Decades of Darkness
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- Start date
Decades of Darkness #132: Pillars Of Fire
Credit for this post goes to Robert Conley, who wrote most of this apart from a few editorial additions.
* * *
“No matter how much hope seems lost, the future always remains.”
- Henry Goddard, New England rocket engineer
* * *
20 July 1906
Montauk Proving Grounds
Montauk, Long Island, New England
Henry Goddard [1] mounted the sheet metal tube on a bipod and sat down next to it. After putting his eye to the attached sight, he signalled his assistant one hundred meters away. He pulled a lanyard, and a thrower launched several clay birds [2] into air. Henry swivelled the tube, tracking the clay birds until they hit the ground. Then he pulled a lever. Something shrieked as smoke erupted from the back end of the tube. A blur streaked across the field toward the clay birds, landing just beyond them. As it struck the ground, it exploded with a force that destroyed more than two-thirds of the birds.
Not bad, he thought, and turned to General Lansing. “Shall I load another?”
The general shook his head. “I’ve seen enough.” He nodded at the nearby adjunct. “What’s the tally?”
The adjunct glanced at a tally slate and said, “Two misfires, two right on target, three misses, and two partial hits.” He looked up the field and corrected himself. “Three partial hits. And of the five bunker shots, two caused interior damage.”
Lansing turned back to Goddard. “So, you say you put this together in two weeks?” His tone carried clear disbelief.
Goddard lowered the tube. “Well, the tube and firing system took two weeks. The key’s the nozzle I use. I call it a Dunker nozzle. It works by...” Goddard noted the impatient look on the general’s face, and hurried on. “It lets the rocket fly accurately. It took me about a month to find the right shape to use for these shells.”
Lansing stroked his beard as he considered, then said, “Fine, Mr Goddard. Make me one hundred of these. I’ll assign it a high priority to make sure they can be made before...” This time the general had to change his words. “To make sure they can be made in good time.”
“Thank you, general,” Goddard said.
“New England should be thanking you, Mr Goddard,” Lansing replied. “We’ll form a special rocket company, and see how much the Jackals like these screaming banshees.”
* * *
Taken from: “Rockets: The Wave Of the Future”
(c) 1953 by John Banning
Ashbury Publishing
New York City, New England
With the Eastern Army closing on the Hudson shoreline, the 1st Provisional Rocket Company were deployed into frontline service on 10 September 1906, much earlier than had originally been intended. The “Banshees” they deployed proved to be useful mobile artillery, giving the companies of the 23rd Rhode Island Regiment convenient pinpoint firepower. The Banshees were temperamental, failing to ignite or missing more than half of the time. But their ability to reload quickly and to be aimed more effectively even than a mortar made up for most of their other shortcomings.
Colonel Peter Edwards in particular was effusive in praising them, stating that the 1st Rocket Company helped to fend off several choketrooper assaults around Craven Point, New Jersey between 12 and 14 September. This allowed the 23rd Rhode Island to escape across the Hudson with their fellows before the remaining U.S. forces closed in.
* * *
Taken from: “Going to the Moon”
(c) 1973 by Dr. Anton Leonov
Moscow University
Moscow, Russian Federation
English Translation by Arthur Fleming
Chapter 3: 19th Century Rocketry and Henry Goddard
William Congreve developed his famous “Congreve Rocket” during the First Napoleonic Wars. His inspiration came from reports of the use of rockets in India, where they had been used against the British Army. Believing that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, he constructed rockets of his own. The British Army and Royal Navy both adopted the Congreve Rocket as an inexpensive means of mass bombardment of fortifications. They were used to good effect in several battles, including Copenhagen in 1809 and Leipzig in 1813. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British continued to maintain rocket companies, a practice that was soon adopted by most major European nations...
In the 1850s, William Hale invented an improved rocket by including a nozzle which caused it to spin, and thus eliminating the need for the ten-foot long stick which had been used to stabilise the Congreve. However, other advances in artillery saw most rocket companies discarded as obsolete by the late 1870s, except for a few retained in Germany and the United Kingdom.
Rocket companies enjoyed a brief resurgence during the Second Napoleonic Wars as nations attempted to find ways to minimise the high casualties involved with taking fortified positions. These companies enjoyed only marginal success, and their most effective deployment at the Battle of Rheims was all but forgotten since the British lost that battle. After the wars’ end, further advances in artillery continued to attract most attention, particularly the mortars which had been so successfully used by the Italians. In 1894, Britain disbanded its last rocket company, although the Hale Rocket continued to be used in ship signalling and sea rescue operations.
In 1893, William Dunker [3] of New Jersey invented the Dunker Nozzle [4]. He was the owner of Dunker Steam Engines in Elizabethtown, which specialized in making small steam engines for the agricultural market. The nozzle gave Dunker more precise control over the high pressure flow of steam in his engines.
In 1905, 32-year-old Henry Goddard was an engineer in New York. When war broke out with the United States, he took up a position as a design engineer with Wesson Holdings, one of the largest munitions manufacturers in New England. With the army and government clamouring for anything that would break the trench deadlock, Goddard was put to work investigating steam power plants for arlacs. As part of this work, he was assigned to investigate the Dunker Nozzle.
On a wintry day in March 1906, which has variously been reported as the 13th, 14th or 15th, Henry Goddard took a ferry across the East River to Brooklyn. Along the way, he saw fire-fighters using Hale Rockets from fireboats to shoot rope lines into a burning building. Forgetting his appointment, he went over to the fire-fighters and examined one of the rockets. From his examination, he realised how the Dunker nozzle could make the rocket much more effective.
