Part 12: Chapter XII: The Great War (1906-1914)
Ah, I have it!
Chapter XII: The Great War (1906-1914)
For the eyes of Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann of the Federal Republic of Northern Germany:
Herr Secretary, I hope this dispatch reaches you in good health. Congratulations on your promotion. As you are in so I am out...after eight long years as the ambassador to our Southern "cousins," through fear of the turmoil at home and the wars here, I am amazed this posting ever ended. On Tuesday I board the train back to Berlin, and am now completing my final duty as ambassador: writing the full debriefing of all I have seen here these past eight years and my thoughts regarding future relations between the Federal Republic of Northern Germany and the South German Empire, or as they're popularly known, the South German Federation or SGF (the Federation part is a mere fig-leaf: the elites of Bavaria and Austria are indistinguishable now, and no one speaks of Baden and Württemburg as coequal parters anymore except on the most theoretical level).
The South Germans are savvy in ways that would impress even a master of realpolitik like you, Herr Secretary. The Johore coup (a coup in more ways than one) is a classic example. South Germany's industrial sector has been unchained by the adaptation of Liberal Lassiez Faire economic policies: though the previous regime set a strong foundation for such success, the runaway wealth of SGF capitalists is astonishing and their industry has begun to rival our own. However, their heavy industry always ran into a critical rubber supply problem: like us, the SGF lacks any significant colonial empire, and, as our automotive manufacturers have no doubt informed you, that fact leads to a crippling liability for our electrical and automotive industrial sectors. The Southerners have been approached by the British for alliance for many years, but have ostentatiously refused each time. In 1906, as I'm sure you're aware, they pulled off the move of the century. The British imperial governor of Johore declared himself king of an independent Malayan state, free of any obligations to the British Empire. The government in Munich jumped on the opportunity and sealed a most-favored nation pact with Johore, securing first buying rights to all of its rubber, then turned around and took in the British Ambassador, already deployed to Munich to seek a pact, and accepted before London had time to react to the changed circumstances. Today, fueled by Malaysian rubber, SGF's Bohemian Motorworks in Prague is the world's top car manufacturer, and the SGF gained another Great Power ally besides.
Of course, it doesn't always go the SGF's way, and some very happy diplomats in Washington have found themselves in the odd position of rooting for the progress of Latin American communists to free those countries from Munich's grip. You wouldn't believe how fast the price of Tobacco rose once the revolution cut off the supply of Cuban cigars. However, this is a mere nuisance.
Ah yes, the war. That war...it seems so long ago now, so tame by comparison. The last war to not feature men suffocating while their lungs fill with poison instead of air...how quaint. It certainly didn't seem quaint at the time. Turkish and French soldiers dutifully marched, very slowly, towards fortified trenches protected with barbed wire and machine guns, all while a constant bombardment of German artillery mowed them down where they stood. 10 or even 20 to one casualty ratios were not uncommon.
Famously, the first German soldier over the walls into Istanbul declared it "less fun than Rome," which had, of course, been sacked the previous year. Our Imperial cousins have a haughty disdain for Mediterraneans, whether they be Turkish, Italian, or French, a disregard I always thought was an attempt to cover up how Mediterranean their own empire now is. Have you noticed how reliant on the Hungarians the SGF is, in both wartime and peacetime? It seems that the SGF decides to take glorious tasks like mowing down 16 year old Turkish conscripts armed with 80 year old rifles and sacking capitals to itself while leaving the Hungarians the drudge work of laying siege to all of Rumelia.
Chaumont is still the bloodiest battle of the twentieth century, unless some Siberian clash in the recent Russo-Chinese War featured a quarter million men slaughtered and we just didn't notice (the Chinese seem no worse for wear, but I admit my eyes glaze over after seeing that they have 6XX brigades...the difference between 675 and 640 would be over a hundred thousand men yet it seems like a rounding error). Anyway, Chaumont showed decisively why the South Germans' cutting-edge professional army was a superior force to France's vast levée en masse and that the era of Napoleonic-style mass mobilization winning wars was decisively over, though, of course, it took more than that for Paris to get the message. Berlin has responded quite well to the shock of how easily our cousins slaughtered the entire French army, if I may offer my opinion. As formidable as SGF's force of 108 brigades worth of professionally-trained soldiers armed with state-of-the-art weaponry and tactics is, they will have surely noticed that our force is equally advanced and a full two thirds larger than theirs is. My commendations to Field Marshal von Moltke: our force has quantity and quality and is more than a match for the quantity of Russia and France or the quality of our estranged cousins. Should the day arise, they will not find Berlin as easy to despoil as Paris or Istanbul.
Despite all the praise one hears of South German artists, our cousins have no aesthetic taste when painting on the map.
It was a bit of a running joke in the embassy that the Russians demanded the same official message of condolence for their meteor strike in the middle of nowhere as the Yankees did for losing a major port to an earthquake.
