Summarize this chapter from Look to the West, an alternate history timeline.

Context: Look to the West, written by Thomas “Thande” Anderson, is one of the longest-running and acclaimed alternate timelines on AlternateHistory.com, a site dedicated, unsurprisingly, to Alternate History which also gave us Decades of Darkness. The timeline is written as a series of clippings from sometimes biased or incomplete “local” histories written by the natives of the timeline, with multiple viewpoints mixed together for balance and the whole sprinkled with footnootes from the author (although technically from the team below), quotes real and fictional, and occasional helpful interludes in which a team of crosstime explorers from 20 Minutes into the Future (our future, it would seem) explain their findings.

It begins with George II of Great Britain tripping up on his coronation carpet, and from there things stay much as we know them for a couple of decades, then gradually diverge. The world is already noticeably different in 1795, when things start diverging dramatically and very, very bloodily. The timeline is currently in 1959, but chapters are thematic, not chronological.

Here is the chapter: "Part #275: Peace’s End

“<STATIC>”

–part of a transmission to or from the English Security Directorate base at Snowdrop House, Croydon, intercepted and decrypted by Thande Institute personnel
​

*

From: Motext Pages EX140B-L [retrieved 22/11/19].

Remarks: These pages are listed under “SAAX History Revision: All Syllabi”.

Extraneous advertising has been left intact.

It has become almost a cliché that students in your position are expected to study the leadup to the Pandoric War, and in recent years this has sometimes been extended to the Sunrise War—or even the Last War of Supremacy. Your parents, even if they did not pursue history beyond the old Fundamental School Certificate level, may recount to you that such lessons were frequently a dull thud of inevitability, a litany of mistakes that could have been avoided. Yet, as you will already have learned, contemporary perceptions of the Pandoric War were very different to the ones we may have, coloured by hindsight. The name Pandoric War did not emerge until after the Black Twenties, when commentators became aware of what the earlier war had unleashed upon the world—indeed, a veritable Pandora’s Box had been opened. We might argue that avoiding the Pandoric War might have prevented the crimes of Societism—but as more experienced historians, you should be aware that this is not as straightforward as a dozen chronovoyager parachthonic romances[1] might have you believe.

Even if we did accept this supposition as fact in the absence of a broader understanding of the tides of history, we can nonetheless critique the idea that studying the leadup to the Pandoric War imparts any greater understanding of the great divide of the twentieth century. Because the rise of Societism in South America was essentially only an incidental aftereffect of the war, turned to by the masses via the discrediting of both the old Unionist-Adamantine corporate consensus and also the radical Mentianism of Monterroso, of what relevance is it to study how those two were discredited? This is not to say that this period should not be studied, of course, merely that it is of less significance to understanding the Quiet War than many old school syllabi contended. Some commentators have suggested that the prominent place given to this topic in your parents’ day was more motivated by emphasising the origins of the political break between England and the ENA.

All of this is a long-winded way of coming to the point that the leadup to the Black Twenties has frequently, by comparison, been neglected. Yet it is in the Black Twenties period, and in particular its aftermath, that the world became more aware of the threat posed by Societism and the Combine under Alfarus. If this had already been recognised, the conflict as we know it likely would not have happened.

Notably, unlike the three other major wars of the twentieth (and end of the nineteenth) centuries we have mentioned, the Black Twenties is not described merely as a ‘war’ in historiography. Military conflict was a major part of the years 1922-1927 which unleashed so much horror upon the world, but it was far from the only one—as we shall see. Partly because of this, no widespread name for the purely military portion of the crisis period has ever been settled upon; we might even suggest this is part of the reason for why, historically, it has been neglected in school education. At the time, it was frequently given hyper-nationalistic and proto-Diversitarian names such as ‘the War of Russian Aggression’ in France, ‘the Patriotic War’ in Russia and simply ‘the Return Engagement’ in the ENA. Other names included ‘the Tartar War’ or ‘the Khivan War’, referring to the “casus belli”. These names were frequently parroted in newspapers of the period, yet today are often not even recognised by students out of context. They feel far too petty and of insufficient scope to describe what the global crisis of the 1920s became.

There are essentially two levels of misconception that new scholars of the First Interbellum and the Black Twenties typically have. Firstly, there is the one we associate with the general public (particularly older people) who view everything through the lens of the Quiet War and the global ideological conflict between Societism and Diversitarianism. This view almost refuses to engage with the subject in a meaningful way, resorting to the overly simplistic and propaganda-driven view that the rulers of the free world were blind and ignorant, and that everything they did in this age was a hubristic irrelevance that only helped the Societist menace. There are good reasons why this idea was promoted by a later generation of leaders keen to shift the blame onto their predecessors, especially following the fate of Russia after the Sunrise War. But such a dismissive attitude is scarcely helpful to students of history, especially those who actually wish to learn from its mistakes and avoid repeating them.

