Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

June 1923
The papers for things in the east of the country had been put aside as they stood round the pin studded table. The telegram from the Foreign Office sat on the war room map.

The details on the map belied the depth of change. He hoped that the borders held. The real details of the changes to the railway were extensive and had to be detailed in thick books which chronicled the real condition of the Trans Siberian versus what it should have been, and then the changes to the lines as the world changed.

The fall of ekatrinburg had marked the falling back of the white armies, then there had been Omsk but then there had been the butchery of their red cavalry at the lake. The Bolsheviks seemed unlikely to push things...to caught up in their own bloodletting. "Lenin's dead?" He asked.

"Complications of another stroke." Shellman piped in that he suspected Lenin's diet hadn't helped, but then fell silent to allow the head of the artillery to continue, "I don't think the best doctor could have done anything, but the communists are blaming the doctors anyway for not doing anything." But as Dawes had just suggested there probably hadn't been anything for the doctors to do. "They'll blame the doctors, and the doctors are largely jews so," Dawes shrugged, "it'll be a pogrom, and they'll purge I figure the jewish marxists over the doctors not being able to fix lenin."

Allen nodded still looking at the map. He was ambivalent to the comment. He had a limited understanding of the nationalities question within the old tsarist empire, and he knew he had a limited understanding now because of just what a godawful mess the civil in Russia had proven to be. "We should assume regardless that the Bolsheviks still mean us ill will all the same."

"their being distracted is a good thing for us."

That was true. He looked at Kirghiz, the rail line from Ferghana and Kumis, and the way west. So much work. The Trans Siberian was gone. He expected from the reports of the US Railway mission that the Bolsheviks were having to rebuild their part of it. There was no railway connection to the 'Soviet Union'. The cossacks didn't connect to Mongolia, but as the line expanded west would connect in all likelihood to British India, and Persia. Further west wasn't that likely, but the Persian Gulf, and the Indian ocean would give them access to ocean trade... both them and also Kirghiz, it was preemptive ground laying for a future war.

The railway map had been compiled in part because of the corporate side, but also for the lessons they had learned from last year. The Cadre had a rail monopoly, and that was almost a decade old at this point for Xian. That gave the company the power to set rates, but it also gave them encouragement to keep rates at level that encouraged people to travel and ship goods.

They could keep the rail profitable by fair rates, and it let them publicize why things cost what they did. There was uniform code for the rail service and for that it allowed them to pay the men the same way they paid soldiers... or the new bureaucracy. It wasn't the same rate but there were grades, and tabulations. It was a career... and now after 1920 those men would have pensions which was explained in spending reports.

"What are our options?" Carter's question drew sharp looks, "What?"

There was a pause, "We diversify. We will have to make decisions."

As even the optimists had made clear, "We're in no position to replace the main trunk with all diesel engines, the power isn't there yet." The horsepower of a diesel engine just couldn't match one to one a good steam powered engine, but unlike coal fired trains diesel was less maintenance heavy, and you chain them together with the same command staff. You didn't need to add extra firemen for them, "It might get there in another ten years," there was that number again, "but thats a lot of things." And never mind that coal was abundant where diesel was not.

"We'll have to build cities, around forts." Allen stated. "We'll have to start working on it, planning air fields ahead of time for next year, and we're going to need to expand the electrification of the city lines." Coal would still be consumed but the trains servicing the cities and their surrounding expanse that would help. "But we need to take what time we have and if Lenin's death leads to the bandits fighting amongst themselves we use the time best we can."

"Air fields are only going to do us so much good, the range isn't there yet." Waite observed, "Not for what we're going to need."

"My staff has been working with Lee's," Bill remarked speaking up, and of course that was where Lee had been promoted up from anyway and there was a crossover between the staff. "We're not the Germans, but we can take lessons from them, and from Japan. If the bolsheviks come across the border, I have got to suspect that it will still mean they're looking right across to Europe the whole time wondering if a punch isn't going to come flying in that direction. We have to secure and bolster Kirghiz, most of the boys have come to the same conclusion, and I'd lay money that Iseburo has been emplacing those eight inchers of his for the same." There were nods of acknowledgement, "If we get into a fight the cossacks are going to have to fight, we push to the Urals, and we hold there. Let geography leverage our defenses."

