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Nah, it's not slave labor if your reward is to see socialism thrive.Hmm.... I've seen that before, but where...
What was it called again...
And seriously I do think they will pay these guys decently. The USSA started out with labor shortages as the story said, and in a planned economy you never feel like you have enough labor. Always so many important projects, so many things the state wants to do, without a good way to tell what is a worthwhile investment and what is not one. And productivity somehow never quite is where it should be.
Although, with this being the a socialist society built atop of what was once the USA, I'm curious how the much greater availability (and wider acceptance on all sides of the political spectrum) of economic science before the 2ACW, will influence the decisions of the new leadership. Potentially they could go about their projects a lot smarter, and with way better ground level management, than the Soviets of OTL ever did. The Soviets were trying to run their society with horrifyingly ignorant management due to their terrible situation after their civil war. On the other hand, availability of knowledge and sound advice does not mean knowledge will be used and advice will be valued. It requires that those in power can be persuaded to appreciate the advice and agree that it is better than the idiotic ideas that even the smartest people always have on their own. We'll see...
As much as I hate the USSA, I feel like this is a little unfair, even for the forcibly transferred Mexican workers they seem to be getting fairly paid and will eventually be well treated.Hmm.... I've seen that before, but where...
What was it called again...
From what I gather here it seems that Browder isn’t out to break the Mexicans (and Africans) he more wants to burture true loyalty and love by them towards the central USSA government.
I'm sure Germany's attempt to stay a military superpower will go just peachy for them in a way that definitely won't fail and radicalize a budding far right movement already angered by Russian influence over the Kaiserreich
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@Teivel the chronicle style summary of historian events is a new style element in your AAR, isn't it? Are you planning to cover time more quickly in this way?
If Germany manages to stay on the cutting edge of military tech, I can see a future where they can spin that off into successful civilian application until Germany Linda turns into Europe’s mechanic/armourer.
They’ll be the ones creating new engines for civilian airline companies, making tractors, cars, and when the time comes, computers, mobile phones...etc.
If the British empire manages to hold on to the American (now Australian) conglomerates and their land in India (or better yet, expand it to control all of India again) they can live very comfortably at just being traders for both cheap and luxury consumer goods, everything from tea to chocolate to mass produced fashion to luxury brands, you want it, it was probably made in one of the British dominions, their days as a global military hegemone are behind them now tho.
They’ll be the ones creating new engines for civilian airline companies, making tractors, cars, and when the time comes, computers, mobile phones...etc.
If the British empire manages to hold on to the American (now Australian) conglomerates and their land in India (or better yet, expand it to control all of India again) they can live very comfortably at just being traders for both cheap and luxury consumer goods, everything from tea to chocolate to mass produced fashion to luxury brands, you want it, it was probably made in one of the British dominions, their days as a global military hegemone are behind them now tho.
It's something I thought I'd try out. If I want to do the average year in 2-3 posts, and for that year to focus on a particular continent, it seemed like a decent way to keep people informed on what was happening elsewhere. I can get rid of it if people don't like it for whatever reason.
Edit: I say this, knowing I'll inevitably end up lengthening some years which have major conflicts or crises, the pacing will also have a lot to do with the patience/energy in the reader base. Are we like a hundred updates from the end or two or more times that many? I can't say I know yet.
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I think it might be more roundabout
- the military-first policy incites a the left and centrist opposition into vetoing the government's budget and mobilizes for a coalition campaign to put an end to the whole set of postwar policies
- the right mobilizes against this and reaches out to the extreme right in need for street level support
- the extreme right launches a campaign of ultra nationalist, antisemitic, xenophobic hate mongering to trump the opposition's pacifist and economically populist campaign, and parts of the Kaiser - loyal judiciary and administration side with them and provide cover from legal consequences while civility and decency are thrown into the rubbish bin
- the center-left wins the election
- the Kaiser goes full obstructionism
- a popular general launches a "stab in the back" myth and becomes figurehead for the extreme right
- the center left coalition struggles to get anything done
- cue OTL history of the Weimar republic
But it would be difficult for right wing demagogues to fan OTL Weimar levels of xenophobia in TTL Germany if the rest of Europe obviously doing a lot better and enjoys more peace than Germany. People would more easily see through it all and understand that it's Germany's own right wing policies holding her back, not some imagined hostility of the Russian dominated new order. The Kaiser's guys and the extreme right would have to erect a totalitarian style censorship regime in record time to prevent people from making up their minds that it's the Kaiser himself who is the problem and not the Jews, the crypto syndicalists, the freemasons or other scapegoats.
Well, Wilhelm III should by dying in 2 years, after which Louis Ferdinand, who should be far less amenable to the far right, will be Kaiser, so that should change the situation quite drastically.
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Oh shit, I didn’t think about that. Then it’ll be the era of the young emperors, maybe finally they’ll give Otto his League of Nations/European Union he’s been chasing so earnestly.
Also, I kinda want to see the Asian wars, you know, when things finally come to a head in China and India, it’ll be the first round of wars that the Europeans technically don’t have to fight, so instead of them taking charge in a fight for survival, they’ll have to convince their various senates and parliaments to agree to allocate funds and troops there, should be fun.
Also, I kinda want to see the Asian wars, you know, when things finally come to a head in China and India, it’ll be the first round of wars that the Europeans technically don’t have to fight, so instead of them taking charge in a fight for survival, they’ll have to convince their various senates and parliaments to agree to allocate funds and troops there, should be fun.