For the next three months, Goddard worked whenever he had a spare moment, and he succeeded in combining the Hale Rocket with a Dunker nozzle. Elated with the increase in performance and accuracy, Goddard presented the new rocket to the New England military, and by dint of much effort succeeded in having formal tests made. During the test, the traditional rocket battery was abandoned in favor of a sheet metal tube that could be deployed by two men. The test was successful enough for an order to be placed for enough rockets to outfit a rocket company.
The Goddard rocket came to be called the “Banshee” by the soldiers who carried them and, soon enough, by the soldiers who faced them, too. Reliability was a serious concern. Over half of the rockets malfunctioned in some way, although actual launch explosions were fortunately rare. But when the rockets functioned properly, they performed good work in breaking field fortifications. Unfortunately for New England they arrived too late to affect the war.
After the war, Henry Goddard formed the Goddard Rocket Corporation to build and market his new rocket. His company had some success with sales to the military, which seized on rockets as one type of weapon which was not forbidden under the Treaty of Washington, and to shipping companies. In 1908, he met Randall Johnson, a physicist with Harvard University. Johnson was interested in the study of weather and the atmosphere, and found it intriguing as to how high Goddard’s rockets might be made to reach. Henry Goddard took a strong personal interest in this project, and by 1910 he had developed the modern sounding rocket, along with instrumentation and recovery techniques. By 1912, Goddard Atmospheric Rockets were reaching heights of 20km.
* * *
18 April 1910
Lawson Fairgrounds
Lawson [Hutchinson, Kansas]
Kansas, USA
With a quick tug to straighten his vest, Andrew Morrell stepped out of his tent and into the glare of the prairie sun. He turned to the crowd gathered behind the ropes and announced, “Step right up, step right up, ladies and gentlemen. You are about to see the greatest demonstration of sky riding in all the world. Without engine or propeller, Sky Captain Hap Sewell will take the skycraft to the heights of Icarus, and return unscathed on the wings of eagles.”
Morell picked up a flag and waved to a skyrider at the far end of the field. On cue, two black jets of smoke erupted underneath the rider’s wings, and it quickly moved down the field. After about a hundred yards, the skyrider leaped into the air and pulled into a steep climb.
After half a minute the skyrider had ascended out of sight, except for the smoke trails. The smoke began to drift back down to earth, and the crowd gasped when two explosions erupted somewhere up in the sky.
Morrell turned to the crowd. “As in the days of old, the gods do not like their heights being assaulted by man. Will Captain Sewell survive?” He gestured to a nearby band, who began to play a dramatic tune.
A boy from the crowd shouted, “Look! Look! There he is!” as he pointed to the northwest. Morrell and the crowd turned to look and watched the skyrider silently glide in. The crowd held their breath as the skycraft steadily dipped up and down until finally its wheels touched down on the field.
When the skyrider came to a stop, the crowd erupted in a thunderous cheer. The pilot climbed out, walked over to the ropes and began signing autographs. After several minutes Morrell walked over and pulled the pilot away back to the tent. “That was great, Hap! Although a little dramatic on the bobbing up and down.”
“Yeah, but Gawd dammit, you got to spend a little more on dem rockets. The two exploded five seconds earlier than they were supposed too.
“Hey! I hear ya,” Morrell answered, slapping Hap on the back. “Let’s get the rest of the show up in the sky!”
* * *
Taken from: “Rockets: The Wave Of the Future”
(c) 1953 by John Banning
Ashbury Publishing
New York City, New England
After the North American War, the sky pilots were lionized as the new knights for a new technological age. Thousands flocked to sky shows and carnivals where the best of the pilots displayed their feats of manoeuvring in the newest skycraft.
Of those shows, among the most dramatic were those organised by Andrew Morrell. Andrew Morell was a mechanic who had been involved with carnivals before the North American War. When he volunteered after the outbreak of war he was assigned to the nascent US Army Sky Corps. After the winter of 1905, he was sent to the Outer Banks Proving Ground in North Carolina where he began work building and maintaining prototype skycraft. One of those prototypes was devised to use Hale Rockets to aid in takeoff in order to carry large loads into the air.
After the war, Andrew Morrell joined some of the original skymen putting on sky carnivals, including Captain Bannon and his Skymen, the Sky Boys, and Knights of the Blue Sky. In 1909 he joined forces with some of his old friends from North Carolina and organized his own sky carnival called the Sky Captains of Tomorrow.
To give their show an edge, Andrew Morrell and his friend John “Hap” Sewell worked on adapting a glider to use Hale Rockets. By the spring of 1910, they had built a worked rocket-powered skycraft and began to use it as the centrepiece of their show. In addition to being rocket-powered, the Morrell-Sewell skycraft was the first to use aluminium throughout its structure for lightness and strength.
The rocket powered skycraft would climb several thousand feet in the thirty seconds that the rockets fired [5]. To minimize the danger of fire, the pilot would drop the rockets just after they were exhausted, then glide back in for a landing. Later in the year, Morrell added fireworks to the rockets so that they would explode after they dropped. The fuses were timed so that the pilot had time to glide away before the fireworks exploded. This practice ended in the following year after the tragic death of Luis Aaron. While piloting the skycraft in Morrell’s show one of his rockets didn’t drop and the fuse was activated. When the rocket exploded, it sheared the wing off his craft and made it crash.
