Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

Steam trucks should work well.You could probably made airship with steam engines,too.Sadly,not planes.
Not famine - possible.And here we could have no genocide of indians in North America.Which happened,becouse they were conqered by faitful protestants beliving to be New Izrael,and indians - New Caananities.
So they did with indians what jews was supposed to do with old caananities.

When catholic spaniarrds could enslave some indians and kill others ,but not genocide them.

Fun thing is - jews probably never killed caananities,but assimiliated them.....and later made story about fake genocide.

About 1918 - Brest-Litowsk was soviet failure,but they win in the end - thanks to russian parties.
Germans hated working with soviets,and tried to find any replacment for them.
But ALL russian parties declined to abadonn their Allies and made peace.
Poor fools died for dudes who later betrayed them,and made deal with soviets.

Click to shrink...

More or less, buat least with the conflicts in the south west, and north east... some of the genocide that played out ended up being native on native and thats a realistic concern.

The commanche and Apache had sub groups of militant societies who were all in for that and success meant that they won political power. The Lipan come to mind as part of these even into the early 1900s. Further back, the morning wars come to mind where you have a markedly incease in retributive violence between historical rival tribes that ultimately leaves both groups vulnerable to organized state violence by colonial militias or then later the state militias in the 1800s.

Even under spanish rule we see this to a less extent where native on native violence in Peru for example where rival groups adopt 17th century spanish warfare tactics [and that includes mounted warfare which makes it much harder for rival tribes (looking for captives) to escape] to their commensurate results in fall out to the civilian populace. I doubt the intention was intentional genocide, which is itself a neologism, but the practical result was whole tribes went extinct.

And yes historically genocide if we want to use that term is more what we think of as forced assimilation, the modern turkish people are genetically overwhelming indistinguishable from the greeks, the situation being is that when the Seljuks migrated into the plateau they conquered and assimilated, same thing happened the arab conquests a few centuries earlier or the yes the supposed destruction of the canaanites but again that doesn't sound nearly as impressive in oral or written tradition so it gets recorded as 'yeah we came in and killed all the enemy' because that makes the king seem like a big shot. Repeat that ad nauesem to evangelical city on the hill protestants and well 'its a divine mission' and worse, its that logic paired with superior and often increasing weapons disparity.

and I've said this before keeping the bolsheviks from winning the civil war by 1918 requires a clear cut unified leadership, because Lenin & friends hold the two biggest cities in the empire and all the factories that go with them. Riga is defacto independent and then is independent but most of the disparate groups fighting the bolsheviks are more focused on their home areas than marching four hundred miles up the road even before one starts worrying about supplying the army. Lenin's whole reason for moving the soviets to moscow was that practically speaking peter could have been taken as demonstrated by Judenich coming close, and as proven by the Germans taking Riga. Now could Judenich have held petersburg not with out a lot of help and manpower he'd have had among other things shortages of food and ammunition and fuel .

With Wilson in charge of the US there isn't any money for that. Lansing might be down for that but that would require wilson being relieved (say he has a stroke early and worse) and Marshal gets capped but again thats a big what if

 

[ATP]

More or less, buat least with the conflicts in the south west, and north east... some of the genocide that played out ended up being native on native and thats a realistic concern.

The commanche and Apache had sub groups of militant societies who were all in for that and success meant that they won political power. The Lipan come to mind as part of these even into the early 1900s. Further back, the morning wars come to mind where you have a markedly incease in retributive violence between historical rival tribes that ultimately leaves both groups vulnerable to organized state violence by colonial militias or then later the state militias in the 1800s.

Even under spanish rule we see this to a less extent where native on native violence in Peru for example where rival groups adopt 17th century spanish warfare tactics [and that includes mounted warfare which makes it much harder for rival tribes (looking for captives) to escape] to their commensurate results in fall out to the civilian populace. I doubt the intention was intentional genocide, which is itself a neologism, but the practical result was whole tribes went extinct.

And yes historically genocide if we want to use that term is more what we think of as forced assimilation, the modern turkish people are genetically overwhelming indistinguishable from the greeks, the situation being is that when the Seljuks migrated into the plateau they conquered and assimilated, same thing happened the arab conquests a few centuries earlier or the yes the supposed destruction of the canaanites but again that doesn't sound nearly as impressive in oral or written tradition so it gets recorded as 'yeah we came in and killed all the enemy' because that makes the king seem like a big shot. Repeat that ad nauesem to evangelical city on the hill protestants and well 'its a divine mission' and worse, its that logic paired with superior and often increasing weapons disparity.

and I've said this before keeping the bolsheviks from winning the civil war by 1918 requires a clear cut unified leadership, because Lenin & friends hold the two biggest cities in the empire and all the factories that go with them. Riga is defacto independent and then is independent but most of the disparate groups fighting the bolsheviks are more focused on their home areas than marching four hundred miles up the road even before one starts worrying about supplying the army. Lenin's whole reason for moving the soviets to moscow was that practically speaking peter could have been taken as demonstrated by Judenich coming close, and as proven by the Germans taking Riga. Now could Judenich have held petersburg not with out a lot of help and manpower he'd have had among other things shortages of food and ammunition and fuel .

With Wilson in charge of the US there isn't any money for that. Lansing might be down for that but that would require wilson being relieved (say he has a stroke early and worse) and Marshal gets capped but again thats a big what if

Click to shrink...

True about turks,and arabs,too - egyptians for example are mostly the same people who lived there 4000 years ago,but they lost their culture.Copts keep some in christian version,but they are maybe 10% of population.

All ancient stories about killing all enemies are almost always bullshit.People always need slaves,after all.
Well,except mongols.They really genocided entire nations.


And sorry about being unclear with 1918 - germans wanted finish soviets and replace them with ANY party which would agree to peace - but all refused.That is why germans made peace with Lenin in the end,but if they had figurehead who would agree to peace,they would support him,and gave german troops to keep power.
Lenin in OTL for first few months survived thanks to german troops.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Nominal: I plan (which we all know how good I am about outlining that some updates will happen... and then other stuff eats up my focus) to try and resume updates for 1628 I really would like to get through 1628 as far as events in the chronological year, so dealing with the displacement (the ring of fire) into the past in the near term, the lifting of Wallenstein Siege of STralsund and getting into the the fall months. After which similar to AoE & AC will probably time skip in the following year and the beginning of the diaspora of sorts that begins, 29, and then follow a similar procedure for 30 with in '31 getting to the arrival of grantville, and of course that is sufficent time (I think) to have set up and introduced the agricultural base (procurement, and districution) to support without mass starvation something akin to this set up. And by 1631 and going into 1632 when the events of the book 1632 and 1633 we can start moving into things.

I am in the process of rereading the 1634 books I'm on bavarian crisis right now. So all that is theoretically in the pipe, frankly this is an old project alot of it is done and is sitting on an old computer that doesn't actually connect to the internet so it doesn't get posted. Moving on.

AOE Timeline changes AoE isn't as old as my Dominion of the Baltic Sea, but its been around as an idea for a bit and there have been changes to the timeline's broad planning as we move outwards. Originally in the initial draft this was much more gaslight fantasy there was more explicit magic involved and when I stood up the, this thread, that was toned down, and the version of the outline can be thought of initially as the MacKinder timeline. It was fairly close to IRL in terms of looking at conflicts post war, post world war 2, and the geographical features that impacted them for example the Indian-China border skirmish over the McMahon line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon_Line) and this will still come up.

One of things though is that here, Xian is already operating in western tibet, they have a branch line (a railway) that terminates at Urumqi, there is burgeoning textiles there; more important post war (ww1). This by itself significantly changes real practical questions of governance in tibet. For all intents and purpose Xian takes the position of Yuan Shikai's government (and basically everyone else since then) that the Simla convention is not legally binding. In 1918 this is irrelevant. No one cares in 1918, but twenty & thirty years later thats not true. This is one of the things that historically cropped up with Chiang Kai-shek, and would realistically crop up in the thirties. This however was a much bigger issue post war in the 'mackinder' branch of the timeline.

Now some of the stuff in the Mackinder branch remains in this current iteration, one thing to consider here is that we are gradually moving back towards where I will probably bring in the Destroyermen crossover as nominal canon... 'the other world' the alternate earth timeline destroyermen takes place in will be a little different... there will be a spanish empire in the new world but mustache twirling generic villians they will not be. the EIC displacess willl shot up in alternate toned down guise , we will probably still have the samurai monkey-cats because well rule of cool there. But really the post war changes in the current iteration look something like this:

There is broadly speaking a largely dominion consensus (again I'm obliged to comment that Canada only got its modern federal status in basically the eighties under Trudeau the older, and its modern borders before that are a post world war 2 thing) and there was a proposal (really a reiteration of a proposal by the liberals from much earlier to have a commonwealth free trade agreement. Well this didn't IRL there were just as with the original couple times this had been put forward problems... and what is likely to happen here. Is that the conditions for this trade agreement is most likely the US and China will probably sign on in tandem with Canada and Australia New Zealand. More importantly to the post war is that with a stable Asia the originally envisioned US marshal plan and the Asian equivalent of the EEC that was envisioned by Marshal can be done. The EEC, and its forbearers took several years to stand up, this would be into the mid fifties (most likely after Xian tests its first atomic weapon) and into the sixties probably in response to the cuban missile crisis development (and that will will be a fairly large development, with a stable asia there is significantly more pressure in the Middle East, and in Africa and in South & latin america

In timeline terms though the move into the sixties and the economic acceleration of rebuilding will have significant effects on US Pacific trade and proliferation of the production of transistors and consumer goods and semi conductors and eventually personal computers

The economic trade associations are tentative. For example the Conservatives (like Churchill wanted Britain in the EU, and thats not unreasonable, but it was based off a view of the continent that goes back to Balfour, and Gray, and frankly Asquith,) and the consequences of the UK in a free trade agreement with the rest of the commonwealth and the US by themselves because it wouldn't be a currency union (no one in any of the commonwealth country in post war is going to give up their dollar, britain isn't giving up the pound and the US isn't giving up the USD) and look how long it took for the Euro to be adopted, the result would be if the UK is not in the European Steel and Coal, and then not in the EEC (after 58) it probably will never join, it might try but the French would basically run them off the French would never let them in, and by the French would be willing (in looking to try and rebalance things against West Germany) the UK would not have any reason economically to want to be in the EEC given the balance of trade and the flow of technology after 1970

But all of that is far far in the future. I have some stuff written that far out, but mostly it is outline format. and most of the timelines conflicts in world war 2 that get focused on are largely determined by geography. they're set piece battles along the lines of the western front, due to the narrow avenues of attack and advance due to damaged infrastructure and road networks. The pacific theater was a naval war first and foremost in terms of how it was decided. Japan is an island nation and its ability to trade, and more importantly import goods from overseas determined what the home islands could support. (beat a dead horse, but the taking of malaya and singapore's fuel bunkers did a lot to keep Japan operationally active for longer than they would have been able to, and taking the DEIs oil capacity was an operational necessity for them as well.) Post war oil is going to be a big thing.

*note this was written short hand on my laptop I to an extent use EU, EEC European coal and steel interchanbeable as they're an iterative development on the marshal plan's format for a post war european association of states

EDIT: and since its easier to just expand this section, as we move into the 1920s its easy to lump in the post war (ww1) socio-economic development that occurs. A more active Japan, and Britain in central asia means more development, as touched on below Japan would probably do more oil prospecting while capital allows, but how much they could have realistically brought online (drilling, refining and pumping out to an operational capacity even before accounting for service rivalries is debateable). The point though is that they would try. This would have effects post war (WW2).

Socially South/White Russia / Kirghiz/the IRL Central Asian Republics come about due to the mass flight of people away from Bolshevik centers of control and what makes this different from the historical mass migration is the line of control that develops and slowly attenuates away from the historical one and by the end of it with greater british japanese support you see the break away of Russian eastern territories into what are legally supposed to be independent states by the time the USSR is formed from beloryssia ssr 'ukranian ssr' Russian SSR and transcaucia announced in 24. The result of this is in Kirghiz, which is Xian's preferred demonym for Central Asia's government just as how they tend to use Xian internally rather than saying china (though the government of federal china is generally called Peking for much of this period) begins to make its own modernizations.

Part of this is the Russian Orthodox Church is largely replaced by either an autocephalous metropolitan (an autocephalous bishop) or a Unity Church equivalent (that is to say Orthodox traditions of mass that are nominally recognizing the pope in rome as head of the church), the adoption of the gregorian calendar, a literacy program (and eventually culminating in the adoption of the latin alphabet).

This goes hand in hand with how england post war contends with the post king's honors relationship with the newly proclaimed soviet union. Britain takes the position the very 19th century international relations position that the bolsheviks are responsible for all the loans of the tsarist state because they are culpable for 'damages' now historically this would likely be negotiated away for other concessions or at least down, but the British here have a much anti bolshevik position to take here and are much less willing to compromise that for trade and international concessions (and indeed historically the USSR agreed it pay back tsarist era loans (not all of course) but the communist party did have to yield to international finance. This means that the siberian and central asians states not beholden to a ww1 debt trap.

Both states in the broad sense both needing to develop state apparatus and industrialize and their political centers of control being much closer begin that process of devolopment sooner. Now e.Siberia falls under Japanese sway and then is much like Korea brought under Japanese control, which is a political crisis in the interwar years but is one that ultimately has little repercussion. Siberia is treated much as how Japan treated Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria in terms of economic development and industrialization which means its subject to the competition both intraservice, and interservice between the various cliques as well as different Zaibatsu industrial firms but it still means that there is economic development. The development of this means that post war all of the involved countries are better off.

By 1960 with the implementation of the Asiatic Marshal Plan (China isn't communist here) the global economies of note are the US, China, the USSR, West Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, and Korea. With Kirghiz, Vietnam, and Indonesia all added to that east asian pacific partnership following suit, Kirghiz / central asia would probably be roughly equivalent to Mexico by 1960 and growing, and Korea and Indonesia likewise both growing rapidly post decolonization. Part of this is the implementation of a large pacific free trade arangement in the 50s and capital access for development akin to what w.Europe received

 

[ATP]

Would Japan discover their Manchuria oil deposits here,or take soviet one on Siberia?
Both would certainly helped them,and in OTL they could take Siberia at least till 1934.

And you are right,british stupidity helped them a lot.
To be honest,i would consider impossible to lost as quickly as they in OTL,if that do not happened.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Would Japan discover their Manchuria oil deposits here,or take soviet one on Siberia?
Both would certainly helped them,and in OTL they could take Siberia at least till 1934.

And you are right,british stupidity helped them a lot.
To be honest,i would consider impossible to lost as quickly as they in OTL,if that do not happened.

Click to shrink...

I don't have my Japanese oil exploration notes handy, but I suspect that given what I remember of the inter war period, I would expect that the answer would probably be both. [The navy and its cliques are going to want to do one thing, the army is going to disagree, and the zaibatsu are well equally divided]

And again much like IRL problem with would be the post war banking crisis, and then the stock market crash that hit japan towards the end of the decade. Mitsui (IIRC) was involved in oil exploration in Manchuria prior to world war 1 and actually had suggested developing fracking as a solution, they had a lot of coal, and the idea was they could turn coal into oil (which is possible its just that wasn't feasible yet, not in a productive manner with wht (also highly sulfurous) they had in hand... and then world war 1 broke out) What really damaged the 27 attempt by the zaibatsu in manchuria was one they were slow going and then the banking crisis and then the young officers started making noise. Now eventually a group of young officers got together with the zaibatsu (I believe this was mitsubishi) and eventually developed some oil extraction, but by that point the real bottleneck was transportation. this goes to never let yourself get to a point where your junior officers are the one starting the war.