The problem was obvious. Firstly was the expectation that if war came the Bolsheviks would be starting it... so they would be on the back foot for mobilizing the Cossacks, secondly the old Russian fortresses outside of Kirghiz were in Bolshevik hands. "The war in Europe established a couple of facts, there was no speedy resolution. If there were any questions to that after the Russo-Japanese war, that was definitively settled on by 1916," Dawes remarked, "We can't take that time for granted but we can plan and preposition material and lets be honest the Germans and the Frogs alike built up their railway anticipating another fight after 1870. Both of them were planning for a second round... we should sell to Britain when that next round starts but we expand our rails here."

"The bolsheviks if they start a war with Kirghiz, or with Japan will probably get them a side eye from the west, and the divisions will have to kept back." Bill repeated, and then gestured to the western most extension across from Ferghana, "These will be coal lines for ten twenty years, if we get into a war we will have demand for coal but it is something we can supply."

Carter moved around to look at the western line. "England's been talking about oil in Persia for ages now." He remarked. "But I suppose that even if we pushed a line through, even one onto Baghdad hell to Constantinople by the end of the decade we'd still have the brits controlling the oil." That was what precluded a diesel train all the way that far west, especially in a war time situation. Coal engines would consume more fuel required more personnel, and so forth... but they had an abundance of fuel that could be used for those trains... and they could use that same coal in urban areas to power electric trains here. "The lines we have are necessary for moving supplies around, that means food, clothing." Things which in peace time still had to be moved... and one day they would get where a diesel train would make those runs.... but that would be decades he imagined and coal might frankly ply lines long after Augustus was grown. It was a plentiful resource, and one long used in China, and less hard to convince people to trust than railways themselves.

--
Notes: I could have sworn I had posted this already, and I swear we're missing a segment at the end. But here we go. Note that Lenin dies slightly earlier here in this timeline, but again to reiterate what has already been said, Coal isn't going anywhere quickly and frankly coal would continue to be used to generate electrical power which then powers interurban lines that run off of electricity as well

 

[Imperator Pax]

June 1923
Li's grasp as president of the republic had always been tenuous. He'd been a compromise candidate for the Beiyang and the last few months would have been trying for anyone. Truth be told his choice had still been controversial given he had invited the pony tail general into the capital in 1917, and now was back in office so soon after the recent struggle. The papers could wag their tongues about that sort of thing, but the truth was he was a compromise candidate because he was toothless.

... thus realistically he probably couldn't have done anything for that alone. Toothless was not what the Republic needed.

"What do you make of it?"

"Of Li leaving?"

"No, the idea of a war against the Russians, we gonna tell Iseburo," It was funny how Cole said we, when what he really meant was 'are you gonna tell him'... not that Allen really had a problem with that. "Don't get me wrong I agree a lot more with Bill's idea of using the geography to our advantage a lot more than with Percy's parliamentarian, but Mackinder isn't completely off his rocker either."

"You see a problem with the strategy?"

"The russians got knocked out the war by the Germans. I could see the bolsheviks collapsing but only if petersburg and moscow both fall. We're not the ones to do that. Neither is Japan." Both men understood and for that matter the staff graduates understood why the Russo-Japanese war had stalled out, "I figure there is a good chance Germany and the Reds are going to make good on Rapallo and team up, where that leads... I figure that its going to be bad for everyone."

The best hope was to apply the lessons learned from the European war, but there were limits to that.

The Western Siberian Plain lay east of the Ural Mountains. It was the geographic expanse that the Bolsheviks had seized after Omsk had fallen. The Whites in Central Asia, popularly Kirghiz to Xian's vernacular, controlled the south, which included the spur of steppe that by passed the Urals and that needed to be reinforced and defended even if it was never used as a springboard for offensives.

"Which is exactly," Cole remarked to the observation that France and England will ask for if we all get into it, "We don't have the manpower, and frankly the Whites are going to want something even if we can't drive the bolsheviks out of power entirely." He paused, "Look this'll sound devious but we'd be best off agreeing in principle that they take and administer Western Siberia and that we hold defensively killing grounds against well the bayonet charges from the reds that we can rightfully expect to come in a fight." Despite the thrashing at the Lake doctrine had not changed.

Iseburo had told him of the lake battle, what he had not expected was that the Japanese had taken film of the battle. It was as surprise, and something of a novelty and frankly the real work had been done by artillery, but Iseburo had let the red cavalry try a brazen cavalcade action before opening them up with shot and machine gun fire from three sides.