* * *
[1] Henry Goddard is not the same as OTL’s Robert Goddard, but from the same family.
[2] ITTL Skeet targets are called clay birds, not clay pigeons.
[3] The early history of rockets could almost be called “There’s Something About William.”
[4] The Dunker Nozzle is equivalent to OTL’s De Lavel Nozzle. For more information, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_de_Laval
[5] The Morrell-Sewell skycraft is roughly equivalent to OTL’s Lippisch Ente, and is capable of reaching a maximum of 5000-8000 feet. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippisch_Ente
* * *
Thoughts?
Kaiser Willhelm III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
http://decadesofdarkness.blogspot.com/
Credit for this post goes to Robert Conley, who wrote most of this apart from a few editorial additions.
* * *
“No matter how much hope seems lost, the future always remains.”
- Henry Goddard, New England rocket engineer
* * *
20 July 1906
Montauk Proving Grounds
Montauk, Long Island, New England
Henry Goddard [1] mounted the sheet metal tube on a bipod and sat down next to it. After putting his eye to the attached sight, he signalled his assistant one hundred meters away. He pulled a lanyard, and a thrower launched several clay birds [2] into air. Henry swivelled the tube, tracking the clay birds until they hit the ground. Then he pulled a lever. Something shrieked as smoke erupted from the back end of the tube. A blur streaked across the field toward the clay birds, landing just beyond them. As it struck the ground, it exploded with a force that destroyed more than two-thirds of the birds.
Not bad, he thought, and turned to General Lansing. “Shall I load another?”
The general shook his head. “I’ve seen enough.” He nodded at the nearby adjunct. “What’s the tally?”
The adjunct glanced at a tally slate and said, “Two misfires, two right on target, three misses, and two partial hits.” He looked up the field and corrected himself. “Three partial hits. And of the five bunker shots, two caused interior damage.”
Lansing turned back to Goddard. “So, you say you put this together in two weeks?” His tone carried clear disbelief.
Goddard lowered the tube. “Well, the tube and firing system took two weeks. The key’s the nozzle I use. I call it a Dunker nozzle. It works by...” Goddard noted the impatient look on the general’s face, and hurried on. “It lets the rocket fly accurately. It took me about a month to find the right shape to use for these shells.”
Lansing stroked his beard as he considered, then said, “Fine, Mr Goddard. Make me one hundred of these. I’ll assign it a high priority to make sure they can be made before...” This time the general had to change his words. “To make sure they can be made in good time.”
“Thank you, general,” Goddard said.
“New England should be thanking you, Mr Goddard,” Lansing replied. “We’ll form a special rocket company, and see how much the Jackals like these screaming banshees.”
* * *
Taken from: “Rockets: The Wave Of the Future”
(c) 1953 by John Banning
Ashbury Publishing
New York City, New England
With the Eastern Army closing on the Hudson shoreline, the 1st Provisional Rocket Company were deployed into frontline service on 10 September 1906, much earlier than had originally been intended. The “Banshees” they deployed proved to be useful mobile artillery, giving the companies of the 23rd Rhode Island Regiment convenient pinpoint firepower. The Banshees were temperamental, failing to ignite or missing more than half of the time. But their ability to reload quickly and to be aimed more effectively even than a mortar made up for most of their other shortcomings.
Colonel Peter Edwards in particular was effusive in praising them, stating that the 1st Rocket Company helped to fend off several choketrooper assaults around Craven Point, New Jersey between 12 and 14 September. This allowed the 23rd Rhode Island to escape across the Hudson with their fellows before the remaining U.S. forces closed in.
* * *
Taken from: “Going to the Moon”
(c) 1973 by Dr. Anton Leonov
Moscow University
Moscow, Russian Federation
English Translation by Arthur Fleming
Chapter 3: 19th Century Rocketry and Henry Goddard
William Congreve developed his famous “Congreve Rocket” during the First Napoleonic Wars. His inspiration came from reports of the use of rockets in India, where they had been used against the British Army. Believing that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, he constructed rockets of his own. The British Army and Royal Navy both adopted the Congreve Rocket as an inexpensive means of mass bombardment of fortifications. They were used to good effect in several battles, including Copenhagen in 1809 and Leipzig in 1813. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British continued to maintain rocket companies, a practice that was soon adopted by most major European nations...
In the 1850s, William Hale invented an improved rocket by including a nozzle which caused it to spin, and thus eliminating the need for the ten-foot long stick which had been used to stabilise the Congreve. However, other advances in artillery saw most rocket companies discarded as obsolete by the late 1870s, except for a few retained in Germany and the United Kingdom.
Rocket companies enjoyed a brief resurgence during the Second Napoleonic Wars as nations attempted to find ways to minimise the high casualties involved with taking fortified positions. These companies enjoyed only marginal success, and their most effective deployment at the Battle of Rheims was all but forgotten since the British lost that battle. After the wars’ end, further advances in artillery continued to attract most attention, particularly the mortars which had been so successfully used by the Italians. In 1894, Britain disbanded its last rocket company, although the Hale Rocket continued to be used in ship signalling and sea rescue operations.
In 1893, William Dunker [3] of New Jersey invented the Dunker Nozzle [4]. He was the owner of Dunker Steam Engines in Elizabethtown, which specialized in making small steam engines for the agricultural market. The nozzle gave Dunker more precise control over the high pressure flow of steam in his engines.
