Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[ATP]

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]

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Indeed.I hear about some book from 1913 which very logically proved,that world war is impssible becouse al economies are connected.And,it was right.
Logical leaders would never started WW1,sadly,we have no such leaders then.
Forget title,as usual.

About Lenin assasination - i read few theories about it,one was that Kaplan really did it,other that it was other soviet,namedSwierdłow,who try kill Lenin,and become next leader.
Becouse he was murdered after that,it is possible.

About Riley trying to buy Latvian - i also read confusing things,one that it was real,other that soviets from the beginning knew everytching.

Pity,that Moscov hide CZK papers again - till archives would be open again,we could only quess.

About new chapter - soviets were certainly not elite fighters in 1918,and CZK and later NKWD and KGB NEVER were elite fighters.
Strange,considering that SS were elite fighters,at least german units.
Interesting why germans could turn secret police into elite units,and soviets could not.

About silent weapons - you certainly have chineese who still knew how to use bows,use them for that.Bow used by nomads had 320m effective range,enough for removing people in night.

Also,try to keep soldiers send to attack in dark room day before - their eyes would see better in dark.Soviets actually used that trick during WW2.

Last idea - i read,that small polish elite unit in 1920 who removed soviets during night attacks using cudgels and Mauser bayonets painted black.
Cudels in the end had place to put bayonets there,so it could be used as short spear.

Dunno,if it is true,or urban legend.And,if it would work or not.
But,trench maces certainly worked,and both germans and french used it.Your chineese could do so,too.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Trench maces were a thing, painting knives black were a thing (and black is not ideal, but its better than well a mirror sheen or reflection from a blade at night, this is why a lot your combat knives have become typically covered in a protective coating is non reflective) so its probably go some basis in truth it may e ven be more than one incident because trench raiding was a pervasive occurence throughout

-

Also what will show up shortly is that the Enigma machine (yes that enigma machine) will hit the commercial market in a few years it is actually currently in prototyping stages and it was designed for commercial business and its early patents are just entering the german registrars so guess whats going to get bought after the war is over among other things that were put out by commercial firms like diesel engines as well it is a long word document of all this stuff that comes out of the late war powers that enters the commercial market by just 23 for sale

 

[ATP]

Trench maces were a thing, painting knives black were a thing (and black is not ideal, but its better than well a mirror sheen or reflection from a blade at night, this is why a lot your combat knives have become typically covered in a protective coating is non reflective) so its probably go some basis in truth it may e ven be more than one incident because trench raiding was a pervasive occurence throughout

-

Also what will show up shortly is that the Enigma machine (yes that enigma machine) will hit the commercial market in a few years it is actually currently in prototyping stages and it was designed for commercial business and its early patents are just entering the german registrars so guess whats going to get bought after the war is over among other things that were put out by commercial firms like diesel engines as well it is a long word document of all this stuff that comes out of the late war powers that enters the commercial market by just 23 for sale

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Poland broke Enigma code before WW2 and gave it to England and France in 1939,but - China would not knew about that.
Since England even sell Enigma to some of their ex-colonies after WW2,so they could spy on them,they could spy on China,too.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Poland broke Enigma code before WW2 and gave it to England and France in 1939,but - China would not knew about that.
Since England even sell Enigma to some of their ex-colonies after WW2,so they could spy on them,they could spy on China,too.

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Thats true, but my point here is that Weimar Germany litterally allowed the Enigma machine to go to commercial sales and then adopted it for army use

Like this is a head desk moment for me, I get it was a hundred years ago and that Engima was intended for the commercial market but for me its that jackie chan meme of looking at this because Weimar Germany allowed its export to foreign governments in the twenties.

I'm looking at this and I am just Shocked. Republican Spain used standard commercial models for government purposes, at least the swedes had the good sense to modify theirs but it truly was another era

 

[ATP]

Thats true, but my point here is that Weimar Germany litterally allowed the Enigma machine to go to commercial sales and then adopted it for army use

Like this is a head desk moment for me, I get it was a hundred years ago and that Engima was intended for the commercial market but for me its that jackie chan meme of looking at this because Weimar Germany allowed its export to foreign governments in the twenties.

I'm looking at this and I am just Shocked. Republican Spain used standard commercial models for government purposes, at least the swedes had the good sense to modify theirs but it truly was another era

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They were mad.Chancellors Joseph Wirth and later Gustav Stresemann genial plan for foreign politic was ally with soviets and finish off Poland.
They did it in Rapallo/1922/ and Berlin/1926/,but it was suicidal - soviets do not wonted part of Poland,they wonted entire woirld.
Everybody who saw their crest,or hear their leaders,was aware of that little fact.

And idiot germans wonted border with country which want them destroyed.
Apparently,hate for Poland switched off their brains.

Selling Enigma to everybody is notching compare to this madness.

 

[Imperator Pax]

4th​ July 1918
There was noise enough on the street ... whether the drunks would hear this he wouldn't know. They had taken the precautions they could, but luck entered into it.

He held the take up on the first stage of the trigger and let the breath pass. The four power of the Zeiss scope had been zeroed and adjusted for the heavier 220gr bullet. They had removed under the cover of the darkness that had fallen the window frame and placed it with cloth covered laminate wood sheets except for a gap through which as he lay on the table prepared to fire through.

The idiot in the attic was smoking. A little flicker, and a breath as he sat in the attic window. He hadn't realized it at first but the man was sitting sideways watching the intersection down below, most likely the drunken fraternizing of the guards across the street. He'd never hear the bullet that killed him.

The Mauser, this mauser was, had started life as a commercial hunting rifle and come from his cabinet back at home. It had been selected an accurized first by Mauser in Germany, and then rebedded by Griswold. That bedding was the whole chamber length, and it made excellent for wimbledon style matches against Cole's 6.5 or Bill's own rifle.

It was not the rifle that he normally carried to fight bandits. It wasn't one of the newer guns.

He finished the pull through the second stage of the trigger. The rubber butt pad dimmed the recoil and there wasn't much noise from the gun. He opened the action slowly, mindful of what was in front of him and collected the spent shell.

The man's body was on the floor the cigarette was on the floor. It dimmed, and the man didn't move.

He took the case out and closed the action on a fresh one.

It was their time to move. He looked to his spotter and nodded. They picked up the third man at the top of the landing who'd been on security and began to move. With the exception of the Company's Riflemen Scouts most of the Mausers had been traded off for 35 Remingtons. Trading range for volume of fire. The first couple of chekists found out what taking pistols towards self loading rifles resulted in as they began to respond to 2nd​ platoon opening the attack on the Popov house.

Securing Sections, or breachers, were sergeants and corporals with either Lewis's finalized pistol caliber machine gun that Lewis had managed to get a few working, or with Browning Auto 5s crunched the doorways and unloaded into the men in the hallways. The five man groups of the section were forcing their way forward from the entryway. The men in the rear were aid men serving to support the Lewis Gunners.

Hopefully the trucks would be to their correct position Allen stepped through the ruined doorway and moved further inside. There were no big sword units but it was mostly pistols. Popov House across the street had started to smoke and catch fire, and the lewis gunners were rattling its windows and doors at any sign of movement.

The supposedly fifty odd men inside would either have to force their way into the open and take focused fire... or they would burn to death.

The was a shriek.

The first mortar bomb dropped.

... or the men popov house would die from that.

A man came up from the basement. A tiny little nickel plated gun in his hand. One of browning's pocket pistols and was rushing entirely too fast. He was half way through the room before he realized anyone else was in the room with him. That was about the time his spare hand had closed around the nickel plated 1906 and Allen lifted the much larger browning 45 and pressed the four pound single action trigger. The automatic barked sending a 230 gr as the man's head turned as his own gun was forced up out of the way towards the masonry...

The hardball bullet ripped fairly through throat, and jaw terminating out of the side of the Chekist's clean shaven face and thumping into the frame of the ceiling.

It wasn't immediately fatal, and the Russian, or whatever he was, flailed helplessly grabbing his ruined face and alternatively then his throat gurgling. Allen pointed the gun at his face, and squeezed a second round, and the man fell silent at last, hand finally thumping on the floor in a pool of blood. "Fan out." He ordered over the chatter of machine guns firing from outside.

The 'Red Guards', whatever they were being called this week, according to the man he had interrogated had probably about three hundred men. They barely outnumbered his own forces, and were under equipped in comparison.

That was even more reason to slam them with overwhelming firepower where they could

Bill's heavy footsteps had already forced the first set of stair case.

A pair of men forced the attic and pulled the pins on the grenades they'd been provided by the English. The F1s rolled down the stairs and the men got back in the room as they hit the bottom landing. There were screams of pain and dying Bolsheviks.

A man remained watching the approach his auto five covering the steps down, and he was fixed low and out of the way. Allen moved on to the upstairs with his own detachment in time to reach the next floor and watch a bearded man's broomhandle skid across the floor. Guan had swept his legs and knocked him to the ground. He took a breath, and then came down with his weight bringing the pommel of his fighting knife into the man's adam's apple.

The man's description matched the new Chekist commander... or it did until the Gendarmes lieutenant broke his nose and and drove the blade down into his already swelling purple neck. Two more men, theirs, swept the corners.

"its fine, keep sweeping the floors. GO." He tapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. "Lieutenant?" He checked. The younger man nodded, and wiped his knife on the dead man's clothes.

The place was a pigsty, and he heard the piano break in the nest room.

There was a snarl of 45 ACP from the open bolt of a Lewis-Griswold Pistol Caliber machine gun, which was too long of a name by far. Sam had taken Lewis's action and the 1916 and made Lewis's idea workable. The original plan of a fifteen round magazine in the grip had been binned though, and a man shouted he was reloading.

There were fewer men up stairs. There were empty bottles of liquor on the ground floor, and graffiti that he noticed but that he didn't have time to decipher. He peaked out to check on Popov house, which was now a merry bonfire, and then got away from the window.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"The machine gun in the basement is secure, as is the one overlooking the garden."

There was chatter abruptly from a maxim

The church. He didn't need to see it to track the noise.

Damn it.

"See if you can get mortars effectively on that tower." Returning accurate fire from the street level would be difficult, but maybe not impossible with Lewis Guns from the shoulder. "But make sure our people aren't out in the -

POM POM POM

He watched the flash of tracers eat there way up the bell tower as the auto cannon levied 1 lb high explosive. The QF1 Pom Pom gun was mounted on a flexible mount in the bed of a ford truck and while not immediately silencing the maxim it walked its fire up as the truck came to a halt.

"Sir?"

"Go keep moving make sure nothing across the street checks us, we'll finish here." He told the captain assigned to 2nd​ platoon. They needed to do a head count.

Assuming that the force at the house across the street was dead that was probably fifty something men who'd supposed to have been there. There could still be men alive in there... but from the way the house was burning he wasn't that concerned. Allen holstered the forty five and continued to dispatch orders. This was the more important matter. Him, outlining to the captains and sergeants what their objectives were. He would trust the men to accomplish what he wanted done.

Presumably the Engineering Detachments commander had recognized the opportunity to advice and move forward to the objective and move forward to join them. They needed to join up now. The various retainers of the deposed dynasty and the family themselves were upstairs looking quite confused as he and graybacks swept in. Never mind that they must have resembled Kaiser Bill's troops. "George the Fifth sends his regards." He said glancing around, and then switching to Russian, "I am John Allen Forrest." a decade ago his particular phrasing would have probably been a bit rude to address a monarch, or former monarch but he was a bit out of practice. "On the behest of the British Government I have been asked to transport you to Tietsin. From there eventually, by ship, to England." He looked around at them all, and frowned.