The second level of misconception, which we might characterise as ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, is more subtly formed. Students in this position do not dismiss Franco-Russian rivalry as a mere set-piece of vainglory that almost serves a propaganda narrative purpose to justify the uninterrupted rise of Societism. They understand that this view is overly simplistic and unhelpful. However, conversely, they fixate upon that Franco-Russian rivalry as though it was the defining political question of the First Interbellum in both nations, and then are unable to justify or explain many of the actions of both the French and Russian governments. The roots of this misconception generally appear to lie in an overly military-focused understanding of history, looking at one war after another as though the second arises naturally from the first. While this may sometimes be true in a grand sense, it is misleading to treat a second conflict as though it is necessarily run by the same leaders or fought by the same soldiers as the first, with a sense of visceral revenge or urgency.

In this particular case, such a view may also be motivated by a contempt for social and cultural history, given the particular emphasis placed on those disciplines by study of the First Interbellum period. The historian and critic William Hutchins argued in 2007 that such students regarded that period as ‘a mere theatrical interval between two acts of the same military performance, in which the audience are entertained by the spectacle of Flippant girls dancing to rattlebang music on the backs of steam-scorchers’.[2] As Hutchins went on to explain after that memorable figure of speech, such a view draws a misleading line from the Marseilles Protocol of the Pandoric War to the ‘Bouclier’ alliance of the Black Twenties. In reality, the priorities of the French government had shifted considerably. Under Leclerc the goal of the Protocol had been firstly to secure French economic interests (and the safety of French subjects abroad), protecting them from the ravages of the war; a secondary goal had been to advance French power as other nations grew weaker, the so-called ‘French Vulture’ actions as they became known.

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The Tuileries[3] sought to either undermine or suborn France’s neighbours, thanks to the longstanding foreign policy goal of bringing Spain into personal union without causing a major war. This would be the culmination of a foreign policy plan begun in 1856, when Charles Leo, Duke of Anjou, had become President of the First Spanish Republic—transitioning seamlessly to being King Charles V of a restored kingdom five years later. His queen, Maria, daughter of the Duke of Alba, was thought to be sterile; hence, upon Charles’ death the throne would revert to the descendants of his father, who just happened to be King Charles X of France.[4] Charles Leo had been just 30 years old when he was made President and 35 when he became King of Spain, meaning this was decidedly a long-term goal of French foreign policy, yet this also meant that changing the status quo was not perceived as a priority by France’s enemies. France went through a long period of popular paranoia about an invasion by the recently-unified German Bundesreich, and if Charles V had died young to provide a “casus belli”, then perhaps a Franco-German war to interrupt the Long Peace would not remain solely within the pages of speculative romances. But he proved long-lived. Uncomfortably long-lived, one might say.

Charles V was 74 years old at the end of the Pandoric War, at which point rumours were circulating of an illness.[5] Indeed, he had contracted the ‘Peace flu’ epidemic that swept the world at this point due to the movements of soldiers. From a cold-blooded French policy point of view, it would have been an ideal time for him to shuffle off this mortal coil; France’s prospective foes wishing to contest the marriage of the kingdoms were all either badly weakened or even pulled into France’s own sphere of influence.

Yet Charles stubbornly refused to die. Queen Maria did succumb to the flu, and her loss appears to have driven Charles into a depression which persisted for the remainder of his life, yet the King remained upon his throne. Observers, both in France and elsewhere, impatiently looked at their watches, trying to figure out when the succession crisis might hit. In Spain herself, the First Interbellum—rather than being associated with Flippants and shocking new music as it is elsewhere—was painted as an “Era Gris” or ‘Grey Period’ by the cultural critic Pedro Losada. Plays of the period, and especially those looking back on it, paint a picture of a creaking, dusty, cobwebbed, half-empty Palacio Real, with none of the laughter of children or the hearty escapades of young men and women. The ancient king, frequently waited on by equally ancient servants, passed day after day in ‘a mere state of existence’ (to quote Losada) while the Estados Generales ran the country.[6]

Losada and other critics, who were not young men, reflected bitterly that few remembered the days of cultural flowering in the Spain of the 1870s, when Charles had been a younger man and had filled the court with daring new artists and writers. The conservative Estados adopted a far more traditionalist approach towards censorship in the “Era Gris”, leading to a gloomy period of ‘worthy’ entertainment in Spain. Early Spanish films do not reflect the country’s cultural heritage, with the best early versions of classics like “Don Quixote” instead being made in California or even in Mexico, itself not known for a lax approach to censorship. To this day, annoyed apologists for Spain’s literature heritage bemoan the fact that the world frequently knows “El Cid” as “Le Cid”, with French film adaptations of Pierre Corneille’s 1636 play displacing Hispanophone dramatisations of the legendary hero’s life in the popular cultural imagination. Supposedly, Rodrigo Munoz’s smash-hit Hispanophone 2009 adaptation of “Manon Lescaut” deliberately shifted the original story’s setting from eighteenth-century France and Louisiana to Spain and Mexico ‘as an act of revenge’, according to an interview with that eccentric director.