In 1905, 32-year-old Henry Goddard was an engineer in New York. When war broke out with the United States, he took up a position as a design engineer with Wesson Holdings, one of the largest munitions manufacturers in New England. With the army and government clamouring for anything that would break the trench deadlock, Goddard was put to work investigating steam power plants for arlacs. As part of this work, he was assigned to investigate the Dunker Nozzle.
On a wintry day in March 1906, which has variously been reported as the 13th, 14th or 15th, Henry Goddard took a ferry across the East River to Brooklyn. Along the way, he saw fire-fighters using Hale Rockets from fireboats to shoot rope lines into a burning building. Forgetting his appointment, he went over to the fire-fighters and examined one of the rockets. From his examination, he realised how the Dunker nozzle could make the rocket much more effective.
For the next three months, Goddard worked whenever he had a spare moment, and he succeeded in combining the Hale Rocket with a Dunker nozzle. Elated with the increase in performance and accuracy, Goddard presented the new rocket to the New England military, and by dint of much effort succeeded in having formal tests made. During the test, the traditional rocket battery was abandoned in favor of a sheet metal tube that could be deployed by two men. The test was successful enough for an order to be placed for enough rockets to outfit a rocket company.
The Goddard rocket came to be called the “Banshee” by the soldiers who carried them and, soon enough, by the soldiers who faced them, too. Reliability was a serious concern. Over half of the rockets malfunctioned in some way, although actual launch explosions were fortunately rare. But when the rockets functioned properly, they performed good work in breaking field fortifications. Unfortunately for New England they arrived too late to affect the war.
After the war, Henry Goddard formed the Goddard Rocket Corporation to build and market his new rocket. His company had some success with sales to the military, which seized on rockets as one type of weapon which was not forbidden under the Treaty of Washington, and to shipping companies. In 1908, he met Randall Johnson, a physicist with Harvard University. Johnson was interested in the study of weather and the atmosphere, and found it intriguing as to how high Goddard’s rockets might be made to reach. Henry Goddard took a strong personal interest in this project, and by 1910 he had developed the modern sounding rocket, along with instrumentation and recovery techniques. By 1912, Goddard Atmospheric Rockets were reaching heights of 20km.
* * *
18 April 1910
Lawson Fairgrounds
Lawson [Hutchinson, Kansas]
Kansas, USA
With a quick tug to straighten his vest, Andrew Morrell stepped out of his tent and into the glare of the prairie sun. He turned to the crowd gathered behind the ropes and announced, “Step right up, step right up, ladies and gentlemen. You are about to see the greatest demonstration of sky riding in all the world. Without engine or propeller, Sky Captain Hap Sewell will take the skycraft to the heights of Icarus, and return unscathed on the wings of eagles.”
Morell picked up a flag and waved to a skyrider at the far end of the field. On cue, two black jets of smoke erupted underneath the rider’s wings, and it quickly moved down the field. After about a hundred yards, the skyrider leaped into the air and pulled into a steep climb.
After half a minute the skyrider had ascended out of sight, except for the smoke trails. The smoke began to drift back down to earth, and the crowd gasped when two explosions erupted somewhere up in the sky.
Morrell turned to the crowd. “As in the days of old, the gods do not like their heights being assaulted by man. Will Captain Sewell survive?” He gestured to a nearby band, who began to play a dramatic tune.
A boy from the crowd shouted, “Look! Look! There he is!” as he pointed to the northwest. Morrell and the crowd turned to look and watched the skyrider silently glide in. The crowd held their breath as the skycraft steadily dipped up and down until finally its wheels touched down on the field.
When the skyrider came to a stop, the crowd erupted in a thunderous cheer. The pilot climbed out, walked over to the ropes and began signing autographs. After several minutes Morrell walked over and pulled the pilot away back to the tent. “That was great, Hap! Although a little dramatic on the bobbing up and down.”
“Yeah, but Gawd dammit, you got to spend a little more on dem rockets. The two exploded five seconds earlier than they were supposed too.
“Hey! I hear ya,” Morrell answered, slapping Hap on the back. “Let’s get the rest of the show up in the sky!”
* * *
Taken from: “Rockets: The Wave Of the Future”
(c) 1953 by John Banning
Ashbury Publishing
New York City, New England
After the North American War, the sky pilots were lionized as the new knights for a new technological age. Thousands flocked to sky shows and carnivals where the best of the pilots displayed their feats of manoeuvring in the newest skycraft.
Of those shows, among the most dramatic were those organised by Andrew Morrell. Andrew Morell was a mechanic who had been involved with carnivals before the North American War. When he volunteered after the outbreak of war he was assigned to the nascent US Army Sky Corps. After the winter of 1905, he was sent to the Outer Banks Proving Ground in North Carolina where he began work building and maintaining prototype skycraft. One of those prototypes was devised to use Hale Rockets to aid in takeoff in order to carry large loads into the air.
After the war, Andrew Morrell joined some of the original skymen putting on sky carnivals, including Captain Bannon and his Skymen, the Sky Boys, and Knights of the Blue Sky. In 1909 he joined forces with some of his old friends from North Carolina and organized his own sky carnival called the Sky Captains of Tomorrow.
To give their show an edge, Andrew Morrell and his friend John “Hap” Sewell worked on adapting a glider to use Hale Rockets. By the spring of 1910, they had built a worked rocket-powered skycraft and began to use it as the centrepiece of their show. In addition to being rocket-powered, the Morrell-Sewell skycraft was the first to use aluminium throughout its structure for lightness and strength.
