, India was ruled directly from the Hague, and the Staaten-General appointed governor-generals over the provinces not under the rule of allies. Even the allies obeyed the commands of the Staaten-General, else they would lose all power they still retained. By 1894, though India was still sunk in poverty, the elite were determined to gain statehood for India. The issue of whether or not India would be a single nation was not much of one. Apart, the provinces and principalities were weak, and easily picked off (which was how the Dutch managed to conquer the sub-continent in the first place), but united they could stand up to any power, even their colonial master, the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
Before the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the Indians managed to slap together a coalition government, which representatives from each of the princely states and provinces. The initial Indian Staaten-General was the first unicameral parliament in the Dutch world. This did not sit well with the Hague. The Netherlander Staaten-General was determined that each parliament within the Commonwealth should be made in its own image. Though there was some opposition in the House of Electorates, India clearly fell under a matter of state and not the people. The Senaat, seeing the determination exported from India, decided to ‘aid’ their counterparts in India.
In 1905, the Staaten-General wrote a constitution for India, not to debate or discuss, but to simply accept. For the most part, it differed little from the Brazilian Constitution, including installing Frederick as the Emperor of India. The decision of republic or monarchy was stripped from India, which had not officially been granted self-determination in the first place. It is fortunate for the Dutch Commonwealth that India’s elite took the task of forming a state upon themselves. If India had remained a colony like the Indonesian islands of Formosa during the Second World War, it is entirely possible it would have followed them on the path to republic, or perhaps severed all ties from the Netherlands with the act of declaring independence.
Establishing democracy in a country that was still largely illiterate proved a daunting challenge. For decades, Commonwealth authorities struggled against election fraud throughout the provinces, or states as India soon called its own divisions. The Indian House of Electorates, between 1911 to 1941, was largely populated with Electorates that cheated their way into power. Unable to read, the voters had only the word of attendants to take for whose name they checked. Furthermore, those same Electorates blocked attempts at universal education; a literate voter might not vote for them.
Such liberties and irresponsibility made many in the Commonwealth Assembly skeptical as to whether or not India was ready for admittance. Delegates from Brazil, and of course Ceylon, argued that the more mature colonies, Java and Formosa, should be admitted before India. In April of 1911, the Assembly deadlocked on the vote, leaving the decision in the hands of the head of the Commonwealth and the tie-breaker; Frederick III.
Frederick was more than ready to have another jewel in his crown. He placed his one vote in favor of India, and on May 1, 1911, India achieved the status of realm within the commonwealth. To the average India, little changed. They were still poor, dispossessed and had little in the way of say in their lives. They would not see the fruits of statehood for decades to come. To them, the illusion of having a say in their government did not outweigh the near famine conditions across the countryside. Land was still owned by a minority who were more interested in cash crops than growing food.
Sadly, these same land owners were the largest block of India’s House of Electorates. Land reform bills were also blocked, as the minority, the legitimately elected Electorates struggled for the betterment of their country against the rural aristocracy. It took a war with Japan, when the peasantry rose up for promises of liberation by the Japanese to force the Indian Staaten-General to change. Most of this change was a combination of improved education, and a wave of assassination of landing owning elite by the poorly paid laborers under their employment. Had reforms not occurred, it is entirely likely that when the People’s Dynasty took power in China, that the masses in India would have transformed India into the Commonwealth’s only communist member.
Genesis of a New Kingdom
Following the conquest of Abyssinia, the Dutch came to realize the severe disadvantage of the Emperor of Ethiopia’s traveling court. With no fixed capital, there was no place in Abyssinia from where to govern the newly unified colony. On the other hand, Theodore’s nomadic capital also made the conquest that much more difficult. For the Dutch, governing from a fixed location were the colonial assemblies could convene was essential. Though the United Provinces had a long history of decentralization, they found that centralizing their colonial possessions was advantageous. Suggestions that the capital be placed at one of the long standing coastal cities was considered and rejected. Governor-General Johann van Oranje wished a more geographically centralized location, in which to bring the conquered provinces into a closer union.
After two years of surveying, a spot was decided upon in 1888, at the foot of a mountain in central Abyssinia with hot mineral springs in the vicinity. The capital was named Addis Ababa, from the Oromo words that mean “hot springs”. The location was ideal for controlling the conquered provinces, but suffered from its remoteness and the fact that it sat some two kilometers above sea level. For the natives and locals, the thin air was little trouble, but for people coming in from the coast, a great deal of acclimatization was required. In the first few years, one had to travel on horseback or by wagon to the city, giving plenty of time to adjust. However, when the Massawa-Addis railroad was completed, some passengers suffered from altitude sickness upon arriving in the new capital.
The city was planned out in a simple and efficient grid. In the middle of the city was lain the cornerstone of the Abyssinian Colonial Assembly building, a two story structure made from stone quarried from the nearby Entono Mountains. The governor’s mansion was built higher up on the slops of the mountain. The brick structure was designed in the Ceylonese colonial fashion, and was modeled after numerous estates on Ceylon and in India. Much of the city’s initial design was influenced by Ceylonese and Indian architecture. The design made the natives feel like aliens in their own homeland. Despite this, many of the former Ethiopian aristocracy that swore allegiance to the Hague had their own manors built in the city of the same fashion. Along with colonial design, they soon found themselves wearing Netherlander-style clothing and eating more seafood.
In its first year, Addis Ababa had a small population of 5,000, most of them native workers. The construction of the Colonial Assembly took some three years to complete, and the first assembly did not convene until 1893. Of that, more than half were white, and an addition twenty percent Somalis from the coastal regions. By 1898, the population had swelled to 30,000, as the newly finished railroad allowed easier access to the city. Despite its native name, Addis Ababa was most decidedly a Dutch city, with 63% of its population either from Europe itself or from Brazil.
After the founding of Addis Ababa, the issue of how to reach the new capital was first and foremost. For the first couple of years of the capital and its construction, the only way to reach the centralized capital was overland, and over treacherous roads. When Governor-General Johann established the capital, he also commissioned the construction of a railroad linking the capital to the sea. Between 1888 and 1890, three rival plans were designed and presented. The first would start in Mogadishu, and had the advantage of starting in a city that has long since been under Dutch rule. The second plan would link Addis Ababa and Djibouti, which would eventually be constructed. However, the topography that the planned line would pass over was also the mostly costly. The last plan was the one that was accepted, a railroad linking Massawa with the new capital.
The new railroad was constructed by the VOC, the largest freight shipper in the world, and largest railroad owner in the United Provinces, along with Ceylon, Java and Formosa, between the years 1890 and 1892. For the most part, labor was done by natives workers overseen by engineers from the United Provinces. Thousands of natives flocked to VOC camps along the proposed line, seeking employment and pay that far exceeded any they could earn in their villages. This high pay was what kept laborers flocking to the railroad, even as hundreds of natives died during the construction of the Massawa-Addis Ababa Railroad. Only a relatively small portion of these deaths were caused by workplace accidents. Most were a result of poor sanitation in the work camps coupled with crowding. The biggest death toll arose from an influenza outbreak in March of 1891, claiming at least 1,100 native workers and five Dutch engineers.
The development of the Dutch Commonwealth’s newest colony shifted into full gear during the decade of 1891 to 1900. During the span of ten years, more than eight thousand kilometers of rail were laid, most ending at Massawa, Djibouti or Mogadishu. For the first time in its history, the land once known as Ethiopia had the ability to transfer food from fertile and abundant regions to those of shortages. The transportation of food was no a humanitarian aid effort but rather the first step in trade; to get one’s goods to where they are in demand. The new network of rail also transported the 500,000 colonists that arrived in Abyssinia from the United Provinces, Brazil, and even some non-Dutch states in the same decade. Abyssinia is seen as a new land of opportunity as a land rush of the likes that have not been seen in over a century. The influx of immigrants begins the process of Dutchification of the conquered Ethiopians.
To make communication more efficient, especially with the capital and the coastal ports, two thousand kilometers worth of telephone cable was lain. Addition lines reached across the ocean; the first Abyssinia-India cable was lain in 1897. With this new link, communication between the United Provinces and its eastern colonies could be accomplished with the telegraph and telephone in a matter of minutes, instead of hours (by being routed through foreign cables) or weeks by messenger. The centuries old irrigation system of Abyssinia was modernized. Wind mills were installed to pump water from below grown, while steam engines pumped water through pipes that ran hundreds of kilometers. To further ensure a steady water supply for agriculture, and as a source of power, the Dutch began in 1899, to dam the Blue Nile, much to Egypt, and their British masters, protest. In 1894, the first electrical power plant was constructed in Massawa. The electricity was used to power the few start-up factories in Massawa, such as canneries and textile mills, fed by coffee plantation and wool from the native’s goats and sheep.
The first elections held in Abyssinia were held in 1905, and where for the newly established colonial assembly. Unlike the Staaten-General, these assemblies had no legislature power. They were instead advisory councils for the Governor-Generals appointed by the King. The Governor-General could easily overrule the assembly, or simply ignore them altogether. Most of Abyssinia was under the control of the Hague and the colonial ministry. The Abyssinian Budget was ratified by the United Provinces’ Staaten-General. The real purpose of the colonial assembly and its elections was to prepare the Abyssinians for self-governing. In 1901, when the colonial assembly was conceived in the Hague, an estimated thirty years would be required for Abyssinia to be ready for statehood and to form its own government.
Eligibility for voting was based on manhood suffrage. All Netherlands, Brazilian (and to be blunt, white Abyssinians) along with long loyal Somali citizens were immediately able to vote. For the regions that was once Ethiopia, the Dutch were more careful who they gave the vote to. Those who actively oppose the Dutch government, or served the last Ethiopian Emperor were disenfranchised. Loyal former-Ethiopians who could prove their residence were allowed to vote in their districts. Each of these districts were divided by population, with one assemblyman for every one hundred thousand people. In the firmly Dutch districts, voter turnout was high, upwards to 90%. In the conquered interior, turnouts were as low as 20%. Many who could vote, refused to participate in the new government. IN some cases, entire tribes boycotted the elections in 1905 and 1910.
In the coastal districts, cases of voter fraud are now apparent. New voting machines were set up in Djibouti and Massawa, with delegates under the control of the Abyssinian Rail Company relieving a disproportionally higher percentage. It has now been proven that not only did they buy votes, they also bribed voting officials to stuff the ballot boxes. In the interior, more voter trouble came up. The Dutch authorities refused to speak any language but Dutch, the international language of trade. However, many of the interior population could not speak Dutch, or even read, despite a recent effort to bring education into the Highlands. This caused them to rely upon Dutch-speaking neighbors to aid them in the election, and relied upon the election officials to read the choices to them. In this case, it is easy to imagine that officials.
The candidates were not selected by the people. Instead, the Governor-General selected two to four candidates from each district to serve as advisors. In the coastal districts, many of the candidates were merchants and corporate interests. In the interior, no native candidates were available, and to upset the natives more was that they were all Dutch, all white. The only Africans who served on the first colonial assembly were elected from southern districts by the Somali tribes and urbanites.
VOC Consolidation
By 1877, the VOC climbed to the number one spot for shipping in the world. Its climb back to the top included absorbing two smaller shipping companies, and more importantly, their ships and contracts. The first was in 1870, followed by the second in 1883. By the time of its second acquisition all VOC ship were steam driven, with masts and sails only as auxiliary. Given a good wind, captains would still rather have a free push from the air than to burn through fuel. The Company approved of still using sails, but mostly for cost-effectiveness than from nostalgia of a by-gone age. Its return to the top in 1877, also made the VOC the first billion guilder company in the Dutch Commonwealth.
Another bit of technological progress that the VOC grabbed originated in America. The telegraph (and later telephone) were quick in supplanting written messages. The VOC formed VOC Communications to take advantage of this new form of communication. In 1861, the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable snaked its way from Dunkirk to Cayenne, in northern Brazil. More cables were lain by the VOC, on both the land and in the sea, linking states and colonies of the Dutch Commonwealth by the 1880s. The VOC was not the only communication company, but because of its diverse portfolio, quickly became the largest. The company purchased a copper mine in Brazil in 1874, to secure a steady supply of the metal for its cables.
By the end of the century, more than 30% of all Dutch commerce was being shipped by the VOC. Lower rates undercut the competition, and though bad for competition, low rates always go over well with the consumer. The VOC’s own private navy, though small by its predecessor’s standards, still offered the protection in dangerous waters that smaller companies just could not manage. Along with telegraphed messages, the VOC opened its own private post office as part of VOC Communications in 1892.
The VOC almost always caught on to new technologies quickly. However, in the case of oil, it was slower to take. Standard Oil of the United States already dominated the kerosine market in America before the VOC began to investigate it. Before, oil was processed from whales. It did not take a modern marine biologist to understand that whaling on an industrial level was not sustainable. Thus, the VOC paid little attention to oil. When oil began to be extracted from the ground in Pennsylvania, the Company saw it as a fluke. When oil fields were found all over the world, the Board began to pay attention. When a kerosine byproduct, gasoline, began to show promise, the VOC moved into action. In 1895, the VOC managed to purchase Royal Dutch Shell, and renamed it VOC Oil, occasionally still referred to as VOC Shell. It proved a wise move, though the VOC was unable to dominate the oil industry, it did secure for itself a fuel source, as well as a product for sell throughout the Twentieth Century.
Reformation of the American Republic
Following the disastrous defeat of the Third Anglo-American War, the United States was confronted by a recently united Germany. Their own victory over the French in 1875 left Germany the preeminent power in Continental Europe. Germany had much in common with the United States. Like the Americans, the Germans were surrounded by rivals and enemies; France in the west, and the Swedish Empire in the east. In the event of war, it was highly likely that either nation would come to the aid of the other, just as the British would aid the Confederates.