Many observed that history had repeated itself. Two centuries earlier, all of Europe had impatiently waited for the inbred last Hapsburg King of Spain, Charles II, to die, knowing this would trigger a succession war. It had taken decades longer than anyone had anticipated due to Charles’ unexpected longevity despite his many genetic health problems, before the First War of Supremacy (also called the War of the Spanish Succession) broke out in 1701, the year after he finally passed away. The case of Charles V might be considered an example of the French monarchy ‘re-running’ the same events, but this time in a more controlled manner so that Europe was not caught offguard by other heirs predeceasing the king. So the Spanish succession was certainly one major matter that was a concern for the French government in the First Interbellum era; paradoxically, when Charles finally died in 1922 at the remarkable age of 96, the world was already heading towards war for other reasons, and despite long anticipation it genuinely did throw many geopolitical plans out of joint.

There was also another major matter which consumed much of the attention of the French government—whether under Leclerc, Mercier, Rouillard or Cazeneuve—in the First Interbellum period. This loomed so heavily over French society at the time that, as recorded in contemporary cartoons, merely mentioning the subject at dinner parties could lead to a brawl. Everyone in France was required to have an opinion on the topic of the day. Yet today, due in part to the historiographic ‘lenses’ we have already discussed, outside the Francophone world this political contention is little remembered. We are speaking of “La Question Perousienne” or, as it was also known, “Autogovernance”—there was little need to specify which region was being discussed.

It is frequently misstated in popular histories that ‘La Perouse discovered Antipodea in 1788’. In fact, La Perouse and his ship “D’Estaing” merely found the first habitable parts of the continent worth possessing; the land of Antipodea, then often called Nieuw Holland (which later only applied to its northern regions) had appeared on maps for a century and a half. Nonetheless, the discovery of welcoming regions in the south-east of the land, with a climate not too dissimilar to ‘Europe turned upside down’, made an enormous difference. The outcome of the Jacobin Wars, in which French Antipodea was one of the few colonies over which the Jacobin Republic was able to exert control and use it as a base to inflict attacks upon the Dutch, ensured that postwar France would not be able to maintain her claim to the whole of the continent. The western portion, the former Saint-Malo colony (later New London) became Anglo-American, and would eventually accede to the ENA as the Confederation of Cygnia. The northern reaches were claimed by the Dutch as a buffer against future attack, despite having seemingly little worth at the time. Following the Popular Wars and the destruction and annexation of the former Dutch Republic by Flanders to form Belgium, the Belgians attempted to contest this claim (which was maintained by the Batavian Republic in exile). Therefore, between about 1840 and 1860, Antipodea was actually divided between four powers—France in Perousie, America in Cygnia, the Batavian Republic and Belgium. In the end, however, the Belgians’ efforts would meet with naught, in part because of UPSA support for the Batavians through the Hermandad, and the continent reverted to a three-way division.

There was a substantial population disparity between the three. In 1900, at the end of the Pandoric War, there were about 6.5 million people living in Perousie, 2 million in Cygnia, and only 0.4 million in Nieuw Holland, mostly in the two outposts of Tasmanstaad and Maximilianstaad.[7] Perousie had undoubtedly benefited from the goldrush of 1841 in Balerat, which (like the earlier one in California, and the later ones in the Cape and Alyeska) led to a dramatic population increase as would-be miners came seeking their fortune. As in those regions, an increased population of diverse origin also came with its own problems. Ethnic and sectarian strife was frequent, a topic which European and Novamundine commentators viewed with suspicion and trepidation, remembering the Jacobin Racist slavery which had been practised in the original colony. It is likely that this period was influential upon Paris’ views on responsible government for Perousie (or lack thereof); though it was not a major topic of political conversation in the 1840s and 50s, there are editorials from Paris newspapers suggesting two possible dangers of this. Firstly, that Perousien local government might become influenced by foreign immigrants due to the goldrush which would change the character and direction of the colony; secondly, that conversely it might be dominated by the earliest French colonists, who would seek to restrict the rights of later immigrants and provoke angry reactions from those migrants’ home countries.

Of course, the much more pressing colonial problem at that time was the rebelliousness of Louisiana and Grand-Duke Jean-Luc. It seems inarguable that France’s decidedly mixed efforts to suppress this revolt also influenced government views on what to do with Perousie and her increasing population. The solution (if it can be called that) adopted by Villon and Resnais[8] was to allow the establishment of local “conseils paroissials” (parish councils) with extremely limited powers, in order to resolve some longstanding problems caused by everything being run through a single viceroy appointed by Paris, but to refuse the creation of larger and more powerful bodies.[9] Discontent grew throughout the Long Peace era, in part due to the increased trade brought by that time. French Perousiens were visiting, and being visited by, traders from Cygnia, and became jealous of the greater rights and self-government in that region. Cygnia had been admitted to the ENA as a full Confederation after the Reform of 1857, despite her small population. This perception culminated with the ascension of Jack Tayloe, a Cygnian, to the American presidency in 1911. A few Perousiens had become important in French society and government, but only by moving ‘back home’ (to a country they had never known), shedding their colonial trappings and working to avoid ‘rustic’ accents and embrace modern French metropolitan culture. The idea that someone could represent Perousie herself in the Grand-Parlement and ascend to the premiership seemed radically removed from possibility, yet the equivalent had just happened in Fredericksburg.

