The Examiner's Office

[excerpt from the personal diary of Eric Buchhalter, Chief Examiner at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern, Switzerland 1884-1912.]

May 2, 1903

[...]
11. Laterally Configured Universal Electromagnetic Dynamo for Powering a Rotary Engine. Sachs et al.
Summary: Mod. of Schliemann's design (see entry Dec 14, '99), with new orientation. Given to Albert to examine. Thoughts: Although idea has tech. merit, does not add sig. impr. on older model. Needs of universal motors may be imp. in future as alt. curr. generators grow in popularity. Reviewing more machine tech. good for Albert's training.

12. Heat Engine Based on Coal Oil Combustion. Leone et al.
Summary: Var. on Stirling eng. using coal oil as heat source. Rejected. Thoughts: Too similar to other designs (notably Stirling, 1820) and only var. is heat src. However, predict that heat eng. will prove more reliable than elec. engines over time.

Today's General Thoughts: Satisfying career watching human knowledge culminate, however today's appls. demonstrate how little left to discover. Spoke to Albert about this thought at lunch. His response troubling.

In brief, told Alb. thoughts re. scientfc. achievement. He replied that Ger./Fr. aggression toward Eng. and Ital. vs. Turkey have slowed research.

Granted his point: recent events across Eng. Channel and Skagerrak indeed troubling. (Ever-changing alliances of Eur. always confuse me. It is as if history means nothing. Did not mention this to Alb.) Still, science has uncovered all mysteries of energetics and balance of celestial forces. More, war efforts employ reschrs. (not slow them), but pat. appls. becoming more redundant than ever. What is left to invent, I asked him.

What holds spheres together he asked. What is light really.

Got angry and told him that Newton explained the spheres well enough. And what he didn't know about light, Maxwell figured out. Maybe someone will explain Hertz effect, but can hardly see the point.

Alb. gave most enigmatic look at this.

Go on to question wars on the continent that always rage around us. What's the importance of all that w.r.t. science?

It's all relative, Alb. said cryptically. Such an infuriating young man.

MAP OF SPRIG 1903 MOVEMENTS (click)
Austria: Fleet Aegean Sea -> Constantinople (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Albania -> Greece
Austria: Army Budapest -> Rumania (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Serbia SUPPORT Army Albania -> Greece

England: Fleet English Channel -> Irish Sea (*bounce*)
England: Fleet North Sea -> London
England: Fleet Norway -> North Sea
England: Fleet Norwegian Sea -> North Atlantic Ocean

France: Army Brest -> Liverpool via convoy
France: Army Burgundy -> Gascony
France: Fleet Irish Sea CONVOY Army Brest -> Liverpool
France: Fleet Mid-Atlantic Ocean CONVOY Army Brest -> Liverpool
France: Army Picardy -> Brest

Germany: Army Belgium -> Burgundy
Germany: Fleet Denmark -> Sweden
Germany: Army Holland -> Belgium
Germany: Fleet Kiel -> Baltic Sea
Germany: Army Munich -> Silesia
Germany: Army Silesia -> Prussia

Italy: Fleet Eastern Mediterranean SUPPORT Army Smyrna
Italy: Fleet Ionian Sea -> Aegean Sea (*bounce*)
Italy: Army Smyrna SUPPORT Austrian Fleet Aegean Sea -> Constantinople
Italy: Army Trieste -> Vienna
Italy: Fleet Tyrrhenian Sea HOLD
Italy: Army Venice HOLD

Russia: Fleet Barents Sea -> Norwegian Sea
Russia: Fleet Rumania SUPPORT Turkish Army Bulgaria (*cut*)
Russia: Army Sevastopol -> Armenia
Russia: Fleet St Petersburg (south coast) -> Gulf of Bothnia
Russia: Army Sweden -> Norway
Russia: Army Ukraine SUPPORT Fleet Rumania

Turkey: Army Armenia -> Ankara
Turkey: Fleet Black Sea -> Constantinople (*bounce*)
Turkey: Army Bulgaria SUPPORT Fleet Black Sea -> Constantinople

FALL 1903 MAP (click)

Letters from the Front (II)

[From the letters of Hazavágyódó Miklos...]