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I'm not so sure about the supposed 'good pay' that the relocated Mexican and African workers will receive in the Great Plains of the US. I remember the initial idea was (according to an earlier update) that agricultural workers would be prioritized for relocation. Not unlike what happened in OTL Eastern Europe with countless masses being sent to Siberia. In general, those people were NOT well paid. In general, agricultural workers aren't well paid, no matter the system they're in (in OTL Communist countries, it was 'understood' that they'd get the minimum wage, or even less - since they were able to 'grow some food in their back yard').
All in all, this leads me to think the people involved in the relocation would be treated little better than slaves, especially since in the beginning they'd have NO proper lodgings, and would have to basically fend for themselves in 'work camps.' I expect casualties will be extremely high, especially in the early years (and especially with the more 'reactionary' elements, courtesy of the CIA).
All in all, this leads me to think the people involved in the relocation would be treated little better than slaves, especially since in the beginning they'd have NO proper lodgings, and would have to basically fend for themselves in 'work camps.' I expect casualties will be extremely high, especially in the early years (and especially with the more 'reactionary' elements, courtesy of the CIA).
363: The Restless East - Part 1
Shanghai - January 1949
Shanghai - January 1949
The Austrian, von Steiger, puffed gently on his pipe as the Chinese server placed another pot of tea in front of them, retreating with a deep bow. The evening view over Shanghai harbour from the legation hotel was, it had to be admitted, quite something. “What I don’t understand Ivan, is why you think you need us.”
Ivan didn’t have an official role to claim, his dealings with the Imperial Government were at arms length, but most around here understood that on legation matters, he was as good as a telegraph line to Saint Petersburg. “Meaning what?”
Von Steiger finally set down the pipe after one last puff. The bustling noise of Shanghai washing over them both. “You have the Belgian and British votes I presume, and that pet Congress of Americans you keep around in Vladivostok. That gives you four, so unless I’m missing something obvious, you’re kingmaker. You back Berlin, that’s the five they need, you side with your Japanese friends….much the same. So why…” he tapped his fingers on the table “are you talking to me, and not them?”
Ivan drank the tea, casting a quick eye around to make sure the Nepalese toughs he’d posted outside their booth were keeping the prying eyes away. “Because, as often seems to be the case these days, you want the same thing we do.”
“Meaning?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Von Steiger gave a resigned nod. “Berlin wishes to re-establish herself as a great power in Asia, and to drain China dry. Japan wishes to confirm her prominence…and drain China dry. You and your Motherland want…”
“Quiet. Quiet peace and prosperity. A China more concerned with recovery, growth, and cooperation.”
“You mean, Ivan” interjected von Steiger with a rap on the table “one that will accept her territorial losses in Manchuria and refrain from any action to challenge them so long as she can take steps towards becoming a modern nation.”
Ivan was silent for a moment. “Is it too much to want quiet, my friend? And THAT” he said, pointing his cane over the balcony railing at the sixty five thousand ton Prussian battleship in the bay, main guns dwarfing the small tugs and ferries saturating the harbour “is not what I would call quiet.”
It was in that moment, as if to emphasise his point, that a cracking boom broke over the harbour, as a sheet of flame and water erupted against the Tirpitz aft-starboard quarter.
From - "The Xuantong Era"
Military victory in the early 1940s had nominally left the Qing and the Zhili clique as the sole internationally recognised legitimate government of China, but it had also left the country diminished and decrepit.
Economically, public and private finances in the Qing realm were shot to shreds. The Beijing had gone into the war heavily indebted to domestic and foreign lenders alike, and had been forced to exacerbate that state of affairs to keep the war moving forward. The situation was far worse in the South. There, the Republicans had embarked on great public war-bond issues, gathered up rare metals and, when all else failed, began selling concessions off the circling foreign powers.
With the Republicans defeated, the bankers and common people of the South would see no interest or principal for their bonds, no return of their precious metals or compensation for billions of hours of conscripted labour. The wealth of entire provinces evaporated, only to be exacerbated by widespread looting, corruption, and exploitation by the ill disciplined militias and paramilitaries that made up so much of the Qing Southern campaign.
The result was famine, with different provinces impacted seemingly every year. The Central Government would squeeze the South in turn, holding it ‘responsible’ for the war and trying to use supplies from there to offset famines further North, exacerbating the situation and souring many Southern Chinese against their ‘occupying’ Generals turned Governors.
Industrial production too was in distress. A liquidity crisis, collapse in foreing confidence, and chaotic market conditions put a hard stop to the industrial development pushed by German investors in the 1920s and 1930s, forcing many in the country to fall back on traditional crafts and artisanal production to survive.
And the situation was not much better from a strategic or political perspective.
Strategically, China had been much reduced during her decades of comparative weakness. Tibet and the North West had been first dominated by Sternberg, and then rebuilt as client states of the distant RRE throne. Manchuria, the homeland of the Imperial line, had been swallowed whole by the bear on dubious pretences during the restoration wars. And then there were the losses of the 1940s. When Germany had collapsed, Japan had been quick to occupy the German concessions and extend the ‘security zone’ around them further than the Germans had ever pushed it. When war against the Republicans came, Tokyo went further, collaborating with its Thai ally to occupy “safe zones” for the preservation of international property and civilians.
Southern Yunnan and the Island of Hainan had been occupied, becoming havens for fleeing Republicans who now published anti Zhili propaganda from behind a wall of Japanese bayonets. Japan had stalled all negotiations on the return of these holdings until it was given guarantees that Beijing would honour the foreign debts of the Republic, and acknowledge the various property and resource rights that Japanese investors had bought up from the KMT in its dying days. With Japanese pulsejet batteries in Tianjin within range of Beijing, the Japanese presence loomed large over the Chinese position.
Now, with Germany reasserting rights to repayment for past debts and compensation for, or the return of, the industrial infrastructure of German companies in Southern China, the Qing’s financial position seemed even more dire.