"I do not understand." The man he presumed was Nicholas began in a tired voice, answering in English. He must have noticed the mix of Chinese in the men assembled. Not that it should have mattered he'd noted that a number of the fellas tonight hadn't exactly been 'great russians'.

Allen felt his grimace increase in force, "Yesterday," according to the Chekist he'd interrogated, "The Bolsheviks sent a man to ask Lenin, if they could kill you." Not that this hadn't already been planned. The British had been very worried that given the movement of the family to here that they were running out of time. "Any details you might be curious to, are best reserved for the British." And not asking stupid questions when there was shooting going on.

He spared the chore of that by the sergeant adding, "Colonel McCulloch is coming down."

The big Texan came into the room with all the tact of a steer, "Well Al there's, no worries about that cotton top in the attic. He doesn't have a head. Not much of one anyway, but Sui-lin does say our cubano cossack friends are becoming a mite impatient though its why he brought the trucks forward."

"Then lets go to the trucks." He did a brusque headcount again, "We have everyone we're here for."

"But the guards." Nicholas protested.

Bill gave a shrug, "We've killed all of them." Allen replied with a gesture of ease. They had taken the trans siberian rail to get here. They would get back on the rails ride to Omsk screened by the various Cossack hosts, and make for Lake Baikal. Then they'd ride south, safely back into China. Then it would be Peking, and dropping the Russian family with the mission in Tietsin.

In propaganda films later... someone had the brilliant idea of the daring escape being punctuated by a milleu of fireworks going off to tweak the Bolsheviks nose It wasn't like that. The flares, from flare guns, fired off signaled for the detonation of charges of TNT. It was a purely tactical method of dissuading pursuit as they retreated back to the rail line and to cover loading using TNT normally used for railway work.

 

[ATP]

Well,tsar have 4 daughters,maybe some young officer need waifu? jokes aside -
1.According to memories of poles from Siberian dyvision which in OTL,after czech betrayed them,must capitulate - CZK members were from various minorities,including poles,who hated russian elites and murdering russians just for being russian elites.
If thre were russians,they were either cryminals or sailors.

2.pistols against Mausers in small rooms should be better,why CZK do not win? i would undarstandt,if they had Thompsons.

3.Tossing grenades into rooms - good idea,as long as you do not jump there before grenade exploded.I read memories of some polish volunteer in Foreign Legion,who made there some romanian from Securitate who belived to be expert in close fighting - yet still tossed grenade to room and jumped there before it exploded during excersises.
It was training granade,so he survived,but was not so full of himself after that.

4.Pom Pom on truck - good idea,could be it used as AA?
If you made it on armored tractor chasis ,you could have first AT destroyer.But for what,when nobody then used tanks in China ?
But - good idea before WW2.
Maybe copy Belgium tank destroyers? should be enough for japaneese so called tanks.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well,tsar have 4 daughters,maybe some young officer need waifu? jokes aside -
1.According to memories of poles from Siberian dyvision which in OTL,after czech betrayed them,must capitulate - CZK members were from various minorities,including poles,who hated russian elites and murdering russians just for being russian elites.
If thre were russians,they were either cryminals or sailors.

2.pistols against Mausers in small rooms should be better,why CZK do not win? i would undarstandt,if they had Thompsons.

3.Tossing grenades into rooms - good idea,as long as you do not jump there before grenade exploded.I read memories of some polish volunteer in Foreign Legion,who made there some romanian from Securitate who belived to be expert in close fighting - yet still tossed grenade to room and jumped there before it exploded during excersises.
It was training granade,so he survived,but was not so full of himself after that.

4.Pom Pom on truck - good idea,could be it used as AA?
If you made it on armored tractor chasis ,you could have first AT destroyer.But for what,when nobody then used tanks in China ?
But - good idea before WW2.
Maybe copy Belgium tank destroyers? should be enough for japaneese so called tanks.

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On the going in after throwing in grenades, adrenaline, it fucks your timing up, this is part of the reason breaching teams are stacked in physical proximity, its so none of your guys go in after you chuck grenades in, because people will do this even though they know better. This happens in the US army where a guy tosses a grenade into a room and then tries to go in. Then its safety stand down time for an ass chewing. This is not new the expression 'jump the gun' originates in the age of sail where you have someone get ahead of your own cannon before they fire

In this case, like the 35 Remington and also the Model 1917 equivalents (which is a Mauser action) are just under 42 inches, and just over 46, the Auto 5 in riot gun configuration is also basically 42 while still delivering better accuracy and better terminal performance especially in the hands of professional soldiers with experience. This is very much a case of shoot until the other guy is on the floor, this segment is abridged in gunfighting due to not wanting to write room clearing that would be a lot of blam blam blam from rifles. This is also one of the reasons Xian adopts ten round detachable magazines for its mauser action rifles.

The Pom Pom is actually going to be called back to why they need the 20mm Bofors to come a little early in terms of caliber and effective performance, "We have experience with this, and these are its weaknesses in performance in terms of it moves Y velocity it needs to be Z at muzzle in order to have this trajectory to shoot the aircraft" thing but at this point its more infantry suppression (this is how the pom pom was used, and to a lesser extent suppressing light shore fortifications (meaning dug in infantry) when on boat mounts). If you can mount it on a boat you can mount it on an armored tractor (which i'm sure someone did in this period or if not then, then in the interwar years because I've seen pictures of what looks like an Edsel, but could be any number of other tractors of the period)


As for the Czechs that goes into the problems trans siberian, the Czech leadership had made the decision to get the fuck out of Russia, it is basically a case of 'fuck you, i've got mine', the czech logic was they were tired of getting dicked around by the french, and the british and Kolchack, and legitimately i'm surprised they didn't cut a deal with the japanese but also Japan had leadership problems. And like here, that will playout different because the rail situation is different, and that will have ffects in the interwar years later on, and then mild effects when ww2 rolls around. Here though the big thing is that there are two large railway missions in eastern russia, (E.Siberia and in Central Asia) that makes getting out of Russia and out of the civil war, it provides options.

 

[ATP]

On the going in after throwing in grenades, adrenaline, it fucks your timing up, this is part of the reason breaching teams are stacked in physical proximity, its so none of your guys go in after you chuck grenades in, because people will do this even though they know better. This happens in the US army where a guy tosses a grenade into a room and then tries to go in. Then its safety stand down time for an ass chewing. This is not new the expression 'jump the gun' originates in the age of sail where you have someone get ahead of your own cannon before they fire

In this case, like the 35 Remington and also the Model 1917 equivalents (which is a Mauser action) are just under 42 inches, and just over 46, the Auto 5 in riot gun configuration is also basically 42 while still delivering better accuracy and better terminal performance especially in the hands of professional soldiers with experience. This is very much a case of shoot until the other guy is on the floor, this segment is abridged in gunfighting due to not wanting to write room clearing that would be a lot of blam blam blam from rifles. This is also one of the reasons Xian adopts ten round detachable magazines for its mauser action rifles.

The Pom Pom is actually going to be called back to why they need the 20mm Bofors to come a little early in terms of caliber and effective performance, "We have experience with this, and these are its weaknesses in performance in terms of it moves Y velocity it needs to be Z at muzzle in order to have this trajectory to shoot the aircraft" thing but at this point its more infantry suppression (this is how the pom pom was used, and to a lesser extent suppressing light shore fortifications (meaning dug in infantry) when on boat mounts). If you can mount it on a boat you can mount it on an armored tractor (which i'm sure someone did in this period or if not then, then in the interwar years because I've seen pictures of what looks like an Edsel, but could be any number of other tractors of the period)


As for the Czechs that goes into the problems trans siberian, the Czech leadership had made the decision to get the fuck out of Russia, it is basically a case of 'fuck you, i've got mine', the czech logic was they were tired of getting dicked around by the french, and the british and Kolchack, and legitimately i'm surprised they didn't cut a deal with the japanese but also Japan had leadership problems. And like here, that will playout different because the rail situation is different, and that will have ffects in the interwar years later on, and then mild effects when ww2 rolls around. Here though the big thing is that there are two large railway missions in eastern russia, (E.Siberia and in Central Asia) that makes getting out of Russia and out of the civil war, it provides options.

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Thanks! dunno if it is true,but once i read that one of reason why Pom poms was on ships before WW1 was,except targeting torpedo boats,prevent enemy from using small ships to try capture warships.In my opinion,it is rather some kind of joke.

And Czech,unfortunatelly,were just cunts.They destroyed rails behind them,so polish Dyvision which was in rearguard could not retreat.They really do not need that to save their asses.

And,you are right about 40mm Bofors being much better.If Repulse and Prince of Wales had them,not pom-poms,they could survive.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Thanks! dunno if it is true,but once i read that one of reason why Pom poms was on ships before WW1 was,except targeting torpedo boats,prevent enemy from using small ships to try capture warships.In my opinion,it is rather some kind of joke.

And Czech,unfortunatelly,were just cunts.They destroyed rails behind them,so polish Dyvision which was in rearguard could not retreat.They really do not need that to save their asses.

And,you are right about 40mm Bofors being much better.If Repulse and Prince of Wales had them,not pom-poms,they could survive.

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Yeah the rail thing goes to the logistics problem as well, and thats part of the reason why (control of the rails, rail condition, number of cars number of engines, why Judenich's offensive failed he just didn't have the logistical tail end to take Petersburg and with the Kornilov putsch attempt the bolsheviks were able to get the rail union to shut down the railway via strike). Here, in this timeline the E. Trans Siberian is in a wholly different configurate, there is a larger more mature international prescence, the anglo-japanese alliance is actually more assertive as a result of those railheads.

It bears in mind the Pom Pom 1 pdr is a late 1880s era design such that it saw service in both south africa and in the phillipines (with the Brits and the US respectively) in 1900 where there was at the time a legitimate concern about small ships attacking warship (typically in harbor, or coming into a bay and where you could not depress the secondary or even main battery fast or low enough to delete them), the QF 1 was small enough it could be be put on a boat and that it could be carried ashore by naval landing parties

they were a dated design and frankly should have been out of service sooner, Vickers S which is a slightly heavier 40mm got mounted on attack boats by the RN and I suspect that due to budgetary constraints and the need to address commonwealth wide logistics was why older systems were ratained and why universal replacement of dated systems didn't occur during the collective security period of naval policy

 

[Imperator Pax]

Courtesy of C&Rsenal


Now this long recoil system is in the long term (no pun intended) effectively a dead end.

ANd in this timeline what will replace it is a lewis style long stroke gas piston (thereby significantly reducing, relatively to the weight of the gun, both the number of moving parts as well as to a less extent the weight). This is not done to facilitate full auto fire but rather to reduce cost and improve usability. Also it neatly sidesteps any potential issues with Remington over Browning patents post war (Xian has the TDPs through an agreement with FN after the fall of belgium) and Xian's production 35 Remingtons are more like FN 1900 due to the pistol grip stock, but thats not meaningfully changing the action of the firearm (and this is relevant later on post war because Xian starts selling guns on contract to Nicaruaga to the cadre there, which Remington isn't happy about because their agreement with FN precludes FN's action onthe patents in certain countries, and post well Remington wants the business)

 

[ATP]

Courtesy of C&Rsenal


Now this long recoil system is in the long term (no pun intended) effectively a dead end.