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There had long been resentment and even minor political revolts (frequently characterised as mere criminal actions or race riots in official French records) among the Perousien populace. Rivalries had grown up between cities and provinces (Nouvelle Bretagne, Nouvelle Vendee, Nouvelle Gascogne and Nouvelle Aquitaine—the ‘new’ qualifiers often not being used among Perousiens themselves).[10] There were considerable differences between the provinces, with the New Vendeans having been most influenced by goldrush immigration and being most cosmopolitan (and fractious), the New Gascons considering themselves the ‘purest’ and most French of the colonies (being founded first), and the New Aquitanians influenced by the Maure (the capital, Maureville, was founded by them, though by 1900 they were far outnumbered by white settlers). Despite this, the great and the good of the Perousien provinces were united in demanding Autogovernance from Paris, and/or the right to elect parlementaires to the Grand-Parlement. Important Perousien leaders such as businessman Paul-Louis Voisin of Esperance, New Gascony, labour organiser Yves ‘Ouarena’ Touage of Maureville, and Jansenist Catholic preacher Manuel Durand of Beron, New Vendee, all rose to prominence at this time and were discussed in the Paris papers. Some Perousien leaders travelled to the metropole to demand their rights and became curiosities or causes celebres. There was also some overlap with the discontent in Autiaraux, which had been pulled more closely into the French sphere of influence following the Pandoric War.

And, of course, it would be remiss to attempt to discuss this topic without the Dufresne Disaster. The one fly in the ointment of France’s successful armed neutrality policy in the Pandoric War had been the fact that Leclerc’s government had been unable to defeat an insurgency in the island prison colony.[11] Dufresnie, as it became known, became an independent republic at the end of the war (although it would not be officially recognised by France until 1930). The fact that all of France’s military might was unable to crush the rebels was frequently attributed to overstretch, as she needed to remain on guard at home lest the Pandoric War proliferate further. However, other commentators instead attributed this failure to the fact that Perousie’s underdeveloped institutions made it difficult to organise the necessary preparations for military forces aimed at the rebels to be based out of Perousien ports. Certainly, the defeat in home waters not only emboldened mainland Perousiens calling for Autogovernance—it persuaded them that France might not be able to stop them by main force alone. The failure of the IEF in South America was more oil on that fire. Perousiens began pointedly writing poems and plays about the idealism of the Meridian Revolution, even as that dream was dying in the charnel house of the Combine.

Leclerc, overcome with troubles, attempted to buy off the Perousiens with minor concessions, which only incensed them further as an act of contempt. In March 1905, not long before the French general election, Ouarena Touage and other labour leaders organised a general strike across many Perousien cities, locking up port facilities and causing trade to grind to a halt. The global network of Lectel cables ensured this news was heard in France before the voters went to the polls, and—because of this and many other reasons, mostly to do with the IEF’s failures—the Verts lost power for the first time in 27 years.

Mercier, the new Rouge Prime Minister in 1905, might have mishandled the crisis if it had not been for his ally Camille Rouillard’s friendship with the Perousien-born Paris writer and socialite, Auguste Migaud. Although Migaud had left Perousie in 1890, he retained sufficient insight and contacts for Rouillard to advise Mercier that the problem could not be swept under the table as Leclerc had hoped. The matter still consumed much parliamentary time over the next decade or so as a settlement was hammered out, but the Perousiens were broadly persuaded that Mercier was a man with whom they could do business. Mercier’s wife Heloise accompanied the then-Dauphin Charles on the first royal visit to Perousie in 1908 (in part due to her husband’s secret illness). Both the Dauphin and Heloise became greatly popular figures there, the visit being an iconic moment in Perousien history. The mission doubled as a way for France to show her flag around the world by sending an escort fleet, coming on the back of Mercier formally ending the failed intervention in South America.

To cover the Perousien Question in detail would take many volumes, but suffice to say that in 1914, near the end of his tenure in office, Mercier finally pushed through a settlement. Each Perousien province would gain its own parlement-provincial equivalent in power to those in metropolitan France, and would also gain the right to elect parlementaires to the Grand-Parlement in Paris. The Vert opposition had strenuously opposed this, in part because Perousie represented more than 15% of the population of metropolitan France. Former opposition leader Philippe Soissons made a tone-deaf argument that Mercier was only seeking to pack the Grand-Parlement with his own ‘lickspittle colonial supporters’. This did not do anything to endear the Perousiens to the Verts, and indeed the first election did produce a thumping majority for the Rouges among Perousien seats—although typically the Perousiens formally had their own local parties, which then made alliance with their counterparts in the metropole. Some Perousiens did elect parlementaires demanding more, even a UPSA-style full independence, but these were in the minority; most Perousiens were relieved finally to receive equality and recognition from Paris. When Cazeneuve became the next Vert Prime Minister in 1920, he did so after pledging to respect the settlement and apologised to the Perousien people. September 19th, 1914 is recognised as “La fête de Perousie” in both Perousie itself and, increasingly thanks to the number of expats there, France.