Unlike the United States, whose army consisted of mostly militia and poorly trained volunteers, the German Empire had a powerful, professional army. Again, unlike the United States, Germany lacked many native resources to support a first-rate world power. Germany expanded its colonial empire, from its Eighteenth Century colony o Rio de la Plata, into Africa and the Pacific during the Nineteenth. The United States had no need for a colonial empire, for it already had the resources within its own borders.
In 1887, the German ambassador approached the State Department with the proposal of an alliance. The Germans required raw materials, and the Germans knew that America required more order and discipline in its society. The Democrat Majority in Congress saw the advantages of an alliance, however, traditions of isolationism brought much debate. The recently established Socialist Party was against the alliance and apparent militarization of the United States. Many compromises would be reached as German methods were adapted to American society.
Once the alliance was ratified, a series of laws were passed during the 1890s aimed at strengthening America. In 1891, the American Draft Act, in which all men over eighteen years of age, regardless of color, must serve two years within their state’s militia (later National Guard). The goal of conscripting the population into the part-time army was that in the event of a major war, America would have a vast pool of trained men in which it could call upon. Conscription into the regular army could only happen, by law, in the event war was declared.
Training of the militia would be done by the regular army and its German drill instructors (at least until enough American sergeants could be trained as D.I.s). Militias would receive the same basic training as the regular army, and would be required to serve and train one week per month. They would also be called up in the event of emergency. Not only would America have a pool of reserves, but a sense of national pride would be ingrained into most of America’s men. Further laws were passed allowing women to take many of the non-industrial jobs that men would fill during peace time.
During the 1890s, the United States underwent a series of reforms under the Prussian and German model. There was a great deal of resistance to these changes, who viewed anything foreign with suspicion. There was no desire among the American population to become Europeans. Unlike the Confederate States, who were willfully turning themselves into an imitation of the United Kingdom. Ironically, the Confederacy had a central government with more power than that of the Americans, including rationing, conscription, and control of strategic resources by the state.
In 1894, the American Congress passed the Wartime Conscription and Rationing Act. This act would give the federal government extended power over both after war had been declared. Clauses in the bill ensured that war must be declared, for even some of the politicians feared misuse of this. The Socialist Party was in favor of expanding the rationing to permanency, which drove the Democrats in Congress to insert the war clause. Both parties favored conscription; the Democrats for the expanded manpower and Socialists because it applied to all citizens. Attempts to allow draft substitutes, as existed during the Civil War, was removed from the bill.
The necessity of the bill was another effect of the disaster of the Third Anglo-American War. The United States was trapped between two enemies; the British and Canadians to the north and the Confederates to the south. America had enemies on both sides in common with the Germans, and this was part of the German-American alliance. America’s loss in the past two wars, and Germany’s success in its last two also prompted the United States Army to learn from the Prussian model, though with American twists, such as the militia (later renamed National Guard).
The Socialist Party began back in the 1870s, during a second wave of industrialization in the United States. The divide between haves and have-nots vastly increased during this time, as did ramped exploitation of the workers. Attempts to unionize and strike by miners in Pennsylvania were usually put down by violent means. Some radical miners supported the overthrow of government. The majority turned to the newly formed Socialist Party to advance their causes.
Between 1864 and 1886, the United States was effectively a one-party state, with a constant Democratic presence in the Presidency and dominance of Congress. Following the Third Anglo-American War, and the Democrat’s rather jingoistic response, many of the American voters turned away from them. The Republican Party did not survive Lincoln on a national scale, though it still thrives in the Midwest to this date. The Depression following the Treaty of Boston caused the Socialists to meteorically rise on the national stage.
Another byproduct of the war was a wave of immigration into the United States, from the Confederate States. With the expansion of the land-owning aristocracy, small farmers left Texas and Oklahoma to try their luck in Kansas and Nebraska. Many of the immigrant families would have decedents that would deeply impact the history of the 20th Century. Names such as Eisenhower.
The first test of the United States Army’s German-style training came in 1898. For a decade, the last Spanish colony in the Americas, Puerto Rico, waged a war of independence. Atrocities upon Atrocities were reported by journalists covering the war on the island. The sensationalist journalism did much to sell papers, and though the Spanish did execute rebels, it was far from the genocidal campaign reported. However, the fact that a colonial power was so close to the United States (not counting French rule in Mexico) outraged many in the public. Many felt it was America’s duty to liberate its fellow republic.
The debate in Congress and the streets was about whether America could defeat Spain. After two lost wars, the damage to America’s confidence remained. Many thought a quick war would do much to restore national pride. Furthermore, many in the government, including future President Theodore Roosevelt, believed in using the war in Puerto Rico as an excuse for a wider campaign to seize control of the Marianas. The United States already had control over Midway and Wake, both as coaling stations. The Marianas would extend American interests into the western Pacific.
America did, already, have interests on Puerto Rico. With Cuba under Confederate control, and many other islands in British hands, Americans held a sizable investment in Puerto Rico. With war tearing the island apart, sugar interests were hurting. Several American ships were sent to patrol the waters, to keep an eye on interests. Some claim that certain elements in power were attempting to incite a war. Whether this was true or not matters little, since on April 3, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine blew up off the coast of the island. The cause was a coal fire near the magazine, but at the time, the most plausible cause was a Spanish mine. As a result, three weeks later, Congress moved to declare war on Spain.
On May 1, Commodore Dewey, based in the German port of Tsaingpo, in China, received orders for his squadron and its marines to attack the Marianas and land on both Guam and Saipan. The small Spanish fleet based at the islands, mostly antiquated ships, were all but destroyed after a three hour battle. The Spanish governor of the Marianas surrendered to Dewey on June 12, 1898, after a short land campaign on Guam.
The war on Puerto Rico lasted for three months, most of the time was spent assembling the United States Army in Baltimore and New Amsterdam, and sailing down to the island. The Spanish fleet at Puerto Rico was trapped at San Juan for the duration, except for one sortie on June 4, where it was beaten back by American cruisers. Eighteen thousand Americans aided (rather ordered around) the rebels and defeated the ten thousand man Spanish garrison.
The war was an excellent test for the new reforms in the United States Army. Not counting the Indian Wars, the Army performed with better efficiency than any previous war. It also suffered proportionally fewer casualties, most of which were from tropical disease. The war was quick and victorious, and restored much of America’s pride to its people. The material rewards from the war came in the form of the Mariana Islands. The Spanish War was a test run for the Army, many lessons learned here would be applied to the two-front war that would break out fifteen years later.
During his lifetime, Abraham Lincoln was vilified. Such character assassinations followed his death in 1866, and continued until after the Third Anglo-American War. By 1899, the intellectuals in academia began to reevaluate Lincoln’s contribution. His stance against the Confederacy and the British was considered visionary by 1900. He went from demonized to deified in the view of the public. Buildings, ships and cities were renamed in his honor. Even the capital of Nebraska, McClellan, was renamed Lincoln. His stance against the Confederate States would inspire future fights against the Confederacy.
When Roosevelt became president, after McKinley was killed at the 1900 World’s Fair by an anarchists (the first president to be assassinated), he credited Lincoln in started the struggle against Southern Imperialism. If not for his stance, the southern states would be dictating the affairs of the entire country. During his first two terms (1900-1908) Roosevelt would build the country towards the war he knew was approaching. The United States joined the arms race that consumed a sizable amount of resources of both Britain and Germany.
Though he was a Democrat, Roosevelt fought against the large trusts that had a stranglehold on the nation’s economy. Monopolies in coal, steel, oil and rail were broken during his presidency. Though he was very aggressive in foreign affairs, he was the first president to be progressive domestically. Roosevelt’s history on fighting political corruption and business interests date back to his time as New Amsterdam Police Commissioner, and later governor of New Amsterdam. After his short bout in the Spanish War, Roosevelt returned to New Amsterdam to continue his fight. Enemies within his own party conspired to rid themselves of him, and thus the Democratic Party gave him the Vice Presidency in hopes of keeping him quiet.
Once in Philadelphia, Roosevelt did not stop fighting against both corruption and big business. Roosevelt’s fight against trusts was not so much out of compassion for the little guy, but he believed that strategic resources in the hands of a few went against National Interests. Furthermore, he was all for competition, and having the better business win. A wave of scandals within the Democratic Party during his presidency stemmed from those very trusts that were broken. Dozens of representatives and governors were financed by the likes of Standard Oil and JP Morgan.
In 1903, Roosevelt traveled to New Grenada (the first president to leave the country while in office) to negotiate the purchase of Panama. To prove how serious he was on the matter, he was accompanied by the United States Navy’s Carribean Squadron (based out of Port Lincoln, formerly Port Limon). Thousands of soldiers poured into Costa Rica to make the clear impression upon Colombia that Roosevelt would not take no for an answer. On October 8, 1903, the United States purchased Panama from New Grenada for fifteen million dollars. The acquisition was annexed to Costa Rica, and the United States entered a joint-venture with the Dutch Commonwealth in the construction of the Panama Canal (to rival the Entente controlled Nicaragua Canal).
Roosevelt, from his time in Montana, was keenly aware that the wild areas of America were rapidly vanishing. Though he did not establish the first National Park (that would be Yellowstone in 1871, he vastly expanded the concept of conservation in America. His views on equality in the law continued to push him out of Democrat favor. He even pushed a Constitutional Amendment through Congress that gave the vote to all men. He reasoned that if a man (black or Indian) could shed blood for his country, then he should vote for who ran the show. This by no means meant Roosevelt was color-blind.
By 1908, Roosevelt felt that he accomplished his mission and was set to retire. He hand picked his successor, William Taft of Ohio, his vice president. He believed Taft capable of maintaining the new status quo, but lacked the initiative to alter it. Roosevelt was proven wrong when Taft led the Democratic Party back to its business of supporting big business. They even rolled back many of the reforms Roosevelt championed. When 1912 came around, Roosevelt decided to run for a third term, and re-establish his legacy. When he tried to gain the Democratic nomination, he was quickly shot down.
Instead of giving up, Roosevelt left the party with many like-minded individuals and formed the Progressive Party. With no serious contender on the Socialist ticket, it was a fight against Roosevelt and Taft. With tensions rising in Europe, Roosevelt’s hard-line against America’s enemies clinched the election for him. In 1913, the Progressive Party took the presidency along with New England governorships, Senate seats, and sixty-three seats in the House of Representatives.
Sweden on the Mend
The Swedish church is an evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church following the Swedish seizure of the Russian crown. It is a mostly Orthodox Christian sect with a great deal of influence from Lutheranism. The birth of this branch of Orthodoxy has its beginnings in the later Eighteenth Century when King Charles XV of Sweden converted to Orthodoxy, and changed Swedish laws to allow all of his subjects. The reasoning for his conversion was to bring the King closer to his Russian and Ukrainian subjects. It caused much stir amongst his native and Finnish subjects. With so many language barriers, the King sought a way to unite all his subjects, and religion was the only other option.
As more Swedes converted, more Lutheran teachings were being absorbed by the new church, and accepted by the Patriarch of Moscow. By 1870, the new Swedish Orthodox Church was proclaimed, with its religious center in Moscow. By the start of the Twentieth Century, it was declared Sweden’s state religion. Its conception and continued existence shows that though Sweden might control the Russian lands politically, Russian culture seeped back to Stockholm, gradually assimilating the ruling people.
The vast Swedish Empire was nearly torn asunder in the 1870s. Revolutions were sweeping through the Slavic populations of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Both empires ruthlessly crushed the revolutions, imprisoning or exiling tens of thousands of revolutionaries. The same fervor swept across the border into Sweden’s Ukrainian and Russian provinces in 1878. At the time, Sweden had a strong king and relatively weak parliament which was dominated by the nobility of Sweden. These were of primarily Swedish decent. The nobles in Russia were descended from officers in the Army of Charles XII, which conquered the Russian Empire and took the crown of the Tsar for Sweden. Elections were limited to land owners. In this case it was not a solely Swedish affair, though ethnic Swedes did have a disproportional high percentage of the votes.
Some of the more radical revolutionaries sought independence of their own states and even reviving the Russian Empire. A majority of the dissatisfied desired more home rule and a new constitution. Only a few years earlier, the Swedish King, Charles XV had proclaimed the founding of the Swedish Orthodox Church, an attempt to unite his subjects, to bring unity to a diverse population. Swedish Nobles wished to quash the revolution, but the King, being a recently converted Orthodox, was sympathetic to the peasants. When petitioned, the King granted an audience to representatives from the east. On August 24, he opened and presided over a Constitutional Convention. For three months, delegates from Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and the Ukraine met in Stockholm to debate over a new government. The in-fighting within the convention was almost as fierce as any civil war.
Many of the finer points of the new Constitution borrowed from the established Constitutions from the United States and the United Provinces. The Constitution abolished all hereditary titles save that of the King. It further established universal manhood suffrage for those above the age of twenty-four. Most critical is that the unicameral elected parliament would have complete control over the budget and can no longer be dissolved arbitrarily by the King. Parliament must vote its own consent to be dissolved. It was not a perfect solution, but it did prevent Sweden from collapsing the way of the Austrians and Turks would in 1916.