Had the Qing been a private company, a decent economic advisor might have suggested that the entire organisation simply default; that it accept a temporary elimination of its right to foreign capital in exchange for the relief of interest pressures on the budget, and begin again using China’s population and agricultural and industrial potential to steadily rebuild its bottom line and creditworthiness.
But Beijing, unlike almost any other company or Government, couldn't default.
The reason for that lay in the final aspect of the strategic calamity faced by the Qing.
For decades now, the International Mandate for the Concessions, Settlements and Legations in China had administered China’s China’s greatest trading ports (which doubled as its great banking and commercial centres).
The cities were in some way both China’s greatest strength, and her most obvious weakness. The cities brimmed with foreign capital and expertise, well developed dockyards and infrastructure and even some reasonably modern factories. They had escaped the wars and depressions of the last three decades, continuing on as rich melting pots of cultures while generating an overwhelming share of Chinese commercial and trade activity.
They were also, as the name suggested, under foreign governance.
If China were late on debt payments, it was within the power of the Legation council to simply raise taxes on goods entering or exiting China through those ports, throttling access to desperately needed machinery imports and diminishing the profitability of exports. Businesses operating within the Legation cities never paid a cent of their taxes to Beijing, and Chinese troops were barred from the territories. This consolidation of foreign concessions, from Hong Kong to Shanghai had been conceived as a partial concession to China, acknowledging the cities as Chinese territory…but with such caveats and limitations that the situation gave no comfort to Beijing.
In 1949, both Japan and Germany publicly flirted with the idea that their candidates for the Legation council would consider using this power in order to discharge the Qing’s foreign obligations, potentially at great cost to the Chinese state. Germany, to reassert her relevance in the region and overcome her financial challenges at home, Japan, to maintain prominence in the region and advance their plan to increase their commercial and political penetration of China, rather than extract funds directly.
In the face of these myriad challenges, the now ‘united’ China could hardly speak with a unified voice.
The dominant power was still the Zhili clique and their Harmony Association.The Zhili had lost some of their influence through the erosion of their military resources during the war, but looting, seizure of businesses and land, and the placement of allies in governorships of the newly taken regions had introduced some new life into the old establishment. The clique still largely controlled the debates of the Assembly, filtered the decrees of the court, and had the final say on international affairs (with many Zhilli generals exploiting this to get rich through involvement in foreign investments or projects). But challenges were mounting, as the delicate dance of trying to manipulate both democracy and the crown at the same time grew ever more intricate and difficult.
The Imperial Court and its allies in the Zongshe Party had been intended to be powerless figureheads by the Zhili Generals, but increasingly, the court wielded power through a growing, parallel military establishment that raised imperial taxes directly, administered territory, and sporadically enforced Imperial writs and rulings. Behind closed doors, they aspired to a true restoration of the Imperial system, so that the foreigners could be dealt with on a more even level.
There were more grass roots and dangerous local actors too. They ranged from the Young China Party, and its array of aggressive, nationalistic modernisers who wanted to reshape China into a strong, centralised, modern state, to an array of quasi mystic movements that had been embedded in power since Bejing had cut its deal with the likes of Zhang Tianran to bring the paramilitaries into the Imperial fold.
Perhaps the least organised, but most dangerous, were the array of anti-foreign extremist movements, whether they grew out of religious movements, Chinese nationalism, or mere banditry cloaked in nationalism. These bands preyed on all signs of foreign influence in China, and were becoming an ever greater threat even in the Legation cities. The Beijing Government claimed it was too badly resourced to detect and crush these groups, many foreigners quietly claimed it was more a matter of will.
Finally, there were those movements that served as foreign proxies.
The Chinese Republican movement lived on, a proxy of Imperial Japanese intelligence to leverage against Beijing. Regionalists thrived in Manchuria where they had first been stoked by the Zhang and were now tolerated by the RRE as a bulwark against Qing propaganda and infiltration.
The Prosperity Party had reinvigorated its ties with German business, but now also flirted with Japanese and Russo Roman interest as well, continuing its general pro-business agenda while trying to encourage rapprochement with the foreign powers over confrontation.
Socialist movements too had infiltrated the country. In the cities, leftism and even modern Syndicalist thought still circulated, wherever the Qing police were too poorly manned…or too well bribed to suppress them. Gandhian revolutionary inspirations were far stronger in the countryside, where the idea of a village based, socialist societal model with a strong spiritual foundation found fertile soil to grow.
All of this (by no means exhaustive) list is intended merely to show that the political spectrum of China was fragmented, stressed by economic malaise, corruption, and deep ideological divides. Different movements sought different backers, and few could claim to have common goals.
It was in this fragile climate that the campaign to elect the next head of the Legations council commenced, with all China and the great powers of the world looking on intently.
It was in this fragile climate, that a homemade explosive, disguised in the hull of a tugboat, detonated against the hull of the German battleship Tirpitz in Shanghai harbour.
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WELL, if there is one quick way for the Germans to go back to their status as a truly global empire, a new intervention in China seems the obvious way to do it! Though such a war may not be as quick as they would like it to be. That said, even a grinding one will at least justify the investment in the military-industrial complex. It should be well within the capabilities of the German military to pull it off at this point though it may have to invest in quantity over quality to sustain it.
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This isn't related to last chapter, but one thing I'd like to see more of is interactions between Vlad and Sophie. It would be interesting to see how they are as a couple, and what perspective she has on events.
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Wanted to thank people for the kind feedback, comments and speculation as always. It's tremendously appreciated.
I did want to say that the time between updates may increase for the next fortnight as I move homes, but I'll try to keep a few things going up, to keep things lively.
