‘Sweet, Just, Boyish Masters’: the Liberal Empire of the Americans

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Goodness. Thank You.

Bravo! (applauds)

This is definitely one of the best-written and most realistic AARs I've ever read on this forum. Your alternate history had a wealth of subtle details that made it completely convincing. It's somewhat like one of Harry Turtledove's better alternate histories, but with much better writing. (I mean that, too. HT has some wonderful ideas, but his prose is pedestrian at best, and his dialogue sometimes makes me cringe. Bluntly, if he can get published, you should have no trouble if you ever decided to write an alternate history novel. Seriously. Think about it.)

Now I'm wishing there was a Victoria->HoI conversion tool. It would be interesting to see how the inevitable war between the US and Austria turned out.

But anyway, well done. More! More!

(Yes, I know, I'm sounding like Don Rumsfeld. Who else says 'goodness' in this day and age?)

You're very kind. I'm glad it pleased.

And I suspect that, at some cost in blood, the result of the inevitable war would be the triumph of ragtime over the Radetzky March.

 

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Much Obliged.

Congratulations on completion. A marvelous retelling of what might have been and as MacRaith and others have said, quite realistic. I have enjoyed this entirely and do hope you will take anouther country and tell us your take on their political doings. Outstanding M.ShawPyle, outstanding!!

Thanks.

I wonder where to go next. Vienna?

 

[trajan]

Just finished reading this one. Leave it to a W&L grad to write the best AAR I've ever read. Of course I'm a bit biased, having gotten my undergrad degree there...

It was good to see that even after his term in the White House, the General was still able to cap his career with another presidency.

 

[Prufrock451]

I feel like a lot of readers will miss this one, and that's a damn shame. "Hey, where's the bloody page-long battle scenes? What, he's playing the US and he didn't even conquer China and Japan? d00d, I colonized all of Africa by 1920 in my US game!"

M Shaw Pyle (who I can't help picturing in a smoking jacket, tamping his pipe in a library full of oak and leather) has written the most satisfying AAR on the Victoria board. It isn't a story of how he exploited the game engine, or another Lad's Ripping Adventure Tale. It isn't another pale echo of Turtledove or Neal Stephenson (and yes, I'm pointing the finger at myself too). His singular voice owes more to the formidable tradition of William Henry Elson, Albert Bushnell Hart, and (the regrettably merely two-named) Francis Parkman. After a paragraph or two of this AAR, it's easy to believe I'm leafing through the pages of a dusty history tome instead of reading something written a week or two ago. This work has all the self-assured erudition of those great old-school historians, and a touch of the wry raised eyebrow they lifted in turn from Gibbon.

A raised snifter to you, sir, and I look forward to your next AAR. Huzzah!

EDIT: Having just gone back and read the dedication to Bernard DeVoto, I'm smacking myself for leaving him out of my list of historians.

 

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Thank You, Fellow Mink.

Just finished reading this one. Leave it to a W&L grad to write the best AAR I've ever read. Of course I'm a bit biased, having gotten my undergrad degree there...

It was good to see that even after his term in the White House, the General was still able to cap his career with another presidency.

You're too kind.

And of course I couldn't let the college go without its great president.

- MSP, '84, '88L

 

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Your Humble Servant, Sir.

I feel like a lot of readers will miss this one, and that's a damn shame. "Hey, where's the bloody page-long battle scenes? What, he's playing the US and he didn't even conquer China and Japan? d00d, I colonized all of Africa by 1920 in my US game!"

M Shaw Pyle (who I can't help picturing in a smoking jacket, tamping his pipe in a library full of oak and leather) has written the most satisfying AAR on the Victoria board. It isn't a story of how he exploited the game engine, or another Lad's Ripping Adventure Tale. It isn't another pale echo of Turtledove or Neal Stephenson (and yes, I'm pointing the finger at myself too). His singular voice owes more to the formidable tradition of William Henry Elson, Albert Bushnell Hart, and (the regrettably merely two-named) Francis Parkman. After a paragraph or two of this AAR, it's easy to believe I'm leafing through the pages of a dusty history tome instead of reading something written a week or two ago. This work has all the self-assured erudition of those great old-school historians, and a touch of the wry raised eyebrow they lifted in turn from Gibbon.