The Cossacks became an essential part of the Swedish Army during the Great Northern War, when they sided with Charles XII against Tsar Peter. Upon defeating the Russians and taking the crown for his own, Charles ended serfdom and stripped the boyas of their lands. The Cossacks were freed, and swore undying loyalty to the Swedish crown. They fought valiantly in the wars of the Eighteenth Century, and against Napoleon in the early Nineteenth Century. The horsemen were cut to pieces during the initial days of the Great War, when attempting to ride forth into German machine gunfire. The Cossacks were relegated to reserves, in the event that a breakthrough allowed cavalry to roll up the lines.
Today, the Cossacks still serve the Swedish Crown. All Cossack men volunteer for service, and serve in their respected Armor Division for at least one tour of duty. Horse riding is still popular in the towns on the steppe where the Cossacks live, but mechanized transportation has largely supplanted any applications. Whereas Cossacks could once ride by the time they could walk, they are now able to drive a car by the age of ten, and are adept mechanics. They know their cars and tanks as well as they know their horses. When not at war, the most skilled Cossacks participate in various races around the world, including the Jacksonville 500.
Cossack society is a warrior society. Their communities value bravery, honor and loyalty. One’s honor is so important in Cossack communities, the slightest insult can spark off a feud. They view not taking revenge as weakness, and this sometimes brings them into conflict with Swedish law. Cossacks also have problems when dealing with the more liberal elements of Swedish society, including pacifists. After decades of peace in the Twentieth Century, questions have been raised by the Swedish government as to what is the point in retaining the Cossacks’ service.
Taking Sides
By 1901, the start of the Twentieth Century, European nations were steadily moving towards one camp or another. On one side, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Sweden and the Confederate States of America banded together by 1910 to form the Quintuple Entente. The Entente evolved out of a British-Confederate pact dating back to the mid-1860s, adding both Spain and France to their alliance after German tromped the French during the Franco-Prussian War. A strong Germany dominating Central Europe was seen as a threat to Britain. Sweden was convinced to sign on in 1910 when it found itself in direct competition with Germany over the Polish-Lithuanian throne.
Germany formed its own alliance to face off against the Anglo-French hordes on its western frontier. Austro-Hungary and Italy were allied with Germany, forming what would be called the Central Powers by 1900. The fourth member, the United States of America, reluctantly signed an alliance with Germany in 1905. Since the days of George Washington, the United States made it policy not to get entangled with European affairs. However, like Germany, the United States were in the center of the continent, trapped between foes. Since the Confederates made no qualms about signing alliances with America’s oldest nemesis, the United Kingdom, the Americans had little choice but to seek outside aid. This was all too clear after the disastrous Third Anglo-American War of 1882-85.
The United Provinces were allied with neither side. Instead, they formed the Dutch Commonwealth with their own allies. Nominally neutral, the Commonwealth would not hesitate to engage in warfare should their interests ever be threatened. As far as European wars were concerned, the Dutch long since learned of the profit of neutrality. They also learned what happened when they aligned themselves with a foreign power, as was the case with Britain during the Eighteenth Century.
The fourth component lay in the aging and ailing Ottoman Empire. They were non-aligned but far from neutral. Given tensions that occasionally rise in the Balkans or on the Black Sea, the Turks could quickly find themselves at war with either the Austrians or the Swedes, or both. The Entente and Central Powers both had the Turks in consideration should war between the two alliances erupt. Both sides will use every diplomatic tool in their arsenal to get the Turks to declare war on their opposite number.
Neutral nations factored little into international policy before the Great War. The Latin American nations were of no real consequence, nor was Siam. By 1910, China’s Manchu Dynasty came to an end, and China plunged into a warring states period. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s own stance of neutrality made for an excellent buffer zone between Sweden and Germany. The only real contender was that of Japan. By 1910, they had considerable colonial gains
in Korea along with Kamchatka. Though the far northeastern reaches of Asia were frozen on their best of days, they were rich in mineral wealth. The Japanese brought Korean laborers into the deadly environment by the tens of thousands, many of which never saw home again.
Germany and Britain played a dangerous game in the build up of arms during the first decade of the Twentieth Century. This build up is primarily what allowed the World Powers to wage war between 1913-16. Though it was not the casus belli, it did allow many nations to expend the surplus of ammunition stockpiled during the decade. The German High Seas Fleet spent twenty years trying to elevate itself to the level of the Royal (British) Navy with little success.
In 1905, the British severely upset the balance of naval power by deploying the HMS Dreadnaught. It was a battleship unlike any before, an all big-gun warship. Its three hundred millimeter guns could easily blast lesser warships out of the water. The launching of the Dreadnaught Class battleships did more than drive the Germans into a production frenzy. This new type of warship was of great concern to the Dutch Commonwealth.
By 1907, the Brazilians built their own ‘dreadnaught’, the HMBS Emperor of Brazil. Its main turrets sported three hundred fifty millimeter guns, and was the first of many Brazilian and Netherlanders dreadnaught to be built by the start of the Great War. The Commonwealth expended a great deal of capital in building newer, more powerful ships.
The Americans added a new dimension to the arms race in 1903, with the advent of the first functional flying machine. Though the United States Army saw the airplane as little more than a novelty, both Germany and the Britain saw its potential for intelligence gathering. The Dutch took longer catching on. It was not until 1907 that the Fokker Aeronautical Company was established, and in that same year they only produced six airplanes. Hardly enough to cover a globe spanning commonwealth.
By 1913, the year the Great War erupted, both Germany and Britain supported an impressive military infrastructure. Both were equally matched in aircraft, however the High Seas Fleet only operated half as many vessels as the Royal (British) Navy. Furthermore, the British could call upon their own self-governing colonies, their own ‘commonwealth’. Though pale in comparison with the Dutch, the British could rely upon the Australians, Canadians, Filipinos and the Patagonians. Germans had fewer colonies, and those were mostly inhabited by natives. They invested most of their colonial efforts in Rio del la Plata, north of Patagonia; and Kaiserwilhemland, north of Australia.
The rest of Europe did not sit back idly as the two giants armed themselves. France kept up a steady pace, though always behind the both. The one disadvantage to its republican government was that France was always at the mercy of its people. Austro-Hungary too build up its forces, but its army was segregated between the various ethnic and national groups within its borders. As we will later seen, a less-than-fully integrated army was not a good army. Sweden used a similar practice, though only concerning its more elite forces, the Cossacks for example.
The Italian Federation spent more of an effort on its navy and its own air force. Its own expansion into Libya, coupled with the fact the nation was a series of islands and a peninsula made the maritime forces more valuable. Italy’s northern frontier sported one of the most formidable defensive barriers in the world; the Alps. Spain was forced to deplete its own resources in a navy to rival the Italians. Long gone were Spanish days of glory, the last of their American colonies liberated and their Pacific possessions lost in the wake of the Spanish-American War.
Across the Atlantic, it was the United States who built a military to be reckoned with. With enemies to the north, south and on the Pacific, the Americans poured their vast economic might into a two-ocean navy along with an army that could take on both British and Confederates simultaneously. Though humiliated during the Third Anglo-American War, the Americans built themselves back up, allying with Germany and adopting much of its Prussian institutions. The army was not the only one to benefit from foreign ideas. For decades, the Americans had hired Dutch captains and admirals to teach at the Naval Academy in Baltimore. Importing the discipline of the mightiest army in Europe, and the mightiest navy in the world, the Americans regained their confidence, especially in the wake of the triumphed victory over Spain.
The Confederate States strained themselves to keep up with the Americans, though they could never afford an army or navy as mighty. They were forced to rely upon British intervention and support. They long since adopted British tactics and discipline, and this aided them against the Americans during the Third Anglo-American War. The real advantage of the Confederates lay in the fact that they would almost certainly be fighting a defensive war. Extensive fortifications combined with knowledge of the terrain made attacking the Confederate States a challenge. With the armies and navies built, and contenders itching for a fight, all that was needed was a spark to ignite the tension and plunge the world into a war unlike any before; a war to end all wars.
The World in 1912
By 1912, all but two of the Great Powers have bound together in two large alliances, the Entente and the Central Powers. The Entente began its existence in 1890, when France and Sweden signed a defensive alliance agreeing to come to the other’s aid in event of war with the recently ascended German Empire. Sweden was in little danger from the Germans directly, but with a German (and an Imperial cousin) on the Polish-Lithuanian throne, there was concern that Poland-Lithuania might go to war with Sweden at German’s insistence. The Entente grew when the British signed on in 1898. The Confederate States were never an official signatory of the Entente, but were staunch allies of the British. If the United Kingdom went to war, the Confederates would follow. Britain had no provision guaranteeing they would enter into the war with France or Sweden if they went to war with Germany. However, should the Germans violate another country’s borders in said war, then the British would join the fight. Spain was the last to join the Entente; the Spanish Republic signing the alliance in 1907.
The Quadruple Alliance, called the Central Powers because its two chief members were surrounded by enemies, was formed in 1889 as the agreement of Two Emperors, between Germany and Austro-Hungary. The Italian Federation was also in alliance with Germany, though separate of this Two Emperors agreement. Should Austro-Hungary find itself in war with Sweden, or Germany in war with France, the other would stay out as long as the enemy’s ally would stay out. Since Sweden and France have pledged to aid each other, both of the German Emperors would soon be at war. Germany was at a disadvantage in that Austria was old and decrepit and the Italians were not viewed as wholly reliable. Germany needed an ally who could tip the balance against the British. They approached the United States, recently humiliated by the British and Confederates, in 1887 for an alliance. The Germans saw great potential in America, if only some Prussian Military Discipline could be bestowed upon them. The Americans did accept a defensive alliance in later 1887 against the British, but it was not until 1899, that the Quadruple Alliance was signed between the four World Powers.
Two neutral powers existed on the eve of the Great War. One was the Old Man of Europe, the Ottoman Empire. They continued to exist only at the sufferance of Austro-Hungary and Sweden. Especially Sweden. Should the Swedes ever take an active interest in the Balkans of Bosporus, it would spell doom for the Turks. The most powerful collection of nations on Earth, the Dutch Commonwealth, saw no profit in alliance, though the Germans sought one during the 1890s. The Dutch were interested in trading with all, not fighting them. As long as the United Provinces and Brazilian Empire’s commerce was not threatened, the Dutch were content to sit the war out and reap the benefits of neutrality.
The alliances covered both the political and military realm. The economy of the world was almost as tied together in 1912 as it would be in 2012. Large colonial empires of the centuries before were under mercantilism. By the twentieth century, free markets had replaced the medieval concepts of mercantilism, with commerce flowing across both sea and borders, albeit still faced with revenue-raising tariffs. At the time, the economies of the world were so interlinked, that some economists believed that not only was war between the Great Powers impossible, but obsolete.
Of all the Powers, it was the Dutch Commonwealth that controlled the largest share of world trade. The United Provinces were not the most productive of industrial states, but Brazil’s economy was nearly as large as the United States’. The Commonwealth also went as far as to build industries in its colonies where the resources are located. The British followed suit, as did the Germans. France, however, preferred to keep the bulk of its industry at home, and to harvest its colonial resources, ship them to France and process them. Afterwards, French companies would sell the products back to its colonies. France’s strategy hurt them somewhat. For example; Mexico, a French colony since the 1860s, could purchase some manufactured goods from the Confederate States, or even United States, for less than what the mother country was selling.
Not all trade was so benign. The Great Powers of Europe, save Sweden, exploited their colonies to fuel their own war industries. Iron, coal, oil and rubber were stockpiled by the European nations as an arm race rocked the first decade of the 20th Century. This arms race started when the Germans attempted to build a navy to combat the British. The Royal Navy, in turn, developed the doctrine that it should be large enough, and strong enough to take on enemies on both sides of the Atlantic, simultaneously. When both nations began to produce new ships, the United States felt it might be left behind, and began building up its own navy. Previous Anglo-American Wars have taught the Americans the threat posed by the Royal Navy.
When the Americans began to produce new battleships and cruisers, the Confederates attempted to keep pace. The C.S.A. was the least industrial developed of the Great Powers. Its land-owning aristocracy, trapped in a tradition a century out of date, perpetually controlled the central government, with the chief interest in maintaining their posting in life. As such, industry was stifled in the Confederacy, and they did not begin industrializing until after slavery faded, in the 1880s and 90s. Most of its industry was built by British capitalists, eager to exploit the mineral wealth of the Confederacy. As such, native investments did not start until after the economic slump following the death of King Cotton.
The Swedes had the largest challenge. After two centuries of integration, and the merging of Swedish and Russian cultures, the Swedish “Empire” was fully industrialized around the Baltic, in Sweden Proper, as well as Finland, Estonia and Latvia. Their biggest problem was getting raw materials to market. In 1903, a transcontinental railroad was finally completed, with the last Swedish stop at Lake Baikal (and the Pacific terminal within the crumbling Manchu, or Qing, Empire). This one line ran through the southern parts of Siberia, far from the iron, coal and oil deposits believed to be in the taiga and tundra. Much of the shipping east of the Urals was done on the rivers, and only when seasons permitted it.
At the start of the Great War, there were two Grand Strategies in place the moment war broke out. As with all plans, these did not survive contact with the enemy. Grand strategies were designed by both the Central Powers and Entente, in order to direct their armed forces to a common goal and victory. Both plans took a Europe-first approach.