Dear Miklos,

Thank you for the last letter. The money you send does help, but the prices here are growing much faster than your salary can provide. They have been recruiting for a new Army all over the country, and I have been helping at the offices in Gyula for a small salary. It is only a little more than what is required to pay the nurse, and the rest, with what you send, is almost enough to keep Janos and I fed. László--you remember the yellow-haired officer here--says there may be other work available at the headquarters, and I look forward to the opportunity.

We get much military news here. I am sorry to hear of your terrible retreat, but I am glad that you are well. László says that you should not include information of your location in your letter, as it might reveal tactics to our enemies. Please stay unhurt, Miklos, and stay warm.

Your wife,

Anna

Germany: BUILD Army Munich
Italy: BUILD Army Venice

SPRING 1903 MAP (click)

L'Académie

[From L'Académie , by Aimee Ecrivain]

...It has been a most unusual year! Giselle has grown an inch over the summer, and has somehow grown hips enough to hold up her dreary limp outfits, and the boys--stupid things--turn their heads when they'd utterly ignored her not three months ago. When we skipped into the classroom together, hand-in-hand, there was Madame Lebeque, glaring at us and as immovable as ever. All you could see of her was a great pile of scraggly curls piled up over an ever-sinking scowl. I could have sworn that last spring, you could see her nose too. I imagine she was in that same chair thirty years ago, the mound of hair--brown or gold instead of dishwater gray, and maybe not even much out of fashion--staring down the students coming in. Maybe her chin even showed above the desk back then.

I was discomfited under the basilisk stare, and when it turned toward me, I slowed down and dramatically froze, which caused Giselle to giggle on cue. Even with her new womanly strut, the giggle saves our Giselle. She has a plain, though not ugly, face and her expression is quite often serious, as though she is focusing on the deeper philosophical meaning in conversation, the finer geometries in our playground and so forth. But it is an easy matter to light up that mouth and those eyes in mirth, and quite worth it. Mme. Lebeque's stare on me grew colder with my performance. She hardly seemed her normal, evil and dull self. She was agitated in some way. I really must know.

"Sit down children," she grumbled. Giselle nudged me, and I made as if shaking off a witch's spell. In our seats, we looked at each other. Something was up, clearly. Giselle hissed at me. "The new men in town, I bet you anything." When the English army left the city, it affected the villages towns only a little. Some men disappeared, sometimes new ones strutted about in one uniform or another. All the old men say it was always this way, even here in the south. They forever fight over our little villages and fields.

Medusa snarled from the front of the room. "There will be some changes this fall," she said. She produced a stack of fat pamphlets and placed them on her desk so as to obscure half of her visible head. "Please each of you take one of these. Calmly, now. They are your German primers" German? Giselle pushed me along.

When we were quite assembled back in our seats, Madame Lebeque spoke again. "You will have a new language teacher this fall." The situation seemed to demand a little more explanation. "With Monsieur Marceux..." (filthy garlic-breathed little lech) "...taken sick." She turned her head, and, to our collective amazement, stood up. The upper half of her body somehow looked exactly like the upper half of her face, all a pile of something or other. "Stefan?"

Now, I have seen boys in uniforms for school, for work, and, like I said, the English soldiers that until recently wandered through the center of town, they were very nice in their earnest, awkward way, but when Stefan (he wants us to call him Herr Gruber, even though he is very nearly our age) stepped in, you couldn't see his pink boy's face for all the polished boots, pressed trousers, crisp jacket that hung as neatly as though it were on the back of a statue. Even his...

MAP OF FALL 1902 MOVES (click)

Austria: Fleet Aegean Sea SUPPORT Italian Army Tunis -> Smyrna
Austria: Army Albania -> Greece (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Budapest -> Serbia (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Serbia -> Bulgaria (*bounce*)

England: Army Belgium HOLD (*no order, destroyed*)
England: Fleet English Channel SUPPORT Army Belgium
England: Fleet North Sea SUPPORT Fleet Norwegian Sea -> Norway
England: Fleet Norway -> St Petersburg (north coast) (*bounce*)
England: Fleet Norwegian Sea -> Norway (*bounce*)

France: Fleet Brest -> Mid-Atlantic Ocean
France: Army Burgundy SUPPORT German Army Ruhr -> Belgium
France: Army Gascony -> Brest
France: Fleet Mid-Atlantic Ocean -> Irish Sea
France: Army Picardy SUPPORT German Army Ruhr -> Belgium