ANd in this timeline what will replace it is a lewis style long stroke gas piston (thereby significantly reducing, relatively to the weight of the gun, both the number of moving parts as well as to a less extent the weight). This is not done to facilitate full auto fire but rather to reduce cost and improve usability. Also it neatly sidesteps any potential issues with Remington over Browning patents post war (Xian has the TDPs through an agreement with FN after the fall of belgium) and Xian's production 35 Remingtons are more like FN 1900 due to the pistol grip stock, but thats not meaningfully changing the action of the firearm (and this is relevant later on post war because Xian starts selling guns on contract to Nicaruaga to the cadre there, which Remington isn't happy about because their agreement with FN precludes FN's action onthe patents in certain countries, and post well Remington wants the business)

Click to shrink...

Well,they have first pistol machines now,and enough time to develop some kind of "Owen gun" before WW2 happen here.
Or,at least,Ppsz.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
Allen would have absolutely preferred returning the way that they had come into this country to go down the Transoxiana line from the Siberian. Not take the damn rickety trans Siberian... but the British had insisted on carrying the Tsar to Vladivostok through Russia.

... what they hadn't said was the delays involved because of the railway's limitations, and the imposition of the mobs of white Russian supporters. Colchak probably was trying to demonstrate to either the English that their idea of a tsar to rally around was working in exchange for something... or legitimately supporting the tsar from the Cossacks.

He didn't really suppose it mattered. Well that wasn't true the lack of reliable telegraph service did actually irk him. That mattered. He would have preferred if they could have pulled back to Lee and had 3rd​ provide security as they crossed back into China and then ridden through the Gansu Corridor line and to Xian... then from Xian to Zhenzhou and Peking... and then the Tsar could be someone else's problem... but no this was how things were.

It wasn't just the tsar. Colonel Thomas Ellenburg was the regiment's chief surgeon and he had immediately not gotten along with the Romanov's doctor. The feeling was mutual apparently though Allen wasn't sure what argument had prompted his surgeon and the other doctor to disagree... Ellenburg, who had not been among the original hundred, had remained in reserve and had contented himself to looking after their few casualties but it had had been a headache to contend with.

Allen watched the door as it opened. He wasn't the only one. The British officer wore cavalry boots, but so were a lot of people. Technically the Gendarmes uniform issued a variant of the US's pattern of cavalry boots. The man in the khaki uniform stepped over and Allen shrugged gesturing to the seat.

"I must admit General John you rather confound me."

John was his first name. Since he was a general the British system was to address him by that since they were on professional terms. Percy had known him long enough to drop the rank. John Jordan occasionally indulged in calling him John Forrest in copy to how he referred to the English ambassador but Percy's friend didn't have that familiarity. "I'll admit this isn't exactly the same as finding some lost missionary," Despite what he'd said to Waite before they'd left.

"No I suppose there are differences. It is however more than that, my understanding is you represent a government within China on the basis of an army, that has industrial and productive means behind it... and thus Duan has farmed out so to speak the tax collection." It was a comparison to the East India Company, that was what it was... but it was also a comparison drawn to other matters. MacKinder would later on make an untoward response relating a trotsky quote, but the parliamentarian and the officer in the box car agreed that the reality was there were many such small governments cobbling together small realms in Russia, especially in the sparsely populated stretch of Asiatic Russia.

What wasn't yet apparent, and wouldn't be until the fall months was how quickly things were unfolding. Lloyd George had wanted a political feather in his cap in doing this. Much as how his speeches in April had been aimed at bolstering his leadership credentials in the wake of Wilson's 14 Points delivered in January.

"Waite will be replacing me on our Transoxiana board." he replied as the conversation wound around, "I understand there is some disagreement with Semenoff," Something Iseburo had mentioned about the Special Manchuria Detachment getting cozy, and for that matter, "And there is the matter of trying to smooth feathers with the Czechs."

"Ah yes the Czechs."

That was the defining focus of non partisan international efforts among the great allied powers. The czechs. The crisis with semonoff was like with others were local rather than the broader war effort. The czechoslovak legion was supposed to be the linchpin of an entire new army group against the Germans; how was the bigger question. That was the agreed upon 'ideal' the problem was how to use the lever against the Germans, which was of course where the arguments were.

To the ultimate detriment of a unified Siberia, of course. Semenoff would throw in with the Japanese Siberian Stability Commission, which would turn into a pacification mission in the late fall aimed at the Bolshevik sympathizers. The US AEF-Siberia General would object. Semonoff would ignore them, and Semonoff would ignore Kolchak who eventually the Japanese would try to reach their own accommodation of in tandem with the British.

In the long run Britain finding the situation continuing to degenerate would support by arms, and money the flow of white forces and civilians into Kirghiz and central asian region for a second attempt. All that would be later, and after a shake up state side. France and England supported an independent Czechia and Czechoslovak for different reasons than the states it wanted it as a leverage point in central europe and to break up the Austrians... where as support fro an independent country was ideological in the US lacking in broader policy aims and thus could be bipartisan.
--
The countryside passed slowly. The train was slow. He tried to excuse that vexation by blaming the feudalist trapping of the caravan of people, and supporters following the train as it journeyed further east and towards the pacific.

Bill racked the slide on his double stack automatic and tucked it into the holster. "Do you think he'll cause us some trouble?"

"I haven't had enough time with the man... but I frankly doubt it. We unnerve him. I don't like his comparison of us to their east india company," not the least of which was the chance some damned limey might think that gave them room to tell them what to do, "But we have bigger problems and I think the war means they'll hold up their end of the department." The British would give them access to the patents, and examples of things that they had asked for... and that they'd pay for support and goods in turn."

"What about the trans-oxiana line?"

"We'll keep it up." They could fig leaf the legal justification of just saying the Bolsheviks weren't a real government... after all Wilson had yet to officially recognize Lenin and friends.... but the Virginian could change his mind at any time , and that would be a problem. "We will have to figure something out in the long term. If Russia collapses entirely do you think that silly idea of building a railway to Islamabad will happen?"

"How would that even work?"

"That's what I'm asking you, but I can see someone in Whitehall thinking its a good idea." Not the least of which is that it would be expensive but potentially cut China out of the railway question entirely. "I figure if the brits are serious though they'll try and go through Persia, that makes more sense to me."

Bill finished rolling up his cleaning supplied and tucking the bundle into his bag. It would be good to get home. This train was too slow... and he was wearing field gray. In china that wouldn't have meant anything. The last qing uniform adopted had been german based, and in terms of cut most everyone even down south had adopted it, if not necessarily in the standard prussian coloring.. but that was more a matter of local dyes often enough.

The Kuban cossack honor guard that was protecting the royal train's procession through the countryside was not nearly as neatly uniformed. There were a dozen odd models of pistol and revolvers, and lever actions, and other miscellaneous weapons.

"Did you hear Crozier took the lewis guns from the marines."

Bill looked askance, "God in heaven he is a surly bastard, how in the hell did he not have a riot?"

Zhang looked up at the response. Allen shrugged. He was surprised, and then really wasn't. "I expect our English friend will comment on our use of them."

Zhang was quick to point out that the Lewis, if a version in the British dwarf, was in use and had been the whole war. "It makes no sense to deny them to troops." That was true, there was no good reason for it, just petty spite.

They continued the small talk and watched the countryside. Noted the passing of couple of french built 75mm guns being pulled alongside the train. It was one of if not necessarily the first sign of 'White Russian' artillery... but supposedly both sides did have abundance of artillery. Then the feeling came. Something was wrong... it was just one of those things instinct told you about.
--
Notes: So we're rapidly finishing this arc, but among other things this will conclude with the assemblage of parts of 1st​ Regiment as per the original extra snippet but also that the Gendarmes dress uniforms will make an appearance before the Tsar fucks off to England.

One thing we don't see is the French position in east Asia, and part of that was it initially (in the 19th​ century) bound up with its nominal allies, Britain before the 2nd​ Empire really, and then later Russia in the 3rd​ republic bluntly speaking the grand strategy of the French Republic was in event of war with germany have everyone who isn't French or isnt' 'real french' dogpile the germans until they run out of bullets. Very much the Russian attack into eastern prussia coupled von Moltke losing his nerve is what saves France by drawing off the German attack, and the French were counting on those russian imperial troops but also on the ability to leverage colonial troops, and also being able to demand British troops to fight on the continent.

The french war plans did not expect American involvement. Neither did the British, the British naval blockade was constrained by white hall in terms of effectiveness, we've had that discussion the navy could have forced a much more effective blockade but there was opposition at the political level, and in 1914 the misguided belief in Asquiths government that it would be a quick war.

So back to the French the French do not really return to Asia a tangible force until really 20-21 and they're very much an unwelcome return. French expansion is basically done by this point, France begins to have problems in Indochina (in vietnam in particular) and while the French do attempt to force certain issues its largely unsuccessful and part of that is that France burns a lot of bridges with her allies after versailles especially with the trade war and in treaty negotitations and the debt crisis. So that is why for the most part France makes only a limited appearance in the north.

 

[ATP]

Do not forget polish siberian dyvision! in OTL they were betrayed by Czech and mostly catched by soviets/who treated them relatively well - no mass murders or starving/
some manage get to Poland,and become one of elite units there.
You could use them here for China,at least till they go for Poland.
Some would stay - in OTL they was polish colony in Harbin till WW2.

Artillery and trains - i read,that there was rail gun,too - 406mm produced for never made super battleship.
Dunno,if it is true or not,but whites supposed to have it.

Czech state and destroing A-H - one of french diplomats named it as crime against France,becouse weakened A-H would be still strong enough to counter germans as french ally.
From memories of polish gentry Hipolit korwin-Milewski,who had good contants with booth french and russians.

Unfortunatelly - only in polish,as far as i knew.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Do not forget polish siberian dyvision! in OTL they were betrayed by Czech and mostly catched by soviets/who treated them relatively well - no mass murders or starving/
some manage get to Poland,and become one of elite units there.
You could use them here for China,at least till they go for Poland.
Some would stay - in OTL they was polish colony in Harbin till WW2.

Artillery and trains - i read,that there was rail gun,too - 406mm produced for never made super battleship.
Dunno,if it is true or not,but whites supposed to have it.

Czech state and destroing A-H - one of french diplomats named it as crime against France,becouse weakened A-H would be still strong enough to counter germans as french ally.
From memories of polish gentry Hipolit korwin-Milewski,who had good contants with booth french and russians.

Unfortunatelly - only in polish,as far as i knew.

Click to shrink...

With regards to the idea that austria would side against Germany, that was unrealistic by 1917 indeed the British basically figured if you leave A-H intact, you're all but assuring a strong German resurgence in Central Europe, and potentially risking the economic domination of europe by Germany. This is one of those cases where ww1 left no good options so much as bad and worse which is why trianon was such a weird treaty to begin with well that and that it came after versailles and wasn't nearly as preplanned (this is part of the reason why the Entente didn't want to rely on plebiscites).

As for Harbin's international character that will most likely survive and potentially even thrive post war as Xian has every reason to encourage it and migration abroad as the iron curtain falls.
As for the events of 1919 while Omsk is still slated to fall due to logistical and organizational reasons what will happen is the opening line of the TransOxiana means that the Whites have two routes of withdrawal and much of the force will pull out with the Brits largely destroying the Omsk rail line connecting it to the western TransSiberian which will probably entail the withdrawal of the Whites railway guns (which were often, as in the R-J War dismounted warship batteries, whether they had a 406 I don't know, I know that the war stripped manpower from the shipyards so its possible the armament were made but never mounted in which case if you have it why not use it).