The rocket powered skycraft would climb several thousand feet in the thirty seconds that the rockets fired [5]. To minimize the danger of fire, the pilot would drop the rockets just after they were exhausted, then glide back in for a landing. Later in the year, Morrell added fireworks to the rockets so that they would explode after they dropped. The fuses were timed so that the pilot had time to glide away before the fireworks exploded. This practice ended in the following year after the tragic death of Luis Aaron. While piloting the skycraft in Morrell’s show one of his rockets didn’t drop and the fuse was activated. When the rocket exploded, it sheared the wing off his craft and made it crash.
* * *
[1] Henry Goddard is not the same as OTL’s Robert Goddard, but from the same family.
[2] ITTL Skeet targets are called clay birds, not clay pigeons.
[3] The early history of rockets could almost be called “There’s Something About William.”
[4] The Dunker Nozzle is equivalent to OTL’s De Lavel Nozzle. For more information, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_de_Laval
[5] The Morrell-Sewell skycraft is roughly equivalent to OTL’s Lippisch Ente, and is capable of reaching a maximum of 5000-8000 feet. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippisch_Ente
* * *
Thoughts?
Kaiser Willhelm III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
http://decadesofdarkness.blogspot.com/
Othniel said:
When I first heard the name (which I didn't pick, by the way), I automatically thought of the first Prime Minister of New Zealand (here).
But there's also Sewell Point, New Jersey, which I suspect is where the inspiration is from.
Scarecrow said:re: 132 that is freaking awesome. i would have loved to have to see Morrells rocket-glider
Yeah, it'd take a brave man to sit on top of one of those, but it'd be worth the show.
MBarry said:I can't wait to see V-2s raining down on the USA. It would be even better if there was an abomb or dozen on top of it. But what you gonna do
"Forget the dogs, rockets are a man's best friend."
G.Bone said:
Disclaimer: DoD is a work of fiction and any similarities to anything which really exists are purely coincidental. Those things which appear to be trees are really just optical illusions. And don't ask who's supplying the voices.
Seriously, though, I haven't seen the movie. Is it any good?
G.Bone said:
It's coming; it's one of the two of my own posts nearest completion. (There's a couple written by others). The other one is an interlude post which will be, well, you'll see...
There's certainly some militants in New England, but the government as a whole isn't militant, really. More information to follow soon.
Straha said:Why not have a new england hitler/stalin analogue?
Daniel Hettler or Joseph Stahl perhaps
A direct analogue would be too close to OTL, I think, and New England isn't really in a position to produce a pocket Hitler anyway. (Stalin in New England would be a good way to wreck the place, if I were feeling that evil.) The leaders who are going to arise in New England will have certain... tendencies, but more composites of several historical figures rather than direct analogues.
A certain recent...oh dear God, a fat chick in a beret will appear in the White House under Bull?!? This truly is a dark world...you could have spared them that horror...
And what a pity that this world's Angelina Jolie counterpart will not be appearing in the New England Rocket Corps any time soon.
At least this world's Goddard got the respect and funding which he deserves, now if only a young professor Alvin Einstein were to meet him...
Should be interesting to see what's next, especially how there can be a restored (British) Empire if Scotland and Wales are independent...uh oh. This might be bad news for Scots and Welsh.
And what a pity that this world's Angelina Jolie counterpart will not be appearing in the New England Rocket Corps any time soon.
At least this world's Goddard got the respect and funding which he deserves, now if only a young professor Alvin Einstein were to meet him...
Should be interesting to see what's next, especially how there can be a restored (British) Empire if Scotland and Wales are independent...uh oh. This might be bad news for Scots and Welsh.
Grimm Reaper said:
There are other recent presidents besides a certain M. Clinton.
And what a pity that this world's Angelina Jolie counterpart will not be appearing in the New England Rocket Corps any time soon.
You never know...
Nuclear weapons are one area where the technology is behind that of OTL (along with some parts of chemistry and most electronic technology).
Should be interesting to see what's next, especially how there can be a restored (British) Empire if Scotland and Wales are independent...uh oh. This might be bad news for Scots and Welsh.
Depends on your POV. There's been a reference to how there's a Republic of Cymru in the 1950s, so that could be seen as a good or a bad thing.
Decades of Darkness #133: After The Tide
“Never have I been so amazed than at how many of our politicians who voted for the war when it was declared can now reveal that they were secretly against it all along. It must have been the best-kept secret in history.”
- New England President Nicholas Forbes, 1907
* * *
9 February 1907
NES Apollo
Near Boston, Massachusetts
Rear Admiral Seymour Bentley had allowed himself few moments of sentiment in his life, but he felt that he deserved this one. The Apollo had been the pride of New England seamanship, the first of a new class of battleships which would outfight any other vessel afloat. Unlike most other battleships, the Apollo had held its own off Long Island... but victory was decided by the overall battle, not the actions of one vessel.
Now, the Apollo was two days away from decommissioning. Two days of long, slow travel from Boston to New York Harbour, where it was scheduled to be broken up under the watchful eyes of Jackal inspectors and sold for scrap. The ship could have travelled there much faster, but the circuitous route which Bentley had ordered was to allow him some final time to reminisce. A shame he couldn’t give the Jackals a final greeting, but the ship carried no shells for her guns. The Americans had already seen to that.