Germany: Fleet Denmark HOLD
Germany: Army Holland SUPPORT Army Ruhr -> Belgium
Germany: Fleet Kiel SUPPORT Fleet Denmark
Germany: Army Ruhr -> Belgium
Germany: Army Silesia -> Warsaw (*bounce*)

Italy: Fleet Eastern Mediterranean CONVOY Army Tunis -> Smyrna
Italy: Fleet Ionian Sea CONVOY Army Tunis -> Smyrna
Italy: Army Trieste HOLD
Italy: Army Tunis -> Smyrna via convoy
Italy: Fleet Tyrrhenian Sea HOLD

Russia: Fleet Barents Sea SUPPORT Fleet Gulf of Bothnia -> St Petersburg (south coast)
Russia: Fleet Gulf of Bothnia -> St Petersburg (south coast)
Russia: Fleet Rumania SUPPORT Turkish Fleet Black Sea -> Bulgaria (east coast)
Russia: Army Sevastopol -> Ukraine (*bounce*)
Russia: Army Sweden -> Denmark (*bounce*)
Russia: Army Ukraine -> Warsaw (*bounce*)

Turkey: Army Armenia -> Smyrna (*bounce*)
Turkey: Fleet Black Sea -> Bulgaria (east coast) (*bounce*)
Turkey: Army Bulgaria -> Greece (*bounce*)

RESULTING MAP (click)

Germany: Builds 1 unit
Italy: Builds 1 unit

Centers:

Austria: 4
England: 4
France: 5
Germany: 6
Italy: 6
Russia: 6
Turkey: 3

Captain's Log

[From the diary of Capt. Richard "Cock" Turlington, recovered from the North Sea wreck of The HMS Evitable in 1992]

April 12, 1902
At last I sail again! It's with a deep and abundant pleasure that I captain His Majesty's fine steamship Evitable, of the new Duncan class, all 14,000 tons of her, with 82 able British hands on deck and below, and some dozen or so faithful negroes that have followed me from the dreadful camps of the Transvaal. Together, we pilot the Royal fleet through the waters of the Channel to face down the powers of the European continent. It is a job fit for an English man.

This was a lovely morning to mount the deck and breathe the air as it has snapped from the winter chill. A fine sea spray, and, at last, healthful northern air, neither oppressed with the salty heat of the southern continents, nor, worse for it, the fetid indoor air of an English study, all of musty books and hissing steam-pipes. All worth the wait, worth even the endless tiresome wheedling and letter-writing, and very nearly worth the trials of shipping two hundred Boer scum across the equator in a wooden tub, so that Admiral Fisher would offer command of this mighty vessel. It is a good time to be a captain, with war afoot and glory awaiting. May a portrait of a Turlington in battle can finally hang in our family halls after decades of, dare I say it, unremarkable commands.

The Evitable is no mere conveyance! No mere carrier of armies! She can ship at 19 knots, faster than all battlecruisers before her, and aim and fire all 28 of her cannon in unison. She's equipped with torpedo tubes to sink the wretched wine-drinkers and especially the Huns. A behemoth of steel plate, fire, coal, steam, and speed. None can match her and none can catch her.

She's a better ship than those ponderous German vessels, and should avail herself better than they have, if the King's intelligence is accurate, off the eastern coast of Denmark last month against the barely civilized Russians. Or that is what we have heard from Norway. A thousand years of history have reduced the primitive northmen to spies and proxies. I daresay we owe them as much. Our scouts on the channel have reported that the Normans stir themselves too, and, if they're to be believed, seek to float their hulks surreptiously off of our south coast. Not if King Edward disallows it! Let them taste our cannon!

I must address the crew.