The original conservative war plan called for the Japanese Army, and this was written up by the staff college who were divorced from the kwantung army said that if a war needed to be fought against Chiang Japan should not do it until 1940 after five years of preparation in part due to oil shortages and the need to keep the oil trade open. Frankly, I think the staff college's war plan is pretty fucking optimistic given that it was still supposed to be a short decisive war aimed at forcing Chiang to the negotiating table (There was a lot of that thinking going on in the war plans japan made in general) That goes to the war planning where the IJN and IJA was geostrategically forced to feed troops and ships from Rabau into a meat grinder which caused them unsustainable materiel attrition and without the oil the economy of the home islands would have started to grind to a halt by that point last ditch weapons (and also Japan's organization of production continued with bad options even after the US started for managerial reasons, or due to little internal fiefdoms within the militarized economy)

 

[ATP]

I don't have my Japanese oil exploration notes handy, but I suspect that given what I remember of the inter war period, I would expect that the answer would probably be both. [The navy and its cliques are going to want to do one thing, the army is going to disagree, and the zaibatsu are well equally divided]

And again much like IRL problem with would be the post war banking crisis, and then the stock market crash that hit japan towards the end of the decade. Mitsui (IIRC) was involved in oil exploration in Manchuria prior to world war 1 and actually had suggested developing fracking as a solution, they had a lot of coal, and the idea was they could turn coal into oil (which is possible its just that wasn't feasible yet, not in a productive manner with wht (also highly sulfurous) they had in hand... and then world war 1 broke out) What really damaged the 27 attempt by the zaibatsu in manchuria was one they were slow going and then the banking crisis and then the young officers started making noise. Now eventually a group of young officers got together with the zaibatsu (I believe this was mitsubishi) and eventually developed some oil extraction, but by that point the real bottleneck was transportation. this goes to never let yourself get to a point where your junior officers are the one starting the war.

The original conservative war plan called for the Japanese Army, and this was written up by the staff college who were divorced from the kwantung army said that if a war needed to be fought against Chiang Japan should not do it until 1940 after five years of preparation in part due to oil shortages and the need to keep the oil trade open. Frankly, I think the staff college's war plan is pretty fucking optimistic given that it was still supposed to be a short decisive war aimed at forcing Chiang to the negotiating table (There was a lot of that thinking going on in the war plans japan made in general) That goes to the war planning where the IJN and IJA was geostrategically forced to feed troops and ships from Rabau into a meat grinder which caused them unsustainable materiel attrition and without the oil the economy of the home islands would have started to grind to a halt by that point last ditch weapons (and also Japan's organization of production continued with bad options even after the US started for managerial reasons, or due to little internal fiefdoms within the militarized economy)

Click to shrink...

I read,that they tried to find oil in Manchuria,even knew that it must be there ,becouse of rocks which existed ,but was unlucky and missed major deposit.

And,their junior officers destroyed them,just like idiots in logistic- i read,they they do not use convoys for long time,becouse some idiot think,that it would be more economical sending ships alone.
Becouse of american duds problem,for some time it even worked....

 

[Imperator Pax]

I read,that they tried to find oil in Manchuria,even knew that it must be there ,becouse of rocks which existed ,but was unlucky and missed major deposit.

And,their junior officers destroyed them,just like idiots in logistic- i read,they they do not use convoys for long time,becouse some idiot think,that it would be more economical sending ships alone.
Becouse of american duds problem,for some time it even worked....

Click to shrink...

Yeah they found small pockets and they knew that the geology was suitable but some of that was probably economics (financing exploratory drilling gets expensive especially during credit crunches hit in the early 20s and the late twenties)

Yeah the convoy thing is like you would have thought that the IJN at least would have paid attention to convoy protection (like I understand why the British and the US made that mistake for round two* but the Japanese I mean I guess it maybe was teh same problem but i've never seen a doctrinal explanation other than other than 'they'll totally get through') and yes the US Torpedo problem probably gave them some false confidence in the early war, and that ordinance (it was navy ordinance but ordinances fault, King reamed them for that, but then King really was a submarine guy)

*So the British problem with convoys was after ww1, the official naval history that the admiralty had written up decided no convoys are bad because they don't kill enough Uboats, the argument was no your destroyers should be hunting down uboats who cares if the boats get sunk that doesn't what matters is sinking the uboats... so they went into world war 2 with great ASW equipment and shitty doctrine to apply in terms of protecting british sea lanes and insuring britain gets supplies *head desk*

and then the US who had a similar asw doctrine makes the same damn mistake... and part of that was the Navy had invested a lot of ffort in air based ASW and didn't have the ships to spare for convoy and they didn't want to take those from patrol. Britain's like "dude like we tried that" and later in 42 later the USN is all "okay we've got enough destroyers to try it your way england."

EDIT: SO yeah, in 26 the South Manchurian Railway Company (with political backing from one of the navy cliques) actually attempted to put into practice liquefication of coal to oil in Manchuria it was shelved because the army wanted more railways and the banking crisis forced a consolidation of efforts which ultimately largely fell through anyway (at least in comparison to the grand plans dreamed up in the mid twenties when funds were available).

 

[Imperator Pax]

April 1918
As a boy he'd been compelled to read Edmund Burke as part of the lessons. To be fair of course his resistance had been less political but rather it had been the agreement of his father and maternal grandfather, but as a boy of ten he'd had far far too many things he'd wanted to do than surround himself with dusty books on political science... but that had also lead to being expected to learn the math, the telegram, morse code, and such for the family rail business... and all of it together was intended to give him a leg up for when he shipped to west point.

Now though, there was reason to reflect to consider the scope of their actions.

The rooms', their, current condition greatly reminded him of the old house's great library either when he'd been a boy or one of the breaks home in 1898 before the Maine had gone up, when his brothers had been studying. The same siblings now in uniform under Federal Colors. Daniel would be fine with Black Jack, but not everyone had a staff job... and being back from the lines was its own burden.

To attempt to impose order here in the European style would be to invite disaster. If anything as Reinsch had agreed before he had left Tietsin most recently... even if the professor hadn't realized the full weight of the implications he was laying out, it was in that slow modification and growth that was taking place.

It had in the moment more annoyed him to know that as a fellow Southerner Wilson had likely been made to read the same works, and that the Virginian was well acquainted and agreed with Burke's views on the French manner of organization of government. You couldn't just absolutely declare something and expect no push back at all. The ties knitting things together took time... if they were lucky the cadres years of business would suffice to serve as their articles of confederation period, and if they weren't that would be what they were going into with the plans for a first provincial constitution.

Xian was one province though. The Western Zhili Development Corporation only covered half a province and while Cao Kun was probably entirely fine to hear suggestions regarding engineering, to hear about roads and bridges, and railways and factories and electric lights it was because he wanted to be seen showing people the way to modernity... but Cao Kun was also afraid of losing his position. Xian... Shensi was different though.

Shansi was another story. He understood where Cao Kun sat with Zhili. He understood where, what informed Yan's position... and he understood why the respective authorities in the west didn't have a proposal they could put forward.

"Shansi is getting hit by the flu pretty hard. Yan's trying his best but, outside of Taiyuan him and his red cross friends have to compete with people trying folk remedies." Yan had complained about that before, and it wasn't like they were ignorant of that problem.

Back in the states the remedy to everything was take a fistful of aspirin and wash it down with your morning coffee regardless of what ailed you... and that was something Shellman had made sure they knew. The navy doctor had the seen problems with his marines in the Philippines of them trying that with other tropical diseases ... well as had been pointed out Aspirin was in somewhat short supply anyway. And Malaria was another problem to be had as well, even if they were currently in the lull of it.

That had actually been the wrong thing to say since medicine in general was in short supply due to war time demand. That, and the influenza was expected to get worse... a hell of a lot worse. "Our bigger concern is interopabilitity on that front, and given who Yan's friends our, Shellman shouldn't have an issue, but there will be shortages."

Yan was talking about a new provincial constitutional something to come... but what that really meant was that he was willing to update his previously promulgated one. It wouldn't be identical to the one they were drafting for Shensi and Yan might even issue his before they published but there were generally going to be similarities.

Or at least they had agreed that they were looking to have a similar framework. Reforms to town and county administrative layers was one thing, and thankfully there was a general consensus of bicameral legislature... but that was where there started to be an issue. Yan believed pretty strongly in confucian morals, and while him wanting a Japanese style police force was one thing, but that required a lot of effort. His idea about an annual census also had the potential to be inefficient, that had in the Qing era always been more of an ideal than a real practical matter the government could accommodate. That being said stamping out foot binding was agreed to.

So while there were going to be difficulties, and differences in opinion there were also common grounds. They could work with that. It would have been nice if the Ma clique could at least provide enough frame work to suggest even that much.

"It is what it is, now besides the flu, and we knew to an extent that was going to be. Yan wants to expand education," He'd been able to mandate elementary education, but he just didn't have the teachers or the schools to expand that to middle school in the province... to that point he was putting his junior officers through sixth and seventh grade classes before sending them to the military school in Taiyuan or Hotei, or even over to them now. "I don't know if he was joking about opening a law school or now," He'd talked about the University in Taiyuan which had received some of its seed money from the British after the Boxer rebellion.

He also knew Yan was deeply envious of what the European war had meant for them. They had sub contracted out what they could when they could but Yan's arsenal simply wasn't big enough, even if it was expanding the man needed more engineers and he needed time. The war would be over before Yan could get spun up to really benefit, but on the other hand he'd be in a good position for his own domestic needs for sure.

The gathering adjourned into smaller committees leaving him with Bill, and George. Cullen was hustling Shellman out of the room and JP and Bertie were heading the opposite direction.

"What's the matter with you two?"

"You know Duan is calling for parliamentary elections right?"

It had ... it hadn't slipped his mind completely, but the truth was he hadn't really paid much attention to it. He was certain it had been mentioned but it struck him as well not that important, and from the expression of his lack of immediate reaction that was not where the two in front of him stood on the subject, "Somewhat, why?"

"The Mas were gonna proxy their votes to peking,"

"you didn't."

"He did." George replied quickly. "Now before you bring it up, this shit with the assembly is nonsense. They were supposed to be elected for three years. Yuan should have called for elections in 1915, I'm sorry he should have. That's how they're supposed to work. You run, you get elected you get sworn in, you do your bit you run for reelection." He went on about how it was cockamamie bullshit to pretend like the situation had been done, and how both sides had done their share of idiot things, but that elections in general should have been held ages ago. "The Ma aren't the problem. We put some of our own fellas up. They do their bit in three years they can run for reelection, but the sooner this country has regular elections the better."

Bill crossed his arms and nodded, "I'd tell Lee he should run for a seat but hell we can't spare him." And with a General's post Lee wouldn't likely take a position in Peking's legislative assembly. "Besides the south is threatening to boycott the elections anyway. I think we could potentially see some real reform with a northern parliament that might do well if they haven't got to squabble so much."

The basic idea though was to select or advise or suggest to, support candidates from shensi, shansi, Qinghai, Kansu, xinjiang, Tibet even. In the spring of 1918 that had made sense. It was about inclusion in the federal apparatus rather than being separate from it.
--
The shop floor was two football fields wide and three long. There were rows of single stage machines. Big deep green machines from Pratt & Whitney. The men at each station took a piece of metal fitted it in a jig did one cut at the station and moved it on. "Your people out there sure are busy," Percy observed. "We've had discussions with Iseburo as well."

He didn't immediately respond, still watching the work, and then shruged, "Yeah he chewed on my ear for an hour about steel," Iseburo didn't do public conversations well, but phone conversations different story, "Anyway what's the situation with Mackinder, you didn't bring him." Percy in previous conversation about the ANZAC deployment to 'stem the tide' had said the minister would be coming around.

"These have gotten complicated."

Complicated was one way of describing it. Iseburo had asked for a lot of steel. He had a cash infusion and was looking at ... well he had said he'd seen drafts but he hadn't heard Yamagata's son this giddy in years. "Iseburo mentioned something about the Omsk line."

"Oh," Percy's expression lapsed, "Did he now? Well yes there is a lot of labor already available." He was being evasive, and Allen expected that the states probably hadn't quite been told about the Japanese line extending, or whatever work they were doing. It meant England and Japan wanted two indepdent routes to funnel troops into Russia, but that wasn't really a surprise that was the whole point of Percy contracting for the central asian connection.

Percy was fidgeting looking towards the door, and to the work the floor below.

"Come on, lets head on, you wanted to talk?" He wished the brit would get on with it. He watched the barrel blanks and the beginnings of actions be reamed out and milled down. They headed for one of the adjoining office buildings. This had once been the Manchu quarter... and that had been torched and really left like that for the few years before they had shown up. It was why no one had objected when they'd torn the old quarter down and rebuilt everything after the summer of 1914.

Percy looked around the office space overlooking the yard and the parked trucks, "How familiar are you with the agreement between the French, and the Asquith government regarding Mesopotamia?" He rolled around in the swiveling office chair to face the desk.

It was the Asquith government now was it? It was a degree of separation, an attempt and frankly a shoddy one. "I know enough." He replied. The British would claim that since Edward Gray had signed it Lloyd George had to move forward with it as the basis, and ... and Percy was currently looking at the proposals for how to handle cases of appeals.

Yan wanted a system of evaluating magistrates, which was great because he had a series of provincial magistrates. They didn't. There was no body of lawyers to rely, and no one had any truck to trying to stand up a series of judges, especially since there wasn't actually a clear system of what the legal system should look like at this stage... so the current suggestion was to rotate a final board of appeals through available cadre members.

"Don't you have enough to do?"

"Yeah, yeah, give me that." He grunted taking the sheet, "To other question, I read Sykes Picot, Bill thinks you're all idiots by the way, giving the french a cut of Iraqi oil, now the hells the matter with you?"

"I didn't make that decision." Percy held up his hands defensively, and he had probably distracted the Brit for now. "I mean more, along the lines of how do you think it will effect things."

"I don't think it should matter Congress approved the loan," He replied, the British had been provided the liquid capital to make war purchases. "I guess Balfour will have to decide whether or not what Ed Gray agreed to is something to stick with, but that's on Balfour, like you said it ain't you." And while he might have had concerns about explaining his knowledge of Sykes Picot he could always blame the state department and the state department was unlikely to admit to anything they didn't have to... but Balfour wasn't some johnny come late-y to the British there was no way he hadn't known Edward Gray had signed the agreement or at least that there had been something signed regarding the middle east. "But it can't keep the states out of the war now. If that was what you were concerned with."

That was the thing, that had been the greatest worry of the Lloyd George administration is how close the Brits had been to insolvency. Percy Knew That. He understood it. The Pound was fragile in a way it had never been...

But that hadn't been why the Cadre had wanted payments in the US dollar once it became clear this wasn't going to be the quick war the British and the French papers promised it would be. No, the truth was it hadn't been guessing about the chance in ... the end of Edwardian High Finance and the New York take over ... not at all it had been that the British were getting loans in dollars to buy American goods and the cadre needed to also buy American. They had a back reserve of Pounds... but they hadn't predicted that the Brits were going to get to the point where the cost of a single offensive would start having a hundred million pounds sterling in price tag, and that was what Haig's offensive at Paschendale had cost the brits.
--
Notes: I do need to reiterate the Entente received a combination of both private, and public sector loans from the US. This was financed through JP Morgan principally on the private sector wall street side and this amounted to the tune of French and British securities for 1915 1916 over four billion dollars in that period money. Following that, summer 1917, there were official government to government loans a kind of precursor to what the US would run later in 2 and after, between the treasury department were negotiated with the White House.... which meant Congress (power of the purse had to sign off) and that was to prevent a British default on the loans it was a pretty big shock that the pound came that close. War is expensive, and while this had been made clear with the Russo Japanese war in terms of pre ww1 financial institutions (Japan and Russia were both still paying off their loans as has been referenced by the time the first world war kicked off) no one thought ww 1 would be as expensive as it turned out it completely changed how national economies worked.