In the mean time, please keep engaging, Between Jodel routinely guessing plotlines, Deputy Dogsonov frequently serving as the voice of reason in the Imperial Government, and all the rest, It's great, so I'll try to be better with reply posts in the future.
It's also been a source of unexpected feedback, like Gandhi becoming a real crowd favourite, and me getting coaxed into leaving my comfort zone to write more human interaction that doesn't revolve around people moving flags on a map (is that even allowed on Paradox forums?)
I did want to say that the time between updates may increase for the next fortnight as I move homes, but I'll try to keep a few things going up, to keep things lively.
In the mean time, please keep engaging, Between Jodel routinely guessing plotlines, Deputy Dogsonov frequently serving as the voice of reason in the Imperial Government, and all the rest, It's great, so I'll try to be better with reply posts in the future.
It's also been a source of unexpected feedback, like Gandhi becoming a real crowd favourite, and me getting coaxed into leaving my comfort zone to write more human interaction that doesn't revolve around people moving flags on a map (is that even allowed on Paradox forums?)
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Hm, actually, I've been thinking about it. Maybe the escape "Wilhelm 3 will ll be dead in a few years" won't suffice to rescue Germany and keep her on the path of political moderation.
If W3 ends up appointing dangerous demagogues to power, with the full support and backing of "his" top military leadership (this may set off a dynamic that W4 may not be able to stop and wind back. First of all, "his" military leadership may not actually consider themselves to be "his" men, rather the other way around they might think of him as "theirs", because they brought him back to Germany (with a little help from Russia) and expunged the red traitors for him, not the other way around. They may believe that they, not their simpleton Kaiser, not the Reichstag, are guardians of Prussia's and Germany's destiny and may force him to stick with such a dangerous decision even if he gets second thoughts as the extreme right demagogues prove as power hungry as IOTL. Secondly, Germany isn't an autocracy like Russia, a Kaiser can be quite helpless when faced with determined opposition from his own military leadership and cold indifference from the chiefs of civilian administration, as W2 found out in OTL WW1 where he was totally sidelined after the dismissal of the civilian leadership in 1917 (in which his son, the later W3, played a very unfortunate and short sighted role by backing the military leaders).
But why would he even consider appointing dangerous demagogues to power though?
There's the historical parallel to consider. Keep in mind, Prussian kings liked to look back to the past for guidance and inspiration. W3 is stuck in a bit of a bind. He tried to "reform" the imperial constitution (as in, concentrate more power in himself) and this mostly failed. His government, with his full support, is pursuing a military-first policy that seeks to restore Germany as a fully independent power in the world. He sees himself as fighting a struggle for the preservation of that which his father built and the two of them almost lost, Germany's proverbial place in the sun as a mighty power of the first rank, and the soul of the Prussia-Germany his great-grandfather built.
At our point in the story, W3 sees his policy failing, he sees that his constitional reform failed, and he sees that the next Reichstag election will install a pacifist/liberal/constitutionalist (=judeo-liberal-cryptosyndicalist) supermajority into the Reichstag if nothing is done about that, fearing that such a super majority will defund the military, force a total 180° on foreign policy, and cowardly surrender Germany's hard won place in the sun to the Czar's billionaire Jews for thirty silver shekel and a few trade agreements. They may even enact their own constitutional reform, and turn him and his imperial house into "Grüßaugust" monarchs ("king augusts whose job is to greet people from his balcony"), and accept the loss of control over Germany's colonial empire which may mean little to most Germans, but means everything to the generals, admirals and the imperial house of Hohenzollern.
There was a Prussian king before, who was in a similar situation.
When his great-grandfather Wilhelm I in 1861 asked Bismarck to become prime minister of Prussia, he was a king who had been brought to the brink of abdication by dimilar failures over policy and failure to bring pa bourgeois dominated parliament over to his view of how the Prussian state should navigate the turbulent waters of mid 19th century politics. W1 had since the late 1850s struggled with the Prussian parliament over a very important issue for him and his advisors, the military budget increase needed to modernize the Prussian army and make it able to stand up to Austria. The Prusssian army was at that point only a semi professional force, in which conscripted levies played a very large part, and whose armament was only mediocre by European standards. By 1861, Wilhelm I had lost that struggle. He faced just the same kind of pacifist/liberal/constitutional opposition majority which W3 is now struggling with. They would not see his vision for what Prussia should be. They wanted peace, prosperity, accommodation with the Austrian hegemony in Germany, and to turn a blind eye to French aggressive ambitions against Prussia's western frontiers. Wilhelm I was at the brink of abdication. He was not willing to go on being king of Prussia if he could not even have a say on the one most important thing to a Prussian monarch: the well being of the military which was sworn to his name, and which in his view was the only thing that had helped the Prussian kingdom survive various ravages of history. The terrible example of Frederick Wilhelm III, who had neglected the military that Frederick the Great had built, and had to endure to see Prussia dismembered by Napoleon, beckoned.
There was only one recourse left to Wilhelm I if he wanted to remain monarch - he had to invite a man to become prime minister who had the energy and determination to defy parliament, disregard the constitution, force through the needed policies, and who would crush opposition by military means, 1849 style, if need be. That man was Bismarck. A man not well regarded outside of the far right, for his brashness and his disregard for the opinions of others. To appoint this man prime minister would mean to try and ride a tiger, chain himself and his throne to the fortune of this one man, and lay aside all hesitation about right and proper ways to do politics. Wilhelm I did just that, and the rest is history. Prussia soared high like an eagle, and her rise has not ended yet (or so W3 sees it).