Even now, Bentley watched from the bridge. Not because he needed to, but because he wanted to see as much as he could on the last voyage. New England was now forbidden by treaty to build or run another battleship of this class, and he doubted that those treaty restrictions could be broken openly for a long time. He’d already heard rumours of a few submersibles being built in Britain for New England industrialists, but a battleship was a much harder thing to hide.
A shadow darkened the bridge, as something outside moved between the Apollo and the sun. Something large and metallic. Another of the Jackals’ accursed cloud-ships, this one keeping watch on the Apollo, just in case. Their value as reconnaissance craft had been made clear during the war, and New England was forbidden from building any of them, either.
But could we build something to shoot them down? Bentley wondered. Sky-riders hardly had the range of cloud-ships, but they had proven during the last days of the war that they could shoot down the floating gas-bags, too. Would it be possible to build a ship that could carry a sky-rider or two? Having a couple of those, suitably equipped with incendiary bullets, might keep the Jackals’ prying eyes away from New England’s ships. It was something to consider, at least.
He heard a commotion at the entrance to the bridge, and then half a dozen armed sailors entered, followed by Captain Wyatt. The sailors didn’t quite point their guns at Bentley, but their demeanour made it quite clear that they retained that option. “Ah, Captain. Some trouble aboard ship?”
“Not as such, sir. Just a slight change of plan.”
“Oh?”
“It’s a good thing that Apollo is fully coaled, since she’s about to sail to Antwerp. Then to... somewhere else,” Captain Wyatt said.
“Whatever for?’
“This ship means too much for it to be scrapped,” Wyatt said. “And much as I regret it, sir, we can’t let you stay in command here any longer.” Now the sailors did raise their guns. “The country needs you too much, sir. You’ll be put ashore at Antwerp.”
“Mutiny,” Bentley said coldly, as he had to.
“If you want to call it that,” Wyatt said. “Myself, I prefer to think of it as patriotism.”
* * *
Taken from: “Famous Ships of the World”
(c) 1952 by Alexander Jamison
Trinity Publishing: Dublin, Ireland
The Liberty: The Ship That Served Two Navies
The RLS Liberty saw most of its service as the first capital ship of the Liberian Navy, but it was originally built for and used in the New England Navy. Commissioned in 1904, the NES Apollo was the first of a new class of battleships, and the pride of New England’s fleet. It saw service in the Battle of Long Island, where it performed well on the losing side, but was due to be decommissioned along with all other modern battleships in the New England Navy at the end of the North American War.
On its intended final voyage, Apollo was hijacked my mutineers with the suspected connivance of the New England government, and taken to Liberia. Despite the vociferous demands of the U.S. government, the ship was never returned. The New England government issued repeated protests, which were largely considered to be for form’s sake, and the Liberian government duly ignored those protests. The mutineers were tried by military court and sentenced in absentia, and most of them lived out the remainder of their lives in exile in Liberia.
* * *
Excerpts from: “When Honour Is Not Enough”
(c) 1917 by Nicholas Forbes
Vanderbilt Press, New York City, LI, New England
The presidency always involves many hard decisions, for it is an office which will weary any man who accepts it. But of all the difficult choices I faced in my term, the two which I most agonised over were whether to accept Washington [i.e. the Treaty of Washington], and whether to order the Army to disperse the rioters in Hartford after they heard of the treaty’s signature.
In my heart, I knew the reasons why the rioters were surrounding Federal House [1] and the House of Congress. To be sure, I sympathised with their despair and hatred. But realistically, I had to order the Army to forcibly disperse the rioters. It is a hard thing indeed to see New Englanders turn their guns on each other. But I had no other choice. Anarchy would have been even worse. While I would have sacrificed my own life for the sake of New England, an ungoverned country would only invite the United States to come back.
As for the peace treaty they were protesting, while I regretted that even more, it was a much easier choice to make. No-one could doubt that we had lost the war. For whatever His reasons, God had allowed the Americans to win on land and at sea. To continue the war would only have seen New England suffer the same fate as Colombia. So while continuing the war might have meant that history looked on me more fondly, I did not care. I would rather have my country remember me as a traitor than have no country to remember me.
* * *
22 February 1907
Hartford, Connecticut
Republic of New England
Snow still covered the streets of Hartford, in a winter which had seemed the longest he had ever seen. Cold, and oh so bitter. When the feeble sun appeared through the clouds, it did nothing but make the snow gleam. But at least the blanket of white covered the red which had once flowed on the streets.
Senator John Hunter knew without any false modesty that he was the leading voice amongst the Radicals in the Senate. He had been following a long political tradition of former presidents taking up residence in the Senate and acting as amongst its guiding voices. With J. Baird Weaver, the man who followed him as President, looking always more tired and ready for a grave, Hunter had become the determining voice amongst the Radicals. And as he had done in his previous career as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he had done his best to arrange political compromises which benefited all parties. But what he faced here was perhaps the most difficult one of all.
He had gathered four other Radical Senators here to make the decision. The Senate was the proving ground for any possible action against President Forbes, after all. While last year’s elections had delivered a few more Senators to be sworn in ten days later, those junior ones would not have the influence of those gathered here. And the House of Representatives would have a large enough Radical majority to guarantee that any impeachment proceedings would pass it. Which would leave the Senate to decide Forbes’ fate.