 

[ATP]

With regards to the idea that austria would side against Germany, that was unrealistic by 1917 indeed the British basically figured if you leave A-H intact, you're all but assuring a strong German resurgence in Central Europe, and potentially risking the economic domination of europe by Germany. This is one of those cases where ww1 left no good options so much as bad and worse which is why trianon was such a weird treaty to begin with well that and that it came after versailles and wasn't nearly as preplanned (this is part of the reason why the Entente didn't want to rely on plebiscites).

As for Harbin's international character that will most likely survive and potentially even thrive post war as Xian has every reason to encourage it and migration abroad as the iron curtain falls.
As for the events of 1919 while Omsk is still slated to fall due to logistical and organizational reasons what will happen is the opening line of the TransOxiana means that the Whites have two routes of withdrawal and much of the force will pull out with the Brits largely destroying the Omsk rail line connecting it to the western TransSiberian which will probably entail the withdrawal of the Whites railway guns (which were often, as in the R-J War dismounted warship batteries, whether they had a 406 I don't know, I know that the war stripped manpower from the shipyards so its possible the armament were made but never mounted in which case if you have it why not use it).

Click to shrink...

Well,England plan from 1919 was to create strong Germany who would eat Austria,Czech,Poland and later fight soviets for them.And become England tool,like prussia once was.
Madness - prussia was England tool till they conqered german states,after that they become England rivals.

Only logical options was either gave entire Europe to germans,or made German states free again and occupy prussia,till they pay for WW1.

What England did was pure madness,which must lead to another war statred by germans.

That is why weakened A-H/without polish and romanian parts/ woud be great ally against any german try to made WW2.
Unfortunatelly,England was mad with their made german great again idea,USA supported them,and both France and Italy was lead by masons who hated catholic Habsburgs so much,that they destroyed them giving germany free chance to start another war.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Well,England plan from 1919 was to create strong Germany who would eat Austria,Czech,Poland and later fight soviets for them.And become England tool,like prussia once was.
Madness - prussia was England tool till they conqered german states,after that they become England rivals.

Only logical options was either gave entire Europe to germans,or made German states free again and occupy prussia,till they pay for WW1.

What England did was pure madness,which must lead to another war statred by germans.

That is why weakened A-H/without polish and romanian parts/ woud be great ally against any german try to made WW2.
Unfortunatelly,England was mad with their made german great again idea,USA supported them,and both France and Italy was lead by masons who hated catholic Habsburgs so much,that they destroyed them giving germany free chance to start another war.

Click to shrink...

I didn't say the FSO was all knowing, or even smart I'm just highlighting what they thought would happen, again I really think by 1917 the european situation on what was viable (in the sense of being politically palatable to the entente) was 'bad situation' or 'worse situation' even dividing up Germany would have probably been a terrible choice in the long run because if the soviet union does get its shit together, the French have already wasted a whole generation of manpower and without a German speed bump the Soviets will just feed men into the meat grinder until they're stopped. [that would almost certainly require an Imperial commitment from the whole British Empire, as well as possibly convincing Japan to open a second front in the east, plus US financial support if not actual outright military involvement]

Like Romania jumped into the war on the entente in the first war, and their subsequent defeat lead to a public opinion of 'well why the fuck did we even bother then?', it didn't matter to Romania in the twenties and thirties of 'well Germany then lost, we still got occupied' the thing with alliances is collective security with France doesn't work. The french refuse to pull their weight, the terms of the entente cordiale assumed that French would provide a navy capable of securing the western med to allow the British to handle the eastern and the north atlatic. What happened? in both world wars the French proved completely unable to meet this requirement, similarly the BEF was a small professional force, the assumption of the French war planning was dependency on Russia. This is why the post ww1 collective security was the expectation of an atlanticist consensus (that same consensus that is expected today) but France still refused to meet the minimum budgetary spending and manpower allocations.

Its great to go yeah we have an alliance but if your load bearing wall on one side is unable to meet defense requirements it doesn't work, and it pisses off the other membership. France has stopped being able to meet its local security requirements by 1870 and yet continued to belligerently get into colonial conflicts (to the point of risking war with England over Egypt) while all the while trying to get england into an alliance against Germany, and France had to expand a lot of diplomatic effort between them and the russians even up to 1910. France patently refused to pull her weight, and expected special considerations for her status as 'france'.

Again the FSO's plan smacked entirely too much of Anglo-isolationism to be real world practical but the reason the plan failed is France expected everyone to bend over backwards because 'France is special', there is a reason the FSO and the State Department get really out done with the French in early interwar war period. [and I'm going to skirt rule eight, but this isn't strictly just 3rd republic france, (the 5th republic) French appeasement to Russia in 08 didn't even involve inviting the Georgian's to the negotiations France just assumed oh we'll make an agreement and everything else is fait accompli because we're france we're a great power (and degaulle post war continued that same argument).]

From a political perspective stopping ww2 from breaking out requires a comprehensive reform of the German state, and keeping France from acting like france, because one of the key factors in the downfall of the weimar republic was the french occupation. I just don't see an Austria hungary that is even more likely to be pro german in population (without those parts of the empire it almost certainly will be) turning against Germany after ww1 especially if the alternative is an alliance with France post war (the distrust between the austrians and France went both ways) would something other than the treat of Trianon have been better, yes but that goes to finding a solution that the allies are willing to accept, and Italy expected land it actually expected more land than what it received (which fed into interwar irridentism that provided support for benny coming to power).

Like if everyone was perfectly logical no one would have started ww1 in the first place, and we certainly wouldn't have gotten 2, but the roots for ww1 being the conflict it was began in the 1860s (if not actually earlier, in 48 revolutions).

 

[ATP]

I didn't say the FSO was all knowing, or even smart I'm just highlighting what they thought would happen, again I really think by 1917 the european situation on what was viable (in the sense of being politically palatable to the entente) was 'bad situation' or 'worse situation' even dividing up Germany would have probably been a terrible choice in the long run because if the soviet union does get its shit together, the French have already wasted a whole generation of manpower and without a German speed bump the Soviets will just feed men into the meat grinder until they're stopped. [that would almost certainly require an Imperial commitment from the whole British Empire, as well as possibly convincing Japan to open a second front in the east, plus US financial support if not actual outright military involvement]

Like Romania jumped into the war on the entente in the first war, and their subsequent defeat lead to a public opinion of 'well why the fuck did we even bother then?', it didn't matter to Romania in the twenties and thirties of 'well Germany then lost, we still got occupied' the thing with alliances is collective security with France doesn't work. The french refuse to pull their weight, the terms of the entente cordiale assumed that French would provide a navy capable of securing the western med to allow the British to handle the eastern and the north atlatic. What happened? in both world wars the French proved completely unable to meet this requirement, similarly the BEF was a small professional force, the assumption of the French war planning was dependency on Russia. This is why the post ww1 collective security was the expectation of an atlanticist consensus (that same consensus that is expected today) but France still refused to meet the minimum budgetary spending and manpower allocations.

Its great to go yeah we have an alliance but if your load bearing wall on one side is unable to meet defense requirements it doesn't work, and it pisses off the other membership. France has stopped being able to meet its local security requirements by 1870 and yet continued to belligerently get into colonial conflicts (to the point of risking war with England over Egypt) while all the while trying to get england into an alliance against Germany, and France had to expand a lot of diplomatic effort between them and the russians even up to 1910. France patently refused to pull her weight, and expected special considerations for her status as 'france'.

Again the FSO's plan smacked entirely too much of Anglo-isolationism to be real world practical but the reason the plan failed is France expected everyone to bend over backwards because 'France is special', there is a reason the FSO and the State Department get really out done with the French in early interwar war period. [and I'm going to skirt rule eight, but this isn't strictly just 3rd republic france, (the 5th republic) French appeasement to Russia in 08 didn't even involve inviting the Georgian's to the negotiations France just assumed oh we'll make an agreement and everything else is fait accompli because we're france we're a great power (and degaulle post war continued that same argument).]

From a political perspective stopping ww2 from breaking out requires a comprehensive reform of the German state, and keeping France from acting like france, because one of the key factors in the downfall of the weimar republic was the french occupation. I just don't see an Austria hungary that is even more likely to be pro german in population (without those parts of the empire it almost certainly will be) turning against Germany after ww1 especially if the alternative is an alliance with France post war (the distrust between the austrians and France went both ways) would something other than the treat of Trianon have been better, yes but that goes to finding a solution that the allies are willing to accept, and Italy expected land it actually expected more land than what it received (which fed into interwar irridentism that provided support for benny coming to power).

Like if everyone was perfectly logical no one would have started ww1 in the first place, and we certainly wouldn't have gotten 2, but the roots for ww1 being the conflict it was began in the 1860s (if not actually earlier, in 48 revolutions).

Click to shrink...

That is why they should free german states,made Bavaria and other powerpuff,and occupy prussia making them pay for entire war/when other german states would pay notching as prussian victims/
You have enough cannon fodder to stop soviets,then.
About needed corpses - you have Poland for that,too.We were always lead by noble idiots who would gladly die for England,especially if we must fight soviets.Add german catholics,weakened A-H - and,you have enough bodies to stop soviets,and no state strong enough to unite Europe.
In case of Poland - not even capable of thinking about that,becouse we simply must noble suffer for others.

Wet dream of every english politician.

When united germany made sure,that they try to conqer Europe for themselves.Becouse it is sometching in german genes,at least in protestant germans.
As long as they lead Germany,they always try to do so.
And alway would do again - when stupid England forget,that prussia was their attack dog only so long,till they conqered other german states.

About revolution 1848 as root of WW1 - i could agree with it,without people in Europe becoming members of nation X instead of subject of Monarch X,it must happened.

And,i agree that France go to hell after 1870.They could remain powerfull as Kingdom or Empire,but not Republic.What served american well,was french anathema.
If they manage to return King in 1934,maybe it would save Europe.Or not,if they were gone to far.

P.S There is good book "Sire" by Jean Raspail,author of The camp of the saints. about fictional return of french King - when literally nobody care,even french republicans,except one fanatic.
Read,if you have time.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
He couldn't shake the feeling. It wouldn't leave him, even though the train was still moving. He shared a look across the way.

Then he slid out of the booth, and Bill moved up and over, "You want your remington?" the texan asked pulling the heavy waterproof antelope hide case down and opened it to reveal his own 35 Remington self loader and the handful of curved magazines. He nodded and grabbed another case and putting it opposite. "Zhang," He said to the younger officer, who was already starting to get up, "grab the fire squad from 2nd​ platton, and tell Guan to be ready for things to go to shit."

Worst case scenarios tugged at the corners of his mind as he rocked the magazine in and through leather sling over his neck and shoulder. "Well we haven't heard any explosions, and there aren't any bridges in front of us." Bill remarked, "If things are about to go wrong,-" he stopped.

The door opened allowing the viscourt or baron or whatever the brit was back in england entry escorted by a couple of their engineers. The Englishman glanced at the rifles and the forty five that had appeared in Allen's hand. "Trouble then? I suppose it was getting too quiet." The man replied with surprising calm even though his had twitched almost starting to move towards his gun before thinking better of it.

Allen didn't reholster, and rested the pistol against his thigh.

They were on a big train with a lot of cars. Too many cars if he were honest, with too many places to hide. Guan appeared cradling what the brit had termed 'small machine guns', and what he'd told them that the Germans had begun calling Machine Pistols...

The bolsheviks had of course nicked all of the Tsar's large property so they were really sort of lucky in that respect, but the Romanovs were being wined and dined as much as was possible in the the train ride... and beyond them there was no shortage of other nobles of the empire deciding to ride east with their former monarchs.