You can see where I'm getting at. W3 needs help on the political front. He needs help with serious political muscle. Street power. Ruthlessness. Total disregard for what the effete judeo-liberal-cryptosyndicalists will think or say or protest. He needs a power hungry demagogue to help him push through the right policies. Someone who is willing to break eggs in order to make an omelette. Disband the Reichstag, suspend the elections, scour the streets clean of protesters with gunfire. Louis Ferdinand might hold his nose and squirm over the bloodshed, but as soon as that ungrateful brat inherits his crown (can't be long) he will thank him for saving their throne.
Wilhelm III is on record (OTL) for reckless political decisions and very warm and very open sympathies for extreme right wing movements and policies.
In 1917 during WW1, he helped force through the resignation of the civilian German leadership, in favor of unchecked military rule under Hindenburg and Ludendorff. An act that effectively took all political power away from his father, who held next to no influence over the military (who considered him weak and a liability). This left Hindenburg and Ludendorff free to totally ignore the various calls for peace offers from the Reichstag, and pursue the war up to the complete ruin of the monarchy. In 1918 it would be Ludendorff who would hand the bag of dog poop that was Germany's hopeless position back to the civilians, tell them to solve it, and he would tell the Kaiser and the Crown Prince (W3) to abdicate, because he totally wasn't going to fight a civil war for their throne.
W3 is also on record for praising Mussolini about his "brilliant brutality", and cheering on the German extreme right throughout the 1920s and 1930s in all kinds of public ways. He wasn't a big player, but the part he played, he played 100% in favor of horrible policies that would end up empowering a demagogue through whom the right thought they could check the left and stay on top despite only 25% or so of the electorate actually ever voting for their non demagogical right wing parties.
Which is exactly where we are, in the story. The right who support military-first are a minority. It's not looking good for them. Budgets passed by the Reichstag are still the central pillar on which military-first rests. What will he do to save his policies and his legacy?
The story has Germany, or at least the imperialist-militaristic guys running the show in Germany, in a sticky situation. I think it is only logical that they would go to extremes to prevent a takeover of the non militarist civilian centrist parties, if they want to stay at the helm in this time of rising discontent. If Rosenberg and the far right Völkisch movement can be brought into a coalition with the other right wing parties, then a state of emergency could be declared before the next elections, and that would be the way forward for Germany. From a certain point of view. Will they choose to empower extremism, or go quietly into the night?
If W3 ends up appointing dangerous demagogues to power, with the full support and backing of "his" top military leadership (this may set off a dynamic that W4 may not be able to stop and wind back. First of all, "his" military leadership may not actually consider themselves to be "his" men, rather the other way around they might think of him as "theirs", because they brought him back to Germany (with a little help from Russia) and expunged the red traitors for him, not the other way around. They may believe that they, not their simpleton Kaiser, not the Reichstag, are guardians of Prussia's and Germany's destiny and may force him to stick with such a dangerous decision even if he gets second thoughts as the extreme right demagogues prove as power hungry as IOTL. Secondly, Germany isn't an autocracy like Russia, a Kaiser can be quite helpless when faced with determined opposition from his own military leadership and cold indifference from the chiefs of civilian administration, as W2 found out in OTL WW1 where he was totally sidelined after the dismissal of the civilian leadership in 1917 (in which his son, the later W3, played a very unfortunate and short sighted role by backing the military leaders).
But why would he even consider appointing dangerous demagogues to power though?
There's the historical parallel to consider. Keep in mind, Prussian kings liked to look back to the past for guidance and inspiration. W3 is stuck in a bit of a bind. He tried to "reform" the imperial constitution (as in, concentrate more power in himself) and this mostly failed. His government, with his full support, is pursuing a military-first policy that seeks to restore Germany as a fully independent power in the world. He sees himself as fighting a struggle for the preservation of that which his father built and the two of them almost lost, Germany's proverbial place in the sun as a mighty power of the first rank, and the soul of the Prussia-Germany his great-grandfather built.
At our point in the story, W3 sees his policy failing, he sees that his constitional reform failed, and he sees that the next Reichstag election will install a pacifist/liberal/constitutionalist (=judeo-liberal-cryptosyndicalist) supermajority into the Reichstag if nothing is done about that, fearing that such a super majority will defund the military, force a total 180° on foreign policy, and cowardly surrender Germany's hard won place in the sun to the Czar's billionaire Jews for thirty silver shekel and a few trade agreements. They may even enact their own constitutional reform, and turn him and his imperial house into "Grüßaugust" monarchs ("king augusts whose job is to greet people from his balcony"), and accept the loss of control over Germany's colonial empire which may mean little to most Germans, but means everything to the generals, admirals and the imperial house of Hohenzollern.
There was a Prussian king before, who was in a similar situation.
When his great-grandfather Wilhelm I in 1861 asked Bismarck to become prime minister of Prussia, he was a king who had been brought to the brink of abdication by dimilar failures over policy and failure to bring pa bourgeois dominated parliament over to his view of how the Prussian state should navigate the turbulent waters of mid 19th century politics. W1 had since the late 1850s struggled with the Prussian parliament over a very important issue for him and his advisors, the military budget increase needed to modernize the Prussian army and make it able to stand up to Austria. The Prusssian army was at that point only a semi professional force, in which conscripted levies played a very large part, and whose armament was only mediocre by European standards. By 1861, Wilhelm I had lost that struggle. He faced just the same kind of pacifist/liberal/constitutional opposition majority which W3 is now struggling with. They would not see his vision for what Prussia should be. They wanted peace, prosperity, accommodation with the Austrian hegemony in Germany, and to turn a blind eye to French aggressive ambitions against Prussia's western frontiers. Wilhelm I was at the brink of abdication. He was not willing to go on being king of Prussia if he could not even have a say on the one most important thing to a Prussian monarch: the well being of the military which was sworn to his name, and which in his view was the only thing that had helped the Prussian kingdom survive various ravages of history. The terrible example of Frederick Wilhelm III, who had neglected the military that Frederick the Great had built, and had to endure to see Prussia dismembered by Napoleon, beckoned.