MAP OF MOVES (click)

Austria: Army Albania -> Trieste (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Budapest -> Rumania (*bounce*)
Austria: Army Bulgaria SUPPORT Army Budapest -> Rumania (*cut, dislodged*)
Austria: Fleet Greece -> Aegean Sea

England: Army Belgium HOLD
England: Fleet Edinburgh -> Norwegian Sea
England: Fleet London -> English Channel
England: Fleet North Sea SUPPORT Fleet London -> English Channel
England: Fleet Norway HOLD

France: Fleet Brest -> English Channel (*bounce*)
France: Army Burgundy SUPPORT Army Paris -> Picardy
France: Army Paris -> Picardy
France: Fleet Portugal -> Mid-Atlantic Ocean
France: Army Spain -> Gascony

Germany: Fleet Denmark SUPPORT Fleet Kiel -> Baltic Sea (*cut*)
Germany: Army Holland SUPPORT Army Ruhr
Germany: Fleet Kiel -> Baltic Sea (*bounce*)
Germany: Army Munich -> Silesia
Germany: Army Ruhr HOLD

Italy: Fleet Ionian Sea -> Eastern Mediterranean
Italy: Fleet Naples -> Ionian Sea
Italy: Fleet Rome -> Tyrrhenian Sea
Italy: Army Trieste -> Budapest (*bounce*)
Italy: Army Tunis HOLD

Russia: Fleet Gulf of Bothnia -> Baltic Sea (*bounce*)
Russia: Army Moscow -> Ukraine
Russia: Fleet Rumania SUPPORT Turkish Army Constantinople -> Bulgaria (*cut*)
Russia: Army Sevastopol SUPPORT Fleet Rumania
Russia: Fleet St Petersburg (north coast) -> Barents Sea
Russia: Army Sweden -> Denmark (*bounce*)

Turkey: Fleet Black Sea SUPPORT Army Constantinople -> Bulgaria
Turkey: Army Constantinople -> Bulgaria
Turkey: Army Smyrna -> Armenia

Austria: Army Bulgaria -> Serbia
FALL 1902 MAP (click)

Letters from the Front

[Selection from the collected letters from Hazavágyódó Miklos (family name unknown), discovered during an apartment renovation in 1954. Courtesy of the Magyar-Slovenian National Archive.]

My dearest Anna,

Oh, how I have missed you! The men here have taken to calling me Homesick Miklos in the old fashion, I pine for you so. 'Homesick Miklos,' they say, 'crying after his little wife and son.' There are four of us Miklos in my regiment alone, so we need the extra names. Barrel-Chested Miklos is the man I told you about in my last letter, the man who was whipped for drunkenness in front of everyone. I do not know if he was really drunk, but he is very big and I suspect the Szakaszvezető wished to make an example of him. There are many such examples, but the food is not bad this far south, and they pay us. Even though it is cold, it is not as cold as in Gyula, and we soldiers are warm enough here. I hope that the meager salary you find within can help feed little Janos, he is such a fair little boy.

I tell you about Barrel-Chested Miklos because we have grown to be good friends. It is good to have a man so strong as your friend. He has not caused trouble since his beating, and I have done my best to be an obedient Honvéd. We are the Gyula 4 Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment, and even though they have moved us to southern lands, (as you know, becuase it has been nearly eight months since we could see each other, my dear) we all still call it the Gyula regiment.

Dear, we have marched and marched, and I have seen battle! This, at least, is what Szakaszvezető Scőlz has told us. Battle seems little danger, my love, but it is very exhausting. We have marched eastward many miles along a fine, wide river, and then many more miles south. The Gyula regiment is nearly in the middle of our Empire's army, and the leading units surprised a contingent of Moors that had wandered into the country, and were making their way to the capital, which for some reason they call Zsofia, as though the city were a wife. They fought, I am told, and the Turks ran. No one knows where they ran to.

Barrel-chested Miklos says that our army chased the Turks clear into the channel, however the Szakaszvezető told our small batallion not to be too sure of ourselves, because there are Russians on the waters, and the boats were shooting big guns on teh Turkish army to make them afraid. Szakaszvezető Scőlz says we would be fighting them ourselves and maybe even have retreated if they'd received support from their capital, or if the Turkish fleet had occupied the Russian one. He says we are very lucky, and I think he mistrusts the Russians too. He has made many unsavory comments about foreign generals (even the ones in our glorious empire) and the ability of all commanders everywhere. Barrel-chested Miklos laughs at all of this, and says we were just too mighty for them, that nothing can stop the empire of the dual monarchy.

I do not know if I agree with either, Anna. The purpose of the Army appears to be to threaten and posture. I think I prefer this to actually fighting other men, but I know that fighting has happened too and not far away. I don't know if I could stand to kill another man. Barrel-Chested Miklos talks as if he would like to do this, but I think he is as afraid as I am.