For the Central Powers, the war would start out with Plan 6, the German invasion of France. The German General Staff projected three months to take Paris and force the French into a favorable cease fire. The reason for knocking France out first was two-fold; 1) They shared a land border with Germany and 2) the Germans believed them the easiest to defeat. After France sued for peace, the divisions in the west would be shifted to the east, to force the issue in Poland-Lithuania. Taking Stockholm was never seen as a viable plan, and the Germans aimed to force the Swedish king to concede the Polish-Lithuanian Throne to the German candidate. In the meantime, the Americans would put the bulk of their forces into defeating their southern neighbor. Both America and Germany agreed the Confederates would be easier to defeat than Britain, especially with British resources divided in several theaters. Since Canada was almost totally cut off from the Atlantic by a neutral Quebec, and completely so in the winter by the frozen Hudson Bay, they were viewed as a minimal threat. Rightfully so, as it was later discovered all Canadian war plans would be defensive and dependent upon reinforcements from the Empire. The British would be the last to fall, as the United States Navy and High Seas Fleet would strangle the island into submission.
The Entente also had their plans focusing on Europe. Their first goal would be to either knock out or prevent the Italians from entering the war. Italy had national interests on both sides of the alliance boundary, and it was believed they could be convinced to neutrality. Austro-Hungary was viewed as a rickety house that would be easy to topple. This did prove true, but it was done by internal reactions not the Entente. The British and Swedes believed these first two goals could be met within three months. After which, Germany would be squeezed from all sides, and Sweden, with their Polish and Lithuanian allies, would breakthrough to take Berlin. While the fight raged in Europe, the Confederates would trade land for time, slowly giving ground to the Americans. Once Germany was defeated, British and Swedish soldiers would flock to North America and turn the tide. The Confederates were not thrilled by this plan. Despite their staunch loyalty, the independent southern streak had to ask; “what if they don’t come?” That would leave the C.S.A. taking on an opponent with (not counting their black population, which the Confederates seldom did) more than three times their population.
Plan 6 is the sixth out of eight war plans the German General Staff designed in event of war with France. Each of the plans concerns certain scenarios, such as if the United Provinces side with Germany, France or remain neutral. Plan 6 involves a war with France, where both the United Provinces and Switzerland are neutral. In this plan, the bulk of the German Army in France, numbering over a million, will march westward across Alsace and Lorraine. Two smaller armies, of at least one hundred thousand each, will move in wide flanking maneuvers to the north and south of the so-called iron drapes. These smaller armies would flank the fortification line and attack it from the west, while the larger army would crash into it from the east. It was planned that this would open a wide enough breach in the fortifications to allow the German Army a mostly unopposed march towards Paris. It was planned that France could be knocked out of the war within two to three months, where afterwards the German Army could be moved East to deal with the war in Poland-Lithuania. As the General Staff would soon discover, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and the French were not about to play their anticipated role in Plan 6.
War Plan Red is one of the United States’ color coated war plans. This particular color was given to the British Empire. The bulk of any war against Britain would be fought in Canada, however the navy would have to contend with the Royal Navy. When these plans were drawn up in the 1890s, it was hoped that the German Empire would also declare war on Britain, dividing the Royal Navy. At no time were there any plans to invade the British Homeland. The plan did call for reconquest of western Washington, the Red River Valley and northern Maine.
Of the color coated war plans developed by the United States, gray was one of the more obvious colors. This was the plan developed to fight the enemy to the south, the Confederate States. The War Department believe a bulk of the fighting would be done east of the Mississippi. The region was divided into two fronts by the Appalachian Mountains; the Potomac Front and Ohio Front, named after rivers that served as natural barriers. The Potomac Front has the eventual goal of overrunning Virginia, forcing it back into the Union, and most importantly, capturing the Confederate Naval Base at Norfolk.
The Ohio Front would have to storm through both Kentucky and Tennessee. Taking the coal deposits in these regions would weaken Confederate industries, the smallest of the Entente. The ultimate goal of the Ohio Front was to take the Confederate Capital of Birmingham, in Alabama. West of the Mississippi, the region was divided into another two sectors; the Midwest and the Colorado Front.
The Colorado Front, named after the river that would see little combat, had the primary goal of closing the Pacific Ocean to the Confederacy in the capture of Port Sinoloa. Being so sparsely populated, Arizona Territory would never have the trenches and static warfare seen in the east. The Midwest Front’s goal was to take away Confederate oil in Oklahoma and northern Texas. This was believed to be the easiest goal since the Indians forced into Oklahoma might have sympathies more with the United States, whom left the Five Civilized Tribes alone before the Civil War.
Operation Python was one part of the overall War Plan Gray. It would prove a vital part of the war effort, in that the blockade of the Confederate States would strangulate their war effort. Python could not be moved forward until the Bahamas were under American control and the liberation of Cuba began. Python did not require the whole state of Cuba, but rather Guantanamo Bay as a base of operations. Python was divided into three sectors. The Atlantic Sector would stretch from Baltimore to Guantanamo. The Gulf of Texas Sector spanned from the Rio Grand to Guantanamo. In both of these sectors, the United States Navy was authorized to sink any ship attempting enter Confederate ports. Both sectors the USN declare unrestricted naval warfare, with more than half the shipping sunk by submarines. The Caribbean Sector was a little more complicated and took too much politics into account. The USN would patrol the Caribbean and seal of the Caribbean access to the Nicaragua Canal. Ships were cleared to sink Confederate, British or Spanish shipping heading to Mexico on sight. However, since France and the U.S. were co-belligerents and not officially at war with each other, ships flying the French flag could not be sunk on sight. Instead, the ships would be stopped and searched. Ships with arms on board would be escorted to port and have its arms removed. Those without weapons will be allowed to pass unmolested. However, if the ship is found to be flying false colors, such as a Confederate ship with a French flag, the ship will be seized and the crew treated as pirates.
What follows is the manpower within the standing armies a month before the start of the Great War. It describes land forces, and excluded the World Powers’ navies.
Central Powers
Germany: 4 million
Astro-Hungary: 2.8 million
United States: 2.7 million (includes Standing Army and Guard)
Italian Federation: 2.2 million
Total: 11.7 million
Entente
Sweden: 6 million
France: 4 million
Britain: 1.3 million
Confederates: 1.8 million
Spain: 1.1 million
Total: 14.2 million
The cases of Sweden and Britain are misleading. In the case of the former, they had a long frontier with China, Japan, as well as Central Asia and Turkey to defend. Only half of their forces were readily available in 1913, with more pulled away as the war continued. In the latter case, Britain’s army was the army of its entire Empire and Commonwealth. 300,000 soldiers alone were Canadians and Empire soldiers stationed in Canada. The Home Army was not even a quarter of a million in 1913.
The American Army was the most unusual of the Great Powers. Before the start of the Great War, the United States had a standing army of 1.3 million. Since its founding, the United States Government and the American people have always been suspicious to standing armies. It was not until well after the Civil War, in fact not until the Third Anglo-American War, that the United States built up a permanent standing army. This decision was not a popular one, but a wise one; when it became surrounded by enemies, Americans took the pragmatic course and built it up its army. However, the regulars account for between 40% and 45% of the total army strength. The rest of the official army lay in the States’ militias, which were reorganized into the National Guard.
These more than 1.4 million citizen-soldiers serve for their states. The National Guard trains heavily in irregular warfare. Guerilla warfare by Americans is a tradition that dates back to the Revolution. How the National Guard units are organized is totally dependant upon the States involved. Some states, such as Maine, New Hampshire and Missouri, have their entire male populations eligible for the National Guard. Up to ten percent of these citizens are called up said states for terms of service of one year. Though conscription was law in the United States in 1913, it was relegated mostly to the National Guard units, with the Federal Draft able to call upon those Guard-trained soldiers and entire units. The National Guard can call up its soldiers on short notice. Unofficial citizen’s militia, called Minutemen, can call up faster. However, not being part of the legitimate army, these armed civilians are not protected under international law. Neither State or Federal Governments will call upon these private volunteers unless the area in question is invaded. Old State laws still require all men with arms to defend their homes in time of war.
The officer corp of the Standing Army is largely Fort Arnold trained and educated. With the National Guards, college graduates are automatically sent into Reserve Officer Training Corps. When soldiers in the standing army finally resign, they are immediately shifted into the National Guard of their home states. There, they will be liable to being called back to duty in time of war. The Federal Army has a more definite term of service, with enlistment periods of four or six year per term. The Federals are on duty year round, while the Guard stands down for most of year, minus training periods and times when the States decide to call them up.
Now what follows is the naval strength of the Powers.
Central Powers
Germany: BB- 22; BC-13; C-47
United States: BB-26; BC-7; C-38
Austro-Hungary: BB-12; BC-3; C-14
Italy: BB-19; BC-12; C-20
Entente
Sweden: BB-20; BC-10; C-31
France: BB-18; BC-5 C-39
Britain: BB-39; BC-22; C-58
Confederates: BB-13; BC-8; C-20
Spain: BB-5; BC-12; C-18
The numbers concerning the United States and Britain are a bit misleading, for both nations have to cover multiple oceans with their navies. The Royal Navy’s Home Fleet was actually smaller than the total shipping of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet. The Royal Navy’s intent on ship building was to be able to take on both their primary enemies on the high seas. Aside from protecting Britain from invasion, which was unlikely to be launched by either, they were also forced to keep open supply lines from their colonies; most important being the food from Patagonia, followed by industrial resources from Africa.
The United States was in a similar position as the British, that in fighting two enemies at once off their coasts. Of the two, the Confederate Navy was considered a joke by many in the Department of the Navy, but they would combine with Britain’s western Atlantic force and be under British command. Absent from above are the two neutral powers, the Turks and Dutch. Of these two, the Turks were a non-factor. The Dutch Commonwealth, however, had a fleet larger than even Britain’s. Their entry into any large-scale war would tip the balance against whomever antagonized them.
The Dutch Commonwealth of Nations
Negotiations began on-and-off in 1886. Dutch generals tried to lay terms for surrender on the Boers. The Boers, under the command of Erik van Delft, continued their stance that the Boers would not surrender. Negotiations went nowhere in 1886 and as 1887 started, King Frederick III stepped in. He ordered the army to cease operations and only fire in self defense. Frederick suggested that perhaps they should take the same approach with the Boers as they did the Brazilians; personal union.
The Boers agreed to the self-governing status but refused to have a king. For decades, their republics were ruled by assemblies and presidents, all of which were elected. The Boers did not like the idea of having somebody in power who could not be removed, a throwback to memories of VOC rule. It was van Delft that made his own proposal, via telegraph, to Frederick III. The Boers would be ‘self-governing republics within the commonwealth’. His five words changed the history of the Dutch empire.
When the idea of Commonwealth came before the Staaten-General, it met with resounding support. Though the American Revolution long since passed from living memory, the effect on the British did not. If the Boers continued their rebellion and succeeded in winning independence, it might prompt India, the Indonesian islands and Abyssinia from declaring independence. It was but a minor alteration to personal union plan. The Boer Republics would remain in commonwealth with the United Provinces and Brazil, though they would not have a monarch.
The idea further developed into a league of Dutch states, all equal in status, bound together by common language, currency and market. Each member state would send their own delegation to meet in Amsterdam at least once a year. By 1888, delegates from Brazil, the United Provinces and the Boer Republics met to draw up a charter for the commonwealth. The member states need not be in personal union with the United Provinces, but the Dutch monarch would be recognized as the head of the commonwealth. This the Boers could agree to. Since the Commonwealth Charter declared that the Commonwealth Assembly would decide a common foreign policy, the Boer Republics were technically protectorates of the Commonwealth. As was the case, their texts referred to the reigning monarch as either Lord of Lady Protector.
In effect, the Dutch Commonwealth was an imperial federation. After the Boer Republics achieved statehood, Kapenstaaten soon followed. It was the only state that did not fight against the Hague or Recife during the Boer Wars. After its admission into the Commonwealth, it was soon discussed that perhaps other colonies should be granted statehood. Ceylon, Java and Formosa were at the forefront of possibility, and would all achieve statehood within sixty years, along with several other, less outstanding colonies.
With the potential to achieve autonomy, the colonies began to strive to improve their own infrastructure and governments. Like most political innovations of the Dutch during the Nineteenth Century, it stemmed from American ideals. Ironically, it was the United Provinces and their method of preserving Provincial powers that drove framers of the American Constitution to federation, along with the diverse nature of each of the original eleven states. The formation of the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations is the key factor for preserving Dutch unity to the present day, unlike disintegration enjoyed by British, French and German colonial empires.
Berlin Conference
Following the Boer Wars, the United Provinces entered into a monumental agreement with other European powers. The sole purpose; to carve up Africa. In 1884, European empires sent delegates to Berlin. Germany, Britain, the United Provinces, Austro-Hungary, France and Spain divided the continent into their own private playgrounds. Germany and Austria were both new to the colonial game and were granted the smallest portions. The Dutch received nothing new, only insured the Boer Republics, Angola, Mozambique and Abyssinia stayed within their sphere of influence.
The British stretched their empire across southern and eastern Africa, following both the Congo and Nile rivers. They expanded their holdings in western Africa, taking up the southern half of West Africa. The northern half was annexed to Algeria and left under the direct rule of Paris. France also gained suzerainty over Madagascar. The Germans were sandwiched between British West Africa, Central Africa, and Egypt-Sudan. The Austrians gained a small section of western Africa, which upon its independence, would make up the states of Nigeria and Biafra. Spain’s big keep was Morocco. Along with Puerto Rico, the Marianas, Marshals and Caroline Islands consisted of what remained of their once world-straddling Empire.
The Berlin Conference marked the last terrestrial burst of colonialism. After Africa was carved up, there was no land on Earth, save frozen Antarctica, that could be divided between European World Powers. With no more room to expand, conflict was inevitable. Two major wars would be fought by Europeans in Africa during the Twentieth Century. No matter the victors, it was the Africans who lost. Europe’s drawing of borders cut tribes in half and contained mortal enemies into the same colony. This marked the end of peace in Africa. Even after the next two world wars, Africa would be rocked by violence during decolonization and waves of nationalism in the newly independent nations.