They were somewhere east of Omsk, which narrowed it down to nothing. There were stops ahead of them but he wasn't sure how long it would take this train to reach Irkutsk or Chita beyond it. "The Mausers, the Lewis guns, ya think?"

"What are you expecting?" The English man questioned.

"Nothing good." He replied to the question, "And yeah, if someone attacks the train from outside I'd like them to regret that decision before we kill them." He was probably over thinking things, but, as he'd been dreading, "The truth is we've been travelling slower than I would have otherwise liked," Bill's observation was right, blowing a bridge would have been better... the train's speed even with a big charge might stop them, but not necessarily for long. "and there is no way they've kept this quiet, no offense." It would have been better to go down the new railway, go back to China through Xinjiang and get to Xian, then they could go to Zhili and put his majesty on a boat to England... he blew out a breath, "Send some of the engineers to ah lend ahead would you." He told the lieutenant who nodded. He glanced to an infantry major, "Observation post see what's ahead of us." The man slung his scoped mauser and gathered a couple of platoon scouts from 1st​ regiment and followed after the engineer.

The train hadn't stopped. It was still trudging along with its cossacks, but there was something off that was bothering him. "We're going to the tsar then?" The englishman had decided it was 'we', but he wasn't really surprised... and the brit agreed that it wasn't feasible to outrun a telegraph. The lines were up so it was possible word had gotten out, and that Lenin should have received word that Eketarinburg had fallen... but that wasn't necessarily the same thing, "As lenin slipping an agent aboard."

"If doesn't matter if there is one or not if they dynamite the tracks it'll stop the train for a couple days." They should have gone south not east. "And do I think its likely no, the Ural commission had to send someone to petrograd to petition Lenin in person to -"

The man knew what he was going to say and got squeamish, "Yes, yes I know. We know, and at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the huns know, but we don't have to keep having that ghastliness brought up."

Allen blew a breath out and shook his head.

They moved through a couple of cars finally arriving in an ostentatious dining car that just demonstrated the variety of people comprising the White Russian cause. There were other cossacks, there were turkic folk like the yakut, there were czechs... though Allen knew his grasp of the language to be anemic at best. It wasn't just ethnic russians, nor were they strict monarchists, and of course that was why it was like herding cats. They couldn't get along.

The brit was still carrying on about the precautions and the security apparatus and telegrams and everything as they came past a group of men drinking. There was a sudden movement as the source of his paranoia must have decided the jig was up and leapt up holding another of those nickel plated mouse guns in his left hand. He shouted something stupid that sounded like a russian translation of Marx with some one else's good ideas added 'for the revolution' his sufficiently bolshevik diatribe gave everyone else in the car time to figure out something murderous was in the works.

... and then the shooting started and then just as quickly came to a stop. Splinters and broken glass exploded and covered the floor of the dining compartment.

If the idiot had shot first, assuming he could have managed the shot with his left hand he might have gotten at least one clean one off and then he could have shouted whatever he liked and had his frothing diatribe cut off then.

Of course that was assuming one of the little pops from the mouse gun would have cut it.

Instead the 25 ACP shot the window and the would be regicide found himself slumped against the bench most but not all of the pistol rounds having gone wide and into the ornate hardwood. The man was in moaning heap, though possibly because a reindeer hide boot had come down on his wrist and thus kept his hand away from the little browning he'd dropped when he'd fallen back.

"Well he's alive," The brit peered at the would be assassin and presumably fighting to be heard over the tinnitus in his ears, "We should get a doctor, he might know something." The yakut tribesman serving as the tsars honor guard looked a little surly at the notion of medical treatment for people attempting regicide but stepped back as the brit didn't back down.

Allen rested the remington against his hip, and then shrugged, and pushed on.

"Wait where are you going?"

"To the telegraph." He replied as if that should have been bloody obvious at this stage.

He had half a mind to do something peavish or at least mention this to be people who would then let their tongues wag, but he then what. No he would cable Tietsin, and figure out how far they were to Lake Baikal and they'd figure out from there how much longer.

There were just too many people on this train that he didn't know enough about... and it wasn't fast enough... and he didn't need reminding that the only people from the US Army currently in Siberia were a couple of junior officers from the department of military intelligence who had been temporarily assigned from their stations in the Philippines.

He wondered how Nicholas the second was going to feel having to rely on Japanese troops for potential security as he flipped through the various notes that were keeping track of last reported positions. "Why did we agree to this?"

"Besides King George's heartfelt gratitude?" Bill replied leaning against the wall, "The british have thing we're gonna need. They have material examples of things this fool war has invented or just made more common." The brits were welcome to be scandalized at the mercenary or flippancy of hte matter if they wanted, but it was what it was.

It was after all no secret the british weren't doing this for altruistic purposes.
--
Notes: this is somewhat short, because I need to pull ... well frankly a couple of primary sources and a few other books and work on some scenes that along with this mini arc, in part for the 'here and now' and in part for stuff down the line.

 

[ATP]

Yep,some idiot commie fanatic would do that.
And,brits never did anytching for altruistic purpose.

SI - very smart to want technologies,no money.Brits here could not stop them from taking whatever they find interesting in Central powers - Krupp guns,oeriklon 20mm,fighters,engines,and all they could find useful.

So,it would be ratcher as "do not stop us from taking technology X" then gave us technology X".

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
Personally he had no investment in the Tsar's government or in any attempt to use him to rally against the Bolsheviks, and he he doubted the Tsar would be any more use for rallying Russia against the Germans ... but the British could try and do that if they wanted to it wasn't his problem. By the time they had finally reached the fortress city on the shores of Lake Baikal everyone, in the unit, had been complaining about the train, and the condition of the trans Siberian.

All of them were so damn glad to see the japs though. That might not have ordinarily been the case but the truth was he happy to see the meatball flag streaming. Iseburo had had updated maps and diagrams of where he'd been surveying the Trans-Siberian and while there hadn't been time to drink Yamagata's son had been animated in his disgust at the railways condition when they'd put first put into the station.

There were other familiar faces. He wasn't surprised Terauchi had or his staff had probably selected people with experience from Korea.... and it made sense that man ranked colonel then would have his stars now... and that was good for him. Allen was happy to see someone who was good at their job get promoted.

Then of course there was letter waiting with Iseburo. Akashi had penned the letter from his current post as Governor of Taiwan. There was other news besides, a mix of telegrams and newspapers chronicling the world beyond Asia.

He adjusted the strap of his rifle, a motion the British aristocrat noticed and looked up from his journaling. "Still expecting an attack from the reds, I thought your Japanese friends reassured you of our most reliable position?"

"I'll be expecting an attack until we're home." Really it was more until the entourage was no longer his problem bu he would start to relax only once he was back in Xian. Jun had not been happy about this excursion regardless of what might be gained by it.

Iseburo had a labor force under his command though that was presently reinforcing Irkutsk. "Your paranoia seems to have convinced your friends at least."

He shrugged but reframed from mentioning that the Russians pointedly weren't taking it seriously or digging. "You'll notice Iseburo has his infantry digging in those positions along with civilian workers." Iseburo didn't like shouting.... but he'd also tried to get his men to sing instead... which hadn't worked that great for somethings.... it was an admirable attempt, but well... regardless. "those machine gun positions will have open fields. I'll feel better with those yes, but I'll feel better still when I'm back at home."

Iseburo was not a military man... but he was a voracious reader and when something had his attention he'd browbeat people into doing the work to very exacting specifications... but it was a kind of assertiveness that was fleeting. Iseburo just might not have been able to muster the energy to crawl out of his secluded cave of books but every so often. Right now though the dragon was up, and he wanted the killing fields aimed at the west.

In the end that would be what was best. When Omsk fell and the 'autonomous Siberian government' fled back east, the Bolshevik and their red cavalary would pursue. Iseburo would make sure to have the railways from Omsk ripped up behind them, which one of his subordinated officers underneath him had described as picking up trash, but it had meant that the costly overland march through Siberia forced the Reds to attack a heavily fortified Irkutsk... and the mix of Schneider heavy guns and machine guns that their cavalry would charge again and again until the horsemen were forced to retire defeated.

Even so the government of the Autonomous Siberia, and the Green Ukraine were far further east. Kornilov, Semenoff, and other officers were moved to Vladivostok under Japanese guardianship and a proclamation went out.

A proclamation mostly ignored. It would take years for the accepted position and for the UK, and Japan to force as part of the admission of the USSR to accept the independence of those states much as how Lenin had had to accept Latvian and Finnish independence in 1919.

... but that wasn't today. "We'll have to stay here for a bit."

John Allen didn't bother concealing the scowl. He paused looked around the tansbaikal steppe the spread out beyond the lake, and finding what he was looking for he stuck and arm out while slinging the rifle, before grabbing the khaki sleeve of the brit's uniform, "You tell me what you see out there?" he didn't wait for an answer, "Thats a yurt. Its an eight sided felt tent that the mongols have been living out of for thousands of years. There are two hundred thousand mongols," The buryats, "here for the summer camping." That was an exageration, there were Buryats who didn't wear the pig tailed qeue, there were plenty of them, but that wasn't hte point he was making. "Thats without even touching the Siberian cossacks or never mind the rest."

"I don't-"

"Iseburo is making the same correct decision as his daddy did, and the Russians are making the same damned mistake," He hissed, "Those trenches are being dug by civilians and soldiers alike, something the Russians didn't feel they should have to do when they fought the Japs so yeah, I'm worried about the discipline of the army, man. Cause I can just Wilson's face if Iseburo has to whip a bunch of red horsemen like its 1905."

... Wilson would be physically fit enough to contend with that headline though when that prescient envisioning inevitably came to pass.

--
They had good whisky, not the tarasun the locals brewed. Though Allen was aware a couple of the men had purchased a barrel of fermented mare's milk for the evening tonight.

Iseburo nursed the scotch slowly. Their conversation was not the intellectual sort per se. Iseburo had a german education... but he had no strong feelings about the war. It was just ... something that was. It was a background event, noise, background noise, a variable in the equation of his life and one that he accepted and resented depending on how it effected his work.

"Inspector General, you say?" Now, "What will that entail?"

"Making sure that material goes to where it is supposed to." Iseburo would not actually do the criminal investigations he had staff for that, but it was his name that would give things weight. Iseburo was a long standing member of the administrative apparatus. More importantly Iseburo knew how to twist the parliaments arm when it came to getting funding... to the point he'd toppled Sainoji's government over railway funding. "Its not that kind of General... though I will have certain authority. Its a position I've held before." He sipped.

It was a slight tip of the hand, an unnecessary statement that was Iseburo telling him that Japan was moving on their rivals. That they didn't trust the Russians to really deal with the Bolsheviks and that the culmination of that would be the whole sale laying claim to Siberia.

In the meantime Iseburo put the map on the table. "Material." He stated simply and laid out the various stops along the railway eastward. "So much material is stuck in Vladivostok because of this decrepit thing... we should just tear it all up and build a new one." The older railway genius grumbled.

"What's it look like from Harbin?" He asked.

There was a squinting grimace and Iseburo slugged back the last of the scotch, "Not much better... there is a car and engine shortage." The new engines were helping, but the truth was, there was still a limit on rolling stock that those cars could be called a drop in the bucket. Part of it was the need for larger protected depots for material to repair the trans siberian after a decade plus of neglect, but that was one thing that in terms of production couldn't be spared.

"you'll have to get more from the states Ise, engine capacity, and rolling stock is tied up on our western and Transoxiana lines."

There was some grumbling, "Its the same, and Akashi is trying to buy stock for Taiwan so supply is very scarce."

Then of course there was the history of it all.