As absurd as it is, I felt actual pride that the first words spoken on both the North and South Pole were in German. Say what you will about our cousins, their ingenuity and technical prowess cannot be denied. Such is the power of German planning, engineering, and dedication. The world is fortunate that we have never gotten along with them: the only thing in the way of a world dominated by Germans are our internal divisions.
Yes, I've met the Wizard of Innsbruck, Herr Edison, in person, though most of the work on electricity was actually done by Herr Edison's Serbian coworker, Nikola Tesla. It's amazing to think that Edison actually emigrated from America to SGF to do his pioneering labor in electricity and motion pictures, isn't it?
They can't possibly build a massive armada of modern ships, their coastline isn't long enough to support such a venture.
The cost of business in SGF goes down even as they squeeze more revenue out of corporate taxes. If we don't watch out, Bohemia will surpass the Rhineland as the industrial heart of Europe.
There is good news, however. Not a single one of the tanks their army has ordered have arrived because the capitalists aren't stupid enough to build a factory for them. As long as their capitalists put their greed ahead of their patriotism, we don't have to worry about the Imperial army mechanizing. [EDITOR NOTE]It's basically impossible for a Lassiez Faire state to get tanks...we either have to switch back to a Planned Economy party and set up some tank factories or hope that some other Planned Economy builds some Tank Factories and sells us the surplus tank parts. In all likelihood, the six tank brigades I ordered in 1909 won't be built by 1936.[/EDITOR NOTE]
Even without tanks, their soldiers are a sight to see. The Engineer Corps, though unsung compared to the rest, can break through a level three fort like it was nothing.
It's always amusing when SGF reaches out to a country like Beroda only for the influence to go to waste in a revolution, especially when that revolution reduces Beroda back to uncivilized status after two decades of full diplomatic equality.
Sometimes SGF diplomats make fools of themselves at meetings of the Concert of Europe. It was rather hilarious watching them praise how free and progressive their society is compared to...Burma. Not to us, to Burma.
Of course, before the revolution, we would have failed that comparison.
Things are much better now that society isn't literally governed by how much you own. Ambassadorial work is hard when your government is overthrown, but luckily the new regime kept me on.
Their economic progress mirrors ours in many ways...especially now that "regulation" is no longer a word that will land one a five year prison sentence.
Britain snatched the islands of Palmyra, Wake, and Midway while Hawaii seceded from the USA. Why is that relevant? Because Munich instantly sought to declare Hawaii part of its sphere to prevent USA from leaving its landmass. America's loss of its Pacific launching point drastically weakens its influence in Asia.
The veterans of the war on France proved a formidable corps that would form the core of the SGF professional army.
Outside of that one war in the desert to help the Ottomans reclaim their Holy Land (a vanity project of the Sultan to restore his image after his army’s thrashing by the SGF, and yet he still needed our help!), our troops haven’t exactly had the same opportunity to practice as our southern cousins have.
Our southern cousins have a morbid fascination with India. As I’m sure you’re aware, there are roving bands of rebels that wander unhindered around the subcontinent. Upon taking the capital of a princely state, they have a 1 in 10 chance of submitting to annexation by the prostrate, helpless, undefended Indian Republic. Sindh was the first, but not the last, state to lose the lottery…many others have fallen to pan-nationalists, but maintained their independence, submitting only to political reforms.
And then there’s the Punjab crisis, as it’s come to be known. SGF, as one of three states (along with Britain and Japan) competing for influence in Punjab, followed the events here closely. It turns out that these rebels, if they don’t fully overthrow the country they assault, can defect individual pieces of it to India. This would be of mere academic note if they hadn’t ceded Peshawar to India. Afghanistan, eager to retake the land it lost in the 1820s for many years now, jumped on this opportunity.
Upon retaking Peshawar, Afghanistan became a fully-recognized civilized state and is now considered a major third wheel in the rivalry for domination of India, alongside Hyderabad and Mysore. As for Punjab…
Yes, the India crisis bears further watching. Reports indicate that Afghanistan, Mysore, Hyderabad, and even the British all have their eyes on further dismembering the prostrate and helpless Indian Republic, and that the SGF has absolutely no intention to prevent this outcome. Some here in Munich even clamor for a piece of the India pie for themselves.
The tripartite Liberal coalition maintains dominance, but the Socialists’ rising support is threatening this dominance, as the Socialist Worker’s Party gained more votes than any two of the three Liberal Parties put together.
Perhaps the parade of renowned economists coming out of Munich have made their way to Berlin. For my part, I cannot understand any of these “great men.”
Their navy’s improvement has been quite dramatic in terms of quality, but their lack of serious bases is a liability.
One hears rumors of world-class naval bases under construction in Trieste and Senj and Kotor, but as of yet they are but rumors. Unlike us, they do not yet possess the Dreadnought.
Their true strength lies not in their Navy nor even in their highly-trained army, but in the devastating power of their artillery and the poison gas attack that prevents enemies from even approaching their forces.