And as will be relevant later, and ATP mentions part of the reason the Russians didn't financially collapse is that they didn't transfer their gold reserves as collateral for further loans and supplies, (now yes they made internal territorial concessions to their allies, and then to the US on economic development but that's another economic fucking otherwise). The French, the Franc, suffered heavily, the French economy even pre war was not nearly as strong as the British and British Pound, and by 1916 the Treasury was advising against further leverage, and indeed the French would choose to default over devauling the Franc later on. [and that is a major contributor to why the US implemented cash and carry.]

Anyway, yes so this sets up for a lot of the the post war / inter war political change in 1919 and in the first years of the following arc of the twenties

 

[Imperator Pax]

The 14 Points Link:
https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/peace/fourteen-points

This is important because a lot of people have misconceptions about the 14 points and especially misconceptions that derive the cold war, but also because of propaganda. I don't mean to beat a dead a horse, but neither world war (

Spoiler: digression

and frankly I really ww2 should be treated as a continuation of the first world war ala the 30 years war is, and I think in the long term historical context I think that will win out as we move increasingly farther away in time... assuming that that increase in time does not reduce the perceived importance of the conflicts (which I very much do not want to see because of how important the first world war is to establishing modern national governments in their practice I digress..)

was fault for the purpose of democracy. WW1 and WW2 were not struggles over democracy, and the cold war was more an argument over economics than anything else, and I would argue that it was economics that determined the wars various outcomes

But thats not sexy and that doesn't convince the corner boy to join the army and march to a foreign land with the army or the buying of war bonds to support the government so Democracy rather was the rally cry that Wilson and Lloyd George used, but interestingly Wilson absolutely makes no mention of democracy in the 14 points, or self determination (and I've seen arguments put forward that the 14 points was written (and with some objections from lansing at state) in such a way to avoid upsetting the French)

 

[ATP]

The 14 Points Link:
https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/peace/fourteen-points

This is important because a lot of people have misconceptions about the 14 points and especially misconceptions that derive the cold war, but also because of propaganda. I don't mean to beat a dead a horse, but neither world war (

Spoiler: digression

and frankly I really ww2 should be treated as a continuation of the first world war ala the 30 years war is, and I think in the long term historical context I think that will win out as we move increasingly farther away in time... assuming that that increase in time does not reduce the perceived importance of the conflicts (which I very much do not want to see because of how important the first world war is to establishing modern national governments in their practice I digress..)

was fault for the purpose of democracy. WW1 and WW2 were not struggles over democracy, and the cold war was more an argument over economics than anything else, and I would argue that it was economics that determined the wars various outcomes

But thats not sexy and that doesn't convince the corner boy to join the army and march to a foreign land with the army or the buying of war bonds to support the government so Democracy rather was the rally cry that Wilson and Lloyd George used, but interestingly Wilson absolutely makes no mention of democracy in the 14 points, or self determination (and I've seen arguments put forward that the 14 points was written (and with some objections from lansing at state) in such a way to avoid upsetting the French)

Click to shrink...

I once read,that one of french commanders,after Versaile,said that is is not peace,but cease-fire only.Forget name,as usual.
And few other Allied generals belived the same.

Allies should either gave Czech and Poland to germans then,or made german states,like Bavaria,free again.Beaten,but still strong germany mean next WW.
Well,they would start next war anyway,but if allies gave them Czech and poles,they would figh soviets for them.
That is what England tried to achieve from at least 1919,and that is why they supported Hitler till 1939.It could work.

About drugs and herbs - i read,that Rockefellers from before WW1 tried made using herbs illegal,so they could sell their drugs,and it worked for them in USA.
But,if in China aspirin would continue to kill people,when herbs sometime help,and especially when ginghao /sweet wormwood/ start curing malaria,your China could,at least partially,keep to herbs.

Which,to be honest,would be better.Drugs are working,but - they made problems,too.
Herbs are safer.

P.S When Germans would fell,it would be time for:
1.Grabbing gun prototypes - either Skoda or Krupp,do not really matter
2.Planes - fighter from wood,and /no matter which one/ and good engine - this time A-H stronger engine made by Otto Hieronymus - dude who in OTL died in car accident in 1924,so if you hire him,it would not change History in Europe.

 

[Imperator Pax]

I once read,that one of french commanders,after Versaile,said that is is not peace,but cease-fire only.Forget name,as usual.
And few other Allied generals belived the same.

Click to shrink...

Not just generals, Keynes said much the same, and so did other people in fact after Versailles occurs I have a scene that may or may not end up as canon where during the king's honors scene that opinion is expressed in 'what have you accomplished with the war, you've bled an entire generation of men, and what you plan to do it once again in twenty years' fashion.

Plenty of people recognized that it was kicking the can down the road.

 

[ATP]

Not just generals, Keynes said much the same, and so did other people in fact after Versailles occurs I have a scene that may or may not end up as canon where during the king's honors scene that opinion is expressed in 'what have you accomplished with the war, you've bled an entire generation of men, and what you plan to do it once again in twenty years' fashion.

Plenty of people recognized that it was kicking the can down the road.

Click to shrink...

Yes.They should either gave everytching to germans,or destroy their state.Both could worked,when what they made must fall.

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1918
A year from now there would be entirely different problems to be had. Problems that the truth be told they couldn't really fathom.

Their original posting of officers for short term duration had been based on the medieval schedule of the year in China, the schedule of peasant farmers, and thus where peasants were idle enough that they could go be bandits in neighboring provinces. That was no longer workable. There had been a concentrated effort since 1915 to stamp out banditry on their side of the border, that was to say inside Shensi and Yan in Shansi had attempted the same, but they couldn't be entirely sure it was one hundred percent effective.

Just mostly sure it had worked. Even that didn't change the fact that even during Bai Lang's rampaging through North China there had been complaints about the system... now though... now with whole divisions extant they could no longer base brevet commands and postings on feudal seasonal time frames. It was neither practical, nor did it have a scientific rationale. They had simply outgrown the rational for that post.

It was part of the reason why Lee had 3rd​ Division in Urumqi for the tenure he did. He would handle things for the year, he would come back in January take a staff position and they would figure out what worked, and what didn't based on 3rd​ Division's experiences.

Eastern Tibet would be different than 2nd​ along the border in Szechwan... and that was something else being talked about as well. "The German Offensive has been underway for almost two weeks now. Either it breaks through, or it breaks." Either or... or potentially both. The French could crumble in one sector and the Germans could bash their heads into a stone wall in another... but would it change things?

"I don't think it matters one way or another. Brest Litovsk has shown what the British will to expect a German peace will mean, they'll hold, and that'll put steel up the French's spine until the Germans burn through whatever they've got left... and that can't be much."

... and after that, Allen agreed then Black Jack would take the AEF and launch some bullheaded offensive, or if necessary put one off until next spring to attack with even larger numbers. That was the real question. It wasn't the tactical or operational concerns they were really talking about. It was what this fighting was going to mean for war time demand.

"Thats what people have been saying though," Carter said adding that this was supposed to have been a short war, and yet here they were.

"Lets talk about something else"

"Its May. The Australians aren't going to be fighting the Reds any time soon, but in six months its going to start getting mighty cold." They'd need winter uniforms. They'd need ammunition. They'd need spare shoes. They might not be fighting the germans but they'd need all those things just to stay on station in Central Asia. "IF Japan is serious as well, and the British are paying for it anyway we start manufacturing that."

Numbers were scratched on paper, and ideas circulated, and the papers moved around the table. The idea was to slowly wind down production. The US Army had already doubled its combat strength from the previous year, and if the war continued through the next year there were talks of three million men.

"We should go ahead and make an offer through Percy, hell talk to Mackinder about them stocking ammunition and winter clothing, spare shoes." There was no disagreement but it was also pointed out that it was no secret that the Brits and French wanted US troops, and Wilson would probably get convinced to give them something... especially given.

"The agreement in Pittsburgh is written, they'll have a ceremony at the end of the month... They were talking about it already, but the state department is doing more than putting out feelers." Wilson was serious about this self determination stuff in a way that wasn't just an excuse to break up their rivals in the halls of Paris or London. No, Wilson was an honest to god idealist That made him dangerous in other ways... it made him harder to predict because he had a crusading ideology based on a morality that was divorced from individual national good. There was no question that Wilson meant well... but that was what made his beliefs dangerous.

Some body down the table tossed the paper in front of them with a snort of disgust. "If they break its going to be a god awful mess." He was clearly talking about the French, or maybe he meant the Germans breaking through.

He leaned to his right, "What does state have to say?""

"Lansing intends to push for a complete shattering of the old empire, we can assume he's exchanged notes with the French, and probably Balfour as well."

That was actually the problem. The French and British wanted two different things. Regardless of business Lansing would expect that they'd put a priority on what State wanted done with regards to the Czechs... which unfortunately ran into the problem of the likelihood that Lansing and the President might have different points of view on what was best for the United States' interest. "Europe is a world away," And he was glad for that, "I meant more-"

"More in our neck of the woods, unfortunately," Dawes shook his head, "I don't know. I don't, The Brits want the czechs in the fight in the east... but the French, need warm bodies to shore them up, I suppose they want them sailed to France. No body I reckon has asked the czechs what they want, but State doesn't know what to do with them."

Not that they were in a position to do anything with them. They were the center of a corp of an army that was more than just czechs and slovaks. That was a potential problem that Wilson might not have countenanced while carrying on about his crusade for liberty and making the world safe for democracy...

--
The British over the past ... really two years had kept them abreast of developments from the front. Never with the intention of them providing an answer or consulting but because there were channels that had always been open.

Percy had observed that their 3 inch improved Krupps were in many respects equivalent performance wise to what the Germans had done with their own so called 77/35 or indeed the British MK1 s which used the Krupp 96 as its base to arm British Merchant Marine shipping... it was a three inch QF gun of an established pedigree.

They hadn't been put into a situation where they had to defend against aircraft though, and aircraft was one of the things that dominated committee discussions. Things like the Albatross currently held the dominant position of hopes for acquisition... whenever the war ended. There were other planes being reported on, there were other weapons, but today was about 3rd​ Division.

The 3 inch guns popped. Twelve guns. 3rd​ Division had allocated out its machine guns with Madsen and Lewis guns to fill out their allotted paper strength numbers at present , but also they were the first regular unit, not a technical section, with the newest mortars.

Percy was squirming as the conversation or the observation of the excercise continued

"in an ideal situation we could replace the Madsens with Lewis's whole sale."

Bill nodded, but his senior staff officer dismissed it. To be fair probably from Lee's perspective 3rd​ Division had the best equipment it could get. It was a modern division. Still if they had been able to furnish the whole unit with Lewis guns it would have reduced some of the work on the armorers... even if they were heavier. "I can wait until production of the Assault Phase Rifle begins." He remarked.

Bill laughed, "Thats right." He threw a pointed look at Waite.

The shorter man scowled. Waite's protest that he did have other things to do was true. Sam and George both had 'civilian' side administrative responsibilities. In Waite's case that included relations with the public at large and while he wouldn't be on the bank board their central banking apparatus was going to require a lot of effort and he was involved in some of the set up for that. "We will get them when we can, but among other things they're gonna need magazines and we have to make sure those work and are reliable."

"What about the new general machine gun tender?" Lee questioned. "Is it prudent to discard the idea of adopting the Vickers fully?"

There were some looks, "I'm not saying we won't use the Vickers, we will," Waite replied, "And as a replacement issue sure, but in terms of manufacture once we're set up for the 1917... and when we get to five divisions the volume for Brownings design will make more sense at that scale." That would prove true in the scope of things, in the scope of production, Utilizing the 200gr Mauser bullet had certain advantages over the US GOVT standard load 30 06 but the gun design itself would have teething issues that would take time to put in production and in service... to the point that when it did enter it was with further simplifications that helped bring costs down.

--
Notes: i seem to have misplaced my copy of Sutton which is annoying, Provincial Militarism is a really useful book. Anyway on the Vickers thing, that is actually... well I'm sure part of it was not invented here in terms of the US (the whole ordinance debacle over machine guns was a mess, but also the Vickers proved difficult to mass produce and I don't have production numbers in front of me, but there were machining issues that well would be easier to overcome in manufacturing the 1917 and indeed what will become the Xian equivalent in many respects to the Polish variant of the 1917 though intended for a slightly heavier bullet weight but in terms of sights, and overall caliber thats the basis. I understand the reasoning that went into the sights the browning went with, but frankly that should have been done away with if it needed to enter actual mass use in ww1, and again Ordinance makes dumb decisions because last war syndrome).

 

[ATP]

May 1918
A year from now there would be entirely different problems to be had. Problems that the truth be told they couldn't really fathom.

Their original posting of officers for short term duration had been based on the medieval schedule of the year in China, the schedule of peasant farmers, and thus where peasants were idle enough that they could go be bandits in neighboring provinces. That was no longer workable. There had been a concentrated effort since 1915 to stamp out banditry on their side of the border, that was to say inside Shensi and Yan in Shansi had attempted the same, but they couldn't be entirely sure it was one hundred percent effective.

Just mostly sure it had worked. Even that didn't change the fact that even during Bai Lang's rampaging through North China there had been complaints about the system... now though... now with whole divisions extant they could no longer base brevet commands and postings on feudal seasonal time frames. It was neither practical, nor did it have a scientific rationale. They had simply outgrown the rational for that post.

It was part of the reason why Lee had 3rd​ Division in Urumqi for the tenure he did. He would handle things for the year, he would come back in January take a staff position and they would figure out what worked, and what didn't based on 3rd​ Division's experiences.

Eastern Tibet would be different than 2nd​ along the border in Szechwan... and that was something else being talked about as well. "The German Offensive has been underway for almost two weeks now. Either it breaks through, or it breaks." Either or... or potentially both. The French could crumble in one sector and the Germans could bash their heads into a stone wall in another... but would it change things?

"I don't think it matters one way or another. Brest Litovsk has shown what the British will to expect a German peace will mean, they'll hold, and that'll put steel up the French's spine until the Germans burn through whatever they've got left... and that can't be much."

... and after that, Allen agreed then Black Jack would take the AEF and launch some bullheaded offensive, or if necessary put one off until next spring to attack with even larger numbers. That was the real question. It wasn't the tactical or operational concerns they were really talking about. It was what this fighting was going to mean for war time demand.

"Thats what people have been saying though," Carter said adding that this was supposed to have been a short war, and yet here they were.

"Lets talk about something else"

"Its May. The Australians aren't going to be fighting the Reds any time soon, but in six months its going to start getting mighty cold." They'd need winter uniforms. They'd need ammunition. They'd need spare shoes. They might not be fighting the germans but they'd need all those things just to stay on station in Central Asia. "IF Japan is serious as well, and the British are paying for it anyway we start manufacturing that."

Numbers were scratched on paper, and ideas circulated, and the papers moved around the table. The idea was to slowly wind down production. The US Army had already doubled its combat strength from the previous year, and if the war continued through the next year there were talks of three million men.

"We should go ahead and make an offer through Percy, hell talk to Mackinder about them stocking ammunition and winter clothing, spare shoes." There was no disagreement but it was also pointed out that it was no secret that the Brits and French wanted US troops, and Wilson would probably get convinced to give them something... especially given.