These, then, are some of the major issues which ensured that France’s successive governments did not have the synchlamp-like focus on opposition to Russia that students with the second variety of misconception may assume. The idea of a confrontation between France and Russia was highly theoretical in 1900. The two countries had sometimes been on opposing sides of conflicts in central Europe and the Ottoman Empire, but their spheres of influence were so far removed that they had never formally fought one another, unless one counts the brief clash between Russian and Republican French troops at the Battle of Paris at the end of the Jacobin Wars.[12] It was conceivable that French and Russian interests might coincide in the Far East or India, which might produce a “casus belli”, but again this was not a visceral, immediate threat. The idea of a Franco-Russian rivalry in the early 1900s is very much one of who was regarded as being the more powerful and dominating nation after the Pandoric Wars, a rivalry that was as likely to be fought out at the Global Games or WorldFests as on the battlefield.

A number of factors in the First Interbellum changed this, until French politicians and society began to regard Russia as a direct and genuine threat to France, the first since the old invasion scares about the Bundesreich in its youth. A large part of this was in changes to military technology. While “La Royale” continued to lead the way in naval technological development with its Conquerant trimaran lineships, the Russians had long been seen as being at the vanguard of protgun (or as they called them, “armart”) development.[13] During the years of the Long Peace, the Russians had built legions of early armarts in order to enforce the Tsar’s will on the steppes, swiftly crossing the Tartar lands (with help from a network of coal caches protected by forts) in order to dominate the region. It was by this means that the Russians were able to push influence into then-chaotic northern India, although the wheeled armarts were of little use in crossing the mountainous regions between; a railway would be constructed through the Khyber Pass in the 1890s to amend this. Russian armarts had generally proved superior to their German and Danubian counterparts in the Pandoric War, though they had been hampered by other weapons developed during the war. Poland and Czechosilesia had become Russian puppets, and in any subsequent war the Russian armarts could potentially sweep farther west across good terrain. Furthermore, the use of chaintracks over wheels meant the armarts could be used on a wider variety of terrain, and could not be blocked so easily.

This meant that French military planners of the 1910s became increasingly concerned at the possibility that an armart legion could sweep across Germany in a matter of days—a latter-day evocation of France’s old “guerre d’eclair” doctrine—and into France herself. A distance that had been enormous in the days of the eighteenth-century Wars of Supremacy might end up becoming chillingly easy for the Tsar’s armies to bridge. French governments were aware that the French people had acquired a sense of invulnerability, of being above conflict, secure that French military power would be sufficient to ward off any foe. But Europe was becoming smaller in the age of the sun-oil engine and the aerodrome. There are even declassified records of proposed plans in the late 1910s to plan for the French royal family and government to be evacuated to Perousie to fight on, in the event of Russian conquest of L’Hexagone!

It is easy for us to smile at these histrionic predictions, secure in our hindsight knowledge that the Black Twenties, at least in its European theatre, was not the rapid-paced war of manoeuvre that French (and many Russian) military planners assumed it would be. Yet fears were very real at the time. French policy aimed at a war with Russia therefore centred on two primary plans, both with the ultimate goal of protecting the metropole. Firstly, French diplomacy would seek to multiply the fronts upon which Russia had to fight, straining even her enormous industrial and military capacity. These fronts also had to be a genuine and urgent threat, to ensure Russia could not adopt the Nostitz strategy employed by High Saxony during the Unification War, in which each front could be focused on sequentially. Secondly, France would seek to build a ‘Bouclier’ (shield) alliance of states between herself and Russia, most obviously Germany. Earlier French attempts to pull Germany into her sphere had failed, but French financial assistance during the Panic of 1917 resulted in closer ties. Ultimately, as French Marshal Denis Picotin put it in an unguarded moment, ‘We want to ensure that the fire and blood happens in someone else’s countryside, not our own’.

As of 1922, France seemed to have been more successful with the former than the latter plan. The Bouclier scheme had drawn in at least partial commitments from Germany, Italy, England and Scandinavia, but the whole plan had been undermined by Belgium’s alignment with Russia following the latter’s military intervention in 1918 to suppress public unrest. With Belgium now playing host to Russian troops and ships (their numbers greater than what was publicly admitted) and possessing considerable firepower of her own, the idea of a unified Western European response to Russian attack had been badly damaged. Russian troops were not only on the far side of Germany and Danubia; they were on France’s own doorstep. A war in the Low Countries, the recurring conflict that French kings had engaged in many times over the centuries, was looming once again for the first time since the Popular Wars.

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Conversely, French diplomacy seemed to have successfully created more fronts to worry the Tsar. The ENA, despite a turn towards isolationism under Faulkner and his successors, was keen to regain the lands she had lost to Russia in the Pacific Northwest front of the Pandoric War, as well as ejecting Russian influence from California. President Fouracre formally signed the Treaty of Bermuda with Prime Minister Cazeneuve in 1920. As well as establishing a military alliance, this guaranteed the civil rights of French-speakers in American territory (dealing more with Nouvelle-Orleans than old Canada) and mediated the remaining property disputes between American and English or Scottish citizens following the Hanoverian split.