Senator Mahlon Pitney, who now represented a shrunken state, opened the conversation, and was every bit as vehement as Hunter had expected. “Forbes has to be removed. He has dragged the country into a time of bitter bloodshed, criminally abandoned New England soil, and he cannot be allowed to continue in office.”
“You mean, you want to impeach him for losing a war?” said Senator Eugene Hale of Maine, whose voice still reminded Hunter of that man’s Scottish origins.
“Easy for you to dismiss,” Pitney muttered. He had half a point; Maine had not exactly suffered as badly in the war as New Jersey. “If bungling a war does not count as a high crime, what does?”
“Good question,” Hunter said. He tried to keep his voice one of moderation. “The question of what would qualify for impeachment was one our founding fathers never really addressed definitively.”
“Much as I regret to say it, I don’t think that incompetence is a grounds for impeachment,” Senator J. Baird Weaver of Niagara said. “Nor is losing a war.”
“It would be, if we define it as that,” Pitney said.
“Besides, we need to do something to calm the people,” Timothy Vanderbilt said. He kept looking morosely at the window. But everyone in the room, including Hunter, needed little reminding of how restless the streets remained. The Army had broken the rioters who had tried to storm Congress, but street marches continued almost daily, despite the inclement weather. “We’ve never lost a war before. I don’t think the people know how to lose a war.”
“If we look at things that way, I’m not sure if impeachment would make things better or worse,” Hunter said. “It would embolden the protestors, I think, more than quell them. What the country needs now is stability.
Hale said, “Forbes in office will make an easier election campaign for us next year than if we remove him and make John Lodge the President. He could stand for re-election and even win some public sympathy.”
Pitney said, “You really want to leave him there?”
“So long as he leaves the governance of the country to Congress, why not?” Hale said. “If he interferes with the actions we need to stabilise the country – certainly if he vetos anything – then we can remove him. Otherwise, why not leave him there?”
By the nods of everyone in the room –except Pitney – Hunter knew that this was the right course to take.
* * *
The Ballington Express (5 November 1946)
Ballington, Jackson State
United States of America
Today In History:
On this day in 1907, in the aftermath of the North American War, the former British dependencies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island held plebiscites to determine whether they would unify with Canada or New England, or seek independence. The voters in neither dependency showed much interest in joining strife-torn Canada, with Prince Edward Island narrowly voting for admission as a territory of New England, while Newfoundland voters opted for independence. This led to the creation of the Kingdom of Newfoundland in the following year...
* * *
From “The New Oxford Historical Dictionary”
(c) 1949 New Oxford University,
Liverpool [Melbourne], Kingdom of Australia
Used with permission.
Vitalism: The name given to a group of nationalistic and authoritarian political movements and governments across the world, but which is most particularly identified with that of the post-North American War movements in New England. The term originated from one small nationalistic party within that nation, who called themselves Vitalists because they wanted to “bring like back to a dead nation.” It soon became broadened to include the range of militaristic, populist groups which appeared in New England. It remained as a descriptive term for that movement after most of those groups, including the Vitalists proper, were subsumed into the Patriotic Democratic Party.
There is ongoing controversy over which political parties and governments can be described as vitalists. The narrowest definition would restrict the term purely to the New England political movement, while the widest definitions could include every authoritarian government or movement which has ever existed...
* * *
From “1810-1910: A Century of New England Political History”
(c) 1912 by William H. Baldwin
Sandler Publishing Company, Long Island
The 1908 presidential election was, in one sense, the most bitterly contested campaign which this nation has seen in its long history. Yet most of the bitterness in this campaign did not come from an expectation of winning the election. It was already widely-recognised that the Radicals would inherit the presidency. Rather, the animosity arose amongst a wide variety of parties who vied to displace the Federalists as one of the two main parties, or even to create a three-party system as had existed for a time between Radicals, Republicans and Federalists.
In the lead-up to the election, both of the major parties had faced difficult choices in selecting their presidential candidates. The Federalists were hardly expecting to win the election, but were most concerned with trying to salvage their position and ensure the survival of their party. So they had to choose whether to give Vice-President John Lowell Lodge the nomination, or to seek an outsider. Eventually, they settled on Senator George Meyer in Massachusetts, who had had little involvement in the war and who offered the chance for a fresh start.
The Radicals, on the other hand, faced another kind of choice in that so many of their leading members sought the presidential nomination. Here too, the debates were long and vigorous, but the party eventually settled on an outsider as well, since even the existing Senators were sometimes considered as being associated with the loss of the war. Lemuel John Tweedie had scarcely been known outside of his home state of New Brunswick, but in 1906 he had swept to the governorship of that state on the Radical ticket. His efforts were aided by the nationwide sweep against the Radicals, but winning the governorship of this historically Federalist state was a dramatic indication of his campaigning ability.
Both of the major candidates ran quite civil campaigns, if only by contrast with the unrest which the minor parties displayed. Street marches by the ex-soldiers’ organisations such as the Vitalists, the United Democrats and the Veterans League were commonplace. So were brawls between supporters of those organisations, or sometimes with the Socialists, who held marches of their own. When election day came, it was quickly followed by accusations of intimidatory tactics by Vitalist and United Democrat supporters outside polling booths in districts where they dominated.
But none of this could change the expected result. The Radical vote surged across the nation, with the Federalists holding only Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, and Lemuel Tweedie being chosen as New England’s 22nd President...