"The agreement in Pittsburgh is written, they'll have a ceremony at the end of the month... They were talking about it already, but the state department is doing more than putting out feelers." Wilson was serious about this self determination stuff in a way that wasn't just an excuse to break up their rivals in the halls of Paris or London. No, Wilson was an honest to god idealist That made him dangerous in other ways... it made him harder to predict because he had a crusading ideology based on a morality that was divorced from individual national good. There was no question that Wilson meant well... but that was what made his beliefs dangerous.

Some body down the table tossed the paper in front of them with a snort of disgust. "If they break its going to be a god awful mess." He was clearly talking about the French, or maybe he meant the Germans breaking through.

He leaned to his right, "What does state have to say?""

"Lansing intends to push for a complete shattering of the old empire, we can assume he's exchanged notes with the French, and probably Balfour as well."

That was actually the problem. The French and British wanted two different things. Regardless of business Lansing would expect that they'd put a priority on what State wanted done with regards to the Czechs... which unfortunately ran into the problem of the likelihood that Lansing and the President might have different points of view on what was best for the United States' interest. "Europe is a world away," And he was glad for that, "I meant more-"

"More in our neck of the woods, unfortunately," Dawes shook his head, "I don't know. I don't, The Brits want the czechs in the fight in the east... but the French, need warm bodies to shore them up, I suppose they want them sailed to France. No body I reckon has asked the czechs what they want, but State doesn't know what to do with them."

Not that they were in a position to do anything with them. They were the center of a corp of an army that was more than just czechs and slovaks. That was a potential problem that Wilson might not have countenanced while carrying on about his crusade for liberty and making the world safe for democracy...

--
The British over the past ... really two years had kept them abreast of developments from the front. Never with the intention of them providing an answer or consulting but because there were channels that had always been open.

Percy had observed that their 3 inch improved Krupps were in many respects equivalent performance wise to what the Germans had done with their own so called 77/35 or indeed the British MK1 s which used the Krupp 96 as its base to arm British Merchant Marine shipping... it was a three inch QF gun of an established pedigree.

They hadn't been put into a situation where they had to defend against aircraft though, and aircraft was one of the things that dominated committee discussions. Things like the Albatross currently held the dominant position of hopes for acquisition... whenever the war ended. There were other planes being reported on, there were other weapons, but today was about 3rd​ Division.

The 3 inch guns popped. Twelve guns. 3rd​ Division had allocated out its machine guns with Madsen and Lewis guns to fill out their allotted paper strength numbers at present , but also they were the first regular unit, not a technical section, with the newest mortars.

Percy was squirming as the conversation or the observation of the excercise continued

"in an ideal situation we could replace the Madsens with Lewis's whole sale."

Bill nodded, but his senior staff officer dismissed it. To be fair probably from Lee's perspective 3rd​ Division had the best equipment it could get. It was a modern division. Still if they had been able to furnish the whole unit with Lewis guns it would have reduced some of the work on the armorers... even if they were heavier. "I can wait until production of the Assault Phase Rifle begins." He remarked.

Bill laughed, "Thats right." He threw a pointed look at Waite.

The shorter man scowled. Waite's protest that he did have other things to do was true. Sam and George both had 'civilian' side administrative responsibilities. In Waite's case that included relations with the public at large and while he wouldn't be on the bank board their central banking apparatus was going to require a lot of effort and he was involved in some of the set up for that. "We will get them when we can, but among other things they're gonna need magazines and we have to make sure those work and are reliable."

"What about the new general machine gun tender?" Lee questioned. "Is it prudent to discard the idea of adopting the Vickers fully?"

There were some looks, "I'm not saying we won't use the Vickers, we will," Waite replied, "And as a replacement issue sure, but in terms of manufacture once we're set up for the 1917... and when we get to five divisions the volume for Brownings design will make more sense at that scale." That would prove true in the scope of things, in the scope of production, Utilizing the 200gr Mauser bullet had certain advantages over the US GOVT standard load 30 06 but the gun design itself would have teething issues that would take time to put in production and in service... to the point that when it did enter it was with further simplifications that helped bring costs down.

--
Notes: i seem to have misplaced my copy of Sutton which is annoying, Provincial Militarism is a really useful book. Anyway on the Vickers thing, that is actually... well I'm sure part of it was not invented here in terms of the US (the whole ordinance debacle over machine guns was a mess, but also the Vickers proved difficult to mass produce and I don't have production numbers in front of me, but there were machining issues that well would be easier to overcome in manufacturing the 1917 and indeed what will become the Xian equivalent in many respects to the Polish variant of the 1917 though intended for a slightly heavier bullet weight but in terms of sights, and overall caliber thats the basis. I understand the reasoning that went into the sights the browning went with, but frankly that should have been done away with if it needed to enter actual mass use in ww1, and again Ordinance makes dumb decisions because last war syndrome).

Click to shrink...

Going bandit - normal thing in every failed state,only difference in China is,that those bandits could become Kings or even Emperors.

Winter uniforms - i read memories of some polish soldier who served in Murmańsk with polish unit there,when brits take city.According to him,they and brits were fine,serbs have no problems at all,but poor italians....
well,they were not happy to be there.Even in italian so called "winter uniforms"

Czech legion - they had corps there,who in OTL betrayed Kolczak and their polish allies,so soviet let them go home with part of tsar gold.
Here,you have still polish dyvision intact - and,problem what to do with them.And Kolczak,another problem.

Krupp 77/35 - very good idea,good enough for WW2,and could destroy T.34.76,no mention japaneese puny tanks.You do not need anything better till 1945.
Albatros plane - good idea,you could take them either from germany or A-H.
Remember to take A-H engines,and engineer !.
Dude in OTL would die in car accident anyway.

Browning HMG - good idea.
Another good idea - cheaper Mauser rifle,like polish prototype KP32.We never mass produced it,but you could made something like that:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw3oe8_1lKn6IwonioN4QkDr&opi=89978449

42 parts instead of 66 - it really shoujld help.

 

[Imperator Pax]

May 1918
"We should have started doing this last year,"

"Last year, we should have been doing it before then.

This was important that was why they'd allocated a whole week to it. The men needed large scale exercises encompassing tehir at strength units. It was important that Lee's division wide exercises went well, and that the lessons were understood. That was especially true for measuring the performance of 7th​ and 8th​ Regiments in terms of handling the new equipment. There had been questions about how prepared those green troops would be... but it had to be accounted that after the deployment they weren't really green troops.

"We have to face facts where we stand." Waite replied. It was early in the morning but they were through a second pot of coffee already. Waite had been the forefront, in a surprising press, to expand the army ahead of a finished constitution... and that went hand in hand with the idea of having legislative controls in place. "With 3rd​ Division having completed its first deployment we have some seventy thousand personnel who are under arms."

And if 4th​ and 5th​ Infantry regiments took the planned place as the core of new Divisions bearing those numbers that would increase. The previous July, a mere ten months earlier, Duan had had to cajole and spend no small amount of borrowed money, to rally fifty thousand troops to overmatch decisively the force the pony tail general had invested Peking with. Admittedly that had been in the interest of heading off an even more disastrous and expensive campaign but it was the numbers that mattered.

Waite was right that they needed a census but even the estimations of what they thought the province had meant that in terms of manpower... a hundred thousand men was maybe one percent of the population of the province of Shensi at large... and a substantial potion of 1st​ division were from Western Zhili, and 3rd​ had recruits from the western provinces.

It wasn't really the manpower though. The US Army of 1906 was only a part of the comparison, it was the scale, it was the economics of scale to supplying troops. They made uniforms, the boots, the rucks, and carrying accoutrements and the rifles... and after a point things tended to cost less per item to make.

Griswold slid a paper over. "This is our finalized adoption of the Pattern 1914, based on our own lessons. There is still the argument of a shortened rifle, but the composite stock," To be constructed from multiple pieces of kiln fired wood for ease of manufacture would be retained. The lessons were a combination of how the Japanese had taken the Mauser action, and their stocks, and also the changes to the mauser action by the US and then the UK who had the then built 1913 Rifle, which had been the forebearer to the pattern 1914 for the war. "The important thing is that it saves us material and tooling we can switch over from making stocks for the Australians and go straight to mauser barrels, and perhaps just as importantly its something Yan's arsenal in shansi can do themselves with no problem."

The machine bureau, as innocuously named as it had been named, would also be able to begin production of the three inch mortar. "Are you okay with this?"

"Lets just say," Griswold remarked, "Is that I understand the logic of why we're doing this. The rifle is more accurate, and is better reflective of service conditions. Do I think it meets all criteria no, but I accept since we're done with the 1914 contract for the Australians we're better off taking those parts and making our own version for our bullet."
--
The cadre wasn't in full session there were actually only about seventy members of the body in country right now. Between the mission to Britain and a swiss delegation and twelve men heading for Guatemala there were also those who were either over the border in Russia, or visiting Japan. They didn't need a full vote for this, and frankly there were only about thirty men in Xian anyway.

Dawes had sailed for England as part of the trade mission, but that had been planned for. It might not have been popular but it had been accepted because it had been the plan. Dawes had the authority and the clout to make arrangements, and more importantly he had relatives in the congress and the state department, and the army... and that the truth was no one was going to deny him the opportunity to go.
Nakamichi's advice on three divisions had stemmed from a parallel perspective. He had been looking at the same set of facts just from an offset angle.

"What's he got?" Cole asked.

"Its a paper."

Cullen rolled his eyes, "I can see that."

"What did Yamagata want? IS Iseburo actually going to come down here?"

He didn't get the chance to answer. The truth was he wasn't sure, but he knew that there would be a mission to come watch the Lewis guns joining the ANZAC proofing officers.

Waite had been keeping the Shanghai paper close at hand, but he hadn't shared it with the rest of them. Its provenance though was not likely to herald good news. The most likely possibility was of course the call for another revolution, some call most likely wanting Yunnan to join with the KMT with the southern doctor being in charge of course... but whatever the case most likely explanation was it was in response to things going on in Hunan... and the stalling of the campaign.

He discarded that for the simple reason that there would have been no reason to guar d the paper so thoroughly from the rest of them. There had been talk already though rumors about another loan being extended, and for that matter it wasn't improbable Shanghai's papers would be complaining about the relationship with the Japanese.

Without the membership in full present it was hard to miss. It was a gesture aimed at attracting attention in the small room. The paper unfolded, and in its crease was a second. The weekly far eastern review...

Millard.

That raised other potential red flags. Millard was the sort of busybody who'd stick his nose over the fence, but he'd also potentially shove his nose from Shanghai to Central America... and that might not be the sort of thing the fellas in Guatemala would be expecting.

Yet on the other hand Millard was a southerner whatever his other failings he wasn't always wrong... just fucking annoying at times... and their positions were not inherently anathema to one another... but Millard's positions did generally bias him to support Sun on account of their friendship.

His thoughts seemed mirrored by the grumbling along the long oak table of the room.

Most likely the first paper was one of Millard's affiliates. His own little coterie of china hands down on the bund. About a year earlier Millard had called for a 'a democratic coalition to form'... of the states, the Kerensky Russian government and China which had been optimistic to say the least... especially since he'd made that proposal basically immediately after Zhang had departed Peking and Duan had retaken the capital.

"Are we gonna have a problem with that muckraker?" The man sitting next to Shellman asked.

"Possibly. Over this maybe not." Waite shrugged at the question, "The thing about muckrakers is they do tend to ferret out things. Ch'en is down in the eastern portion of Kwangtun, he came back from Japan in 1916. He's spent the last two years building up clout, and he's begun pushing into Fukien. Nothing we didn't already know." His actions in Southern Fukien had made the North China Herald... but it was well in the south, and thus none of their damned business. "Ch'en has Japanese support, not a lot in the way of weapons but he gets some from Tokyo Gas & Electric but the bigger matter is his interaction over the constitution."

Or at least that was Millard's position as laid out in his reporting on the facts. Kwangtung was in the area of the south that France considered 'theirs'. It wasn't Millard defending the French, so much as he didn't trust the Japanese associations Ch'en had. Specifically that Millard was quick to announce that Ch'en was inviting Japanese teachers into his newly established, and his planned, primary schools.

It was as Millard put a poison chalice that it presented nothing less than a continuance of former Prime Minister Okuma's efforts. Whether people would listen to the warning was dubious.

"He's right, it all lines up Ch'en's backers are from Okuma's clique." The current government in Tokyo was being undermined in strategy by the previous one's supporters... but that was about normal. Or at least it was normal after a fact, but what wasn't processed at least not in the spring of 1918 were the divisions that this foreshadowed. This was not Wilson and Roosevelt disagreeing on American policy towards perceived similar end goals. The Japanese internals divisions were themselves rapidly moving towards out and out violence against each other. Tokyo's ability to exercise control was continuing to atrophy, and that would have generational repercussions

Millard's article and those of his supports would be overshadowed as a warning. A missed warning because it wasn't all that unusual of something to happen. A year from now the article would have provoked riots, arson, fire bombs and pandemonium in the streets potentially but that would be in May of 1919, but in May of 1918 the article of Japanese support was nothing new, nothing unexpected. It was simply the way things were.
--
Notes: arguably the most important lesson of the interwar years [between world war 1 and world war 2] of the US military was the implementation of our system of large scale unit drills and the lessons that were learned from it. It bears in mind that US divisions at home were paper formations for Headquarters and logistical purposes they were not field formations and part of this is because the US Army post Philippines stood down as it had historically done. It went from a hundred thousand men immediately back to its peace time strength within months leaving the conflict leaving the new territorial these colonial policing responsibilities to a limited number of troops supported by local recruits. Most of the Filipino conflict was fought between Filipinos with US officers and NCOs and the US army had dropped to under seventy thousand men by 1903, and it didn't return to over 100k until 1915. [the military was deploying during those years, yes of course some of that was the marine corp, some of it was the US Naval Infantry (which are period specific shore parties of sailors with rifles) but there were US troops abroad, and as has probably been mentioned Arizona only became a state 1912, (Hawaii and Alaska didn't become states until 49]

 

[ATP]

Well,5 dyvisions for 1918 would be enough.They do not need more till at least 1930.Japan would attack Manchuria,not them.
P.S i read,that cheapest rifle ever made was Mosin.Why not use that? Russia just fall,and soviets do not have rights to anytching.
Or cheaper Mauser with 42 parts instead of 66,like polish prototype mentioned by me earlier.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well,5 dyvisions for 1918 would be enough.They do not need more till at least 1930.Japan would attack Manchuria,not them.
P.S i read,that cheapest rifle ever made was Mosin.Why not use that? Russia just fall,and soviets do not have rights to anytching.
Or cheaper Mauser with 42 parts instead of 66,like polish prototype mentioned by me earlier.

Click to shrink...

The mosin arguably is the most produced rifle of the 19th century designs. They were made by basically everyone at some point and I suspect that that pushed cost per unit down to well below any of their competitors, additionally the mosin was designed for a rimmed cartridge and unlike later rimless cartridges those are easer on machine tolerances so thus cheaper with earlier machines.

Xian goes to ten divisions during the twenties (admittedly thats because of the number of provinces east to west, to account for a national guard / reserves) but thats also because of needing to watch both north and south, and we'll get to that reasoning later). The reasoning for not going to a simplified 98 carbine are largely the reason the US adopted the 1917, the tooling is already up, after you produce a hundred thousand of a gun for export, it makes a certain amount of economic sense to compromise and equip your reservists with a hundred thousand guns rahter than going to first a 98 carbine (the AZ) and then a simplified carbine the KP32 (also I'd want to be able to figure out why the KP32 was rejected, if it was just money or it was something more serious like changes to the receiver.)