King William VII
Two years after the Berlin Conference, Frederick III’s health began to decline. By 1888, his son, Willem Maurice van Oranje took up the role as regent. He ruled in the name of his father. Frederick’s body might be ailing him, but his mind was still sharp. He made certain his son did not take the throne until after he died. He resisted pressure from his own family and the Staaten-General to abdicate and allow his son to rule as King. All in good time was his response. Not until January of 1891 did Frederick finally relinquish the throne and his own life. Four days after his death, his son was crowned King William VII.
Canals
By 1913, the world saw two more canals, these linking Atlantic and Pacific. The northern one was built by the French in the colonial Mexican department of Nicaragua. Though not the shortest possible route from the Carribean to the Pacific, Lake Nicaragua offered a convenient gap to allow for shipping. All that was require was a bit of dredging and some locks to connect the lake with both oceans. In 1879, the French began construction of the Nicaragua Canal.
Though completed first, its construction took far longer than the Panama Canal. The French spent twenty-six years working on their colossal project. IN truth, the French simply supervised, planned and designed the canal. Tens of thousand of their colonial ‘citizens’ toiled in the jungles of Central America, upwards to thirty percent dying during the time of construction. By annexing Mexico, France’s canal opened several years before the American’s project. Since the Confederates were allied with France through Britain, the French monopoly on canals was viewed as a threat to American national security.
In 1899, a year after the tremendous victory over Spain, and six years before the Nicaragua Canal opened, the United States pressured Grand Colombia to sell the province of Panama to the Americans. The province was quickly annexed to the state of Costa Rica. The Isthmus of Darien offered the shortest distance between the Carribean and the Pacific. It was the ideal choice for a multi-lock canal, but the Americans could not afford the project alone. They spent until 1903, searching for fiscal support.
Their strongest ally, Germany leant them support, however their arms race with Britain consumed too much of the budget. Though Germany would assist in the defense of the Panama Canal, they could ill afford to help pay for it. The Dutch, on the other hand, were friends but not allies, and were interested in a short cut to the Pacific. Though the Commonwealth had no holdings in the eastern Pacific, various Dutch interests saw they could profit from the amount of traffic that would flow through the canal. It also gave Dutch ships an alternative to paying the French or taking the long way around.
The two canals in Central America were vital to the war efforts of both alliances, though neither side attacked their opposite’s waterway. The Panama Canal was protected merely by the Dutch interest. Interfering with Commonwealth shipping was the surest way to get the Dutch Commonwealth into the Great War, and the Dutch long since learned there was little profit in war. During the Great War, each of the world’s greatest canals were given a wide berth by all the belligerents.
Emperor of India, King of Ceylon
By 1911, Ceylon were ready to take its place a nation among equals. Its economy flourished over the past fifty years, though industrialization was minimal. The Ceylonese established its own Staaten-General, which held its initial session on September 3, 1907. Though it formed its own government and written its own constitution, the Ceylonese Staaten-General entered a debate whether or not to petition for admittance. For the Commonwealth’s part, the Commonwealth Assembly had to accept the petition. The Boer Republics were concerned that Ceylonese admittance might disrupt the balance of power between the Republicans of South Africa and the Monarchists of Brazil and the United Provinces.
A minority of politicians on Ceylon wanted to establish a republic, but the majority were in favor of personal union with the mother country. In 1910, an island-wide referendum voted overwhelmingly for the creation of a monarchy, and the Staaten-General made quick to ratify the vote and elect Frederick III to be Frederick I, King of Ceylon. In January of 1911, Ceylon was granted the status of a realm within the commonwealth.
Given its location, Ceylon was the natural overseer of India, which the Indians were keenly aware of. Since the establishment of the Dutch Commonwealth, the land owners and vassals sent India into a crash course of modernization. The elite of India would do anything to not become a colony of the upstart Ceylonese, even if it meant reforming the system that gave them power. IN 1894, princes and governors of the Indian provinces met in Delhi, a city conquered only thirty years prior, to form a provisional self-government for the colony.
Up until the Delhi Conference, India was ruled directly from the Hague, and the Staaten-General appointed governor-generals over the provinces not under the rule of allies. Even the allies obeyed the commands of the Staaten-General, else they would lose all power they still retained. By 1894, though India was still sunk in poverty, the elite were determined to gain statehood for India. The issue of whether or not India would be a single nation was not much of one. Apart, the provinces and principalities were weak, and easily picked off (which was how the Dutch managed to conquer the sub-continent in the first place), but united they could stand up to any power, even their colonial master, the United Provinces of the Netherlands.
Before the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the Indians managed to slap together a coalition government, which representatives from each of the princely states and provinces. The initial Indian Staaten-General was the first unicameral parliament in the Dutch world. This did not sit well with the Hague. The Netherlander Staaten-General was determined that each parliament within the Commonwealth should be made in its own image. Though there was some opposition in the House of Electorates, India clearly fell under a matter of state and not the people. The Senaat, seeing the determination exported from India, decided to ‘aid’ their counterparts in India.
In 1905, the Staaten-General wrote a constitution for India, not to debate or discuss, but to simply accept. For the most part, it differed little from the Brazilian Constitution, including installing Frederick as the Emperor of India. The decision of republic or monarchy was stripped from India, which had not officially been granted self-determination in the first place. It is fortunate for the Dutch Commonwealth that India’s elite took the task of forming a state upon themselves. If India had remained a colony like the Indonesian islands of Formosa during the Second World War, it is entirely possible it would have followed them on the path to republic, or perhaps severed all ties from the Netherlands with the act of declaring independence.
Establishing democracy in a country that was still largely illiterate proved a daunting challenge. For decades, Commonwealth authorities struggled against election fraud throughout the provinces, or states as India soon called its own divisions. The Indian House of Electorates, between 1911 to 1941, was largely populated with Electorates that cheated their way into power. Unable to read, the voters had only the word of attendants to take for whose name they checked. Furthermore, those same Electorates blocked attempts at universal education; a literate voter might not vote for them.
Such liberties and irresponsibility made many in the Commonwealth Assembly skeptical as to whether or not India was ready for admittance. Delegates from Brazil, and of course Ceylon, argued that the more mature colonies, Java and Formosa, should be admitted before India. In April of 1911, the Assembly deadlocked on the vote, leaving the decision in the hands of the head of the Commonwealth and the tie-breaker; Frederick III.
Frederick was more than ready to have another jewel in his crown. He placed his one vote in favor of India, and on May 1, 1911, India achieved the status of realm within the commonwealth. To the average India, little changed. They were still poor, dispossessed and had little in the way of say in their lives. They would not see the fruits of statehood for decades to come. To them, the illusion of having a say in their government did not outweigh the near famine conditions across the countryside. Land was still owned by a minority who were more interested in cash crops than growing food.
Sadly, these same land owners were the largest block of India’s House of Electorates. Land reform bills were also blocked, as the minority, the legitimately elected Electorates struggled for the betterment of their country against the rural aristocracy. It took a war with Japan, when the peasantry rose up for promises of liberation by the Japanese to force the Indian Staaten-General to change. Most of this change was a combination of improved education, and a wave of assassination of landing owning elite by the poorly paid laborers under their employment. Had reforms not occurred, it is entirely likely that when the People’s Dynasty took power in China, that the masses in India would have transformed India into the Commonwealth’s only communist member.
Genesis of a New Kingdom
Following the conquest of Abyssinia, the Dutch came to realize the severe disadvantage of the Emperor of Ethiopia’s traveling court. With no fixed capital, there was no place in Abyssinia from where to govern the newly unified colony. On the other hand, Theodore’s nomadic capital also made the conquest that much more difficult. For the Dutch, governing from a fixed location were the colonial assemblies could convene was essential. Though the United Provinces had a long history of decentralization, they found that centralizing their colonial possessions was advantageous. Suggestions that the capital be placed at one of the long standing coastal cities was considered and rejected. Governor-General Johann van Oranje wished a more geographically centralized location, in which to bring the conquered provinces into a closer union.
After two years of surveying, a spot was decided upon in 1888, at the foot of a mountain in central Abyssinia with hot mineral springs in the vicinity. The capital was named Addis Ababa, from the Oromo words that mean “hot springs”. The location was ideal for controlling the conquered provinces, but suffered from its remoteness and the fact that it sat some two kilometers above sea level. For the natives and locals, the thin air was little trouble, but for people coming in from the coast, a great deal of acclimatization was required. In the first few years, one had to travel on horseback or by wagon to the city, giving plenty of time to adjust. However, when the Massawa-Addis railroad was completed, some passengers suffered from altitude sickness upon arriving in the new capital.
The city was planned out in a simple and efficient grid. In the middle of the city was lain the cornerstone of the Abyssinian Colonial Assembly building, a two story structure made from stone quarried from the nearby Entono Mountains. The governor’s mansion was built higher up on the slops of the mountain. The brick structure was designed in the Ceylonese colonial fashion, and was modeled after numerous estates on Ceylon and in India. Much of the city’s initial design was influenced by Ceylonese and Indian architecture. The design made the natives feel like aliens in their own homeland. Despite this, many of the former Ethiopian aristocracy that swore allegiance to the Hague had their own manors built in the city of the same fashion. Along with colonial design, they soon found themselves wearing Netherlander-style clothing and eating more seafood.
In its first year, Addis Ababa had a small population of 5,000, most of them native workers. The construction of the Colonial Assembly took some three years to complete, and the first assembly did not convene until 1893. Of that, more than half were white, and an addition twenty percent Somalis from the coastal regions. By 1898, the population had swelled to 30,000, as the newly finished railroad allowed easier access to the city. Despite its native name, Addis Ababa was most decidedly a Dutch city, with 63% of its population either from Europe itself or from Brazil.
After the founding of Addis Ababa, the issue of how to reach the new capital was first and foremost. For the first couple of years of the capital and its construction, the only way to reach the centralized capital was overland, and over treacherous roads. When Governor-General Johann established the capital, he also commissioned the construction of a railroad linking the capital to the sea. Between 1888 and 1890, three rival plans were designed and presented. The first would start in Mogadishu, and had the advantage of starting in a city that has long since been under Dutch rule. The second plan would link Addis Ababa and Djibouti, which would eventually be constructed. However, the topography that the planned line would pass over was also the mostly costly. The last plan was the one that was accepted, a railroad linking Massawa with the new capital.
The new railroad was constructed by the VOC, the largest freight shipper in the world, and largest railroad owner in the United Provinces, along with Ceylon, Java and Formosa, between the years 1890 and 1892. For the most part, labor was done by natives workers overseen by engineers from the United Provinces. Thousands of natives flocked to VOC camps along the proposed line, seeking employment and pay that far exceeded any they could earn in their villages. This high pay was what kept laborers flocking to the railroad, even as hundreds of natives died during the construction of the Massawa-Addis Ababa Railroad. Only a relatively small portion of these deaths were caused by workplace accidents. Most were a result of poor sanitation in the work camps coupled with crowding. The biggest death toll arose from an influenza outbreak in March of 1891, claiming at least 1,100 native workers and five Dutch engineers.
The development of the Dutch Commonwealth’s newest colony shifted into full gear during the decade of 1891 to 1900. During the span of ten years, more than eight thousand kilometers of rail were laid, most ending at Massawa, Djibouti or Mogadishu. For the first time in its history, the land once known as Ethiopia had the ability to transfer food from fertile and abundant regions to those of shortages. The transportation of food was no a humanitarian aid effort but rather the first step in trade; to get one’s goods to where they are in demand. The new network of rail also transported the 500,000 colonists that arrived in Abyssinia from the United Provinces, Brazil, and even some non-Dutch states in the same decade. Abyssinia is seen as a new land of opportunity as a land rush of the likes that have not been seen in over a century. The influx of immigrants begins the process of Dutchification of the conquered Ethiopians.
To make communication more efficient, especially with the capital and the coastal ports, two thousand kilometers worth of telephone cable was lain. Addition lines reached across the ocean; the first Abyssinia-India cable was lain in 1897. With this new link, communication between the United Provinces and its eastern colonies could be accomplished with the telegraph and telephone in a matter of minutes, instead of hours (by being routed through foreign cables) or weeks by messenger. The centuries old irrigation system of Abyssinia was modernized. Wind mills were installed to pump water from below grown, while steam engines pumped water through pipes that ran hundreds of kilometers. To further ensure a steady water supply for agriculture, and as a source of power, the Dutch began in 1899, to dam the Blue Nile, much to Egypt, and their British masters, protest. In 1894, the first electrical power plant was constructed in Massawa. The electricity was used to power the few start-up factories in Massawa, such as canneries and textile mills, fed by coffee plantation and wool from the native’s goats and sheep.
The first elections held in Abyssinia were held in 1905, and where for the newly established colonial assembly. Unlike the Staaten-General, these assemblies had no legislature power. They were instead advisory councils for the Governor-Generals appointed by the King. The Governor-General could easily overrule the assembly, or simply ignore them altogether. Most of Abyssinia was under the control of the Hague and the colonial ministry. The Abyssinian Budget was ratified by the United Provinces’ Staaten-General. The real purpose of the colonial assembly and its elections was to prepare the Abyssinians for self-governing. In 1901, when the colonial assembly was conceived in the Hague, an estimated thirty years would be required for Abyssinia to be ready for statehood and to form its own government.