There was only one recourse left to Wilhelm I if he wanted to remain monarch - he had to invite a man to become prime minister who had the energy and determination to defy parliament, disregard the constitution, force through the needed policies, and who would crush opposition by military means, 1849 style, if need be. That man was Bismarck. A man not well regarded outside of the far right, for his brashness and his disregard for the opinions of others. To appoint this man prime minister would mean to try and ride a tiger, chain himself and his throne to the fortune of this one man, and lay aside all hesitation about right and proper ways to do politics. Wilhelm I did just that, and the rest is history. Prussia soared high like an eagle, and her rise has not ended yet (or so W3 sees it).
You can see where I'm getting at. W3 needs help on the political front. He needs help with serious political muscle. Street power. Ruthlessness. Total disregard for what the effete judeo-liberal-cryptosyndicalists will think or say or protest. He needs a power hungry demagogue to help him push through the right policies. Someone who is willing to break eggs in order to make an omelette. Disband the Reichstag, suspend the elections, scour the streets clean of protesters with gunfire. Louis Ferdinand might hold his nose and squirm over the bloodshed, but as soon as that ungrateful brat inherits his crown (can't be long) he will thank him for saving their throne.
Wilhelm III is on record (OTL) for reckless political decisions and very warm and very open sympathies for extreme right wing movements and policies.
In 1917 during WW1, he helped force through the resignation of the civilian German leadership, in favor of unchecked military rule under Hindenburg and Ludendorff. An act that effectively took all political power away from his father, who held next to no influence over the military (who considered him weak and a liability). This left Hindenburg and Ludendorff free to totally ignore the various calls for peace offers from the Reichstag, and pursue the war up to the complete ruin of the monarchy. In 1918 it would be Ludendorff who would hand the bag of dog poop that was Germany's hopeless position back to the civilians, tell them to solve it, and he would tell the Kaiser and the Crown Prince (W3) to abdicate, because he totally wasn't going to fight a civil war for their throne.
W3 is also on record for praising Mussolini about his "brilliant brutality", and cheering on the German extreme right throughout the 1920s and 1930s in all kinds of public ways. He wasn't a big player, but the part he played, he played 100% in favor of horrible policies that would end up empowering a demagogue through whom the right thought they could check the left and stay on top despite only 25% or so of the electorate actually ever voting for their non demagogical right wing parties.
Which is exactly where we are, in the story. The right who support military-first are a minority. It's not looking good for them. Budgets passed by the Reichstag are still the central pillar on which military-first rests. What will he do to save his policies and his legacy?
The story has Germany, or at least the imperialist-militaristic guys running the show in Germany, in a sticky situation. I think it is only logical that they would go to extremes to prevent a takeover of the non militarist civilian centrist parties, if they want to stay at the helm in this time of rising discontent. If Rosenberg and the far right Völkisch movement can be brought into a coalition with the other right wing parties, then a state of emergency could be declared before the next elections, and that would be the way forward for Germany. From a certain point of view. Will they choose to empower extremism, or go quietly into the night?
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China really is in a bad shape, as a country.363: The Restless East - Part 1
Shanghai - January 1949
The Austrian, von Steiger, puffed gently on his pipe as the Chinese server placed another pot of tea in front of them, retreating with a deep bow. The evening view over Shanghai harbour from the legation hotel was, it had to be admitted, quite something. “What I don’t understand Ivan, is why you think you need us.”
Ivan didn’t have an official role to claim, his dealings with the Imperial Government were at arms length, but most around here understood that on legation matters, he was as good as a telegraph line to Saint Petersburg. “Meaning what?”
Von Steiger finally set down the pipe after one last puff. The bustling noise of Shanghai washing over them both. “You have the Belgian and British votes I presume, and that pet Congress of Americans you keep around in Vladivostok. That gives you four, so unless I’m missing something obvious, you’re kingmaker. You back Berlin, that’s the five they need, you side with your Japanese friends….much the same. So why…” he tapped his fingers on the table “are you talking to me, and not them?”
Ivan drank the tea, casting a quick eye around to make sure the Nepalese toughs he’d posted outside their booth were keeping the prying eyes away. “Because, as often seems to be the case these days, you want the same thing we do.”
“Meaning?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
Von Steiger gave a resigned nod. “Berlin wishes to re-establish herself as a great power in Asia, and to drain China dry. Japan wishes to confirm her prominence…and drain China dry. You and your Motherland want…”
“Quiet. Quiet peace and prosperity. A China more concerned with recovery, growth, and cooperation.”
“You mean, Ivan” interjected von Steiger with a rap on the table “one that will accept her territorial losses in Manchuria and refrain from any action to challenge them so long as she can take steps towards becoming a modern nation.”
Ivan was silent for a moment. “Is it too much to want quiet, my friend? And THAT” he said, pointing his cane over the balcony railing at the sixty five thousand ton Prussian battleship in the bay, main guns dwarfing the small tugs and ferries saturating the harbour “is not what I would call quiet.”
It was in that moment, as if to emphasise his point, that a cracking boom broke over the harbour, as a sheet of flame and water erupted against the Tirpitz aft-starboard quarter.
From - "The Xuantong Era"
Military victory in the early 1940s had nominally left the Qing and the Zhili clique as the sole internationally recognised legitimate government of China, but it had also left the country diminished and decrepit.