--
Notes: Now this is obviously part of the timeline divergence. This goes into well for one Iseburo is actually a bit old to be doing this but he was involved in supervision of the railways in Korea (and he did tank the sainoji government either because Aritomo told him to or as a result of failure to provide adequate railway funding (or possibly both)) but also here.

This gets us to the more authoritative organization of the Anglo-Japanese position. Terauachi (and indeed his successor) want a multinational force in Siberia, Terauchi wanted a joint Anglo-American-Chinese-Japanese force, the problem at home was in his cabinet. There was almost a scene where Iseburo admits that the minister of the interior actually wanted Japan to mobilize (and deploy a million men into Siberia, which Japan was absolutely in no way capable of doing and the Genryo under Aritomo would have shot down even if Terauchi somehow went to the diet to ask for the money... and the Diet would have given them the money for it) [Japan did not have the money for it, and the navy would have screamed bloody murder if they didn't get their budget for their new battleships].

And abroad, well the big problem is in the American government is Wilson, because too idealistic for his own good and while he was moving away from maybe we can still convince the bolsheviks to get back into the war against hte Germans he did not want to commit to a Siberian intervention, and he ended up waffling on endorsing it over the course of 1918. He approved then was talked out of it by... (it wasn't House, it was one of the other advisors) and then he was convinced to agree to it, but then he insisted it be in limitted in scope. and yeah it was a mess on that front.

here Japan and Britain (and later the Chinese contingent from Manchuria, so Zhang Tso-lin) are much more inclined to operate without direct sanction or international support from Washington, and part of the way they're getting around this is through Lansing's state department and tactic state acknowledgement of the Siberian mission, but only limited US approval and of course Britain has the option of transferring troops overland from China through transoxiana which the US sort of paid for through war loans to britain but don't tell wilson that.

 

[ATP]

Yurta are very usefull for people camping on steppe.And Schneider guns were good,soviet artillery during WW2 was in fact modified Schneider guns from WW1.
Taiwan - japaneese really treated chineese there good,or rather locals,becouse they do not considered themselves as member of any nation.
And they loved them for that,and still think well about them.

USA unfortunatelly supported soviets on Siberia/they gave Wladivostok to them/
Why? tsar and church gold for Wall Street moguls.

It is good,then here Siberia is free from soviets - according to what i read,reussians there were supposed to be more practical and liked capitalism.Do not feared hard work,too.

P.S If polish siberian dyvision do not get betrayed by Czech here,you could use them against soviets before them go home.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
There was no need to correct anyone's position at the range. The arrival of the American detachment from Military Intelligence, men who should have been at their stations in the Philippines, had joined them early. Some of the detachment had garrison guns, like Guan, others a majority had personal purchase firearms.

It had been one of the defining layout to sortie was everyone needed a forty five caliber side arm, but that really wasn't so much of an ask. Personal side arms while not universal to Xian units were comparable at rates to the US Army.

It shouldn't have taken them a week to reach Lake Baikal from Yekaterinburg, and every day that they sat here he was waiting for something else to go wrong. The Whites had managed to take the city, but it still seemed presumptive to celebrate.

But maybe that was paranoia. The two intelligence wonks were both young lieutenants and seemed confident in what they were told by the British about the action on the front. Reports that were then being parroted back to Washington... which was a problem, but a problem equally being compounded by their reports on the less rosy news of events in eastern siberian towns.

He knew well the fate of such reports. They would be confined to dust ridden drawers in a file cabinet except when they were trudged out to serve a political purpose. Wilson might have had to join the war , but it didn't mean he was committed to the Anglo-Francish entente's ideas. Wilson would be looking for any excuse to avoid material commitments, and if not Wilson than his advisors who saw this nonsense in Peter, and Moscow as some flowering of Russian democracy... but that was nonsensical wishful thinking from a thousand miles away from the bloodshed.

"Be worried the Japs being here, is gonna give the frogs the wrong idea."

"When do the French ever get the right idea about a situation?" Was the response he mustered to Bill's drawl as they sat around the pot of coffee as men thumbed rounds into magazines. "But I take your point they've been shrilly," all but demanding, "calling for Japanese troops for the war in europe for almost four years now." One would have thought France assumed Japan was their ally not the British. It would be four years soon enough... Allen suspected if there had been no BEF, maybe if their Kaiser Bill hadn't tried to build such an outsized navy or whatever then the French probably would have fallen... it wouldn't have stopped the Russians from crashing into Eastern Prussia, but from the word the Germans had run them back off... and that had contributed to their current mess. "No sense for us worrying about it."

"A million men would help, you know." The British officer remarked putting his cup down while a handful of sergeants reset the plates.

"Not if they freeze come winter." Bill grunted shaking his head, "Sending boats is one thing."

"He's right, winter campaigning is a mess, and that railway, it took us a whole week to get-"

"That's three thousand kilometers, general." It was funny the rank came up now.

"Eighteen hundred miles, what you will end up with back logs," What they already had ended up with, "Are back ups in the system. You're already seeing it, where groups going one way run into groups going the other, and there is no clear order to who moves for who." Not the least of which was because there was no clear chain of command.

"Well how would you improve the white's situation?"

"Pull the czechs off the front."

"What?"


"You hear me out, this french idea of just constantly attacking is going to cause a mutiny." The english man colored, "It will, its amazing the French lasted as long as they did and commend them for it, but their officers are fucking morons for putting their men through the sausage grinder like that." They should have realized it wasn't working in 1914, "No take the czechs, and the rest of the slavs off the line you want them to fight they need time to to train and train others, and be rearmed. Pulling them off for rest, and retraining will let you settle out disciplinary issues, and it will give you time to secure the railway, which means you'll stop bottlenecking transit of men and supplies."

They had an audience. Most likely some of the johny come latelys had come to try their hands at the pistol tables. Not that he fancied their mice guns, their bigger brownings were meant for shooting at fifty and farther targets despite the parabolic arc a 45 government flew at. If you wanted you could drop a bullet on a man at a hundred feet even if that had been demanded with little consideration for being realistic, but that was what ordinance had been demanding in 1907... and Ordinance did tend to get its way.

--
If ... well it hadn't taken long MacKinder's military attaché to figure looking at the map that the Urals would have been the best place to shore up and stop things... but by the summer of 1918 that was too late. It sounded great on paper but the back end things needed to be straightened out, and while it might have still been possible with the White's spate of successes it would never come to pass.

In the future ... on other days looking aback he would wonder what might have happened to their world to the relations if Russia had been sundered between a Bolshevik 'European' / 'western' russia and the Urals... and whether or not the British could have made good on their economic concessions in the Baku oil fields in the caucus.

Of course if that had been, then Wall Street would have likely pressed hard to sink dollars freed by the end of the war into Siberia in the economic concessions promised by the interim government of 1917... and damn what Wilson thought about how American should act.

It didn't matter, that wasn't what happened. The British would talk about a unified White movement, and all of Siberia and Central Asia, and the Urals. The Japanese Home Secretary could take about wanting to put a million men in Russia, and Terauchi could talk about how their needed to be a joint mission of Japanese, English, American, and Chinese all together to stop Bolshevism and its anarchy but getting the details where everyone would sign was a bridge too far.

What might of been...

"The fighting to the west is displacing more people than we thought," The doctor muttered looking up from the telegram, "It seems as if something happened on the southern front," Whatever that was supposed to entail, "And is pushing the Cossacks down the rail lines towards Kirghiz, the ones that aren't the ones following the Whites under Kolchak are heading this way." The surgeon pinched the bridge of his nose... and sighed, "We'll have to write to Wilson, there has to be something to do or we'll have a crisis."

It wasn't an outlandish sentiment. It shouldn't have been a funny suggestion, or some kind of joke... but it kind of felt like one.

"Tch, and what? Wilson can't make up his mind to do a damned thing right." There was a pause and they fell silent. Wilson had overruled the Federal reserve regarding what was good solid data about the insolvency of the French... and for that matter the risk of the British pound, and then he'd turned around and nixed a mere pittance of the money being loaned to the french to in turn buy up midwestern grain to Duan's government in Beijing... and i he wasn't willing to do that what were the chances he'd be willing to approve real aid to the Whites with bastards like Bullit pretending the bolsheviks weren't cutthroats... or for that matter, "Japan can't be sure of American loans and if they can't be sure the diet can't vote to mobilize."

Goto Shinpei could talk about a million men to the British, or people could take the interior minister at his word and and as a rosy idea, but the reality still sat that the money for that had to come from somewhere... and a million men was a lot of mouth's to feed, and Japan was already having problems with food prices inflating. If the US had to ship food here, if it did that would be food probably pushing prices higher at home in the states, and also on the market abroad... which was going to cause discontent beyond what was already mounting.

A million just wasn't going to be practical.

--
Without Wilson being willing to definitively commit to US support for a broad policy of intervention in Siberia, or in Russia in general the British and the Japanese ministries took more limited means... and one nominally reckoning on Chinese involvement. That was going to prompt protests from down south of course, but Canton likely wouldn't have been happy with Duan agreeing to anything on paper... and the British conditions were that Duan had to have parliament ratify the agreements, a condition Terauchi had immediately latched on to as well.

They hadn't specified which parliament, and thus Duan's planned elections made alot of good sense. The list of names that Brit had been able to put from those coming up from Manchuria were largely officers who had been in the Russo-Japanese war, men who had sense made colonel, or even garnered stars.

That presented potential issues. Some of those men, as younger men, had thought at the time that Japan should have walked away from the war with Siberia for their troubles. There had been days back then that Allen had wondered why the Brits hadn't jumped the Russians... he had understood why Uncle Sam was staying out, but at the time he had expected as the ally of Japan and as fairly belligerent towards the Russians as the Brits were why they hadn't taken the opportunity.

That Japan had opened the war, and Japan hadn't asked for British involvement beyond 'neutrality' did probably a role, but at the same time the French had been pressuring the British to stay neutral... but there were days he looked back on 1905 and wondered what would have happened if it had gone differently.

It didn't matter. It hadn't.

"With Peter, and Moscow," The two largest cities in the Empire, "Under bolshevik control," And with the third largest city of the empire under german control, "and Lenin refusing to recognize foreign debts Taka has a point about nationalizing the Eastern Chinese Railway system," The Russian Manchurian line, the only reason they hadn't done that sooner was because in 16 the Russians were officially cobelligerents and so pressuring that that line in the maritime be ceded for outstanding debts made sense... that and the Brits might have been paying the interest up until last year.

But it was gonna spark a fight that was for sure... but on the other hand, "Suppose that explains the telegraph..."

"The french aren't going to like that, but we shouldn't be surprise. The British are talking to Lansing about recognizing spheres of influence , I think they'll expect him to pull an Ed Gray, which I don't think is going to work."

"Won't know until it happens."

Allen got up and walked the edge of the room, and took a glance at the yard, "We have to get home, we're staying here too long, and Nicholas is an idiot, a well meaning idiot, sure but I want stuff him on a ship for England sooner rather than later before he starts wanting to take command of the army."

--
Notes: this is the penultimate July 1918 chapter there is a little bit more to cover and then we go into the handful of sections wrapping up the year as a whole

 

[ATP]

Nicolas was well meaning idiot.He started WW1 with ban on vodka,becouse he want russian people healthy - but,forget that at least 25% of budget come from it.
I once read book about it,forget title,as usual.
If he do not did so,Russia would not fall.
He also let send his foot guard on suicidal attacks after Brusiłow offensive failed,and new conscprict do not support tsar during revolution.
He was good man,but failure as ruler and commander.