Persia also moved towards close alignment with France, out of necessity as well as financial ties. While the Ottomans were more lukewarm about reciprocating diplomatic ties for French bailouts (disputes involving Algiers were still a sore point), the Persians had already built a military alliance in order to protect their interests in Tartary. The Russians used death-luft, including the new invention of brimstone mustard luft, to ruthlessly exert their will in the region; the French tested countermeasures such as masks and protective rubber suits, some of which were built under licence in Persian factories, by supplying them to the Tartar peoples. Persia was able to hang on to her vassal in Khiva for the present, but tensions continued to mount.

Finally, and most importantly in some ways, French policy sought to ensure that China would be able to turn her full attention to a war with Russia. The power balance in the First Interbellum has been characterised as France and Russia on top and eyeing one another suspiciously, the ENA and China as powerful but less outward-looking nations that could tip the balance, and the Combine plotting in the background as the fifth great power. France had obtained the support of the ENA, but China was even more crucial. The Russians continued to sit on many lands which China claimed; the strong performance of Feng Chinese troops against the Russian-backed Beiqing in the Pandoric War had been widely noted, and theorists argued that, without the distraction of a two-front war with the Siamese, the now-unified Chinese might be able to inflict a mortal blow against the RLPC lands. To that end, under governments of both major political persuasions, the Tuileries established close ties with the Siamese Empire, essentially seeking to bribe the Siamese into not declaring war on China to reclaim Jiaozhi (Tonkin) in the event of a Russo-Chinese war. This was achieved by financial bailouts, military cooperation, aid in suppressing the ‘Red Sash’ movement, and ultimately France giving a green light for Siam to operate in sweeping up the remains of the Batavian Republic. This position was widely criticised in hindsight for effectively handing most of it to the Societists (as the Siamese were not in a position to control it all), whereas a direct French intervention might have saved countless exterminated languages and cultural practices—but we must remind ourselves that this was not the French government’s priority at the time. Furthermore, few dreamed of just what the Societists were getting up to in the Nusantara, and true reports were frequently dismissed as propaganda. We should also remember that the Siamese and their Filipino allies (the latter dominated by the Meridian Refugiado class) were at least able to save Sumatra from the Societists, and largely suppress the Societist-backed revolt in the former Sulu-controlled regions of Mindanao. Regardless, the policy was a success in that it led to the 1919 Treaty of Guiling between China and Siam, in which the latter recognised Chinese control of Guiling and normalised trade relations, in return for the protection of Tonkinese people’s rights and Chinese trade concessions elsewhere.

This is how things stood in 1922. The world was a powder keg, waiting for a spark. In the end, not one but two were provided. Chronologically second came, at long last, the death of Charles V of Spain in August of that year; yet by that point, as noted above, few were looking towards Iberia. The more important trigger was, ultimately, an attack on a Russian ‘land convoy’ of armarts and steam mobile freighters crossing Tartary on the way to the town of Azrat in May.[14] The bandits used German-made second-generation Firefist weapons with the serial numbers filed off (as a later Okhrana investigation concluded) which might have been supplied by anyone. The Firefists proved devastatingly effective against all but the most modern Russian armarts, and these convoys mostly consisted of older ones. Russia’s image of invincibility in Tartary had been punctured, and as news circulated, revolts broke out across Bukhara, Samarkand and many other lands. Sometimes these revolts were not solely anti-Russian in character; Russia had effectively propped up the old Kazakh Khaganate as a vassal long after ‘naturally’ it would have declined and its own vassals would have reasserted their independence. Some lands and cities that had been conquered in the time of Jangir Khan now sought to regain that freedom.

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The Tartar Revolt provoked scenes of alarm in Petrograd. It is certainly misleading to suggest that Tsar Paul III’s court did not face their own distractions throughout the interbellum period. Besides the Panic of 1917, there were already fears of the RLPC effectively running the East on its own terms, there were the periodic Jewish revolts in Crimea (until the Empire effectively abandoned attempting to control most of it) and an increasingly muscular civil rights struggle by the Old Believers. The ascent of self-made railway barons and other industrialists to challenge the traditional aristocracy was also a major concern, as was the counterpoint of organised labour. Nonetheless, Tartary had been considered a relatively quiescent vassal region of the Empire, kept in line by military shows of force that were also observed by Russian’s rivals elsewhere. The Tsars had not attempted to control the region directly, beyond establishing forts and railways, with a feeling that this was an unnecessary complication. But for the first time in decades, Tartars[15] had dared to fight back—and win. The Russian Governor-General in Samarkand, Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, was assassinated in a copycat attack by his would-be subjects following the ‘Azrat Incident’. On June 14th, three days later, Petrograd announced that, rather than merely reinforcing her military forts (as had happened with earlier, smaller raids), Tsar Paul had issued an ultimatum to all the khans of Tartary. They were to permit Russian forces to enter their realms to hunt down the perpetrators of all ‘illegal’ attacks on the Tsar’s subjects and bring them to justice—or face war otherwise.

Even then, the incident might not have ignited a major war, had it not been for the fact that the Tsar’s ultimatum named Khiva as well as the other Tartar states. Unlike Samarkand or Bukhara, Khiva had remained firmly under the thumb of Persia in the Interbellum period, reflecting the Shah-Advocate taking advantage of the Popular Wars to push his influence deeper into the realm and create a buffer against Russian expansion. French assistance had kept Khiva protected against veiled Russian attempts to intrigue against the Khan. Now, Khiva was under direct threat from Russia.