Economically, public and private finances in the Qing realm were shot to shreds. The Beijing had gone into the war heavily indebted to domestic and foreign lenders alike, and had been forced to exacerbate that state of affairs to keep the war moving forward. The situation was far worse in the South. There, the Republicans had embarked on great public war-bond issues, gathered up rare metals and, when all else failed, began selling concessions off the circling foreign powers.
With the Republicans defeated, the bankers and common people of the South would see no interest or principal for their bonds, no return of their precious metals or compensation for billions of hours of conscripted labour. The wealth of entire provinces evaporated, only to be exacerbated by widespread looting, corruption, and exploitation by the ill disciplined militias and paramilitaries that made up so much of the Qing Southern campaign.
The result was famine, with different provinces impacted seemingly every year. The Central Government would squeeze the South in turn, holding it ‘responsible’ for the war and trying to use supplies from there to offset famines further North, exacerbating the situation and souring many Southern Chinese against their ‘occupying’ Generals turned Governors.
Industrial production too was in distress. A liquidity crisis, collapse in foreing confidence, and chaotic market conditions put a hard stop to the industrial development pushed by German investors in the 1920s and 1930s, forcing many in the country to fall back on traditional crafts and artisanal production to survive.
And the situation was not much better from a strategic or political perspective.
Strategically, China had been much reduced during her decades of comparative weakness. Tibet and the North West had been first dominated by Sternberg, and then rebuilt as client states of the distant RRE throne. Manchuria, the homeland of the Imperial line, had been swallowed whole by the bear on dubious pretences during the restoration wars. And then there were the losses of the 1940s. When Germany had collapsed, Japan had been quick to occupy the German concessions and extend the ‘security zone’ around them further than the Germans had ever pushed it. When war against the Republicans came, Tokyo went further, collaborating with its Thai ally to occupy “safe zones” for the preservation of international property and civilians.
Southern Yunnan and the Island of Hainan had been occupied, becoming havens for fleeing Republicans who now published anti Zhili propaganda from behind a wall of Japanese bayonets. Japan had stalled all negotiations on the return of these holdings until it was given guarantees that Beijing would honour the foreign debts of the Republic, and acknowledge the various property and resource rights that Japanese investors had bought up from the KMT in its dying days. With Japanese pulsejet batteries in Tianjin within range of Beijing, the Japanese presence loomed large over the Chinese position.
Now, with Germany reasserting rights to repayment for past debts and compensation for, or the return of, the industrial infrastructure of German companies in Southern China, the Qing’s financial position seemed even more dire.
Had the Qing been a private company, a decent economic advisor might have suggested that the entire organisation simply default; that it accept a temporary elimination of its right to foreign capital in exchange for the relief of interest pressures on the budget, and begin again using China’s population and agricultural and industrial potential to steadily rebuild its bottom line and creditworthiness.
But Beijing, unlike almost any other company or Government, couldn't default.
The reason for that lay in the final aspect of the strategic calamity faced by the Qing.
For decades now, the International Mandate for the Concessions, Settlements and Legations in China had administered China’s China’s greatest trading ports (which doubled as its great banking and commercial centres).
The cities were in some way both China’s greatest strength, and her most obvious weakness. The cities brimmed with foreign capital and expertise, well developed dockyards and infrastructure and even some reasonably modern factories. They had escaped the wars and depressions of the last three decades, continuing on as rich melting pots of cultures while generating an overwhelming share of Chinese commercial and trade activity.
They were also, as the name suggested, under foreign governance.
If China were late on debt payments, it was within the power of the Legation council to simply raise taxes on goods entering or exiting China through those ports, throttling access to desperately needed machinery imports and diminishing the profitability of exports. Businesses operating within the Legation cities never paid a cent of their taxes to Beijing, and Chinese troops were barred from the territories. This consolidation of foreign concessions, from Hong Kong to Shanghai had been conceived as a partial concession to China, acknowledging the cities as Chinese territory…but with such caveats and limitations that the situation gave no comfort to Beijing.
In 1949, both Japan and Germany publicly flirted with the idea that their candidates for the Legation council would consider using this power in order to discharge the Qing’s foreign obligations, potentially at great cost to the Chinese state. Germany, to reassert her relevance in the region and overcome her financial challenges at home, Japan, to maintain prominence in the region and advance their plan to increase their commercial and political penetration of China, rather than extract funds directly.
In the face of these myriad challenges, the now ‘united’ China could hardly speak with a unified voice.
The dominant power was still the Zhili clique and their Harmony Association.The Zhili had lost some of their influence through the erosion of their military resources during the war, but looting, seizure of businesses and land, and the placement of allies in governorships of the newly taken regions had introduced some new life into the old establishment. The clique still largely controlled the debates of the Assembly, filtered the decrees of the court, and had the final say on international affairs (with many Zhilli generals exploiting this to get rich through involvement in foreign investments or projects). But challenges were mounting, as the delicate dance of trying to manipulate both democracy and the crown at the same time grew ever more intricate and difficult.
The Imperial Court and its allies in the Zongshe Party had been intended to be powerless figureheads by the Zhili Generals, but increasingly, the court wielded power through a growing, parallel military establishment that raised imperial taxes directly, administered territory, and sporadically enforced Imperial writs and rulings. Behind closed doors, they aspired to a true restoration of the Imperial system, so that the foreigners could be dealt with on a more even level.
There were more grass roots and dangerous local actors too. They ranged from the Young China Party, and its array of aggressive, nationalistic modernisers who wanted to reshape China into a strong, centralised, modern state, to an array of quasi mystic movements that had been embedded in power since Bejing had cut its deal with the likes of Zhang Tianran to bring the paramilitaries into the Imperial fold.