Xian has to contend with a large geographic expanse of frontier but not all of those troops need to be expeditionary and certainly not until mobilization for war against Japan, and really the manchu restoration round two under japan (with Manchukuo) is the necessary driving impetus to further army expansion. [again part of that is the upcoming high warlord years]

 

[ATP]

The mosin arguably is the most produced rifle of the 19th century designs. They were made by basically everyone at some point and I suspect that that pushed cost per unit down to well below any of their competitors, additionally the mosin was designed for a rimmed cartridge and unlike later rimless cartridges those are easer on machine tolerances so thus cheaper with earlier machines.

Xian goes to ten divisions during the twenties (admittedly thats because of the number of provinces east to west, to account for a national guard / reserves) but thats also because of needing to watch both north and south, and we'll get to that reasoning later). The reasoning for not going to a simplified 98 carbine are largely the reason the US adopted the 1917, the tooling is already up, after you produce a hundred thousand of a gun for export, it makes a certain amount of economic sense to compromise and equip your reservists with a hundred thousand guns rahter than going to first a 98 carbine (the AZ) and then a simplified carbine the KP32 (also I'd want to be able to figure out why the KP32 was rejected, if it was just money or it was something more serious like changes to the receiver.)

Xian has to contend with a large geographic expanse of frontier but not all of those troops need to be expeditionary and certainly not until mobilization for war against Japan, and really the manchu restoration round two under japan (with Manchukuo) is the necessary driving impetus to further army expansion. [again part of that is the upcoming high warlord years]

Click to shrink...

According to what i read,KP32 was cheaper,but jammed more often then normal version.
Constructor promised to counter it,but our army do not gave him any money for that.

Could he made cheaper version which would not jam? dunno,i am not engineer.
About China do not making simplified version yet - rational explanation,but when they start producing semi-automatic rifle,they could made them in cheaper version from the start.
And,ten dyvisions in 1930 would be enough,and they would have time for making more after Manchuria.

 

[Coiler]

If this is 5 divisions from 100,000 people and you have big WWI square division, the support slice (which is going to be smaller in WWI but still there) is going to cut into that number. Four would be more reasonable, in terms of nitpicking.

 

[Imperator Pax]

If this is 5 divisions from 100,000 people and you have big WWI square division, the support slice (which is going to be smaller in WWI but still there) is going to cut into that number. Four would be more reasonable, in terms of nitpicking.

Click to shrink...

These a triangle divisions, the hundred thousand number is referring to the army including support personnel in uniform [Infantry divisions here in this context c.1918 should be upper 14 to lower 16k depending on the division in question]

EDIT: unless you're talking about the references to US strength, which is because US divisions pre 1915 were dramatically below their allotted strength (where as in the Spanish-American conflict much of the numbers were volunteers) [and of course even with the volunteer movement the US wasn't going to produce the number of officers anyway so you got double and so on of where men who'd been lieutenants for decades were suddenly commanding battalions]

 

[Imperator Pax]

One thing that came up today was a concept I would like to explore, but as it was brought up in discussion about how bad that would be for Europe, and a European theater of war.

The republican Position under Hoover was of Filipino Independence (this is relevant since one of Japan's positions was to not permit further fortification of existing, or creation of new fortifications of great power bases in the Washington NT) so the conversation more or less went as follows,

The US agrees (and WNT was supposed to last until late of 36 as originally written with a follow on) and per IRL Washington Naval Treaty goes forward. The twenties happen, the republicans get the democrats to agree to an early Philippines independence, shorter transition time, maybe the Phillipines just have a constitution written for them, whatever, some point during the thirties the Phillipines get independence well the problem here is that this was never going to get out of committee without US basing rights or guarantee of Philippines security and self determination which is a problem, because it doesn't change the security position of Japan. A phillipines position geographically poses a slightly less bad problem of an independent Korea.

So say 1939 or 40 rolls around and Japan attacks the Phillipines

What are the consequences, what then

The first is that it derails a US European First Strategy. If it occurs in 39 it derails the german-japanese pact and short circuits a German declaration of war on the US, and if it occurs sooner it may well (this would be pre 38) mean total British removal from continental European politics as it pivots to readiness in Asia (if in 39 its too late for a British pivot to Asia Churchhill will absolutely prioritize continental politics, but if its before then defense of the empire takes priority).

A US war with Japan prior to the opening of wide scale European hostilities means the US largely ceases trade of materials to the Soviets, trade with britain probably continues but a Pacific focus war especially assuming the 5th partition (Nazi-USSR) of Poland occurs then the US is not going to remit war aid to the soviets while actively engaged in a shooting war with Japan (there would probably be no cash and carry nevermind lend lease if the US is already at war, except with britain and that would likely still require cash up front and british ships transporting because US transport would be tied up in the Pacific).

A US Japanese war opening in the 30s over the phillipines is unlikely to see a Japanese attack on British possessions immediately. I'm not saying it might not happen the IJA and IJN leadership loved to double down on bad decisions but most likely you would see escalation on US targets and an invasion of the Philippines with Japanese forces being unable to muster in the late 30s an attack Singapore, nvm Malaya at the wars onset.

This would not be a quick war. The US are not ready for a war in 39, neither is Japan. Japan's war aims would be on the expectation that they can force a us fait accompli to their strategic aims that is not reasonable to assume from US foreign policy or leadership. The US will up the ante to full scale war, but that will mean mobilization and that means that the war will last into 40 and 41 before US forces can muster a large enough force to liberate the Philippines because Japan does have more assets than Spain did in 1898.

Consequences in Europe: No US War Aid, probably no US financial Aid

France still Falls. again the biggest best option for stopping the Nazis early is the Czechs refusing to go along with the Munich conference and manning their defenses and bleeding the germans white. Making the germans bleeding over the sudetanland crisis makes them lose resources and it makes them lose manpower they cannot afford to lose in terms of core professional soldiers and it cuts them international trade. The czechs could have held given the limitted way for Japanese advance. Given the molotov ribbentrop pact and even without it Stalin was always going to invade poland and poland simply could not afford to fight a two front war but having to come into a fatal funnel through hardened czech defenses could have derailed the whole war.

France falls, they're just not ready for a fight with Germany. Thats France's fault. France guarunteed a war with germany as round 2 with Versailles, and then doubled down on that by the occupation of the Ruhr with Belgium which worse than just the occupation was it was clear french belligerence as far as the US-Anglo position were concerned france basically doubled down on scorning the allies who had allowed it to survive the war and that exasperated the diplomatic situation. The soviets still get invaded and the US will otherwise be occupied with Japan, but a Nazi-Soviet partition of poland whilethe US is at war means there is no support for supporting the soviet union not while us mobilization is standing up.

Post 42 that gets harder to plan, and depends on what US casualties against Japan look like and whether the US seriously considers an invasion of the Home Islands (and they probably do) but if thats the case, then US involvement in Europe is effectively a NO. If there is not a British side to the war either, then the soviets likely collapse in 43, or Stalin is couped and the Soviets withdraw to beyond the URals. I don't see them making a real peace but I don't see the Germans having the ability to actually push beyond that. Does Stalingrad fall? it doesn't really matter, even if the Nazis start withdrawing, the soviets don't have the logistical supply to do much more than pushing the Germans out of Russia proper in all likelihood. That means mass starvation in the soviet union with US grain, as long as Ukraine is in or occupied by German or otherwise non productive the Soviets are at a mass food deficit in wheat production. If the volga is threatened as well for more than a year, mass starvation

Can the Germans sustain this? No. This is not a Germany wins equation. Its a Germany wastes manpower and lives and the consequences is basically European irrelevance in global politics. Its no Soviet Union, or a much diminished soviet union and very very minorly a situation where the idiot painter starts a war with Britain anyway because 'reasons'... but if it he doesn't and Churchill can't convince the Empire to go to war, the Nazis fight till they're exhausted as well.

 

[ATP]

One thing that came up today was a concept I would like to explore, but as it was brought up in discussion about how bad that would be for Europe, and a European theater of war.

The republican Position under Hoover was of Filipino Independence (this is relevant since one of Japan's positions was to not permit further fortification of existing, or creation of new fortifications of great power bases in the Washington NT) so the conversation more or less went as follows,

The US agrees (and WNT was supposed to last until late of 36 as originally written with a follow on) and per IRL Washington Naval Treaty goes forward. The twenties happen, the republicans get the democrats to agree to an early Philippines independence, shorter transition time, maybe the Phillipines just have a constitution written for them, whatever, some point during the thirties the Phillipines get independence well the problem here is that this was never going to get out of committee without US basing rights or guarantee of Philippines security and self determination which is a problem, because it doesn't change the security position of Japan. A phillipines position geographically poses a slightly less bad problem of an independent Korea.

So say 1939 or 40 rolls around and Japan attacks the Phillipines

What are the consequences, what then

The first is that it derails a US European First Strategy. If it occurs in 39 it derails the german-japanese pact and short circuits a German declaration of war on the US, and if it occurs sooner it may well (this would be pre 38) mean total British removal from continental European politics as it pivots to readiness in Asia (if in 39 its too late for a British pivot to Asia Churchhill will absolutely prioritize continental politics, but if its before then defense of the empire takes priority).

A US war with Japan prior to the opening of wide scale European hostilities means the US largely ceases trade of materials to the Soviets, trade with britain probably continues but a Pacific focus war especially assuming the 5th partition (Nazi-USSR) of Poland occurs then the US is not going to remit war aid to the soviets while actively engaged in a shooting war with Japan (there would probably be no cash and carry nevermind lend lease if the US is already at war, except with britain and that would likely still require cash up front and british ships transporting because US transport would be tied up in the Pacific).

A US Japanese war opening in the 30s over the phillipines is unlikely to see a Japanese attack on British possessions immediately. I'm not saying it might not happen the IJA and IJN leadership loved to double down on bad decisions but most likely you would see escalation on US targets and an invasion of the Philippines with Japanese forces being unable to muster in the late 30s an attack Singapore, nvm Malaya at the wars onset.

This would not be a quick war. The US are not ready for a war in 39, neither is Japan. Japan's war aims would be on the expectation that they can force a us fait accompli to their strategic aims that is not reasonable to assume from US foreign policy or leadership. The US will up the ante to full scale war, but that will mean mobilization and that means that the war will last into 40 and 41 before US forces can muster a large enough force to liberate the Philippines because Japan does have more assets than Spain did in 1898.

Consequences in Europe: No US War Aid, probably no US financial Aid

France still Falls. again the biggest best option for stopping the Nazis early is the Czechs refusing to go along with the Munich conference and manning their defenses and bleeding the germans white. Making the germans bleeding over the sudetanland crisis makes them lose resources and it makes them lose manpower they cannot afford to lose in terms of core professional soldiers and it cuts them international trade. The czechs could have held given the limitted way for Japanese advance. Given the molotov ribbentrop pact and even without it Stalin was always going to invade poland and poland simply could not afford to fight a two front war but having to come into a fatal funnel through hardened czech defenses could have derailed the whole war.

France falls, they're just not ready for a fight with Germany. Thats France's fault. France guarunteed a war with germany as round 2 with Versailles, and then doubled down on that by the occupation of the Ruhr with Belgium which worse than just the occupation was it was clear french belligerence as far as the US-Anglo position were concerned france basically doubled down on scorning the allies who had allowed it to survive the war and that exasperated the diplomatic situation. The soviets still get invaded and the US will otherwise be occupied with Japan, but a Nazi-Soviet partition of poland whilethe US is at war means there is no support for supporting the soviet union not while us mobilization is standing up.

Post 42 that gets harder to plan, and depends on what US casualties against Japan look like and whether the US seriously considers an invasion of the Home Islands (and they probably do) but if thats the case, then US involvement in Europe is effectively a NO. If there is not a British side to the war either, then the soviets likely collapse in 43, or Stalin is couped and the Soviets withdraw to beyond the URals. I don't see them making a real peace but I don't see the Germans having the ability to actually push beyond that. Does Stalingrad fall? it doesn't really matter, even if the Nazis start withdrawing, the soviets don't have the logistical supply to do much more than pushing the Germans out of Russia proper in all likelihood. That means mass starvation in the soviet union with US grain, as long as Ukraine is in or occupied by German or otherwise non productive the Soviets are at a mass food deficit in wheat production. If the volga is threatened as well for more than a year, mass starvation

Can the Germans sustain this? No. This is not a Germany wins equation. Its a Germany wastes manpower and lives and the consequences is basically European irrelevance in global politics. Its no Soviet Union, or a much diminished soviet union and very very minorly a situation where the idiot painter starts a war with Britain anyway because 'reasons'... but if it he doesn't and Churchill can't convince the Empire to go to war, the Nazis fight till they're exhausted as well.

Click to shrink...

Interesting scenario.

In Europe - if France attacked in 1939,they would win,becouse german army was in Poland,and used most of its ammo.
There is good book about it - "The Unfought battle" by John Kimche.

On Pacyfic - Japan could sunk first few fleets send to fight them,but they would lost eventually - probably in 1944,if they start fighting in 1940 and USA send everytching against tchem.

In case France still fall,soviets could attack first,like they planned - then entire Europe would be theirs in 1942.Gulags evrywhere,another 200M or more victims of commies.

If germans attack first and come as liberators,entire soviet union is their.

If they behave like genocidal idiots again,they still do not lost - becouse soviets stopped them in 1942 by themselves,but they need american help to keep attacking.
So,in 1944 Japan would fall,and germans fight soviets on Don river.
USA would join fun like in OTL,and gave Europe to Sralin for notching like in OTL.And now still deny any american help...
So,in this scenario,notching change in Europe.

But in Asia Czang would become China leader,becouse Mao would be mr.nobody here.
Still better world,but not for us.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Interesting scenario.

In Europe - if France attacked in 1939,they would win,becouse german army was in Poland,and used most of its ammo.
There is good book about it - "The Unfought battle" by John Kimche.

On Pacyfic - Japan could sunk first few fleets send to fight them,but they would lost eventually - probably in 1944,if they start fighting in 1940 and USA send everytching against tchem.

In case France still fall,soviets could attack first,like they planned - then entire Europe would be theirs in 1942.Gulags evrywhere,another 200M or more victims of commies.

If germans attack first and come as liberators,entire soviet union is their.

If they behave like genocidal idiots again,they still do not lost - becouse soviets stopped them in 1942 by themselves,but they need american help to keep attacking.
So,in 1944 Japan would fall,and germans fight soviets on Don river.
USA would join fun like in OTL,and gave Europe to Sralin for notching like in OTL.And now still deny any american help...
So,in this scenario,notching change in Europe.

But in Asia Czang would become China leader,becouse Mao would be mr.nobody here.
Still better world,but not for us.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Gulags everywhere is right. The worst case for Europe I can imagine is a soviet union that does not have to fight through Germany. I will say that the idea that France could have defeated Germany is probably largely posturing and propaganda by Fifth Republic scholars, I really think that because of 1917 and 18 that the French had lost all capability for expeditionary against a peer opponent without support. We see this, among other things in the French willingness to use chemical weapons in in the interwar years in africa, we see this in the Franco-Belgian investment of the Ruhr which caused the French supply problems even before Anglo-American protests started to come in and two years earlier sustaining those troops would not have been an issue, the French were literally having problems with their colonial troops sympathizing with the Germans in the immediate post war (ww1) period and France was dependent on that manpower. So I'm skeptical that french could logistically sustain an offensive thrust so far as berlin, now yes the bulk of the German army is in the east and this is more a question of can the French of 38-40 actually sustain that march, and I think the answer to that is, no. I dont think they have the manpower or reserves of materiel on hand (now if the French had started rearming and expanding conscription in 36 different story)

--
Here post war Xian's theoretical war plan Red (following US style naming conventions) is a limited war aims simply because of the lack of infrastructure.