England was arleady ruled by cabal who wonted Kaiser down for unknown reason,so they would join war even if Germans had only gunboats.

Wilson was another well-meaning idiot,and Wall Street in 1918 treated Russia as one big market,and supported both Lenin and Kolczak with money to be sure to get their share no matter who win.

French was idiots,too,and they started war beliving that charging in red pants would gave them victory.What was they,WH40 orks ?

And range of pistols - german Mauser made pistol which,at least in theory,could hit targets at 800m.

Planes - since you buyed Albatros,you could take over when factory merged with Focke Wulf in OTL.Or keep connections with Focke Wulf,and get Fw190 prototype in 1939.
Both seems fine.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Nicolas was well meaning idiot.He started WW1 with ban on vodka,becouse he want russian people healthy - but,forget that at least 25% of budget come from it.
I once read book about it,forget title,as usual.
If he do not did so,Russia would not fall.
He also let send his foot guard on suicidal attacks after Brusiłow offensive failed,and new conscprict do not support tsar during revolution.
He was good man,but failure as ruler and commander.

England was arleady ruled by cabal who wonted Kaiser down for unknown reason,so they would join war even if Germans had only gunboats.

Wilson was another well-meaning idiot,and Wall Street in 1918 treated Russia as one big market,and supported both Lenin and Kolczak with money to be sure to get their share no matter who win.

French was idiots,too,and they started war beliving that charging in red pants would gave them victory.What was they,WH40 orks ?

And range of pistols - german Mauser made pistol which,at least in theory,could hit targets at 800m.

Planes - since you buyed Albatros,you could take over when factory merged with Focke Wulf in OTL.Or keep connections with Focke Wulf,and get Fw190 prototype in 1939.
Both seems fine.

Click to shrink...

Yeah the Mauser 96's italian navy trials is flat out insane in terms of what they expected it to do, and that it actually worked. To be fair the 96 is a large pistol the naval pistol has a large sight radius its adjustable, 7.62 is a ballisticly advantageous cartridge

but on the other side its not particularly ergonomic or form efficent, its a big pistol, nor is it cheap 25 bucks in 1900 money is expensive when you might be spend 8 for a standard caliber rifle.

It is arguably one of the best most innovative pistol designs of the early era, it the Luger, and the 1911 all encapsulate an early period of development work that really define semi automatic pistols as a system. They build successively from one to the next in different ways
--
and really with the idiot conversation WW1 and its consequences caught a lot of people by surprise, because ww1 has its roots in the concert of Europe failing and in the social problems between states engendered there of. The fact that all of these leaders, all of them had woefully outdated notions of how their states worked, how geopolitics worked, and more importantly what they were getting themselves into is a major demonstrator of why WW1 is considered the end of the long 19th century period of history.

 

[ATP]

Yeah the Mauser 96's italian navy trials is flat out insane in terms of what they expected it to do, and that it actually worked. To be fair the 96 is a large pistol the naval pistol has a large sight radius its adjustable, 7.62 is a ballisticly advantageous cartridge

but on the other side its not particularly ergonomic or form efficent, its a big pistol, nor is it cheap 25 bucks in 1900 money is expensive when you might be spend 8 for a standard caliber rifle.

It is arguably one of the best most innovative pistol designs of the early era, it the Luger, and the 1911 all encapsulate an early period of development work that really define semi automatic pistols as a system. They build successively from one to the next in different ways
--
and really with the idiot conversation WW1 and its consequences caught a lot of people by surprise, because ww1 has its roots in the concert of Europe failing and in the social problems between states engendered there of. The fact that all of these leaders, all of them had woefully outdated notions of how their states worked, how geopolitics worked, and more importantly what they were getting themselves into is a major demonstrator of why WW1 is considered the end of the long 19th century period of history.

Click to shrink...

Indeed,19th century politically ended in 1914,just like 20th century is politically ending now.
Sad thing about WW1 - if even one state leaders start thinking,there would be no war.And,if their generals was better/or,in german case,do not fucked their own plans/ ,we could have short victorious war for eiter Germany or Russia.
I remember some story on AH/unfortunatelly dead,and forget title/ where smart french generals gave their sodiers helmets,normal uniforms,howitzers,LMG,do not charged blindly,and,as a result,started winning after few months.

Not good for my country/Poland/,but i still prefer it to bloodbath and revolutions after that.

Fun thing about pistols during 1905 revoution polish socialist buyed do many Brownings,that they were actually better armed in small fights then tsar police with Nagans.
Not tthat it mattered in the end.

 

[Imperator Pax]

July 1918
In later years... after the war had ended and especially after the idiots had dictated their peace terms and insured that there would certainly be a continuation of the bloodletting... Allen had fewer problems admitting that he'd misjudged the situation. In July 1918 he was more sure, "Lenin is imicable to the Cossacks. They can't get along." at the time he just couldn't imagine that Lenin would be able to sway the chaos prone frontiersmen and their bands to sign on with the Marxist rhetoric of world revolution or perhaps more importantly that he'd be able to effectively use them.

Lenin had spent hte majority of the war ensconced in the protective bubble of neutral switzerland it was in hindsight all the more the pity that the Austrians hadn't assumed Lenin a member of the Okhrana and kept him in prison. The Franco-British position though remained convinced that the Russians needed to be brought back into the war against the Germans immediately, which was perhaps the greater hurdle with so many other resources tied up elsewhere... all too frequently the British, and the French for that matter defaulted to their standby excuse of their imperial commitments elsewhere.

Daniel's letter from before they'd left for this ... well his brother seemed afraid of missing the fighting... but the AEF was gearing for a grand offensive in the spring. That was the nominal excuse by which Crozier had pulled the Lewis guns from the front. For 'operational security', never damn well mind that the British had been using the Lewis gun for three bloody years by this point, and the Germans had taken some when Belgium had fallen.

There was nothing that good be done though. The AEF, Daniel and Black Jack extended ranks of others were in France. There were members of the Cadre in Switzerland and England both who would pass news as it came, but that would be slowed by the fact they were here in the east, and the amount of wire and switchboards the messages would have to cross would take longer to get there.

Still that brought them back to the Cossacks, and part of the reason he had misjudged. The eventual split between red and white atamans and their bands began like most things. Over small petty disagreements between men with one thing leading to another. Oh some of the Cossack leaders would turn to claims of patriotism and some would need to be strong armed by the Bolsheviks approaching the truly medieval and holding hostages but that wasn't immediately clear in 1918.

"that doesn't change the facts." The surgeon remarked.

Bill echoed the remark with observation of the disorder amongst the whites, and beyond simply the lack of a clear leader... which Kolchak could make all the protests to the contrary but it was clear he didn't have the pull to truly be the indisputable leader of the White Russian cause. It was worse than that Lenin could brow beat if not all of the reds then most of them and force his way through any allegedly parliamentary proceedings.

The British were quick, very quick to insist that if the Kaiser could win in the east he would force a brest litovsk on France as well. It was apples and oranges so far as Allen could see. The balance just wasn't there. The Austrians, and the Turks were there in the east on the Russian border, in a way that they were physically absent further west where it was more than just the French, and the British, but the mustering of the British Empire at large, and the Italians and now the AEF.

There were too many disparate factions and the Tsar was a potential avenue by which to secure British recognition and funding. Whether he could or not deliver that didn't matter, it was the appearance that to the mass of generals and admirals the Tsar's sanction might win them international recognition gave the cliques something to wrangle.

It had taken them too long to get to Baikal, and they were staying too long. "We will need to consider the other effects," There had been a humanitarian crisis that had largely escaped the eastern papers back home in a way the Armenian murders hadn't, but had still shown in China. Now there were hundreds of thousands of cossacks fleeing east into Siberia from the western half of the fragmenting Russian empire, and that was going to reshape a sparsely populated land, and shape migrant communities also in Kirghiz and probably Manchuria as well if they kept going.

There had been little to be done in the wake of the peasant revolt, and suppression in central asia directly. The situation here though, that was different. There was a rail line connecting Xinjiang and from the 'new territory' to Xian via the lake trunk. They were indisputably involved in such things now.

"We're generally agreed that for the time being that Lenin's repudiation of debts owed by the Russian states and seizure of foreign property will cut him from foreign arms." Allen sighed, "The problem I see with that is I don't see either lasting. Lenin sold the Germans the most productive parts of the empire for a fairy tale promise of peace,." That the Germans wouldn't turn around and take the rest and march on Petersburg.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't turn around and promise some sweetheart deal to anyone back home willing to ship him guns for gold."

"He doesn't have the gold though? The states don't need grain either." Ukraine supposedly was going to trade grain for investment from the Austrians and Germans or something... but that didn't do Moscow or Petersburg any good, "The bastard has to be playing for time."

It was probably political theater, and grandstanding. Lenin probably needed to take a stand for the party after Best litovsk and... and the Russian state was a debtor nation it had never had a complex banking system so the outstanding French loans to the tsar from decades previous, never mind England, and the states, and for that matter whoever else simply could not be anything but dead weight on a new supposedly revolutionary nation.

"He has to be," Allen agreed, then sighed, looking out over the trans-baikal surroundings. "We need to get back. We can't make any sort of leverage, and even if we could this is a sufficiently serious matter we're all going to have to vote." That damned railway into central asia had seemed like such easy money at the time.
--
"So what about your Japanese friend then?"

"Iseburo, you know about him."

"No, no, the other gentlemen General,"

"Taro, he's a bulldog." Allen replied, then to avoid confusion "That's a compliment, he's pretty grounded though... even if he does think that Japan should have walked off from the last war with Siberia."

"Oh dear." The British military attache muttered. "But-"

"Taro was a colonel during the war, and he's a good man for stars. He's a good choice to keep order, and him and Iseburo will work well together."

"And the packet he handed off to you." Allen's expression darkened, and the Brit quieted. "I mean-"

"Taro supported the proposal that there should be an exchange between Japanese intelligence, and their British counterparts. It was your government that didn't think it was better for both sides to keep things back... but if you really want to know, or you want to tell Mackinder Yamagata doesn't think enough is being done." Which was an actually an understatement... "He wants Taro to handle the military side of things with a joint allied force." This would be the beginning of the split of the Kwantung army whereby the IJA's anti-russian anti-communist factions split from the more belligerent wing, and also exasperated internal disputes within the Kenseikai and their Mitsubishi financial patrons.

... but that was in the future...

"Machine guns? Artillery?"

"Mostly machine guns," Allen shrugged, "Taro isn't really a red leg or adjacent to them," He wanted airplanes, but he had no way to provide that, and that would have to be the states or the Brits or whoever... even though yes the idea of observing the Russian positions made sense. Especially made sense to a man who'd made his career in intelligence.

There was a rumbling from the train. "We're stopping-"

Allen smirked as he stood. All that drivel spouted ... the real effect of it all was it was going to cause a famine the likes of which Russia had never seen in its whole three hundred years of Romanov rule... "I'll tell you know, the Germans winning is impossible. You have to keep the french from surrendering, as long as you can keep the mutinies in check, the Germans will lose. Its just numbers and even on the defensive they kept hold out if you can keep some still in the French's spine." There was a start of protest of what if the German divisions in the east came over, "If that bothers you that much dump as many weapons as you can to the nationalists in the little nations that stand to become independent of Austria, and Germany and the Russians. But the bigger danger is the French loosing their nerve, and the Italians following suit. As for here, those were Zhang's banners in Chita. Manchuria is going to Siberia."