Eligibility for voting was based on manhood suffrage. All Netherlands, Brazilian (and to be blunt, white Abyssinians) along with long loyal Somali citizens were immediately able to vote. For the regions that was once Ethiopia, the Dutch were more careful who they gave the vote to. Those who actively oppose the Dutch government, or served the last Ethiopian Emperor were disenfranchised. Loyal former-Ethiopians who could prove their residence were allowed to vote in their districts. Each of these districts were divided by population, with one assemblyman for every one hundred thousand people. In the firmly Dutch districts, voter turnout was high, upwards to 90%. In the conquered interior, turnouts were as low as 20%. Many who could vote, refused to participate in the new government. IN some cases, entire tribes boycotted the elections in 1905 and 1910.
In the coastal districts, cases of voter fraud are now apparent. New voting machines were set up in Djibouti and Massawa, with delegates under the control of the Abyssinian Rail Company relieving a disproportionally higher percentage. It has now been proven that not only did they buy votes, they also bribed voting officials to stuff the ballot boxes. In the interior, more voter trouble came up. The Dutch authorities refused to speak any language but Dutch, the international language of trade. However, many of the interior population could not speak Dutch, or even read, despite a recent effort to bring education into the Highlands. This caused them to rely upon Dutch-speaking neighbors to aid them in the election, and relied upon the election officials to read the choices to them. In this case, it is easy to imagine that officials.
The candidates were not selected by the people. Instead, the Governor-General selected two to four candidates from each district to serve as advisors. In the coastal districts, many of the candidates were merchants and corporate interests. In the interior, no native candidates were available, and to upset the natives more was that they were all Dutch, all white. The only Africans who served on the first colonial assembly were elected from southern districts by the Somali tribes and urbanites.
VOC Consolidation
By 1877, the VOC climbed to the number one spot for shipping in the world. Its climb back to the top included absorbing two smaller shipping companies, and more importantly, their ships and contracts. The first was in 1870, followed by the second in 1883. By the time of its second acquisition all VOC ship were steam driven, with masts and sails only as auxiliary. Given a good wind, captains would still rather have a free push from the air than to burn through fuel. The Company approved of still using sails, but mostly for cost-effectiveness than from nostalgia of a by-gone age. Its return to the top in 1877, also made the VOC the first billion guilder company in the Dutch Commonwealth.
Another bit of technological progress that the VOC grabbed originated in America. The telegraph (and later telephone) were quick in supplanting written messages. The VOC formed VOC Communications to take advantage of this new form of communication. In 1861, the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable snaked its way from Dunkirk to Cayenne, in northern Brazil. More cables were lain by the VOC, on both the land and in the sea, linking states and colonies of the Dutch Commonwealth by the 1880s. The VOC was not the only communication company, but because of its diverse portfolio, quickly became the largest. The company purchased a copper mine in Brazil in 1874, to secure a steady supply of the metal for its cables.
By the end of the century, more than 30% of all Dutch commerce was being shipped by the VOC. Lower rates undercut the competition, and though bad for competition, low rates always go over well with the consumer. The VOC’s own private navy, though small by its predecessor’s standards, still offered the protection in dangerous waters that smaller companies just could not manage. Along with telegraphed messages, the VOC opened its own private post office as part of VOC Communications in 1892.
The VOC almost always caught on to new technologies quickly. However, in the case of oil, it was slower to take. Standard Oil of the United States already dominated the kerosine market in America before the VOC began to investigate it. Before, oil was processed from whales. It did not take a modern marine biologist to understand that whaling on an industrial level was not sustainable. Thus, the VOC paid little attention to oil. When oil began to be extracted from the ground in Pennsylvania, the Company saw it as a fluke. When oil fields were found all over the world, the Board began to pay attention. When a kerosine byproduct, gasoline, began to show promise, the VOC moved into action. In 1895, the VOC managed to purchase Royal Dutch Shell, and renamed it VOC Oil, occasionally still referred to as VOC Shell. It proved a wise move, though the VOC was unable to dominate the oil industry, it did secure for itself a fuel source, as well as a product for sell throughout the Twentieth Century.
Reformation of the American Republic
Following the disastrous defeat of the Third Anglo-American War, the United States was confronted by a recently united Germany. Their own victory over the French in 1875 left Germany the preeminent power in Continental Europe. Germany had much in common with the United States. Like the Americans, the Germans were surrounded by rivals and enemies; France in the west, and the Swedish Empire in the east. In the event of war, it was highly likely that either nation would come to the aid of the other, just as the British would aid the Confederates.
Unlike the United States, whose army consisted of mostly militia and poorly trained volunteers, the German Empire had a powerful, professional army. Again, unlike the United States, Germany lacked many native resources to support a first-rate world power. Germany expanded its colonial empire, from its Eighteenth Century colony o Rio de la Plata, into Africa and the Pacific during the Nineteenth. The United States had no need for a colonial empire, for it already had the resources within its own borders.
In 1887, the German ambassador approached the State Department with the proposal of an alliance. The Germans required raw materials, and the Germans knew that America required more order and discipline in its society. The Democrat Majority in Congress saw the advantages of an alliance, however, traditions of isolationism brought much debate. The recently established Socialist Party was against the alliance and apparent militarization of the United States. Many compromises would be reached as German methods were adapted to American society.
Once the alliance was ratified, a series of laws were passed during the 1890s aimed at strengthening America. In 1891, the American Draft Act, in which all men over eighteen years of age, regardless of color, must serve two years within their state’s militia (later National Guard). The goal of conscripting the population into the part-time army was that in the event of a major war, America would have a vast pool of trained men in which it could call upon. Conscription into the regular army could only happen, by law, in the event war was declared.
Training of the militia would be done by the regular army and its German drill instructors (at least until enough American sergeants could be trained as D.I.s). Militias would receive the same basic training as the regular army, and would be required to serve and train one week per month. They would also be called up in the event of emergency. Not only would America have a pool of reserves, but a sense of national pride would be ingrained into most of America’s men. Further laws were passed allowing women to take many of the non-industrial jobs that men would fill during peace time.
During the 1890s, the United States underwent a series of reforms under the Prussian and German model. There was a great deal of resistance to these changes, who viewed anything foreign with suspicion. There was no desire among the American population to become Europeans. Unlike the Confederate States, who were willfully turning themselves into an imitation of the United Kingdom. Ironically, the Confederacy had a central government with more power than that of the Americans, including rationing, conscription, and control of strategic resources by the state.
In 1894, the American Congress passed the Wartime Conscription and Rationing Act. This act would give the federal government extended power over both after war had been declared. Clauses in the bill ensured that war must be declared, for even some of the politicians feared misuse of this. The Socialist Party was in favor of expanding the rationing to permanency, which drove the Democrats in Congress to insert the war clause. Both parties favored conscription; the Democrats for the expanded manpower and Socialists because it applied to all citizens. Attempts to allow draft substitutes, as existed during the Civil War, was removed from the bill.
The necessity of the bill was another effect of the disaster of the Third Anglo-American War. The United States was trapped between two enemies; the British and Canadians to the north and the Confederates to the south. America had enemies on both sides in common with the Germans, and this was part of the German-American alliance. America’s loss in the past two wars, and Germany’s success in its last two also prompted the United States Army to learn from the Prussian model, though with American twists, such as the militia (later renamed National Guard).
The Socialist Party began back in the 1870s, during a second wave of industrialization in the United States. The divide between haves and have-nots vastly increased during this time, as did ramped exploitation of the workers. Attempts to unionize and strike by miners in Pennsylvania were usually put down by violent means. Some radical miners supported the overthrow of government. The majority turned to the newly formed Socialist Party to advance their causes.
Between 1864 and 1886, the United States was effectively a one-party state, with a constant Democratic presence in the Presidency and dominance of Congress. Following the Third Anglo-American War, and the Democrat’s rather jingoistic response, many of the American voters turned away from them. The Republican Party did not survive Lincoln on a national scale, though it still thrives in the Midwest to this date. The Depression following the Treaty of Boston caused the Socialists to meteorically rise on the national stage.
Another byproduct of the war was a wave of immigration into the United States, from the Confederate States. With the expansion of the land-owning aristocracy, small farmers left Texas and Oklahoma to try their luck in Kansas and Nebraska. Many of the immigrant families would have decedents that would deeply impact the history of the 20th Century. Names such as Eisenhower.
The first test of the United States Army’s German-style training came in 1898. For a decade, the last Spanish colony in the Americas, Puerto Rico, waged a war of independence. Atrocities upon Atrocities were reported by journalists covering the war on the island. The sensationalist journalism did much to sell papers, and though the Spanish did execute rebels, it was far from the genocidal campaign reported. However, the fact that a colonial power was so close to the United States (not counting French rule in Mexico) outraged many in the public. Many felt it was America’s duty to liberate its fellow republic.
The debate in Congress and the streets was about whether America could defeat Spain. After two lost wars, the damage to America’s confidence remained. Many thought a quick war would do much to restore national pride. Furthermore, many in the government, including future President Theodore Roosevelt, believed in using the war in Puerto Rico as an excuse for a wider campaign to seize control of the Marianas. The United States already had control over Midway and Wake, both as coaling stations. The Marianas would extend American interests into the western Pacific.
America did, already, have interests on Puerto Rico. With Cuba under Confederate control, and many other islands in British hands, Americans held a sizable investment in Puerto Rico. With war tearing the island apart, sugar interests were hurting. Several American ships were sent to patrol the waters, to keep an eye on interests. Some claim that certain elements in power were attempting to incite a war. Whether this was true or not matters little, since on April 3, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine blew up off the coast of the island. The cause was a coal fire near the magazine, but at the time, the most plausible cause was a Spanish mine. As a result, three weeks later, Congress moved to declare war on Spain.
On May 1, Commodore Dewey, based in the German port of Tsaingpo, in China, received orders for his squadron and its marines to attack the Marianas and land on both Guam and Saipan. The small Spanish fleet based at the islands, mostly antiquated ships, were all but destroyed after a three hour battle. The Spanish governor of the Marianas surrendered to Dewey on June 12, 1898, after a short land campaign on Guam.
The war on Puerto Rico lasted for three months, most of the time was spent assembling the United States Army in Baltimore and New Amsterdam, and sailing down to the island. The Spanish fleet at Puerto Rico was trapped at San Juan for the duration, except for one sortie on June 4, where it was beaten back by American cruisers. Eighteen thousand Americans aided (rather ordered around) the rebels and defeated the ten thousand man Spanish garrison.
The war was an excellent test for the new reforms in the United States Army. Not counting the Indian Wars, the Army performed with better efficiency than any previous war. It also suffered proportionally fewer casualties, most of which were from tropical disease. The war was quick and victorious, and restored much of America’s pride to its people. The material rewards from the war came in the form of the Mariana Islands. The Spanish War was a test run for the Army, many lessons learned here would be applied to the two-front war that would break out fifteen years later.
During his lifetime, Abraham Lincoln was vilified. Such character assassinations followed his death in 1866, and continued until after the Third Anglo-American War. By 1899, the intellectuals in academia began to reevaluate Lincoln’s contribution. His stance against the Confederacy and the British was considered visionary by 1900. He went from demonized to deified in the view of the public. Buildings, ships and cities were renamed in his honor. Even the capital of Nebraska, McClellan, was renamed Lincoln. His stance against the Confederate States would inspire future fights against the Confederacy.
When Roosevelt became president, after McKinley was killed at the 1900 World’s Fair by an anarchists (the first president to be assassinated), he credited Lincoln in started the struggle against Southern Imperialism. If not for his stance, the southern states would be dictating the affairs of the entire country. During his first two terms (1900-1908) Roosevelt would build the country towards the war he knew was approaching. The United States joined the arms race that consumed a sizable amount of resources of both Britain and Germany.
Though he was a Democrat, Roosevelt fought against the large trusts that had a stranglehold on the nation’s economy. Monopolies in coal, steel, oil and rail were broken during his presidency. Though he was very aggressive in foreign affairs, he was the first president to be progressive domestically. Roosevelt’s history on fighting political corruption and business interests date back to his time as New Amsterdam Police Commissioner, and later governor of New Amsterdam. After his short bout in the Spanish War, Roosevelt returned to New Amsterdam to continue his fight. Enemies within his own party conspired to rid themselves of him, and thus the Democratic Party gave him the Vice Presidency in hopes of keeping him quiet.
Once in Philadelphia, Roosevelt did not stop fighting against both corruption and big business. Roosevelt’s fight against trusts was not so much out of compassion for the little guy, but he believed that strategic resources in the hands of a few went against National Interests. Furthermore, he was all for competition, and having the better business win. A wave of scandals within the Democratic Party during his presidency stemmed from those very trusts that were broken. Dozens of representatives and governors were financed by the likes of Standard Oil and JP Morgan.
In 1903, Roosevelt traveled to New Grenada (the first president to leave the country while in office) to negotiate the purchase of Panama. To prove how serious he was on the matter, he was accompanied by the United States Navy’s Carribean Squadron (based out of Port Lincoln, formerly Port Limon). Thousands of soldiers poured into Costa Rica to make the clear impression upon Colombia that Roosevelt would not take no for an answer. On October 8, 1903, the United States purchased Panama from New Grenada for fifteen million dollars. The acquisition was annexed to Costa Rica, and the United States entered a joint-venture with the Dutch Commonwealth in the construction of the Panama Canal (to rival the Entente controlled Nicaragua Canal).