I miss you dearly my love.

--Hazavágyódó Miklos

Builds:
Austria: BUILD Army Budapest
England: BUILD Fleet Edinburgh
England: BUILD Fleet London
France: BUILD Fleet Brest
France: BUILD Army Paris
Germany: BUILD Fleet Kiel
Germany: BUILD Army Munich
Italy: BUILD Fleet Naples
Italy: BUILD Fleet Rome
Russia: BUILD Army Moscow
Russia: BUILD Fleet St Petersburg (north coast)
Turkey: BUILD Army Smyrna

NEW MAP (click)

The Soldier

[Excerpt from the short story The Soldier by Pavel Avtorsky, (1903, Anatoly Perevodchik, trans.)]

...Alina was a pretty girl with an inquisitive birdlike face but with the blocky body and ragged dress of a peasant. Her mother worked for low wages in the cold buildings of the Kurosky factory that were arrayed in a dusky expanse behind the family manor, where she threaded the great bolts of cloth onto the printing machines. The daughter assisted lazily among the domestic staff, preferring to daringly flutter her eyelashes at the Kurosky sons, and chatter with the other workers than focus on her chores. When she heard Captain Pyotr coming down with the men, she sweetly looked up from the basin at Marya Andreyvna, pulling her brush behind her back.

'We must finish the laundry, Alinka,' the old woman said sternly. 'Please, grab that ladle.' When Marya spoke, the wrinkling flesh on her chin danced lightly. Although she had buried three sons and a husband early in her life and had not remarried, she had developed the demeanor of a doting relative. Alina frequently called her Grandmother. She had been working at the estate since she herself was a girl, and was known to treat the young people as indulgently as she could. She winked at the girl. 'You can look at the handsome young man on the way back from the stream. Please now, don't rush so.'

Blushing, Alina returned to her task, falling to the routine of brushing and scrubbing in the hot water with her thick, red hands. When the basket was nearly full, she looked up expectantly at Marya. 'Yes, yes,' the old woman said, 'I can finish the rest.'

The day was bright, the grass soft, and upstream from the factory, the water was still clear and blue. Alina dropped the basket from her hip, and hurriedly plunged the shirts and trousers into the cool water, a stream of foam trailing lazily back toward the rocks, dappling the surface of the water with little rainbows. She had nearly finished when she heard the voices of men nearby. A smile dotted Alina's face, a sharp line underlining ruddy cheeks. She moved to the stream's edge and began deliberately laying out several shirts on a rock, listening.

The rheumy voice of Ivan Ilyavitch, she realized, was speaking to the young captain. She craned her neck toward the sound, and went even more slowly at the appearance of work. She could feel the flush on her face, but the men did not appear to be getting much closer. Ivan Ilyavitch did not move quickly.

'Tell me Captain...' The old man coughed, deep and wet. 'Tell me of the Army. Is there to be war?'

'Your hospitality is appreciated, Colonel. I don't know the extent to which you still follow the greater affairs of Russia in your retirement.'

Alina could make out a slow grumble. '... not greatly aware of movements south--we harry the Turks these days, yes?--but local events concern me greatly.' He paused for breath. 'You march to Riga, and then, I assume you sail to Sweden, yes?'

'...to guard the capital against the English, of all the races of Europe! They are sailing east, and the Germans and Austrians are consolidating territories too. They have made no action on us--we have even worked with Franz Kyu--but I fear the worst!'

'I have heard this as well. It is probably nothing, these European affairs. Tell me Captain, has the Tsar provisioned you for tents and uniforms? How are your men clothed? Perhaps we should discuss with Boris Ivanitch...'

The men rounded the corner to see Alina, clothes quite neglected, standing in the sun by the rock, attending their words. Recovering herself, she straightened her skirt and color suffused her brow and cheeks and she curtseyed to the two of them. She was aware of Captain Pyotr's broad shoulders, and how the sun glinted off of his flaxen hair and close-cropped beard.

The young man turned to the old, and chuckled: 'these mean serving folk never know their place, do they?' Ivan Ilyavitch wheezed.

Alina felt suddenly aware of her rags, her ruddy face, her raw hands and wet knees. She spoke no more and when the men continued on, she plunged the shirts in the stream with vigor, hit them with rocks and grunted at them, as though they held the good birth and fair hair that she did not.