In the event of war with the soviet Union, China, and her allies in Asia (this is a war plan does not assume a European component, it doesn't assume American or British involvement) is a two pronged counter invasion of western Siberia and to force the soviets west of the urals, and basically stop there. This idea recognizes that the post war (WW2) army doesn't have the logistical train to sustain a transural overland attack, and its strategic goals are to expand the Kirghiz/White Russian state in central asia's borders at the expense of the soviet union, and then use the lands east of the urals as air base facilities to bomb Russia's main European cities, thats moscow, thats peter, and volgograd (obviously at this point still leningrad and stalingrad) but without the intention to push ground forces into 'european russia'

This has the strategic advantage of not overstretching, but also relies on allied troops to support the logistical tail end. If W.Europe gets involved thats great, but it doesn't hinge on that, it doesn't hinge a western axis that may take years to manifest. (see that the original plan for a US invasion of continental Europe was talking 44 and 45 rather than 43-44 as ended up being the case). Now I probably won't write a cold war goes hot, but as a talking point in the cold war years, Xian / unified China and the Pacific nato equivalent has an existing war plan to build off of against the soviet union and they're up front on this. If in theory a cold war goes hot, China isn't dependent on trying to coordinate with the European Armies in a non nuclear WW3, and any European involvement in Brezhnev era Soviet fight would be fighting through eastern europe into Ukraine and the baltics. But again a lot of this is based off of the logistics and manpower, and also of revised soviet casualties, revised soviet GDP figures, and parsing through what has been proven about what the Soviets actually had versus what they claimed they could do. [The biggest thing here is that its been conclusively established that Stalin ordered soviet losses in ww2 be dramatically under reported on the basis that if they didn't it would make the soviet union look weak, and even Stalin's sanctioned figures for the war with the nazis are pretty ghastly]

Expansion WPR

Spoiler: Cold War / War Plan Red

Part of the Issue is that this is impacted Post World War 2 is that Xian's General staff is largely operating under the inclinations of the past two major conventional wars where the Army as senior service is making the war plan without major consideration for the idea of 'Pacific Security Concerns'. A PATO nato-equivalent has Korea, and Japan in it, but Japan's post war government is all Article 9 we don't want to spend money on capital ships.

Now this leads to Xian's navy building carriers on the expectation of the Navy needs them because 'Air Power', and Cruisers because (well destroyer leaders, and long range escorts), and thereby expects (much as the UK did in the inter war years (we'll build the capital ships) but you guys need to build Cruisers and escorts in order to facilitate global commercial trade networks that we all use. China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Phillipines, Australia, Malaysia are all supposed to be in the alliance as a collective security arrangement post WW2 (Kirghiz and New Zealand both kind of get ignored by the US for different reasons short term because including Kirghiz is presumed to be a bridge too far by US State, and New Zealand has political concerns and its small size.

You'll note France is absent here, thats not unintentional. China under Augustus expels the French from Indo China (the first indochina war) by conventional forces by 1954 and his government put its foot down on any french involvement in the alliance. (and this is why Indochina, Thailand and so forth join the alliance, and also why Kirghiz joins the alliance later in Ike's first term) but thats also why cold war China wants a strong naval commitment in order to keep trade lanes open.

In the event of a large conventional conflict trade with the US and UK is considered a major security imperative so trade across 3 oceans potentially is a major concern, and thats even more so once the Suez crisis occurs and the oil shocks start hitting.

War Plan Red presupposes that oceanic trade remains open and keeping the trade going, and Xian's basis is that post 44 it can afford to keep a million men on the soviet border as necessary in peace time and can keep trade with central asia through the Indo Pacific trade network open, but this is also why the pacific equivalent doesn't include Pakistan or India, Nehru is just too friendly with the soviets for any of the anti-communist tastes because that was a historical concern for Nehru (in no small part due to things he wrote in the thirties regarding the Soviets, which fast forward twenty years causes most people to look at him askance).

And of course this is a distinction between the EEC/Nato, and its Pacific equivalent. Xian is very pro free trade it wants a free trade agreement with the US (to the point of evoking Wilsonian era free trade) it wants free trade with Japan, and Korea and so on, so you have a press where the pacific trade and alliance system is aimed at economic and military integration to an extent that you don't have in W.Europe until later. That has consequences because the commodities market and production ties in the pacific economies in other ways.

Bringing this back to the war Xian's war plan is based on the difference in population base that underpins its economy, and also that that market facilitates other economies. Japan recovers faster than IRL here, it overtakes the Soviet Union's nominal GDP sooner, and Korea recovers faster as well due to the needs to meet industrial and educational targets in the fifties and sixties , and Vietnam is in a similar role

This makes the Brezhnev doctrine and the Chinese underscoring response to it (and frankly the Cuban revolution and missile crisis and the African crisis) a major sticking point to Foreign Policy decisions

 

[ATP]

Yeah, Gulags everywhere is right. The worst case for Europe I can imagine is a soviet union that does not have to fight through Germany. I will say that the idea that France could have defeated Germany is probably largely posturing and propaganda by Fifth Republic scholars, I really think that because of 1917 and 18 that the French had lost all capability for expeditionary against a peer opponent without support. We see this, among other things in the French willingness to use chemical weapons in in the interwar years in africa, we see this in the Franco-Belgian investment of the Ruhr which caused the French supply problems even before Anglo-American protests started to come in and two years earlier sustaining those troops would not have been an issue, the French were literally having problems with their colonial troops sympathizing with the Germans in the immediate post war (ww1) period and France was dependent on that manpower. So I'm skeptical that french could logistically sustain an offensive thrust so far as berlin, now yes the bulk of the German army is in the east and this is more a question of can the French of 38-40 actually sustain that march, and I think the answer to that is, no. I dont think they have the manpower or reserves of materiel on hand (now if the French had started rearming and expanding conscription in 36 different story)

--
Here post war Xian's theoretical war plan Red (following US style naming conventions) is a limited war aims simply because of the lack of infrastructure.

In the event of war with the soviet Union, China, and her allies in Asia (this is a war plan does not assume a European component, it doesn't assume American or British involvement) is a two pronged counter invasion of western Siberia and to force the soviets west of the urals, and basically stop there. This idea recognizes that the post war (WW2) army doesn't have the logistical train to sustain a transural overland attack, and its strategic goals are to expand the Kirghiz/White Russian state in central asia's borders at the expense of the soviet union, and then use the lands east of the urals as air base facilities to bomb Russia's main European cities, thats moscow, thats peter, and volgograd (obviously at this point still leningrad and stalingrad) but without the intention to push ground forces into 'european russia'

This has the strategic advantage of not overstretching, but also relies on allied troops to support the logistical tail end. If W.Europe gets involved thats great, but it doesn't hinge on that, it doesn't hinge a western axis that may take years to manifest. (see that the original plan for a US invasion of continental Europe was talking 44 and 45 rather than 43-44 as ended up being the case). Now I probably won't write a cold war goes hot, but as a talking point in the cold war years, Xian / unified China and the Pacific nato equivalent has an existing war plan to build off of against the soviet union and they're up front on this. If in theory a cold war goes hot, China isn't dependent on trying to coordinate with the European Armies in a non nuclear WW3, and any European involvement in Brezhnev era Soviet fight would be fighting through eastern europe into Ukraine and the baltics. But again a lot of this is based off of the logistics and manpower, and also of revised soviet casualties, revised soviet GDP figures, and parsing through what has been proven about what the Soviets actually had versus what they claimed they could do. [The biggest thing here is that its been conclusively established that Stalin ordered soviet losses in ww2 be dramatically under reported on the basis that if they didn't it would make the soviet union look weak, and even Stalin's sanctioned figures for the war with the nazis are pretty ghastly]

Click to shrink...

About gulags - i read,that when soviets planned WW3 after 1945,some NKWD general despaired,that they must arrest 50% of population there,and that he do not have manpower for that.
Becouse soviets were greedy,and almost never murdered people on the spot,like germans,but worked them to death instead.Practical people.

About France chances - yes,they were demoralized,but germans przctically do not have ammo,and had all good units in Poland.
If they attacked,they could win.Or still fail.Their logistoc sucked,indeed.

Soviet losses - they get it thanks to Sralin paranoia.If he choose generals who cared about their soldiers,they would lost not more then germans.
But,he choosed butchers like Zukow who keep throwing wave attacks till all their soldiers die or win.That is why even in 1945 for one german KIA we have 3-4 soviets dead.

Not mention air forces.If Soviets take less pilots and produce less ,but better planes,and then trained them well,they could have decent air forces.
But,they send ill-trained dudes,and,as a result,we have situation when soviets had 10:1 numerical advantage in 1945,and germans still send bombers during day against them - not only Ju88,but also Ju87.That is why Rudel could survive till end of war as ace with 500 killed tanks.

Could you imagine,how long he would last against americans?

China after WW2 - they could start as USA allies,and become first world power,like they try now.But without 50M genocided people and fucked enviromemt.


China plans of war with soviets - in OTL Poland precisely becouse of that have close ties with Japan.Here,at least till 1937,your China could have very good ties with Poland,too.
And get all good polish stuff,when we fall in 1939.
Like mentioned by me semi-automatic rifle.Or 20mm AA gun/well,it was oficially heavy HMG,and had AT version,too/

Here,semi automatic rifle:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjhvvuVl7yAAxVuJRAIHe_ZDSsQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-semiauto-rifles/polish-wz-38m/&usg=AOvVaw3PT4Hik_fv17rltPsG5Oll&opi=89978449
In 1939,you could buy it with constructor!

 

[Imperator Pax]

About gulags - i read,that when soviets planned WW3 after 1945,some NKWD general despaired,that they must arrest 50% of population there,and that he do not have manpower for that.
Becouse soviets were greedy,and almost never murdered people on the spot,like germans,but worked them to death instead.Practical people.

About France chances - yes,they were demoralized,but germans przctically do not have ammo,and had all good units in Poland.
If they attacked,they could win.Or still fail.Their logistoc sucked,indeed.

Soviet losses - they get it thanks to Sralin paranoia.If he choose generals who cared about their soldiers,they would lost not more then germans.
But,he choosed butchers like Zukow who keep throwing wave attacks till all their soldiers die or win.That is why even in 1945 for one german KIA we have 3-4 soviets dead.

Not mention air forces.If Soviets take less pilots and produce less ,but better planes,and then trained them well,they could have decent air forces.
But,they send ill-trained dudes,and,as a result,we have situation when soviets had 10:1 numerical advantage in 1945,and germans still send bombers during day against them - not only Ju88,but also Ju87.That is why Rudel could survive till end of war as ace with 500 killed tanks.

Could you imagine,how long he would last against americans?

China after WW2 - they could start as USA allies,and become first world power,like they try now.But without 50M genocided people and fucked enviromemt.


China plans of war with soviets - in OTL Poland precisely becouse of that have close ties with Japan.Here,at least till 1937,your China could have very good ties with Poland,too.
And get all good polish stuff,when we fall in 1939.
Like mentioned by me semi-automatic rifle.Or 20mm AA gun/well,it was oficially heavy HMG,and had AT version,too/

Here,semi automatic rifle:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjhvvuVl7yAAxVuJRAIHe_ZDSsQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https://www.forgottenweapons.com/early-semiauto-rifles/polish-wz-38m/&usg=AOvVaw3PT4Hik_fv17rltPsG5Oll&opi=89978449
In 1939,you could buy it with constructor!

Click to shrink...

The NKVD (GPSU OGPU, whatever they're predescor function was called) had industrial quotas to meet because the soviet union was so dependent on the gulags and slave labor to meet industrial target quotas (we know now that soviet GDP figures were exagerated anyway, but especially during the pre war years) and the soviets had to loot significant amounts of materiel from north china, from Korea, from Romania, and Germany, and the NKVD by war's end was running short on people the soviet police state and security apparatus was responsible for a truly massive prison system that stretched across the eurasian landmass
--
When we get into the late interwar years before Japan commits fully to going off the deep end (and we will start seeing their young turks pop up in the next arc) is that the cadre's european prescence begins a process of after the nazis come into power moving more people encouraging people to gtfo and move to latin america, and this by war start moves people from refugee positions in France, and Britain to the MAK and then much as with WW1 where developments of technology through the office and get exported to China and we will get to those logistics and the lend lease program well when we get into the thirties.

 

[ATP]

The NKVD (GPSU OGPU, whatever they're predescor function was called) had industrial quotas to meet because the soviet union was so dependent on the gulags and slave labor to meet industrial target quotas (we know now that soviet GDP figures were exagerated anyway, but especially during the pre war years) and the soviets had to loot significant amounts of materiel from north china, from Korea, from Romania, and Germany, and the NKVD by war's end was running short on people the soviet police state and security apparatus was responsible for a truly massive prison system that stretched across the eurasian landmass
--
When we get into the late interwar years before Japan commits fully to going off the deep end (and we will start seeing their young turks pop up in the next arc) is that the cadre's european prescence begins a process of after the nazis come into power moving more people encouraging people to gtfo and move to latin america, and this by war start moves people from refugee positions in France, and Britain to the MAK and then much as with WW1 where developments of technology through the office and get exported to China and we will get to those logistics and the lend lease program well when we get into the thirties.

Click to shrink...

1.Indeed,soviets first destroyed their own economy,and then used slave labour - both to kill best people,and made products.
I read many memories of poles from Kazachstan - when locals knew them better,start taking how good they lived under tsar.As free people,on their own land.

2.Fun thing - in OTL till 1937 both Italy and germans delivered their technology to China.You could do the same,when they drop that,welcome Czech engineers in 1938,polish in 1939,and french in 1940.

I think,that you would not need any american technology,if you choose smart.It is always better produce sometching from countries which are occupied - they would not demand money or political concessions.

And,after WW2,welcome all useful poles,hungarian,etc.

 

[Imperator Pax]

June 1918​

Allen rubbed the ink smudge on his fingers and looked up. Soldiers, as Yamagata had told him more than once, didn't need to have beautiful calligraphy... which was greatly reassuring since Allen found his writing downright hideous most days.

"John Allen there is something we need to talk about."

The war had not been presumed to be going well. There had been a fresh set of hand wringing and Percy might have been bringing good news... but probably not. It would have been nice if the German Offensive which was all the papers kept twisting themselves up in knots about carried with it fresh contracts... but Percy had company.

He looked at the uniformed stranger. Another one of King George's men, and English.

Colonel Shan glanced up from the map table he'd been surveying. His aide de camp a captain not young enough to shave, but trying to grow a mustache straightened, barely managing to avoid flooring the stacks of papers. The papers detailing tables for the newest machine rifles.

"This is of sensitive importance."

"Yeah," He almost made a crack about asking what the huns had done now, but Percy must have figured he was going to.

"Its not... about the Germans." Percy remarked cutting him off, his friend, who had pointedly not been introduced but didn't look happy about Percy talking about potential details when it became clear Percy was about, "Its the Russians, the Bolsheviks and Kolchaks people. They're coming to blows, and the Prime Minister, there is a need... we need a body of picked men to do a favor for, for the king."


He looked at the badging of service branch on the khaki uniform and thought of the US Army's Civil Service, "Percy, I'm not going to Russia to put a bullet in Vladimir Illich Lenin's head... much as the son of bitch might deserve it." and he very much did, Lenin and his buddy Felix had turned Petrograd and Moscow into a cutting house hunting for spies... real ones and imagined ones and what was arguably worse was he was gloating about it with all the robespierre esque phrasing of equating moscow with Paris of the terrors. Red Terror had begun back before Christmas, so he had had six seven months of running amok... and given what they weren't bothering to hide he was a little worried about what the Reds were choosing to shove behind a curtain.

"We wouldn't ask that, but His Majesty's government does make the request that you go to ekaterinburg and rescue Tsar Nicholas and the Tsar's family. We have a ship prepared to carry them back to England."

Allen straightened, and looked to Shan, "Shan send a runner go fetch Cole and Bill."