It was a brutal display, but one to be commended. Iseburo had enveloped them in a textbook maneuver and settled the business. After chasing all the way from Omsk the Bolsheviks had to run all the way west for fear of a few japanese divisions. What railways that the Whites hadn't torn up in retreating the Reds did or Iseburo did in his forays to clear his frontier. It was also why the Japanese aligned whites, smaller and more fragmented didn't question Iseburo's 'advisory counselorship' to their various local governments.... and in the years since particularly as Japanese and Koreans and chinese workers brought their families in to settle or work in towns first it had been railways and post offices then it had been other civil administration... after Kolchak after Omsk there just hadn't been anyone influential enough to knit the patchwork together and Iseburo's railways brought stability and control to the region, and law followed. Even though Akashi had passed away, Iseburo took his cues from the dead colonel, and from his father on how to establish local administrations which as a result reported to his centralized administration in Irkutsk. That in turn had lead to some reported problems with the Kwantung administration south of Iseburo... which was ironic since Iseburo had been in a slot to be in charge of them but now it was parochial departments squabbling.

Regardless of Iseburo's age, the status of elder statesmen was not hereditary, but he might if he cared be able to be prime minister one day. The problem was Allen couldn't see Iseburo doing that willingly, not with the old man dead. It would have been one thing if Yamagata was alive but even then Iseburo was willing to break the government over budget issues... and the thought of Iseburo ending up in the Foreign Office was potentially a good thing, but also not likely to last long. Iseburo supported the Washington Naval Treaty for fiscal reasons, wanted an Anglo-AMerican-Japanese entente for the obvious economic and military benefits the alliance would provide but all of that boiled down to balance book calculations and he'd didn't really understand other view points.

"We have time, and Iseburo won't support his officers haying off and starting something." Allen remarked, "But we have time because Lenin's dead." Even if he hadn't been the Bolsheviks were in no position to restart the civil war and most of the credit there was probably for the Poles in the west showing the Bolshies away from the Vistula. So for at least now whether anyone liked it or not they had to accept the current status quo as the borders and boundaries.

Those were certainly boundaries Allen could live with. "Right now there is a buffer state, whether there is oil there or not for now the west siberian plain keeps the bolsheviks having to look in three different directions." They didn't have to look north it was just ice up there... then again the Germans had taken the third largest city in the Tsar's empire by amphibious action the Mission they had called Albion, so maybe the reds should look warily at the north... "They have to look east against Japan, against Iseburo, they have to look South to Kirghiz, and they can't leave their western border unwatched."

It was a balancing act. It was grand strategy. "Kirghiz makes a fine buffer for us, but I shouldn't tell you that in the long run, and Bill, and Vickers before him is sure there is oil in that basin, it will be available eventually."

"They'd need foreign investment."

"Ford is making them tractors, and his deal with them isn't much different from ours."

Allen nodded acknowledging the point. They needed to make the most with the time that they had. "Waite will never agree to a foreign service body, he'll stamp his feet, and drag his heels for as long as he can," much as he seemed to want to delay on the matter of staffing the supreme court.

"What's our alternative then, not have an official foreign service?" Cole replied, "The trade missions are just that, and besides Peking is falling apart." Li leaving the presidency presented a problem, because he had been harmless, a compromise candidate who didn't have the resources to be Duan never mind Yuan Shikai. Cao was talking about wanting the presidency and leading China, but that was about policy... Zhili's dujun had no plan to bridge the divide across the Beiyang factions. He didn't appear to feel he needed to.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1923
Xian's discussions ... well the public eye was somewhere else entirely than the issue that dominated in Shanghai, and Tietsin. It had only been a matter of time before the broader General Staff started adding their opinions to the talk. That Bill had not opened his study with oh the bombers will always get through had been a minor mercy. There were no Billy Mitchells in Xian, but on the other hand everyone knew who he was, and they also to a lesser extent knew Churchill's man Trenchard.

The easiest rebuttal was that aircraft could not effectively carry sufficient bombs. Until new engines became available talking of the bombers getting through was premature.

Allen put the papers aside and started to help himself to the bowl of chillied buckwheat noodles. It was not quite as hot as he would have liked it, but it was lunch, and he had a lot to do with summer here in force. Currently speaking Xian's major summer exercise entailed forty four thousand troops in the field for drill. First and Third Regiments were rotated back from their divisions divided into instructional cadres and together with second division here in force were working to familiarize National Guard units and reservists with practices and equipment.

As a result the 8th​ Division was shouldering much of the border duty, looking warily across the border with Szechwan. Even the 8th ​under Shang was getting new things the shiniest were new caterpillar excavators from Holt's company back in the states. Holt's manager had written that they had plans to merge with Best if only they could get the details worked out. The new excavators were earmarked for 8th ​Divisions Heavy Combat Engineer Battalion.