Roosevelt, from his time in Montana, was keenly aware that the wild areas of America were rapidly vanishing. Though he did not establish the first National Park (that would be Yellowstone in 1871, he vastly expanded the concept of conservation in America. His views on equality in the law continued to push him out of Democrat favor. He even pushed a Constitutional Amendment through Congress that gave the vote to all men. He reasoned that if a man (black or Indian) could shed blood for his country, then he should vote for who ran the show. This by no means meant Roosevelt was color-blind.
By 1908, Roosevelt felt that he accomplished his mission and was set to retire. He hand picked his successor, William Taft of Ohio, his vice president. He believed Taft capable of maintaining the new status quo, but lacked the initiative to alter it. Roosevelt was proven wrong when Taft led the Democratic Party back to its business of supporting big business. They even rolled back many of the reforms Roosevelt championed. When 1912 came around, Roosevelt decided to run for a third term, and re-establish his legacy. When he tried to gain the Democratic nomination, he was quickly shot down.
Instead of giving up, Roosevelt left the party with many like-minded individuals and formed the Progressive Party. With no serious contender on the Socialist ticket, it was a fight against Roosevelt and Taft. With tensions rising in Europe, Roosevelt’s hard-line against America’s enemies clinched the election for him. In 1913, the Progressive Party took the presidency along with New England governorships, Senate seats, and sixty-three seats in the House of Representatives.
Sweden on the Mend
The Swedish church is an evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church following the Swedish seizure of the Russian crown. It is a mostly Orthodox Christian sect with a great deal of influence from Lutheranism. The birth of this branch of Orthodoxy has its beginnings in the later Eighteenth Century when King Charles XV of Sweden converted to Orthodoxy, and changed Swedish laws to allow all of his subjects. The reasoning for his conversion was to bring the King closer to his Russian and Ukrainian subjects. It caused much stir amongst his native and Finnish subjects. With so many language barriers, the King sought a way to unite all his subjects, and religion was the only other option.
As more Swedes converted, more Lutheran teachings were being absorbed by the new church, and accepted by the Patriarch of Moscow. By 1870, the new Swedish Orthodox Church was proclaimed, with its religious center in Moscow. By the start of the Twentieth Century, it was declared Sweden’s state religion. Its conception and continued existence shows that though Sweden might control the Russian lands politically, Russian culture seeped back to Stockholm, gradually assimilating the ruling people.
The vast Swedish Empire was nearly torn asunder in the 1870s. Revolutions were sweeping through the Slavic populations of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Both empires ruthlessly crushed the revolutions, imprisoning or exiling tens of thousands of revolutionaries. The same fervor swept across the border into Sweden’s Ukrainian and Russian provinces in 1878. At the time, Sweden had a strong king and relatively weak parliament which was dominated by the nobility of Sweden. These were of primarily Swedish decent. The nobles in Russia were descended from officers in the Army of Charles XII, which conquered the Russian Empire and took the crown of the Tsar for Sweden. Elections were limited to land owners. In this case it was not a solely Swedish affair, though ethnic Swedes did have a disproportional high percentage of the votes.
Some of the more radical revolutionaries sought independence of their own states and even reviving the Russian Empire. A majority of the dissatisfied desired more home rule and a new constitution. Only a few years earlier, the Swedish King, Charles XV had proclaimed the founding of the Swedish Orthodox Church, an attempt to unite his subjects, to bring unity to a diverse population. Swedish Nobles wished to quash the revolution, but the King, being a recently converted Orthodox, was sympathetic to the peasants. When petitioned, the King granted an audience to representatives from the east. On August 24, he opened and presided over a Constitutional Convention. For three months, delegates from Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and the Ukraine met in Stockholm to debate over a new government. The in-fighting within the convention was almost as fierce as any civil war.
Many of the finer points of the new Constitution borrowed from the established Constitutions from the United States and the United Provinces. The Constitution abolished all hereditary titles save that of the King. It further established universal manhood suffrage for those above the age of twenty-four. Most critical is that the unicameral elected parliament would have complete control over the budget and can no longer be dissolved arbitrarily by the King. Parliament must vote its own consent to be dissolved. It was not a perfect solution, but it did prevent Sweden from collapsing the way of the Austrians and Turks would in 1916.
The Cossacks became an essential part of the Swedish Army during the Great Northern War, when they sided with Charles XII against Tsar Peter. Upon defeating the Russians and taking the crown for his own, Charles ended serfdom and stripped the boyas of their lands. The Cossacks were freed, and swore undying loyalty to the Swedish crown. They fought valiantly in the wars of the Eighteenth Century, and against Napoleon in the early Nineteenth Century. The horsemen were cut to pieces during the initial days of the Great War, when attempting to ride forth into German machine gunfire. The Cossacks were relegated to reserves, in the event that a breakthrough allowed cavalry to roll up the lines.
Today, the Cossacks still serve the Swedish Crown. All Cossack men volunteer for service, and serve in their respected Armor Division for at least one tour of duty. Horse riding is still popular in the towns on the steppe where the Cossacks live, but mechanized transportation has largely supplanted any applications. Whereas Cossacks could once ride by the time they could walk, they are now able to drive a car by the age of ten, and are adept mechanics. They know their cars and tanks as well as they know their horses. When not at war, the most skilled Cossacks participate in various races around the world, including the Jacksonville 500.
Cossack society is a warrior society. Their communities value bravery, honor and loyalty. One’s honor is so important in Cossack communities, the slightest insult can spark off a feud. They view not taking revenge as weakness, and this sometimes brings them into conflict with Swedish law. Cossacks also have problems when dealing with the more liberal elements of Swedish society, including pacifists. After decades of peace in the Twentieth Century, questions have been raised by the Swedish government as to what is the point in retaining the Cossacks’ service.
Taking Sides
By 1901, the start of the Twentieth Century, European nations were steadily moving towards one camp or another. On one side, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Sweden and the Confederate States of America banded together by 1910 to form the Quintuple Entente. The Entente evolved out of a British-Confederate pact dating back to the mid-1860s, adding both Spain and France to their alliance after German tromped the French during the Franco-Prussian War. A strong Germany dominating Central Europe was seen as a threat to Britain. Sweden was convinced to sign on in 1910 when it found itself in direct competition with Germany over the Polish-Lithuanian throne.
Germany formed its own alliance to face off against the Anglo-French hordes on its western frontier. Austro-Hungary and Italy were allied with Germany, forming what would be called the Central Powers by 1900. The fourth member, the United States of America, reluctantly signed an alliance with Germany in 1905. Since the days of George Washington, the United States made it policy not to get entangled with European affairs. However, like Germany, the United States were in the center of the continent, trapped between foes. Since the Confederates made no qualms about signing alliances with America’s oldest nemesis, the United Kingdom, the Americans had little choice but to seek outside aid. This was all too clear after the disastrous Third Anglo-American War of 1882-85.
The United Provinces were allied with neither side. Instead, they formed the Dutch Commonwealth with their own allies. Nominally neutral, the Commonwealth would not hesitate to engage in warfare should their interests ever be threatened. As far as European wars were concerned, the Dutch long since learned of the profit of neutrality. They also learned what happened when they aligned themselves with a foreign power, as was the case with Britain during the Eighteenth Century.
The fourth component lay in the aging and ailing Ottoman Empire. They were non-aligned but far from neutral. Given tensions that occasionally rise in the Balkans or on the Black Sea, the Turks could quickly find themselves at war with either the Austrians or the Swedes, or both. The Entente and Central Powers both had the Turks in consideration should war between the two alliances erupt. Both sides will use every diplomatic tool in their arsenal to get the Turks to declare war on their opposite number.
Neutral nations factored little into international policy before the Great War. The Latin American nations were of no real consequence, nor was Siam. By 1910, China’s Manchu Dynasty came to an end, and China plunged into a warring states period. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s own stance of neutrality made for an excellent buffer zone between Sweden and Germany. The only real contender was that of Japan. By 1910, they had considerable colonial gains
in Korea along with Kamchatka. Though the far northeastern reaches of Asia were frozen on their best of days, they were rich in mineral wealth. The Japanese brought Korean laborers into the deadly environment by the tens of thousands, many of which never saw home again.
Germany and Britain played a dangerous game in the build up of arms during the first decade of the Twentieth Century. This build up is primarily what allowed the World Powers to wage war between 1913-16. Though it was not the casus belli, it did allow many nations to expend the surplus of ammunition stockpiled during the decade. The German High Seas Fleet spent twenty years trying to elevate itself to the level of the Royal (British) Navy with little success.
In 1905, the British severely upset the balance of naval power by deploying the HMS Dreadnaught. It was a battleship unlike any before, an all big-gun warship. Its three hundred millimeter guns could easily blast lesser warships out of the water. The launching of the Dreadnaught Class battleships did more than drive the Germans into a production frenzy. This new type of warship was of great concern to the Dutch Commonwealth.
By 1907, the Brazilians built their own ‘dreadnaught’, the HMBS Emperor of Brazil. Its main turrets sported three hundred fifty millimeter guns, and was the first of many Brazilian and Netherlanders dreadnaught to be built by the start of the Great War. The Commonwealth expended a great deal of capital in building newer, more powerful ships.
The Americans added a new dimension to the arms race in 1903, with the advent of the first functional flying machine. Though the United States Army saw the airplane as little more than a novelty, both Germany and the Britain saw its potential for intelligence gathering. The Dutch took longer catching on. It was not until 1907 that the Fokker Aeronautical Company was established, and in that same year they only produced six airplanes. Hardly enough to cover a globe spanning commonwealth.
By 1913, the year the Great War erupted, both Germany and Britain supported an impressive military infrastructure. Both were equally matched in aircraft, however the High Seas Fleet only operated half as many vessels as the Royal (British) Navy. Furthermore, the British could call upon their own self-governing colonies, their own ‘commonwealth’. Though pale in comparison with the Dutch, the British could rely upon the Australians, Canadians, Filipinos and the Patagonians. Germans had fewer colonies, and those were mostly inhabited by natives. They invested most of their colonial efforts in Rio del la Plata, north of Patagonia; and Kaiserwilhemland, north of Australia.
The rest of Europe did not sit back idly as the two giants armed themselves. France kept up a steady pace, though always behind the both. The one disadvantage to its republican government was that France was always at the mercy of its people. Austro-Hungary too build up its forces, but its army was segregated between the various ethnic and national groups within its borders. As we will later seen, a less-than-fully integrated army was not a good army. Sweden used a similar practice, though only concerning its more elite forces, the Cossacks for example.
The Italian Federation spent more of an effort on its navy and its own air force. Its own expansion into Libya, coupled with the fact the nation was a series of islands and a peninsula made the maritime forces more valuable. Italy’s northern frontier sported one of the most formidable defensive barriers in the world; the Alps. Spain was forced to deplete its own resources in a navy to rival the Italians. Long gone were Spanish days of glory, the last of their American colonies liberated and their Pacific possessions lost in the wake of the Spanish-American War.
Across the Atlantic, it was the United States who built a military to be reckoned with. With enemies to the north, south and on the Pacific, the Americans poured their vast economic might into a two-ocean navy along with an army that could take on both British and Confederates simultaneously. Though humiliated during the Third Anglo-American War, the Americans built themselves back up, allying with Germany and adopting much of its Prussian institutions. The army was not the only one to benefit from foreign ideas. For decades, the Americans had hired Dutch captains and admirals to teach at the Naval Academy in Baltimore. Importing the discipline of the mightiest army in Europe, and the mightiest navy in the world, the Americans regained their confidence, especially in the wake of the triumphed victory over Spain.
The Confederate States strained themselves to keep up with the Americans, though they could never afford an army or navy as mighty. They were forced to rely upon British intervention and support. They long since adopted British tactics and discipline, and this aided them against the Americans during the Third Anglo-American War. The real advantage of the Confederates lay in the fact that they would almost certainly be fighting a defensive war. Extensive fortifications combined with knowledge of the terrain made attacking the Confederate States a challenge. With the armies and navies built, and contenders itching for a fight, all that was needed was a spark to ignite the tension and plunge the world into a war unlike any before; a war to end all wars.
The World in 1912
By 1912, all but two of the Great Powers have bound together in two large alliances, the Entente and the Central Powers. The Entente began its existence in 1890, when France and Sweden signed a defensive alliance agreeing to come to the other’s aid in event of war with the recently ascended German Empire. Sweden was in little danger from the Germans directly, but with a German (and an Imperial cousin) on the Polish-Lithuanian throne, there was concern that Poland-Lithuania might go to war with Sweden at German’s insistence. The Entente grew when the British signed on in 1898. The Confederate States were never an official signatory of the Entente, but were staunch allies of the British. If the United Kingdom went to war, the Confederates would follow. Britain had no provision guaranteeing they would enter into the war with France or Sweden if they went to war with Germany. However, should the Germans violate another country’s borders in said war, then the British would join the fight. Spain was the last to join the Entente; the Spanish Republic signing the alliance in 1907.
The Quadruple Alliance, called the Central Powers because its two chief members were surrounded by enemies, was formed in 1889 as the agreement of Two Emperors, between Germany and Austro-Hungary. The Italian Federation was also in alliance with Germany, though separate of this Two Emperors agreement. Should Austro-Hungary find itself in war with Sweden, or Germany in war with France, the other would stay out as long as the enemy’s ally would stay out. Since Sweden and France have pledged to aid each other, both of the German Emperors would soon be at war. Germany was at a disadvantage in that Austria was old and decrepit and the Italians were not viewed as wholly reliable. Germany needed an ally who could tip the balance against the British. They approached the United States, recently humiliated by the British and Confederates, in 1887 for an alliance. The Germans saw great potential in America, if only some Prussian Military Discipline could be bestowed upon them. The Americans did accept a defensive alliance in later 1887 against the British, but it was not until 1899, that the Quadruple Alliance was signed between the four World Powers.