Perhaps the least organised, but most dangerous, were the array of anti-foreign extremist movements, whether they grew out of religious movements, Chinese nationalism, or mere banditry cloaked in nationalism. These bands preyed on all signs of foreign influence in China, and were becoming an ever greater threat even in the Legation cities. The Beijing Government claimed it was too badly resourced to detect and crush these groups, many foreigners quietly claimed it was more a matter of will.
Finally, there were those movements that served as foreign proxies.
The Chinese Republican movement lived on, a proxy of Imperial Japanese intelligence to leverage against Beijing. Regionalists thrived in Manchuria where they had first been stoked by the Zhang and were now tolerated by the RRE as a bulwark against Qing propaganda and infiltration.
The Prosperity Party had reinvigorated its ties with German business, but now also flirted with Japanese and Russo Roman interest as well, continuing its general pro-business agenda while trying to encourage rapprochement with the foreign powers over confrontation.
Socialist movements too had infiltrated the country. In the cities, leftism and even modern Syndicalist thought still circulated, wherever the Qing police were too poorly manned…or too well bribed to suppress them. Gandhian revolutionary inspirations were far stronger in the countryside, where the idea of a village based, socialist societal model with a strong spiritual foundation found fertile soil to grow.
All of this (by no means exhaustive) list is intended merely to show that the political spectrum of China was fragmented, stressed by economic malaise, corruption, and deep ideological divides. Different movements sought different backers, and few could claim to have common goals.
It was in this fragile climate that the campaign to elect the next head of the Legations council commenced, with all China and the great powers of the world looking on intently.
It was in this fragile climate, that a homemade explosive, disguised in the hull of a tugboat, detonated against the hull of the German battleship Tirpitz in Shanghai harbour.
But then again, maybe the times are right for the Chinese to reassert themselves? It's the age of mass politics, of mass mobilization, and China does have a huge mass of population.
Firstly let's state that all the current political powers in China seem like they've bankrupted themselves politically. The Qing are done for as a positive force, they're just about survival, staying on top, and doing what it takes no matter how bad this is for the common people. The military cliques who raised the flag of the dragon over southern China, and carved it up, seem like petty warlords and won't go anywhere positive either. They will sell grandmothers and babies for cash so they can buy more guns. And the Manchu home rule guys whom the Russians pamper in Manchuria, that can't be more than a slim caste of business people who interact with the czarist government and are nothing but collaborators.
So as far as appeal to the common people goes, they're all bankrupt. No assets anymore, no cred, nothing. Zombie politics. No appeal to the common man who toils and labours to produce the wealth that the high and mighty just ship off via the legation cities in order to stay on the good side of the foreign powers.
On the other hand, China does produce a lot of wealth! Lots of agricultural products, fabricated products, craft products, so much stuff that it keeps everyone fixated on how to squeeze more out of China without giving anything back.
The Chinese are also much, more more aware of what's going on in the world. Radio, newspapers, students abroad, tradespeople traveling, laborers going as coolies to European colonies and seeing how the Europeans hold people down over there. They're wise to the world now.
And there are all the guns. So many guns. And so many restless people with nothing to lose.
China is absolutely ripe for a popular revolution that seizes power back from the bankrupted elites. It doesn't even matter what the ideological banner is going to be - syndicalism, under a union leader? religious awakening, under a monk turned preacher? bourgeois nationalism, under angry dispossessed educated types? As soon as the first best charismatic leader personality comes along, and amasses a following, it's going to be a landslide. Hold your breath, I suspect it's not going to take long?
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Oh yeah, I definitely don't think that Wilhelm III dying means Germany's at all out of the woods; in fact Louis Ferdinand's reign is likely to be incredibly difficult. I just don't see the German far right being able to consolidate the power Wilhelm III gives them between a hostile Kaiser and a Russia that isn't too much of a fan of their attitudes towards the eastern border. Of course, if Louis Ferdinand has to rely on Russia to keep them out of power, that could lead to bad things for him in the long term, but there's no way Russia's countenancing such a hostile power right on its border.
Well, they wouldn't be hostile right away, wouldn't they? A bit of national populist chest thumping, of course, antisemitic rants, of course, but the Tsar isn't a Jew and doesn't even know what German or Russian antisemitism feels like (having been raised in Canada) so why would he care. Plenty of old fashioned Russian military types and anti modernist aristocrats would even cheer at antisemitic rants coming from Germany anyways.
If Wilhelm 3 dies on schedule (1951) then the far right, if they are installed into power, most likely wouldnt last long in power. Although they could break a lot of porcelain while they try to do so.
But if Wilhelm lives just 1 or 2 years longer, and backs them until his death, Hindenburg style, then Louis Ferdinand won't have anyone to rely on and will be relegated to the role of a mere figure head for the regime. He could then try to make it less bad, but wouldn't be able to change course. If he insisted on being contrarian he'd end up confined to the palace, while some of his uncles and great uncles could take on the job of providing public monarchist legitimacy for the regime. (W2's brother August Wilhelm served in such a role OTL as NSDAP party member and devoted Nazi, as did W2's daughter Victoria Louise, also a devoted Nazi). Of course the regime would take precaution against the Kaiser just running away to Russia so they'd obligate him to put his children into boarding schools under guard. Sad but he wouldn't be the first king to suffer such fate, and not the last (maybe the last in Germany though)
Anyways here are some pictures of W3 from OTL in unsavory company, cheering for the extreme right and their "genius" leader (W3's words) after they seized power (W3 was among those pushing Hindenburg to make that guy chancellor)
Link1
Link2
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