Note: Turkish Army had no unoccupied center to which to retreat from Bulgaria and was necessarily disbanded.

MAP SHOWING FALL 1901 MOVES (click)

Austria: Fleet Albania -> Greece
Austria: Army Serbia -> Bulgaria
Austria: Army Trieste -> Albania

England: Fleet North Sea CONVOY Army Yorkshire -> Belgium
England: Fleet Norwegian Sea -> Norway
England: Army Yorkshire -> Belgium via convoy

France: Army Gascony -> Burgundy
France: Fleet Mid-Atlantic Ocean -> Portugal
France: Army Spain HOLD

Germany: Fleet Denmark HOLD
Germany: Army Kiel -> Holland
Germany: Army Munich -> Ruhr

Italy: Army Apulia -> Tunis via convoy
Italy: Fleet Ionian Sea CONVOY Army Apulia -> Tunis
Italy: Army Venice -> Trieste

Russia: Fleet Gulf of Bothnia CONVOY Army Livonia -> Sweden
Russia: Army Livonia -> Sweden via convoy
Russia: Fleet Rumania SUPPORT Austrian Army Serbia -> Bulgaria
Russia: Army Sevastopol SUPPORT Fleet Rumania

Turkey: Fleet Black Sea HOLD
Turkey: Army Bulgaria HOLD (*destroyed*)
Turkey: Army Constantinople HOLD

Centers
Austria: 4
England: 5
France: 5
Germany: 5
Italy: 5
Russia: 6
Turkey: 3

For Winter:
Austria: Builds 1 unit
England: Builds 2 units
France: Builds 2 units
Germany: Builds 2 units
Italy: Builds 2 units
Russia: Builds 2 units
Turkey: Builds 1 unit

RESULTING WINTER 1901 MAP (click)

The Old Country

[from an interview with Carmine "Fingers" Berette, San Quentin, CA, 1970]

The old country? Yeah, I remember the old country. Long time ago, some good times, some bad. I was a little boy there, runnin' around my brothers and cousins, doin' a little 'you know'. You don't know? Yeah, like we get in trouble maybe sometimes. Not much money in those days, not in the family, so we go get some. That's why we finally come here, you know? Land of opportunity and all that shit.

Yeah, so the one of the things I remember best as a boy, in the old country, I remember the day when we got us a queen. It was spring, right? Birds chirpin' and all that shit, and my uncle Sal comes out of the front door and onto the little porch he had, and says to Aunt Eloida, "we got a queen now," just like that, and I remember the way she looked at him, like she didn't know what to say. One of my sisters squealed "a queen--" Yeah, that was my little girl voice, you got a problem with that? That's how little girls talk, pal, they talk just like that. That's what I thought. Anyway, she said "a queen" in her girl voice, way back then, and I smacked her in the head because you know, a man was talkin'. But all us kids were really listenin' anyway, even the ones that knew when to shut the fuck up, because, you know, what the fuck, the old country didn't have no queens before.

"The fuckin' rice-eaters up north," Uncle Sal was saying, and I could tell he was mad, "first they boss us around, and the families do ugatz to stop 'em. People getting hanged here, locked up there, sometimes shot. Now the king Umberto whats-his-name is offed, and now we got a Rundipi somthing-or-other. You know who shot him? Anarchists! What the fuck is that? We're the fucking anarchists, and we didn't do that!"

I remember that same spring, next I heard about that Queen Rundipi--La Regina, they called her--yeah, next I hear, she's calling up a navy and uncle Sal is putting out to the sea. Last time I see the old bastard. She's got a rice-eater army marching south toward us too, and even though they say it's all our army, L'esercito Italiano, I believe that shit about as much as you do. Yeah, that spring is when I knew I had to get the fuck out of the old country, but it took a couple more years before I ever did. That's another story though, maybe I tell you about it later. I sure ain't doing nothin' else.

Note on upkeep: Control of the provinces is evaluated in the winter. When you look at the Fall map (scroll down), please pay attention to the actual locations of the armies and fleets as well as what color the centers are.