Shan rolled to face his aide, "Captain, send runners to request Generals McCulloch, and Bohannon presence in the planning room." The young captain disappeared through the doorway the Englishmen had entered through a moment before. His chief of staff turned back to the English.

It hadn't escaped Allen Percy had been brevetted a lieutenant colonel, but he didn't mention it.

"Could we perhaps sit?" Percy questioned.

They drug chairs from against the wall to around the table, and sat down. Percy making a point of not looking at the papers, while his partner did the exact opposite. Shan started reading, and occasionally marking things with a red pen.

"Regarding the Tsar and Tsarina... the Romanovs... there were considerations last years, but his majesty's government has for reasons newly gathered become exceptional in our concern for their safety." and Percy would have readily admitted in hindsight perhaps not sending for the Tsar had been a mistake... he just wouldn't admit the reasons at the time.

"The bolsheviks are bandits." Shan grumbled, "It is absurd that they were so successful... even with German money." The colonel complained before reaching into a drawer that slid out from table containing maps, and after taking a few minutes to search pulled out railway charts for central asia that delineated a line running from Urumqi into Russia. "The Line. New Line into Transoxiana, and then north its finished you are aware of this."

Percy shuffled, "Yes. Yes. I know that, and we're grateful." And they'd been paid upfront to build the line, which had made spring busy... never mind the unpleasantness in Tashkent in March. Certain unexpected expenses. "We need you to go to Omsk and from there to Ekatrinburg... to save the Tsar and his family, we think that the Bolsheviks will move them... or worse... if they think they'll lose the city... and frankly the Bolsheviks don't have much to hold the city to begin with but it was far from the fighting before now... and that's changed. We are sure that the Whites, and the Czechs can get there soon, but not soon enough that the Bolsheviks could do something ghastly." Percy shook his hands out in front of him.

A gesture that would have been quite unacceptable in the staid social circles of Victoria, and Edward before him... and probably not that acceptable back home. The war though had made a lot of things excusable.

The doors opened.

Shan wasn't a small man. The Zhili native made a point to participate in the rowing club when in garrison, and as a result there was no contest that the two englishmen were the short fellas in the room with the captain having not returned.

"Brother John." Cullen slung into a folding chair, and looked at the two khaki clad officers, "I heard something about needing to fetch wayward blue bloods back to jolly old england." He was looking at the Englishmen, "I mean thats one way to top what we did last year."

Lloyd George needed a win. Churchill didn't trust the Bolsheviks. The British needed something dynamic and the coalition government had in a gathering over drinks and cigars were looking for anything that might inflate support for the cause.

To that end there offers for support in kind. This wasn't the sort of thing Lloyd George's government could authorize exorbitant sums of greenbacks for but transfers of the latest arms and patent rights and other things well those could shuffled off in contracts as 'for the war effort'. The war had produced a lot of goods.

There were unsavory parts of negotiations involved. The British were offering things that they didn't have, or weren't really theirs but at the same time they were material that had been difficult to source the patents licensing for.

The UK though had in the interest of financing the war had along with French compelled their citizens to give up certain property holdings. The British treasure had reimbursed expropriation of foreign securities with their own notes but they had also had to issue threats as well to cajole the compliance for the war effort. The French had had other problems... more institutional ones even in the face of the supposed 'sacred union' their equivalent of Ordinance had screamed and their stamped their feet at the idea of adopting machine guns not designed by the state arsenals, but that was to be expected. The French had had to expropriate ownership of foreign securities as well, but there had been less of those and the value of the Franc was lower catastrophically lower than the pound was now... and that would be a problem in a years time.

That would have consequences in the post war, it would impact decisions made by governments after the 'war to end all wars' was made and of course there were to be consequences to all the decisions made up to this point. There would be consequences, little things, big things, things that would not truly show results for decades after the seeds had been planted.
--
Waite looked uncomfortable. Part of that was they wouldn't be taking artillery, Griswold was working over time, and he wasn't happy about that either. That was only part of it. A look at the map well... Russia was dissolving at the seams. There was an independent Tungus, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Chukotka... and more it wasn't just Percy he'd called into Vladivostok to talk to Iseburo... and well he'd intimated that there were going to do something... just that he hadn't said what.

"You ain't taking a lot of guys." There wasn't a lot of option there. It was a volunteer force of men and restricted to men with three years of experience. The lowest rankings would almost end up being the specialist ratings. There had been arguments over how this other sort of light company would even function. "This isn't the Philippines, and it ain't the Arizona territories neither."

"I know that." Allen replied. "Have you told Lansing yet?"

Waite scowled, "You ain't worried this is gonna get back to Reinsch before you can step off?"

He really wasn't, and besides, "That the secretary of state has been encouraging the company's expansion of military force?" He wasn't entirely sure what Lansing's intent was it could have been nothing more than the secretary believed in preparedness, but it wasn't a surprise either that Lansing had been expressing support for it. He wasn't the liberal midwestern professor and he better understood the realities of things... but Lansing's support made more sense why Waite had been so adamant about moving forward with expansion proposals when he'd been more cautious about expansion before.

Griswold had fabricated suppressors for their Mauser rifles, but had complained that as a result of the function of the action there was no practical way he could suppress their 1911s... and certainly not fast. They didn't have the time to wait for Liu or a response to Lewis about the potential engineering problems.

The tables were being outfitted with everything they might need otherwise. The tables full of equipment were not dissimilar to experimental sections drawn previously from 1st​ Battalion's ranks... but this body of men would be disproportionately high in her ranks. There were colonels and majors cursing they weren't being allowed to go on this expedition.

... of course some of those were red legs complaining that engineers were coming but with no battery attached to the company this wasn't 1913.

"this is not you taking some body of Philippine scouts into the brush, this is not some volunteer force riding off at dawn."

"The first one maybe not, but for all intents and purposes it is the second." Allen shrugged, "I see no practical difference to this. Now have you told Lansing or not?"

"No I hadn't told... not in so many words about this fool thing. How the fuck I am supposed to explain it, other than you're going to be unavailable. God damn it you saw what Yamagata wrote about Russia."
The words on the paper weren't wrong, if anything it was too damned polite of a description of the mess. "I am sure you agree that it is truly worrisome that the situation in our neighbor" [Russia] "Grows worse every day." Yamagata Aritomo.


--
Notes this has been quite a ways coming, the Romanov Rescue was teased a long while ago with the trio of segments in the misc thread of July 1918. And indeed as I've said though its been a while this is the conclusion of the Arc a year after the failed manchu restoration though there is an epilogue touching on 1919 that leads into the broader events of that year.

And of course this is also an explanation to having late ww1 era gear and data of the end of the war as an explanation. The British hand it over, just as they handed over, just as the French handed over, the japanese, the Italians and the US to their respective allies. The exchange of military or industrial technology at this stage was not what it was in two and three decades where governmental control of IP is much closer to what we have now. This goes to the thing with the Browning 1918 machine gun providing the TDP for foreign production during the war was not subject to the same legal protections on patents as it was during peace time.

This is part of what comes out of the global changes that world war 1 brings in terms of international finance and the international industrial economy. World trade changes in so many ways. This doesn't end with the second world war, Atlee gives Stalin British Jet Engine Technology with no strings attached and frankly the British government transfers to the CCP much later in the cold war, and against Component Control, jet engine technology from Rolls Royce in the seventies with further transfers of engine tech in the eighties. If you look this violation with government sanction of the Component Control treaties is not unique to england. Japan, Norway, and France all violate their treaty obligations regarding the transfer of sub tech. Japan and Norway sell computer tech they had agreed not to do under internetional agreement. Toshiba and Kongsberg got into this huge scandal back in the eighties but in 1918 all that was undiscovered country no one was really thinking about it like that.

So this is why in opening of the following arc why we'll start to see things like F1s proliferate, where the Avtomat rifle will finally make an on screen appearance. That will never be common its too expensive to manufacture and it has similar problems when firing a full power rifle cartridge (I think that given its performance with the Arisaka round it would have done really well with the Carcano cartridge in terms of recoil impulse, but thats neither here nor there). Stuff showing up once the war ends, and we get into the high warlord era.

Now that being said, what will need to be mentioned is that in June of 1918 Lu Jianzhang is murdered in Beijing at the behest (or directly complancent) of Xu Shuzheng. By all accounts this is one of the major incidents of internal Beiyang factionalism that foreshadows the Anhui Zhili conflict that begins two years hence. The other factor is that though it hasn't been mentioned the 1918 Parliamentary Elections are now in progress, and this will be relevant to events in 1919 and 1920 since this election called by Duan who is currently PM is responded to principally by the Northern provinces and boycotted by the south (not the least of which is because Sichuan is currently in its own civil war, Hunan is being invaded by the north, and Yunnan is a military dictatorship). These elections will be important in both 1920 and 22, and to a lesser extent the early events of 1919 which will be more directly foreshadowed in the arc epilogue

The other event that occurs is also in relation to the Hunan Crisis is that Wu Peifu's friend and mentor Zhang Qihuang was a hunan magistrate and he seems to have convinced Wu to support peace talks. This is not when it occurs relevant to the cadre, its why its not mentioned, but Qihuang seems to have been the actual author of some of Wu's circular telegrams urging peace. Wu actually joins the peace faction before Cao Kun, and Wu's support for a native hunanese leader in the province may have played a role in convincing Cao Kun.

Alternatively, Cao's principle objective could have been maintaining railway control and he didn't care who was Dujun of the Province per se. There have been people who argue that this was Beiyang 3rd​ Division Leadership Policy under Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, but it is complicated, and I do think that was a factor in their positions if not immediately then by summer 1918 as the elections for Parliament got underway.

That being said, Wu was a native of Shandong (specifically Penglai county, which had had been subject to Japanese occupation during the first war in 1895) his opposition to Duan was very likely influenced by that event as well when the Anhui Zhili war kicks off (in 1920). [And of course there were realistically a lot of factors that shaped the conflict.]

 

[ATP]

June 1918​

Allen rubbed the ink smudge on his fingers and looked up. Soldiers, as Yamagata had told him more than once, didn't need to have beautiful calligraphy... which was greatly reassuring since Allen found his writing downright hideous most days.

"John Allen there is something we need to talk about."

The war had not been presumed to be going well. There had been a fresh set of hand wringing and Percy might have been bringing good news... but probably not. It would have been nice if the German Offensive which was all the papers kept twisting themselves up in knots about carried with it fresh contracts... but Percy had company.

He looked at the uniformed stranger. Another one of King George's men, and English.

Colonel Shan glanced up from the map table he'd been surveying. His aide de camp a captain not young enough to shave, but trying to grow a mustache straightened, barely managing to avoid flooring the stacks of papers. The papers detailing tables for the newest machine rifles.

"This is of sensitive importance."

"Yeah," He almost made a crack about asking what the huns had done now, but Percy must have figured he was going to.

"Its not... about the Germans." Percy remarked cutting him off, his friend, who had pointedly not been introduced but didn't look happy about Percy talking about potential details when it became clear Percy was about, "Its the Russians, the Bolsheviks and Kolchaks people. They're coming to blows, and the Prime Minister, there is a need... we need a body of picked men to do a favor for, for the king."


He looked at the badging of service branch on the khaki uniform and thought of the US Army's Civil Service, "Percy, I'm not going to Russia to put a bullet in Vladimir Illich Lenin's head... much as the son of bitch might deserve it." and he very much did, Lenin and his buddy Felix had turned Petrograd and Moscow into a cutting house hunting for spies... real ones and imagined ones and what was arguably worse was he was gloating about it with all the robespierre esque phrasing of equating moscow with Paris of the terrors. Red Terror had begun back before Christmas, so he had had six seven months of running amok... and given what they weren't bothering to hide he was a little worried about what the Reds were choosing to shove behind a curtain.

"We wouldn't ask that, but His Majesty's government does make the request that you go to ekaterinburg and rescue Tsar Nicholas and the Tsar's family. We have a ship prepared to carry them back to England."

Allen straightened, and looked to Shan, "Shan send a runner go fetch Cole and Bill."

Shan rolled to face his aide, "Captain, send runners to request Generals McCulloch, and Bohannon presence in the planning room." The young captain disappeared through the doorway the Englishmen had entered through a moment before. His chief of staff turned back to the English.

It hadn't escaped Allen Percy had been brevetted a lieutenant colonel, but he didn't mention it.

"Could we perhaps sit?" Percy questioned.

They drug chairs from against the wall to around the table, and sat down. Percy making a point of not looking at the papers, while his partner did the exact opposite. Shan started reading, and occasionally marking things with a red pen.

"Regarding the Tsar and Tsarina... the Romanovs... there were considerations last years, but his majesty's government has for reasons newly gathered become exceptional in our concern for their safety." and Percy would have readily admitted in hindsight perhaps not sending for the Tsar had been a mistake... he just wouldn't admit the reasons at the time.

"The bolsheviks are bandits." Shan grumbled, "It is absurd that they were so successful... even with German money." The colonel complained before reaching into a drawer that slid out from table containing maps, and after taking a few minutes to search pulled out railway charts for central asia that delineated a line running from Urumqi into Russia. "The Line. New Line into Transoxiana, and then north its finished you are aware of this."

Percy shuffled, "Yes. Yes. I know that, and we're grateful." And they'd been paid upfront to build the line, which had made spring busy... never mind the unpleasantness in Tashkent in March. Certain unexpected expenses. "We need you to go to Omsk and from there to Ekatrinburg... to save the Tsar and his family, we think that the Bolsheviks will move them... or worse... if they think they'll lose the city... and frankly the Bolsheviks don't have much to hold the city to begin with but it was far from the fighting before now... and that's changed. We are sure that the Whites, and the Czechs can get there soon, but not soon enough that the Bolsheviks could do something ghastly." Percy shook his hands out in front of him.

A gesture that would have been quite unacceptable in the staid social circles of Victoria, and Edward before him... and probably not that acceptable back home. The war though had made a lot of things excusable.

The doors opened.

Shan wasn't a small man. The Zhili native made a point to participate in the rowing club when in garrison, and as a result there was no contest that the two englishmen were the short fellas in the room with the captain having not returned.

"Brother John." Cullen slung into a folding chair, and looked at the two khaki clad officers, "I heard something about needing to fetch wayward blue bloods back to jolly old england." He was looking at the Englishmen, "I mean thats one way to top what we did last year."

Lloyd George needed a win. Churchill didn't trust the Bolsheviks. The British needed something dynamic and the coalition government had in a gathering over drinks and cigars were looking for anything that might inflate support for the cause.

To that end there offers for support in kind. This wasn't the sort of thing Lloyd George's government could authorize exorbitant sums of greenbacks for but transfers of the latest arms and patent rights and other things well those could shuffled off in contracts as 'for the war effort'. The war had produced a lot of goods.

There were unsavory parts of negotiations involved. The British were offering things that they didn't have, or weren't really theirs but at the same time they were material that had been difficult to source the patents licensing for.

The UK though had in the interest of financing the war had along with French compelled their citizens to give up certain property holdings. The British treasure had reimbursed expropriation of foreign securities with their own notes but they had also had to issue threats as well to cajole the compliance for the war effort. The French had had other problems... more institutional ones even in the face of the supposed 'sacred union' their equivalent of Ordinance had screamed and their stamped their feet at the idea of adopting machine guns not designed by the state arsenals, but that was to be expected. The French had had to expropriate ownership of foreign securities as well, but there had been less of those and the value of the Franc was lower catastrophically lower than the pound was now... and that would be a problem in a years time.