They had only been able to wave at the combined Japanese Chinese troops at parade rest as they had passed. Waves which had been returned... but it had been hard to miss Zhang's troops having new issue Arisakas. There were three japanese divisions, which was less than he expected but if Yamagata was serious about what he'd written Taro could reasonably expect some reinforcements from Japan forthcoming.

He did have some questions about the weapons stockpiled in Vladivostok, but now wasn't the time. There were other questions besides, there were not quite questions per se but interests about what others were doing. He looked to the Gendarmes officer at the door, cocked his head back to the Brit, "To answer your question, we're stopping because we're here." He replied

The black uniformed officer stepped in behind him leaving the British attaché to file to the rear as the dismount to the platform took shape. Cullen was absent, and there was no larger gendarmes presence... but it was hard to mistake the shape of the 1st​ Regiment at assemblage. Or what it signified or suggested. Griswold had moved the entire regiment, sans those on detached duties, to Peking and by all observable indication, Qirui had not raised issue.

Whether that was because unlike Zhang they were paying provincial taxes or the just general proximity to Zhili province it was impossible to know. Zhang, for all the aid he had rendered to Qirui in returning to power in displacing the pony tail general when the Manchu restoration had taken the capital, had ceased paying taxes to Peking. Of course it was also possible Cao Kun as dujun of Zhili technically had waved their troops through Baoding without even considering Qirui's office of premier.

Given the mechanization of the regiment they would be out of Peking and returned to their half of western Zhili in the original enclave of Yuan Shikai, and the late Qing era soon enough. He spared the Brit a glance, and a look further down to the Tsar, who was shorter by far than any of them, his nearest comparison being the five seven figure of a senior sergeant who was cradling one of Lewis's small machine guns, which looked akin to a toy in hands the size of a small cast iron skilet.



--
Notes: This concludes july and the romanoff rescue along the lines of the original draft with certain additional details.

This is going up as is, and today. This was going to be saturday's update, instead I will be updating twice this week with starting August 1918 Saturday. Unfortunately I had technical difficulties wednesday morning which mulched some updates I had been working on so it was easier to just update this twice this week.

As to the prescence of troops in Beijing, Qirui allowed or at least didn't protest other beiyang armies in the capital. Zhang, Feng, other commanders, indeed this is what actually gets him into trouble is that he doesn't seem to have expected those troops to cause trouble. Qirui's attempt to consensus build with the broader northern chinese military hiearchy involved nominal recognition of regional commanders and of course that meant allowing Cao Kun's 3rd division (one of the original Yuan Shikai Zhili Army units) to enter the capital. So there isn't really a historical issue with having an affiliate military unit in Beijing temporarily

 

[Imperator Pax]

August 1918
A krag jorgensen, the rifle most of them had carried in the Philippines, weighed eight and a half pounds. Eight inches shorter than the Krag, with a twenty inch barrel the rifle on the table was the completed version of what Cole's Gendarmes had been testing. It was just under seven pounds before one loaded the magazine. "They'll outshoot them."

Griswold nodded, "That may be true,"

"Its lighter, it'll recoil more." Waite reiterated an observation they had known two years earlier. It was just physics after all. "I can port the barrel but then Shellman will complain about the noise and hurting the men's hearing."

"The suppressor works?"

"Yeah we've had no problems with them." Cullen replied, "What about on your little hunting trip?"

"We had no issues with them." He replied, suppressing their pistols would be something to talk about later, but the carbines and their accurized set up were intended for the commando's scouts. "Realistically what are our options?"

Griswold frowned, "The 14 series is going to be cheaper, we would have to make a lot of these and frankly that would mean producing enough for all of 1st​ and 3rd​ and," He meant the whole rifle divisions not the original regiments, "the brigades and nevermind the spares." There had been a discussion about the consumptive effects when they had started producing the 'enfields' about just how much wastage the Brits expected, "They are shorter and they have detachable box magazines. In the hands of 1st​ regiment boys can put a mad minute down, that's not a question, but these rifles were not designed to take bayonets. Frankly they're carbines." Which was an issue, "Yan wants sword bayonets like the 14 uses and we have had to show off cavalry charges before so he isn't precisely wrong about that."

Waite waved his hands in the georgian's direction, "Well there you go straight from the horse's mouth." There was a pause, "What do we have else to contend with? You wanted something?" He grunted to Cole suspiciously.

Allen turned, he had some idea, "A sniper school?" They had been talking about it off and on, especially

"Separate from the regimental level at least. Standard course work. British do it for six weeks, and I reckon we can start there." Cullen shrugged, "By the way did you hear lenin got shot in a train station?"

There was a pause. "Really, funny that." He muttered. The Bolsheviks had nominally ratified their new constitution while they'd been on the train ride towards lake Baikal. The Tsar and his family had been safe and away by the seventh of July on the trans siberian rail with them when the soviets had put that out.
--
There was a click as the magazine came off, "The inside is as complicated as it sounds?" JP asked continuing to strip down the russian rifle, "I mean, I understand the cartridge problem, we've had that one." Plenty of people had had that problem it was the great impediment.

He nodded looking over the paper. The China Hands and their chinese audience wouldn't use the term rebel yell. Rebel had implications... but a paper in the states, or with a strictly american audience didn't mind terms like rebel yell.

The irony of course was the eponymous 'Rebel yell' of the civil war was of Irish volunteers of the Confederacy... and that same battlecry had been used by blue jacket Irish under Grant and Sherman... but then well Tecumsah Sherman's vanguard had comprised alabama cavalrymen so it was what it was. He creased the paper, and nodded again, "You should see the machining inside for yourself JP." He stopped, "Oh I should mention, that thing is a bitch to disassemble, you want a second set of hands?"

John Paul was looking down at the magazine, and had another hand resting it in a cradle on his work desk. "Uh, yeah, I'd like to look at it for another minute and try and work this out, but, it works right?"

"Yeah, we were lucky Bill would give it up." The truth was the Texan and Nakamichi both had been playing with the thing for the past week. Griswold absolutely refused to allow anyone outside of his machine rifle ETS engineers to touch the trio of rifles he had pinned up in the State Military Works. Cullen had the fifth gun from the crate in Zhengzhou with his commandoes looking at it. "anyway," He muttered idling over and putting the chicago paper aside.

The rifle was a short recoil gun, which had probably contributed to the tolerance issues of managing the full power 7.62x54 Russian even as just a self loading mechanism.

"The magazine sort of looks like a madsen should look like." JP observed.

"If the magazines were interchangeable sure." But that was probably due to how few of these Federov had probably gotten around to building... and probably due to having to make a gun in the Arisaka cartridge, "Pull the band off I'll hold it, then we can flip it over and unscrew the lower receiver." It was not a gun intended to be serviced much in the field.

Kovrov arsenal had been built by the Danes with pratt and whitney tooling but it was too close to moscow to do anything about, "Pft I'd kill to have those machines though." JP muttered, "How did the Danes even get them back order being what it was?"

"The Brits, War munitions boards came to an agreement." There had been some back room chatter about leveraging to try and get the Danes to break neutrality but that had never gone anywhere and parliament had been too squeamish to push too hard but enough that the treasury had managed to get Madsen an order of machines for 'the war effort' from Pratt and Whitney. "But we need to be making more of our own tooling anyway."

"Yeah, well that easier said than done, ah shit." JP cursed as the left side plate fell off.

"Its supposed to do that."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure it rides in that track, and cams, that sheet metal just holds it in plate," Cedar grimaced, and holding the right plate in with his thumb picked up the other, "That's how its supposed to be." Allen reiterated at the skeptical look.

"Its nice machining," He conceded, "But still that's a little queer."

"If it works."

"I suppose." JP concurred.
--
Their own papers were focused on domestic matters. Provincial matters took priority over things in Peking, or Shanghai, people who wanted that news could read the Herald. The circulation was down though from where it had been in June... which could have been nothing... but it was also possible that there was other talk around town.

The only real federal news from Peking of importance was the argument over the parliament, and the elections. The real news that both sets of papers were missing was the forest for the trees of the war, they had recognized that there were going to have to be changes to how the business ran. The vertical integration would make it possible to reduce waste, that was to say that the cadre was attempting to keep as much of its steel consumption in house...
"We will see an increased demand, we will need more rail ties, and we'll need more for engines." Most of those engines would be coal fired, not more powerful diesels, but those diesel engines were going to be limited to specific routes ... and for recovery trains it was easier to have an engineering train do its bit with a diesel, "But-"

"We knew it was coming, the Germans had to give ground some time."

"Still got to get to Berlin," The older artillery man remarked. "The Germans might be spent as an offensive force, but if they fall back into the lines they could surely hold another year."

"We'd still be facing competition from bigger more mature firms in the states," Big firms that had all the same integration benefits that they did, on a much larger scale. Firms that were subject to Wilson's poorly run but still top directed War Board... a board that was stymied by being too slow to start, and then had tried to take off running before they were ready on top of lack of effective leadership. "Restructuring is unavoidable, and frankly we're going to have to see what we can ship to Guatemala too,"

"Its not just Guatemala, United wants a larger rail network through the whole region... and lets not pretend about it. Those coffee plantations are tempting for Powell. The plan is a railway to replace the old spanish roads to the three capitals, and he'll include El Salvador too if he can talk them into it."

"He's been busy," which was probably an understatement, "I assume he and Dulles must think they have a good chance of carrying all that off." But still that was true, they needed to be able to export at least some of their expanded production, but they were going to have to look at drawing down beyond just the temporary need to overhaul the mills once new tooling was available... the market had too much stock, "

That was obvious... the fact steel prices, all metal prices had jumped to their highs of the pervious year before cooling slightly this year just meant that the next few years were going to harsh and mill trading. Demand for finished goods would change too, but in different ways.
--
Notes: this marks the first of two segments of August 1918 back in northern China, and leading into the time skip to spring of 1919 that is after the november armistice and on the cusp of the treaty of Versailles being publicized.

 

[ATP]

Thanks for great chapters.

In OTL,some cossacks supported Lenin,but most not.Not that it mattered.Here,some would remain free - good for them.

In OTL Lenin get all tsar gold,and,except 100t gave to germans,are went to Wall Street for weapons and good food for party members/locals died in millions,but who cared? cerainly not Lenin./

France was in not danger of collapse with smart leaders,but Italy could fall if germans send more their troops there.It would change notching during war,but later they would get even less,and italy probably never join Hitler.
Which mean germans no helping Italy,sending more troops to fight soviets,and probably taking Moscov.That could change History - or not.Hitler and his stupidity could still save soviets.

They get Fedorow - good,it was not weapon for every soldier,but they could made it for elite units,if they take Arisaka ammo.
Which is not impossible,Mauser rifle could work with it,just like Lewis LMG.

Rebel yell used bu chineese troops,but could not be name as rebel? well,just name it irish again.

Guatemala - are they planning to joing infamous United Fruit Company? to be honest,they are one of good reasons why americans are hated in South and Central America.
If i lived there,not in Poland,i would probably hate USA,too.

 

[Imperator Pax]

With regards to Dulles and the United Fruit, this is before United's mergers so they haven't gone off the deep end yet. Technically at this point United already runs guatemala's telecommunications (telephone, telegraph, and postal service, which is what they were invited to do in 1900) and the broader corporate prescence bringing in the MAK investments to build the Trans American Line will have significant knock on effects in the interwar and basically derail United's involvement after 1930, it doesn't do anything for their involvement in south america, but the MAK has significantly more reason to be anti Sandino after he launches his insurgency than either united or the nominal government before the third go round of trying to establish a united states of central America, which then derails United's involvement in the post war fifties because it entirely changes the government of the three of the four countries in the region.