Two neutral powers existed on the eve of the Great War. One was the Old Man of Europe, the Ottoman Empire. They continued to exist only at the sufferance of Austro-Hungary and Sweden. Especially Sweden. Should the Swedes ever take an active interest in the Balkans of Bosporus, it would spell doom for the Turks. The most powerful collection of nations on Earth, the Dutch Commonwealth, saw no profit in alliance, though the Germans sought one during the 1890s. The Dutch were interested in trading with all, not fighting them. As long as the United Provinces and Brazilian Empire’s commerce was not threatened, the Dutch were content to sit the war out and reap the benefits of neutrality.
The alliances covered both the political and military realm. The economy of the world was almost as tied together in 1912 as it would be in 2012. Large colonial empires of the centuries before were under mercantilism. By the twentieth century, free markets had replaced the medieval concepts of mercantilism, with commerce flowing across both sea and borders, albeit still faced with revenue-raising tariffs. At the time, the economies of the world were so interlinked, that some economists believed that not only was war between the Great Powers impossible, but obsolete.
Of all the Powers, it was the Dutch Commonwealth that controlled the largest share of world trade. The United Provinces were not the most productive of industrial states, but Brazil’s economy was nearly as large as the United States’. The Commonwealth also went as far as to build industries in its colonies where the resources are located. The British followed suit, as did the Germans. France, however, preferred to keep the bulk of its industry at home, and to harvest its colonial resources, ship them to France and process them. Afterwards, French companies would sell the products back to its colonies. France’s strategy hurt them somewhat. For example; Mexico, a French colony since the 1860s, could purchase some manufactured goods from the Confederate States, or even United States, for less than what the mother country was selling.
Not all trade was so benign. The Great Powers of Europe, save Sweden, exploited their colonies to fuel their own war industries. Iron, coal, oil and rubber were stockpiled by the European nations as an arm race rocked the first decade of the 20th Century. This arms race started when the Germans attempted to build a navy to combat the British. The Royal Navy, in turn, developed the doctrine that it should be large enough, and strong enough to take on enemies on both sides of the Atlantic, simultaneously. When both nations began to produce new ships, the United States felt it might be left behind, and began building up its own navy. Previous Anglo-American Wars have taught the Americans the threat posed by the Royal Navy.
When the Americans began to produce new battleships and cruisers, the Confederates attempted to keep pace. The C.S.A. was the least industrial developed of the Great Powers. Its land-owning aristocracy, trapped in a tradition a century out of date, perpetually controlled the central government, with the chief interest in maintaining their posting in life. As such, industry was stifled in the Confederacy, and they did not begin industrializing until after slavery faded, in the 1880s and 90s. Most of its industry was built by British capitalists, eager to exploit the mineral wealth of the Confederacy. As such, native investments did not start until after the economic slump following the death of King Cotton.
The Swedes had the largest challenge. After two centuries of integration, and the merging of Swedish and Russian cultures, the Swedish “Empire” was fully industrialized around the Baltic, in Sweden Proper, as well as Finland, Estonia and Latvia. Their biggest problem was getting raw materials to market. In 1903, a transcontinental railroad was finally completed, with the last Swedish stop at Lake Baikal (and the Pacific terminal within the crumbling Manchu, or Qing, Empire). This one line ran through the southern parts of Siberia, far from the iron, coal and oil deposits believed to be in the taiga and tundra. Much of the shipping east of the Urals was done on the rivers, and only when seasons permitted it.
At the start of the Great War, there were two Grand Strategies in place the moment war broke out. As with all plans, these did not survive contact with the enemy. Grand strategies were designed by both the Central Powers and Entente, in order to direct their armed forces to a common goal and victory. Both plans took a Europe-first approach.
For the Central Powers, the war would start out with Plan 6, the German invasion of France. The German General Staff projected three months to take Paris and force the French into a favorable cease fire. The reason for knocking France out first was two-fold; 1) They shared a land border with Germany and 2) the Germans believed them the easiest to defeat. After France sued for peace, the divisions in the west would be shifted to the east, to force the issue in Poland-Lithuania. Taking Stockholm was never seen as a viable plan, and the Germans aimed to force the Swedish king to concede the Polish-Lithuanian Throne to the German candidate. In the meantime, the Americans would put the bulk of their forces into defeating their southern neighbor. Both America and Germany agreed the Confederates would be easier to defeat than Britain, especially with British resources divided in several theaters. Since Canada was almost totally cut off from the Atlantic by a neutral Quebec, and completely so in the winter by the frozen Hudson Bay, they were viewed as a minimal threat. Rightfully so, as it was later discovered all Canadian war plans would be defensive and dependent upon reinforcements from the Empire. The British would be the last to fall, as the United States Navy and High Seas Fleet would strangle the island into submission.
The Entente also had their plans focusing on Europe. Their first goal would be to either knock out or prevent the Italians from entering the war. Italy had national interests on both sides of the alliance boundary, and it was believed they could be convinced to neutrality. Austro-Hungary was viewed as a rickety house that would be easy to topple. This did prove true, but it was done by internal reactions not the Entente. The British and Swedes believed these first two goals could be met within three months. After which, Germany would be squeezed from all sides, and Sweden, with their Polish and Lithuanian allies, would breakthrough to take Berlin. While the fight raged in Europe, the Confederates would trade land for time, slowly giving ground to the Americans. Once Germany was defeated, British and Swedish soldiers would flock to North America and turn the tide. The Confederates were not thrilled by this plan. Despite their staunch loyalty, the independent southern streak had to ask; “what if they don’t come?” That would leave the C.S.A. taking on an opponent with (not counting their black population, which the Confederates seldom did) more than three times their population.
Plan 6 is the sixth out of eight war plans the German General Staff designed in event of war with France. Each of the plans concerns certain scenarios, such as if the United Provinces side with Germany, France or remain neutral. Plan 6 involves a war with France, where both the United Provinces and Switzerland are neutral. In this plan, the bulk of the German Army in France, numbering over a million, will march westward across Alsace and Lorraine. Two smaller armies, of at least one hundred thousand each, will move in wide flanking maneuvers to the north and south of the so-called iron drapes. These smaller armies would flank the fortification line and attack it from the west, while the larger army would crash into it from the east. It was planned that this would open a wide enough breach in the fortifications to allow the German Army a mostly unopposed march towards Paris. It was planned that France could be knocked out of the war within two to three months, where afterwards the German Army could be moved East to deal with the war in Poland-Lithuania. As the General Staff would soon discover, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and the French were not about to play their anticipated role in Plan 6.
War Plan Red is one of the United States’ color coated war plans. This particular color was given to the British Empire. The bulk of any war against Britain would be fought in Canada, however the navy would have to contend with the Royal Navy. When these plans were drawn up in the 1890s, it was hoped that the German Empire would also declare war on Britain, dividing the Royal Navy. At no time were there any plans to invade the British Homeland. The plan did call for reconquest of western Washington, the Red River Valley and northern Maine.
Of the color coated war plans developed by the United States, gray was one of the more obvious colors. This was the plan developed to fight the enemy to the south, the Confederate States. The War Department believe a bulk of the fighting would be done east of the Mississippi. The region was divided into two fronts by the Appalachian Mountains; the Potomac Front and Ohio Front, named after rivers that served as natural barriers. The Potomac Front has the eventual goal of overrunning Virginia, forcing it back into the Union, and most importantly, capturing the Confederate Naval Base at Norfolk.
The Ohio Front would have to storm through both Kentucky and Tennessee. Taking the coal deposits in these regions would weaken Confederate industries, the smallest of the Entente. The ultimate goal of the Ohio Front was to take the Confederate Capital of Birmingham, in Alabama. West of the Mississippi, the region was divided into another two sectors; the Midwest and the Colorado Front.
The Colorado Front, named after the river that would see little combat, had the primary goal of closing the Pacific Ocean to the Confederacy in the capture of Port Sinoloa. Being so sparsely populated, Arizona Territory would never have the trenches and static warfare seen in the east. The Midwest Front’s goal was to take away Confederate oil in Oklahoma and northern Texas. This was believed to be the easiest goal since the Indians forced into Oklahoma might have sympathies more with the United States, whom left the Five Civilized Tribes alone before the Civil War.
Operation Python was one part of the overall War Plan Gray. It would prove a vital part of the war effort, in that the blockade of the Confederate States would strangulate their war effort. Python could not be moved forward until the Bahamas were under American control and the liberation of Cuba began. Python did not require the whole state of Cuba, but rather Guantanamo Bay as a base of operations. Python was divided into three sectors. The Atlantic Sector would stretch from Baltimore to Guantanamo. The Gulf of Texas Sector spanned from the Rio Grand to Guantanamo. In both of these sectors, the United States Navy was authorized to sink any ship attempting enter Confederate ports. Both sectors the USN declare unrestricted naval warfare, with more than half the shipping sunk by submarines. The Caribbean Sector was a little more complicated and took too much politics into account. The USN would patrol the Caribbean and seal of the Caribbean access to the Nicaragua Canal. Ships were cleared to sink Confederate, British or Spanish shipping heading to Mexico on sight. However, since France and the U.S. were co-belligerents and not officially at war with each other, ships flying the French flag could not be sunk on sight. Instead, the ships would be stopped and searched. Ships with arms on board would be escorted to port and have its arms removed. Those without weapons will be allowed to pass unmolested. However, if the ship is found to be flying false colors, such as a Confederate ship with a French flag, the ship will be seized and the crew treated as pirates.
What follows is the manpower within the standing armies a month before the start of the Great War. It describes land forces, and excluded the World Powers’ navies.
Central Powers
Germany: 4 million
Astro-Hungary: 2.8 million
United States: 2.7 million (includes Standing Army and Guard)
Italian Federation: 2.2 million
Total: 11.7 million
Entente
Sweden: 6 million
France: 4 million
Britain: 1.3 million
Confederates: 1.8 million
Spain: 1.1 million
Total: 14.2 million
The cases of Sweden and Britain are misleading. In the case of the former, they had a long frontier with China, Japan, as well as Central Asia and Turkey to defend. Only half of their forces were readily available in 1913, with more pulled away as the war continued. In the latter case, Britain’s army was the army of its entire Empire and Commonwealth. 300,000 soldiers alone were Canadians and Empire soldiers stationed in Canada. The Home Army was not even a quarter of a million in 1913.
The American Army was the most unusual of the Great Powers. Before the start of the Great War, the United States had a standing army of 1.3 million. Since its founding, the United States Government and the American people have always been suspicious to standing armies. It was not until well after the Civil War, in fact not until the Third Anglo-American War, that the United States built up a permanent standing army. This decision was not a popular one, but a wise one; when it became surrounded by enemies, Americans took the pragmatic course and built it up its army. However, the regulars account for between 40% and 45% of the total army strength. The rest of the official army lay in the States’ militias, which were reorganized into the National Guard.
These more than 1.4 million citizen-soldiers serve for their states. The National Guard trains heavily in irregular warfare. Guerilla warfare by Americans is a tradition that dates back to the Revolution. How the National Guard units are organized is totally dependant upon the States involved. Some states, such as Maine, New Hampshire and Missouri, have their entire male populations eligible for the National Guard. Up to ten percent of these citizens are called up said states for terms of service of one year. Though conscription was law in the United States in 1913, it was relegated mostly to the National Guard units, with the Federal Draft able to call upon those Guard-trained soldiers and entire units. The National Guard can call up its soldiers on short notice. Unofficial citizen’s militia, called Minutemen, can call up faster. However, not being part of the legitimate army, these armed civilians are not protected under international law. Neither State or Federal Governments will call upon these private volunteers unless the area in question is invaded. Old State laws still require all men with arms to defend their homes in time of war.
The officer corp of the Standing Army is largely Fort Arnold trained and educated. With the National Guards, college graduates are automatically sent into Reserve Officer Training Corps. When soldiers in the standing army finally resign, they are immediately shifted into the National Guard of their home states. There, they will be liable to being called back to duty in time of war. The Federal Army has a more definite term of service, with enlistment periods of four or six year per term. The Federals are on duty year round, while the Guard stands down for most of year, minus training periods and times when the States decide to call them up.
Now what follows is the naval strength of the Powers.
Central Powers
Germany: BB- 22; BC-13; C-47
United States: BB-26; BC-7; C-38
Austro-Hungary: BB-12; BC-3; C-14
Italy: BB-19; BC-12; C-20
Entente
Sweden: BB-20; BC-10; C-31
France: BB-18; BC-5 C-39
Britain: BB-39; BC-22; C-58
Confederates: BB-13; BC-8; C-20
Spain: BB-5; BC-12; C-18
The numbers concerning the United States and Britain are a bit misleading, for both nations have to cover multiple oceans with their navies. The Royal Navy’s Home Fleet was actually smaller than the total shipping of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet. The Royal Navy’s intent on ship building was to be able to take on both their primary enemies on the high seas. Aside from protecting Britain from invasion, which was unlikely to be launched by either, they were also forced to keep open supply lines from their colonies; most important being the food from Patagonia, followed by industrial resources from Africa.
The United States was in a similar position as the British, that in fighting two enemies at once off their coasts. Of the two, the Confederate Navy was considered a joke by many in the Department of the Navy, but they would combine with Britain’s western Atlantic force and be under British command. Absent from above are the two neutral powers, the Turks and Dutch. Of these two, the Turks were a non-factor. The Dutch Commonwealth, however, had a fleet larger than even Britain’s. Their entry into any large-scale war would tip the balance against whomever antagonized them.