Some historians have suggested that Khiva was left on the list quite by accident, a relic of an earlier draft in which the threat had been at an earlier stage of escalation, and that the Tsar never intended to make a move which must, it seems obvious now, be taken as a “casus belli” by the Persians and the French. However inviting this theory is for the speculative romantics who want to believe that history turns on a coin toss, it seems highly unlikely. Khiva had been a thorn in the side of the Russian Foreign Ministry for years, and its inclusion on a list of other states in the Russian sphere must have been a highly deliberate act. Russian actions immediately following the ultimatum also suggest that mobilisation for war against France was already seen as inevitable.

The eyes of the world now turned on the fronts which France’s diplomats had worked so hard to engineer over the First Interbellum period, a series of dominoes that should fall to entrap the Tsar between two many foes. Would the plan work? Or did Paul have something up his sleeve? While all eyes were on Russia, what was Alfarus plotting in the Combine? And over in Yunnan province, with trade finally reopened with Siam, what would happen when one flea on one rat happened to bite the wrong person?

That is what we shall examine in the next sec██████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

*

(Dr David Wostyn’s note)

As you will see from the debriefing notes to follow, our attempts to draw information from the decoded Motext carrier signals ends here—fortunately the main content of the pages at least persisted longer than the more transient signal of the less than relevant advertisements.

That concludes our selection of the most relevant of the Motext code which we have been able to extract. However, Sergeant Mumby has asked me to also include the following fragment. It appears from context that this is taken from a script, possibly from a stage play or a film, which includes stage directions. It seems the subject matter was a historical piece set in the leadup to the Black Twenties, hence its inclusion here. I must say that in my own opinion, this piece is rather melodramatic in tone, and I doubt whether it is of much use in understanding the reality of history. Nonetheless, because Sergeant Mumby is very difficult to turn down when he makes his eyes big, I conclude with this extract. End here.

*

From: Motext Page SC891Q [retrieved 22/11/19].

Remarks: We have been unable to locate the descriptive annotation for this page.


...

ALFARUS descends into the bowels of a chemical laboratory, clearly a former part of the Priestley Aerated Water Co. (e.g. put a big PAWC logo on the wall which has been painted over with the Threefold Eye). If you can get some additional chemical apparatus bubbling away, all the better—have ALFARUS give it a curious but sceptical look, prod things, etc., as he walks past it.

In the corner, feverishly scribbling away while something brightly coloured boils over in a flask next to him, is ERUTIDUS (a title) ROMERUS. He is white-haired and wears a white coat and glasses. He is giggling excitedly to himself as he writes.

ALFARUS comes to a stop and looks at ROMERUS, shakes his head. He reaches out and stops the luft flow to the burner causing the flask to boil over. As the flask cools, ROMERUS looks up in annoyance—which rapidly changes to shock and horror as he recognises who it is. He quickly rises to his feet and gives a Societist salute (if this is forbidden by censorship laws in your country, do a normal Roman one with the fingers outstretched rather than closed into a fist).

ROMERUS: Amigo Kapud, sir! I did not know you would visit my...my humble research facility!

ALFARUS (looks over the lab): You were alerted, Amigo Erutidus. Nonetheless, your single-minded devotion to your work does you credit. No wonder you excelled at the vocational tests for this role.

ROMERUS (avoids his gaze): Er, yes, sir.

ALFARUS: I am told you wished to see me about a breakthrough which may be of use to the Human Cause. I need not remind you that my time is precious. Speak.

ROMERUS (gulps): Well, sir, there are...there are two matters. The first, the one which I originally wished to speak to, uh, a representative of the Zonal Rej, is, was...

ALFARUS (not showing annoyance—yet): Please be brief and concise, Erutidus.

ROMERUS: Of course, sir, of course. Well, the first matter involves work by some of my colleagues. They have used a, uh, well-known reaction to combine trimurol with murobenzin[16] to produce a new compound—

ALFARUS: I need not know the scientific details, Erutisdus. What is the use of this new chemical? Is it a new luft for...controlling those who make the human race their enemy?

ROMERUS (shudders): No, sir, it is not a new death-luft. It does not poison humans, I am certain of that—but it does poison insects. More effectively than any other such poison we have seen.

ALFARUS (nods): I understand. Your contention is that this new insect poison could be used to kill the pests that ruin our agricultoras’ crops or infect their beasts. It could help feed many more free Humans in the Liberated Zones, and make us ever more envied by those who struggle beneath the yokes of the fictitious nations. (Looks into the distance) Publazon Benestarum.

ROMERUS: Er—yes, sir. That, and also it could be used to kill the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. It could help our people who live in the tropics, save many lives.

ALFARUS: I see. Well, this is certainly of importance, though I am not sure if it justified a personal visit from me, Erutidus.

ROMERUS (gulps): I’m sorry, sir.

ALFARUS: Nonetheless, it is... (he pauses) You said there were two things you wished to bring to my attention.