Holt's diesel powered excavator was excellent, though the truth was they had largely used steam engines to build the railways. Steam Excavators were maintenance intensive though and while they were coal fired the same as the railways they were just not suited to modern war. There were concerns and had been for several years now about the safety of using them in the coal mines... deep ones anyway since for surface mines they were great.

If Holt and Best merged that had a number of potential benefits... they would presumably rationalize their designs on offer, and with no war for the states in sight well Holt and Best would continue to sell old stock. That would help the MAK and the work in Liberia, and it would help here.

Just as steam power had allowed them to build the railway here, in combination with dynamite, it would facilitate other projects demand less men and for Powell that was important. Unlike here, where even though they had still used money to buy machines to make the work easier there less people and other reasons. "You think his interest in excavators is a canal?"

Griswold questioned. The engineer was wearing his day uniform, the lighter material summer uniforms for the field which while still sewed with patches weren't quite the same as the dress uniforms that most of the cadre in senior leadership roles wore daily. Then again Griswold had almost certainly spent the majority of the morning at the State Military Works.... and if not to ask about the MAK then he might well have been talking about the continued direction from a minority of the cadre to examine a 6.5 cartridge for an autoloading rifle with the aim of replacing 35 Remington.

"I'd say no, but only because I think he recognizes that its not feasible..."And the panama canal had taken so long to build. It would help probably Powell's support for a united states in central america which the state department supported, but he doubted that State's support was so enthusiastic that it would provide even the political capital for a canal... unless someone at the Navy was really worried about needing to ferry hither and to from the oceans that formed the state's first real defense.

It wasn't that the project for whic h so many men had talked about was an impossible to surmount engineering challenge. It wasn't. It was a capital, both monetary and political question to surmount. "Where are we on the submachine gun project?'

"Rationalization?" Griswold said, "Lewis already recognized we needed to go to an open bolt, and to a blow back," There were trade offs to both changes but by and large the pros outweighed the cons, "I think what we will have to do is moved to a stamped metal design. Lewis likes milling machines, the complaints we got out of 3rd ​were they'd take the guns and they could deal with snow up until the guns melted the snow and then they'd refreeze the action shut."

"How do we deal with that?"

"I'm working on it. I figure we need to keep the bolt from getting mud and dirt out of it as well, which is a much more year around problem than the white stuff," Griswold replied, "Other problem I see is we're going to need a robust enough magazine to feed it, especially with all the interest Yan has in the project." Yan liked Thomspons, but those were even more expensive than the Lewis Griswold 45s that they had already, and those weren't cheap relatively speaking... but Taiyuan's arsenal already manufactured 45 caliber Mauser Broom handles, which in contrast to the other provinces were the service pistols of the Shansi Gendarmes, a provincial level police force and one which employed detachable shoulder stocks. "I have someone working on that as well, and we're going to keep an eye abroad to see if anyone comes up with anything that we can use." For this or other things, that was how things worked.

"Specialist troops will need specialist weapons. Our heavy combat engineers by and large do not need to be lugging rifles, which originally we planned to do by giving everyone 20 inch Universals, but sub machineguns are possibly a better option."

Griswold gave the the man a scowl, "Not if we can't keep them working. I'm working on it." He stated, and grudgingly pulled out a series of reports, the good news is the chemical industry in Taiyuan is coming online. SMB," Shansi Machine Bureau, "is expanding ammunition production. That will help with testing, but Yan is talking about wanting a removable and or collapsing stock like his broom handles. Which, I can do, but magazines and the action. The action, I think if I can get it sealed off from the rest we can keep water or mud from getting in, but that is a tolerance and heat treatment question. I'll do what I can to keep weight down."
--
Notes: Theproblem Griswold is describing here, is he's coming from anengineering standpoint where milling is the primary manufacturingtechnique thats really where tolerance and expense comes into play.Once stamping, and forging parts can be done for the design its a lotmore simple, with a milling based most likely the way you woulddisassemble a gun like this is probably a sprign detente or catch tohold the bolt handle in. The bolt handle as in the owen gun would beconnected to an extension that operates charging of hte system butotherwise isolate the internals but again after that problem is dealtwith its getting magazines to be truly interchangeable (again this is1923 where lots of guns are still being fitted for their magazinesdespite detachable box magazines being something from post US civilwar rifles, as an interchangeable parts concept execution of the idealagged across lots of guns including the Winchester 351 caliberrifles)


On other notes I have some tentative plans to update some Jumpchain stuff over the summer but beyond this story updates are tentative at best.