A raised snifter to you, sir, and I look forward to your next AAR. Huzzah!

EDIT: Having just gone back and read the dedication to Bernard DeVoto, I'm smacking myself for leaving him out of my list of historians.

I'm honored. Unjustly, in the comparisons to historians far above my little sphere, but honored nonetheless.

Almost (although, of course, never quite) to the point of speechlessness.

Thank you.

 

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My thanks to coz1, Vicky bAARtender, for suggesting this wonderful AAR as this week's Vicky showcase.

 

[coz1]

And very well deserved! You all must read this and be amazed at how good it is!! Congrats M.ShawPyle.

 

[Judge]

And very well deserved! You all must read this and be amazed at how good it is!! Congrats M.ShawPyle.

In time I will, anyway congrats

 

[C.N.]

Great AAR M. ShawPyle!
For some reason I suspect that you favorite states are Texas and Virginia.
What version did you use, 1.02?

 

[Estonianzulu]

Finally recognition for this wonderfull AAR. Congratulations!

 

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I Am Honored and Grateful.

And one very flattered Texas-born, Virginia-educated Victorian.

Thank you all for your abundant kindness.

 

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And, PS...

... Yes, it was a 1.02 GC. You couldn't hope to pull this off in 1.03, I fear. At least I couldn't.

 

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I'm a few days late here, but... goodness! This was brilliant. I know I sound like a broken record, but, if I'm not mistaken, writers like to hear their work praised, and so I must chime in.

Please, please, please. Write another one.

Steele

 

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Thank You.

I'm a few days late here, but... goodness! This was brilliant. I know I sound like a broken record, but, if I'm not mistaken, writers like to hear their work praised, and so I must chime in.

Please, please, please. Write another one.

Steele

You're very kind. Thanks. I hope to.

 

[Neroon]

I just stumbled on this AAR and just had to read it all in one go. There is just one thing that confused me: If the Prussians were so successful in their wars against France they surely must have taken Paris on one occasion. So why did the Unification event not trigger?

 

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Thank You.

I just stumbled on this AAR and just had to read it all in one go. There is just one thing that confused me: If the Prussians were so successful in their wars against France they surely must have taken Paris on one occasion. So why did the Unification event not trigger?

And frankly, the State Department is not altogether certain why the Prussians did not arrogate imperial status to themselves by creating a pan-German Reich. The question was put to the aged and embittered von Holstein, in his retirement, and his response consisted mostly of maledictions upon the Habsburgs and what appears to have been the rhetorical question, 'Unify with what? What was left? The verdammt Austrians had absorbed so much ... unification? Quatsch! Had the All-Highest listened to me, but no, he had to listen to Eulenberg and Tirpitz and Bismarck....'

 

[coz1]

As I did in the CK area, I thought I might try and pull up some "oldies but goodies" from the lands of long forgotten but great AARs. And this one truly belongs in those ranks.

One of my favorite all time Vickie AARs, this one sadly just missed being included in the first round of VictAARian Cross voting. It should have been a contender.

However, if some of you take the chance to read through it and enjoy, then perhaps it will make up for that...just a tiny bit. I don't know if M.Shaw Pyle still visits the forum, but this was an outstanding effort and should be read by many!

Enjoy!

 

[Rensslaer]

I remember hearing many good things about this AAR, but I had not had time to read it. I will have to do so!

Rensslaer

 

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summery please

if you would please kind historian please write a summery at the end of your posts i do truly love your work but " sigh" i have no time to read it all so would you be so kind to a poor girl who needs help to write a summery at the ends?