That would have consequences in the post war, it would impact decisions made by governments after the 'war to end all wars' was made and of course there were to be consequences to all the decisions made up to this point. There would be consequences, little things, big things, things that would not truly show results for decades after the seeds had been planted.
--
Waite looked uncomfortable. Part of that was they wouldn't be taking artillery, Griswold was working over time, and he wasn't happy about that either. That was only part of it. A look at the map well... Russia was dissolving at the seams. There was an independent Tungus, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Chukotka... and more it wasn't just Percy he'd called into Vladivostok to talk to Iseburo... and well he'd intimated that there were going to do something... just that he hadn't said what.

"You ain't taking a lot of guys." There wasn't a lot of option there. It was a volunteer force of men and restricted to men with three years of experience. The lowest rankings would almost end up being the specialist ratings. There had been arguments over how this other sort of light company would even function. "This isn't the Philippines, and it ain't the Arizona territories neither."

"I know that." Allen replied. "Have you told Lansing yet?"

Waite scowled, "You ain't worried this is gonna get back to Reinsch before you can step off?"

He really wasn't, and besides, "That the secretary of state has been encouraging the company's expansion of military force?" He wasn't entirely sure what Lansing's intent was it could have been nothing more than the secretary believed in preparedness, but it wasn't a surprise either that Lansing had been expressing support for it. He wasn't the liberal midwestern professor and he better understood the realities of things... but Lansing's support made more sense why Waite had been so adamant about moving forward with expansion proposals when he'd been more cautious about expansion before.

Griswold had fabricated suppressors for their Mauser rifles, but had complained that as a result of the function of the action there was no practical way he could suppress their 1911s... and certainly not fast. They didn't have the time to wait for Liu or a response to Lewis about the potential engineering problems.

The tables were being outfitted with everything they might need otherwise. The tables full of equipment were not dissimilar to experimental sections drawn previously from 1st​ Battalion's ranks... but this body of men would be disproportionately high in her ranks. There were colonels and majors cursing they weren't being allowed to go on this expedition.

... of course some of those were red legs complaining that engineers were coming but with no battery attached to the company this wasn't 1913.

"this is not you taking some body of Philippine scouts into the brush, this is not some volunteer force riding off at dawn."

"The first one maybe not, but for all intents and purposes it is the second." Allen shrugged, "I see no practical difference to this. Now have you told Lansing or not?"

"No I hadn't told... not in so many words about this fool thing. How the fuck I am supposed to explain it, other than you're going to be unavailable. God damn it you saw what Yamagata wrote about Russia."
The words on the paper weren't wrong, if anything it was too damned polite of a description of the mess. "I am sure you agree that it is truly worrisome that the situation in our neighbor" [Russia] "Grows worse every day." Yamagata Aritomo.


--
Notes this has been quite a ways coming, the Romanov Rescue was teased a long while ago with the trio of segments in the misc thread of July 1918. And indeed as I've said though its been a while this is the conclusion of the Arc a year after the failed manchu restoration though there is an epilogue touching on 1919 that leads into the broader events of that year.

And of course this is also an explanation to having late ww1 era gear and data of the end of the war as an explanation. The British hand it over, just as they handed over, just as the French handed over, the japanese, the Italians and the US to their respective allies. The exchange of military or industrial technology at this stage was not what it was in two and three decades where governmental control of IP is much closer to what we have now. This goes to the thing with the Browning 1918 machine gun providing the TDP for foreign production during the war was not subject to the same legal protections on patents as it was during peace time.

This is part of what comes out of the global changes that world war 1 brings in terms of international finance and the international industrial economy. World trade changes in so many ways. This doesn't end with the second world war, Atlee gives Stalin British Jet Engine Technology with no strings attached and frankly the British government transfers to the CCP much later in the cold war, and against Component Control, jet engine technology from Rolls Royce in the seventies with further transfers of engine tech in the eighties. If you look this violation with government sanction of the Component Control treaties is not unique to england. Japan, Norway, and France all violate their treaty obligations regarding the transfer of sub tech. Japan and Norway sell computer tech they had agreed not to do under internetional agreement. Toshiba and Kongsberg got into this huge scandal back in the eighties but in 1918 all that was undiscovered country no one was really thinking about it like that.

So this is why in opening of the following arc why we'll start to see things like F1s proliferate, where the Avtomat rifle will finally make an on screen appearance. That will never be common its too expensive to manufacture and it has similar problems when firing a full power rifle cartridge (I think that given its performance with the Arisaka round it would have done really well with the Carcano cartridge in terms of recoil impulse, but thats neither here nor there). Stuff showing up once the war ends, and we get into the high warlord era.

Now that being said, what will need to be mentioned is that in June of 1918 Lu Jianzhang is murdered in Beijing at the behest (or directly complancent) of Xu Shuzheng. By all accounts this is one of the major incidents of internal Beiyang factionalism that foreshadows the Anhui Zhili conflict that begins two years hence. The other factor is that though it hasn't been mentioned the 1918 Parliamentary Elections are now in progress, and this will be relevant to events in 1919 and 1920 since this election called by Duan who is currently PM is responded to principally by the Northern provinces and boycotted by the south (not the least of which is because Sichuan is currently in its own civil war, Hunan is being invaded by the north, and Yunnan is a military dictatorship). These elections will be important in both 1920 and 22, and to a lesser extent the early events of 1919 which will be more directly foreshadowed in the arc epilogue

The other event that occurs is also in relation to the Hunan Crisis is that Wu Peifu's friend and mentor Zhang Qihuang was a hunan magistrate and he seems to have convinced Wu to support peace talks. This is not when it occurs relevant to the cadre, its why its not mentioned, but Qihuang seems to have been the actual author of some of Wu's circular telegrams urging peace. Wu actually joins the peace faction before Cao Kun, and Wu's support for a native hunanese leader in the province may have played a role in convincing Cao Kun.

Alternatively, Cao's principle objective could have been maintaining railway control and he didn't care who was Dujun of the Province per se. There have been people who argue that this was Beiyang 3rd​ Division Leadership Policy under Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, but it is complicated, and I do think that was a factor in their positions if not immediately then by summer 1918 as the elections for Parliament got underway.

That being said, Wu was a native of Shandong (specifically Penglai county, which had had been subject to Japanese occupation during the first war in 1895) his opposition to Duan was very likely influenced by that event as well when the Anhui Zhili war kicks off (in 1920). [And of course there were realistically a lot of factors that shaped the conflict.]

Click to shrink...

All plausible.
And,sad to tell,it was even worst - not only LLyold George saved soviets,he did it with Wall Street help.
And they did it from sending Trocky ,which win revolution for them,till at least 1973.
Only reason why soviets lasted so long with their fucked economy was Wall Street help.

It would not change here,but,with tsar being alive,gold stolen by soviets and send to Wall Street could be legally taken by him.

P.S proofs about Wall Street help - all found by Anthony C.Sutton,when he worked in USA archives.They kicked them out,but not before finding proofs of Wall Street helping soviets,Hitler,and FDR in taking power.

Here,about soviet revolution:
https://archive.org/details/wallstreetbolshe00sutt
Good book,read it if you have time.
Those about how USA helped soviet military,too.

 

[Imperator Pax]

All plausible.
And,sad to tell,it was even worst - not only LLyold George saved soviets,he did it with Wall Street help.
And they did it from sending Trocky ,which win revolution for them,till at least 1973.
Only reason why soviets lasted so long with their fucked economy was Wall Street help.

It would not change here,but,with tsar being alive,gold stolen by soviets and send to Wall Street could be legally taken by him.

P.S proofs about Wall Street help - all found by Anthony C.Sutton,when he worked in USA archives.They kicked them out,but not before finding proofs of Wall Street helping soviets,Hitler,and FDR in taking power.

Here,about soviet revolution:
https://archive.org/details/wallstreetbolshe00sutt
Good book,read it if you have time.
Those about how USA helped soviet military,too.

Click to shrink...

I don't understand Lloyd George (or Ford's logic) I get where they were coming from as in 'this is what they thought', I don't get how they continued to think this given that both of them had lived through 1914-1917. The whole fucking 'oh if everyone is trading with one another ideology is irrelevant and we won't have wars' like I understand George didn't want to spend money on the army and he wanted free trade and stuff I don't fucking understand why the hell he thought that was going to work given that is precisely what didn't stop WW1 from breaking out in the first place.

Like Germany and France and frankly eveyrone else were interconnected going to war fucked with everyone's economy its like Lloyd George you were in government in 14 -15 you got to see this up close why did this [this line of thinking] continue [to hold sway]? Ford at least wasn't in Government but still he he had enough exposure to the war thatholy fuck he should have added up 2+2 and gotten four.. Trotsky was popular with what we would call latte liberals these days (or some equivalent now, if thats fallen out of fashion) there is a prevailing idea in government and in the economic sector that no this time will be different.

Merkel more recently is an excellent example of this, as are her precursors ... of trade will civilize them and they won't start wars because thats 'illogical'.

anyway I'll put the first Romanov Rescue set up shortly.

As for the lenin assassination thing, its funny Allen says what he says... because supposedly the british were planning to assassinate Lenin through a network organized by Sidney Reilly but then Kaplan botched her shot in the train station and the GPU just started purging people left and right and that headed off any planned putsch organized by Reilly. [and of course coups being what coups are claiming you have X and having X guys show up at zero hour are often two different things]

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 3rd​ 1918
It was ungentlemanly sure, but duels and tea and crumpets didn't win wars.

Allen didn't particularly like this part of the work. He never had, but better him than Bill. Bill's daddy could have peeled the answers from the man, but then the colonel had more experience. The McCulloch patriarch would have been faster at all this.

He stood, and the man sagged.

The nine inch dagger was in his hand, and the Cheka one of their regional hirelings never saw the glint before it slipped underneath his ribs and entered his subclavial artery. The technique had been adopted from the Moros. Something learned almost twenty years earlier and able to be used from multiple positions with multiple sorts of knives, curved or straight it didn't matter.

It was much quieter than a pistol. Not that he was overly worried about the noise. He'd seen what the chekists had done... but then the revolutionaries were banking on fear and apathy rather than popular support. Oh they talked about the working class, but in the same breath complained peasants were backwards and so on. No surprise almost all of Lenin's lot were lawyers or the children of churchmen or something other than peasants.

The poor man's iron maiden the revolutionaries had made from nails and barrels was just an exemplar of that policy of Red Terror.

He wasn't here for that. The boots were quiet across the floor, and he opened the door and went down the stairs. There were supposedly other red guards, people's militia and what not but for the most part there were very very few rifles, and only a couple of machine guns.

Nothing that really compared to what they had. There was nothing approaching standardization. The Chekists would stand out even more than the rag tag uniforms of the red's supposed people's peasant army soldiers, who were basically just wearing the old imperial uniform with red fabric armbands.

The colored arm bands reminded him of China, of what had become normal following the Xinhai revolt where the uniforms themselves were mostly the same for every side so you needed something to signal who was who.

It was dark outside. The sun had disappeared over an hour ago. They had time until they needed to move and it was time to organize the final motion of the action.

The table downstairs was covered in maps. Official maps, hand drawn maps, a mix. Maps that had been annotated with changes, and observations. They had had to dismount from their trucks. The roads weren't great but the intention was to signal the rest to come as quickly as possible... then get the hell out of dodge but they'd need to bring the trucks into town, or nearer to a staging point, before sending a signal... or more likely a runner to bring the trucks up to the Merchant's house were the Tsar and his family were being kept.

He passed his notes on the table.

"You believe this?" Bill asked flipping through, "If this is right we've got more ammo than they do."

It was possible. It was equally possible that the stupid bastard was just misinformed of how much ammo there was or that there was some elsewhere... but "Given the state of the trans siberian it is possible that the ammunition kept bunching up at places along the way, and this far in the rear they didn't feel the need to have the ammunition."

Why store ammunition for real weapons in Ekaterinburg? The Germans weren't going to attack here... but it was now a target of the civil war between the russians. The Ural Soviet had recently sent on of their leading men to take over command of the guards. He would have to die. Allen was making that decision executively for no other reason than he didn't want the man around to potentially rally supporters and troops if they managed to get out of here with the Tsar.

He didn't like the idea that the house had been renamed as 'special purpose'. That had been a bad sign... but the telegraph that had supposedly been sent to Lenin was damming in itself. The bolsheviks were about as well armed as some of the bandits back home... and when the Czech Legion that the Entente and the States were so concerned about got here at the end of the month he doubted it would have been any kind of fight.

... but he didn't intended to be here to find out either. They were not here to fight a battle, just rescue some well meaning idiots from a bunch of bandits, and that meant that this could be thought of in normal terms.

"This window is, has been kept open."

"We'll put someone on watch," Allen replied to Guan's observation from the notes, but he'd been thinking about that, "Climbing through it isn't an option." but they would he confirmed have to watch the window... cover of night would give them some movement. "This attic is directly above them, there is supposed to be a man on the maxim gun at any given time," Which sounded like a chore to have set up, and there was a palisade around the house what a mess. "I want you to take a platoon here," He indicated a separate chekist prison offsite of the house. It was where a group of hostages were being held... apparently pending a planned execution in a few days apparently in retalition for some bolshevik being killed.

He had considered moving on the cathedral as an overwatch post, but had discarded that notion.

"Popov House?"

"you're to cover its entrances with Lewis guns, and mortars, and then you're to set it on fire." He informed the Major coolly.

It didn't take a look at the hand drawn maps to realize there were issues, "That may be a problem. If we don't' move on the cathedral we may have to contend with the forces there..." The major frowned, "also according to what we know the bandits bring whores into both houses. They will probably be busy tonight." He remarked.

It was far from ideal. Major Liu was correct. Breaching the house the Tsar and his family were being kept in would be a problem. There was likely going to be the need to sweep the hallways, and that was never an easy or pleasant experience.

A night attack was contingent that the Tsar and his family would be presumably locked in their rooms and thus shouldn't be about, they could break in shoot first and ask questions later of any men in anything approaching uniforms.

"We'll have to open quickly. The Maxim here covers the road," He had surveyed the area and he was confident that he had a shot. The suppressed mauser might still be heard but that was why the popov house needed to be covered first.

It would have been nice to have one of 3rd's 3 Inch mountain guns to directly fire into the house, but they had come in light by train, and with motorization. Two Infantry Platoons, and a Platoon of Engineers supported by one of the Mortar Squads. The mortars could be used for direct lay if necessary but the new ones were finned and rifled thereby had further range

Of course the engineers were also responsible for the trucks. That arrangement had been chosen rather than trying to deploy an ETS Motorized Rifle Company wholesale for other reasons, but petrol was a major concern.

What Allen hoped would not reach Peking, Tietsin, Reinsch, or even Lansing, was that the 3rd​ Regiment under Lee had moved over the border across the Transoxiana Rail Line and was encamped at the railhead the company had built for the British and he supposed on behalf of the 'White Russians'. White, Red, Green, Black, and here he was with a collection of gray backs this was a new century alright... it was not 1901 and this was not some jungle island this was deep into the interior of one of the suppose great european empires.

What could not have ever been foreseen in 1918, nor would survive into outlandish recreations of the 4th​ of July in 21st​ century movies was the myths and the legends of it all, and coming to terms. The Whites and Reds would remain relatively poorly armed, and even worse organized for another year really, both sides would continue to mount 'daring' cavalcades of horsemen even in the 1920s , and the bayonet charge would remain the supposed focal point of people's will and revolutionary vigor in infantry manuals until the start of the second world war for the Soviets.

--
Notes: One idea that I considered doing for the Romanov Rescue was passing off the arc conclusion as a much later media or fictionalization of the events from the perspective of a mature late or even post cold war unified China with attendant exaggerated elements potentially of the point of think WW1 esque call of duty meets Zero Dark 30 but it wraps the really end of ww1 and sets the stage in the long term for the transition to the interwar great political kerfluffles