Spring 1901 Movements [CLICK FOR MAP OF MOVES]:
Austria: Army Budapest -> Serbia
Austria: Fleet Trieste -> Albania
Austria: Army Vienna -> Trieste

England: Fleet Edinburgh -> Norwegian Sea
England: Army Liverpool -> Yorkshire
England: Fleet London -> North Sea

France: Fleet Brest -> Mid-Atlantic Ocean
France: Army Marseilles -> Spain
France: Army Paris -> Gascony

Germany: Army Berlin -> Kiel
Germany: Fleet Kiel -> Denmark
Germany: Army Munich -> Tyrolia (*bounce*)

Italy: Fleet Naples -> Ionian Sea
Italy: Army Rome -> Apulia
Italy: Army Venice -> Tyrolia (*bounce*)

Russia: Army Moscow -> Sevastopol
Russia: Fleet Sevastopol -> Rumania
Russia: Fleet St Petersburg (south coast) -> Gulf of Bothnia
Russia: Army Warsaw -> Livonia

Turkey: Fleet Ankara -> Black Sea
Turkey: Army Constantinople -> Bulgaria
Turkey: Army Smyrna -> Constantinople

Centers

Austria: 3
England: 3
France: 3
Germany: 3
Italy: 3
Russia: 4
Turkey: 3

[CLICK HERE FOR RESULTING FALL 1901 MAP]

The turn of the century

[Excerpt from The Seeds of European Decline, Preface, by Prof. Azra Cohen-Smith, Harvard Press, 2013.]

Near the turn of the twentieth century, the world was possessed with a certain eschatological fervor, characterized by feelings of a certain perfection of the species by some groups of people, and by feelings of impending Biblical doom among other groups. A sense of exceptionalism abounded in most western nations, which led, perhaps inevitably, to continent-spanning conquest and war. Here is an article fragment found in the desk of Percy J. LaKwit by his great-grandson Jerome in 1982. It is believed to have been intended for publication in the New York Morning Journal ca. June 1900, during LaKwit's employment as assistant editor.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF HISTORY AWAITS

The Maine remembered
Nearly two years after the events which brought royal Spain to its knees, and freed the Nations of Cuba and the Filipines from its swarthy grip, we can now report on the legacy of President McKinley's splendid little war. Indeed, that legacy is progress, both moral and technological. Unassailable Scientific and mechanical discoveries on these shores will usher in a century like no other. Our railroads will tie our coasts together forever, and even now horseless carriages roam the city streets, freed from the volatile dangers of coal and steam. The plantations of the South rest quiet and free, and unlike any other White country, the United States thrives under the banner of unity and pluralism. Northern and southern man together defended the oppressed people of our rightful territories from the savage depredations of the Spaniard.

A look across the oceans
A new era of world significance awaits us. Asia with her rich resources lies ripe across the pacific. With the president reasonably restricting the Chinese influx to these shores, we can rightly pursue these ancient empires through trade and diplomacy. As Secretary Hay suggests, we can invest in the East like gentlemen, leaving the backwards African nations to the Europeans and their vile colonial ambitions. We will surely keep the Chinese from settling our protected territories of Hawaii and the newly acquired Filipines too.

Across the Atlantic, a new balance of power has emerged among the European states, which have, according to their inclinaitons, forged their own ethnic unions, as these United States fought to preserve a Union of law and spirit. These balanced forces will assure against any action by the nation-states. Perhaps the Europeans can one day consolidate their ethnic divisions with the success we have in this country.

In the Italian penninsula, the northern states and Rome have newly united their southern neighbors the rule of King Hubert, and will surely form a stable nation for years under his hand, likewise containing the Sicilians in their native lands and out of our fair city. The Prussians are united, and have grown a fleet to quell any British temptation to expand into western Europe. In the near east, the Ottoman Turk is comfortable enough having released the Christian segments of his empire, and the Moors look across the east to European peoples and north to the might of the Tsar, weary of battle, each content to mind their own affairs. Even the French have clamped down--

It is likely that the section after the tear referred to the conclusion of the Dreyfus affair, one of many starting points from which LaKwit frequently launched into anti-Semitic rants. No record of publication for this article can be found.

In any case, LaKwit, blinded by his own present, and hampered by certain centennarian beliefs, could not have been more wrong. The states of Europe were by no means stable in 1900, but were already maneuvering toward a violent clash of theretofore unknown scope...

Centers

Austria: 3
England: 3
France: 3
Germany: 3
Italy: 3
Russia: 4
Turkey: 3

Current Map