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)