ROMERUS (eagerly): Yes—yes, sir! The second is of even greater importance.

ALFARUS: Then speak. I have much to do this day.

ROMERUS (glances left and right): It is a great secret, Amigo Kapud. It must be kept secret...

ALFARUS (dryly): I am familiar with the need to keep secrets, Erutidus. Go on.

ROMERUS (deep breath): Amigo Kapud, do you know of the three great goals of the ancient alchemists?

ALFARUS (frowns, considers reprimanding him for not getting to the point, but is too interested): My schooling is not of your standard, Erutidus. You will forgive me if I am more influenced by the fantastic bloody sequents of my youth than the words of men of wisdom in dusty academic halls. But I know this. The old alchemists, the mystics who laboured under the first three Societies of the world, they sought the Elixir of Life. They wanted to be able to live forever.

ROMERUS (eagerly): That is one, sir!

ALFARUS (gives him a sidelong glance): They also wanted the...the Philosopher’s Stone. A material, an item, that could turn...lead into gold?

ROMERUS: To transmute all base metals, sir, but yes. Of course, we know now it is impossible to transform one element into another.

ALFARUS: Quite, I know that much of your field at least. And the third... (he frowns) What was the third secret the alchemists sought?

ROMERUS (a bit dramatic): The one nobody remembers, sir, outside my field of chemistry, perhaps. Not as...fascinating, or as magical, to the average Amigo who wants to live forever, or his Amiga who dreams of golden jewellery. But the Third Secret can change the world nonetheless.

(He draws closer to ALFARUS, excitement overcoming intimidation)

ROMERUS: And I have it! I have made it! I took bixylobrimstone,[17] a dreadful-smelling gas from one of my reactions—

ALFARUS: Ah, could that be a...useful gas?

ROMERUS (loses steam): Uh, no, sir

ALFARUS (shrugs): Carry on.

ROMERUS (recovers): I took bixylobrimstone and I ellufted it, I added elluftium, and the result, it is a liquid, though with a very high boiling point, on a cool day it would be a solid—

ALFARUS: Please get to the point, Erutidus. What have you discovered? What is the Third Secret of the alchemists?

ROMERUS (impressively): I have found it, Amigo Kapud. After all these centuries of alchemists trying and failing. I have found it. I have found the Alkahest. I have found the UNIVERSAL SOLVENT!

(after a brief silence)

ALFARUS (raises an eyebrow): A chemical solvent that can dissolve anything? An interesting curiosity to your discipline, I am sure. (Slightly dangerous tone) But what is the relevance to the Human Cause?

ROMERUS (nervous but excited): Please, sir, let me explain how this changes...everything...

















[1] I.e. time travel stories.

[2] Steam-scorchers are a form of fast hybrid mobiles (cars) which use small sun-oil (diesel) engines to set off quickly without the need to raise steam, but then shift to the slower-starting steam engines for higher speeds (stereotypically used for illegal late-night races in cities). They were typically large and aesthetically daring (compare to American petrol cars of the 1950s in OTL) and are associated with the Flippant youth culture in many countries, though typically only the Flippants from wealthier backgrounds could possess them.

[3] Metonym for the French Foreign Ministry – we would say ‘the Quai d’Orsay’.

[4] See Part #195 in Volume IV.

[5] See Part #250 in Volume V.

[6] Spain no longer uses the ‘Cortes’ terminology, originally due to a desire to avoid connection with the Cortes Nacionales of the UPSA.

[7] The Batavians tried to rename this Belgian-founded outpost (on the site of OTL Broome) after reconquest, but the new name of Heemskerk never stuck.

[8] French Prime Ministers Georges Villon (1847-51 and 55-59), a Vert, and François Resnais (1859-1866), a Rouge. This refers only to Villon’s second term in office.

[9] In TTL France has established reformed parishes (paroisses) which broadly resemble the communes of OTL France, and have more in common with them than the pre-revolutionary parishes. The latter had very little powers and their councils typically only met to maintain the building work of the church that formed their centrepiece. In the 1850s French parish councils are a mix of appointed and elected (similar to the aldermanic approach used by OTL English councils for many years), with land ownership often being a criterion for voting. By 1900, they had been reformed to be the most democratic part of the French political system, with no restrictions on voting—but these reforms were not also applied to the parishes in Perousie.

[10] New Brittany roughly equates to OTL South Australia, New Vendée to Victoria, New Gascony to New South Wales and New Aquitaine to (southern) Queensland. This mostly refers to the coastal regions, and divisions of the interior are largely notional.

[11] OTL Tasmania.

[12] Unlike OTL in the Napoleonic Wars, of course.

[13] I.e. tanks, though these early ones are more akin to armoured cars, as they lack caterpillar tracks.

[14] Called Turkistan or Hazrat in OTL, where it is located within the modern nation of Kazakhstan.

[15] The term is used generically here to mean all Central Asians, as it frequently was historically.

[16] Murol is the TTL name for chloral, and murobenzin that for chlorobenzene. The ‘well-known’ chemical reaction is the Friedel-Crafts reaction.

[17] Dimethyl sulfide."