In Asia, restless powers clashed. SGF’s rising tensions with the Russian Empire were aided by Russia moving its entire army out to Siberia to clash over desolate Mongol soil. Have you ever pondered how Japan still claims to own Korea despite the entire peninsula rising in revolt for the past six years merely because they still control Jeju Island?
The poor of SGF are taken care of, but by whom?
To fend off the Fascist push for popularity, the SGF has granted a number of token concessions to its angry poor.
Whatever else one may say about them, the SGF’s economic structure and administration is top-notch.
One must question the wisdom of the government in Paris in launching the late Great War. Between SGF’s recent development of gas attack and the near-total absence of the Russian military, on campaign in Mongolia, and the addition of the UK to SGF’s already-powerful coalition, the French never stood a chance. However, the French themselves had also developed the capability for gas attack, and so sold were they on its potential as a powerful weapon that they neglected that their adversaries possessed it as well.
A war where both sides use chemical weapons is a horror I never wish to see again.
SGF made its primary priority in the war the strengthening of its Ruthenian puppet. As the British Empire had taken control of the war and had its own goals (mostly seizing France’s empire in Africa) the SGF proved very hesitant about grand objectives, preferring smaller, easier to justify ones.
At least, they did early on in the war. As the war’s nature as a total rout became obvious, Munich became more aggressive about its demands.
France proved completely unable to win a battle on the offensive or defensive. Their faith in massive floods of conscripts was utterly unchanged from the 1905-1907 war despite the strategic climate becoming even more hostile to such antiquated tactics.
And don’t even get me started on the Turks.
St. Etienne is one of the miracles of modern warfare, and I’m sure that Field Marshal von Moltke studies it constantly. The way the Imperial army emerged almost totally unscathed while its French foes died to a man stunned even the victors.
Much like Napoleon, the SGF army marched in to take Moscow. Unlike Napoleon, however, they didn’t even face a Borodino along the way: the Russian army, slowly marching back from Mongolia, was completely absent for most of the war.
The war quickly demonstrated how completely unprepared France was for a combined attack across the channel by the British and a westward push from South Germany. The French army melted in the face of this combined assault and town after town fell in rapid succession.
When the Russian army finally returned from Mongolia, it was already too late to change the result.
To this day, the foolish French don’t realize that they simply don’t know how to fight a war in the 20th century. I am confident that our army would perform quite admirably against the SGF, but we might actually be the only country capable of posing a challenge to their military. (Possibly the United States, as their navy is more powerful than the SGF’s and they’d prevent an SGF landing, but even that war would devolve into stalemate)
A minor brushfire in Southeast Asia drew Britain in on the side of Siam while Japan defended its ally Burma. This distraction to the British hastened the end to the French war, as the British needed to pull forces away to deal with this new threat.
The dead in the final days of a war are even more tragic. The outcome was already decided, yet these men died in vain. [EDITOR’S NOTE]The dead on my side at Aurillac were almost totally British.[/EDITOR’S NOTE]
In one of the great miscalculations, the Communist Greeks launched an assault on the Ottoman Empire, expecting that the war with the SGF would leave them too distracted to fight back.
Freed to fight back, the Turks and French utterly demolished the Greeks.
Perhaps the most major implication of the war to the SGF was the buffing up of its Ruthenian vassal, which now owned the vast oil wells of East Galicia, oil now secured solely for SGF use.
Their new “Catalonian” ally, whose population is only 1/3rd Catalonian, may also help them in future wars against France, completing the encirclement of that country.
In a gutsy miscalculation, the Dutch, backed by SGF, moved to order the defeated Russia to free the Poles. The Dutch backed down once we joined in on Russia’s side. Though SGF has prospered from its recent victories, its Dutch ally has suffered enormously and took disproportionately high losses against France. The Dutch can barely support an army, and in a war with them as war leader, we would be in Amsterdam before SGF can do anything about it. The utterly hollow nature of Dutch power is the Achilles’ heel of the SGF’s alliance chain.
Japan is still unable to fight Britain. The British Empire is a powerful ally for SGF, a naval giant to accompany their land behemoth, but their army is dated and not a threat to us.
SGF grows overconfident, provocative, and triumphalist over its recent military victories. Indeed, in a straight fight, the North German Republic cannot beat the South German Empire…the endless horde of Hungarian troops from SGF’s loyal satrap and the British navy both make up for any weaknesses of their own strategic situation. And yet SGF’s own alienating triumphalism will be its downfall. The next time they pick a fight with France and Russia, if we were to participate, they would be totally overwhelmed. SGF’s fondness for cruel battles in which it slaughters tens of thousands of Frenchmen and Russians is time-consuming, and their absence on these quests for blood and glory leave their homeland wide open. My professional recommendation is that it’s time to approach Tsar and King about a tripartite alliance to contain SGF power.
SGF Demographics