* * *
13 March 1909
Offices of Baer et cie,
Free City of Geneva
Anthony Vanderbilt had heard of the renowned discretion of Genevan bankers, but for something like this, he wanted assurances doubly sure. “There is no way for anyone to compel you to disclose the names of your clients?” he asked.
“None whatsoever,” Jean Dufour replied. “Our confidentiality is protected both by contract and by Genevan law. No government, either our own or foreign, may require us to disclose any details of our clients’ activities, or even whether someone is our client, without their consent.”
Vanderbilt smiled. “Excellent. In that case, I would like to engage your bank’s services to represent myself and... my associates.” No need to name names yet, until the contract was signed. He believed he was safe, but caution was part of his nature. “Is your bank able to conduct business on our behalf in Liberia?”
Dufour raised an eyebrow. Evidently he had not been expecting that. “You wish us to run a business for you?”
“To route funds there from us, as necessary. And to appoint local agents to build and run certain factories, based on our recommendations.”
Dufour nodded. “That, we can certainly do, sir.”
Vanderbilt said, “Excellent.” There were certain heavy industries which could be most conveniently constructed in Liberia, well away from prying eyes. And which now would not easily be traced back to New England. “The first will be a horst factory we have made some preliminary arrangements to construct in Liberia. Others will follow.” He smiled as he continued the discussions for what should be included in the contract. A factory which could build horsts could rapidly be adapted to build other kinds of vehicles.
* * *
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
- Lemuel Tweedie, President of New England, during his 1909 inaugural address
* * *
[1] Federal House is the formal name for the residence of the New England President. Informally, it is most often called Pickering’s Cottage.
* * *
Thoughts?
Kaiser Wilhelm III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
http://decadesofdarkness.blogspot.com/
“Never have I been so amazed than at how many of our politicians who voted for the war when it was declared can now reveal that they were secretly against it all along. It must have been the best-kept secret in history.”
- New England President Nicholas Forbes, 1907
* * *
9 February 1907
NES Apollo
Near Boston, Massachusetts
Rear Admiral Seymour Bentley had allowed himself few moments of sentiment in his life, but he felt that he deserved this one. The Apollo had been the pride of New England seamanship, the first of a new class of battleships which would outfight any other vessel afloat. Unlike most other battleships, the Apollo had held its own off Long Island... but victory was decided by the overall battle, not the actions of one vessel.
Now, the Apollo was two days away from decommissioning. Two days of long, slow travel from Boston to New York Harbour, where it was scheduled to be broken up under the watchful eyes of Jackal inspectors and sold for scrap. The ship could have travelled there much faster, but the circuitous route which Bentley had ordered was to allow him some final time to reminisce. A shame he couldn’t give the Jackals a final greeting, but the ship carried no shells for her guns. The Americans had already seen to that.
Even now, Bentley watched from the bridge. Not because he needed to, but because he wanted to see as much as he could on the last voyage. New England was now forbidden by treaty to build or run another battleship of this class, and he doubted that those treaty restrictions could be broken openly for a long time. He’d already heard rumours of a few submersibles being built in Britain for New England industrialists, but a battleship was a much harder thing to hide.
A shadow darkened the bridge, as something outside moved between the Apollo and the sun. Something large and metallic. Another of the Jackals’ accursed cloud-ships, this one keeping watch on the Apollo, just in case. Their value as reconnaissance craft had been made clear during the war, and New England was forbidden from building any of them, either.
But could we build something to shoot them down? Bentley wondered. Sky-riders hardly had the range of cloud-ships, but they had proven during the last days of the war that they could shoot down the floating gas-bags, too. Would it be possible to build a ship that could carry a sky-rider or two? Having a couple of those, suitably equipped with incendiary bullets, might keep the Jackals’ prying eyes away from New England’s ships. It was something to consider, at least.
He heard a commotion at the entrance to the bridge, and then half a dozen armed sailors entered, followed by Captain Wyatt. The sailors didn’t quite point their guns at Bentley, but their demeanour made it quite clear that they retained that option. “Ah, Captain. Some trouble aboard ship?”
“Not as such, sir. Just a slight change of plan.”
“Oh?”
“It’s a good thing that Apollo is fully coaled, since she’s about to sail to Antwerp. Then to... somewhere else,” Captain Wyatt said.
“Whatever for?’
“This ship means too much for it to be scrapped,” Wyatt said. “And much as I regret it, sir, we can’t let you stay in command here any longer.” Now the sailors did raise their guns. “The country needs you too much, sir. You’ll be put ashore at Antwerp.”
“Mutiny,” Bentley said coldly, as he had to.
“If you want to call it that,” Wyatt said. “Myself, I prefer to think of it as patriotism.”
* * *
Taken from: “Famous Ships of the World”
(c) 1952 by Alexander Jamison
Trinity Publishing: Dublin, Ireland
The Liberty: The Ship That Served Two Navies
The RLS Liberty saw most of its service as the first capital ship of the Liberian Navy, but it was originally built for and used in the New England Navy. Commissioned in 1904, the NES Apollo was the first of a new class of battleships, and the pride of New England’s fleet. It saw service in the Battle of Long Island, where it performed well on the losing side, but was due to be decommissioned along with all other modern battleships in the New England Navy at the end of the North American War.
On its intended final voyage, Apollo was hijacked my mutineers with the suspected connivance of the New England government, and taken to Liberia. Despite the vociferous demands of the U.S. government, the ship was never returned. The New England government issued repeated protests, which were largely considered to be for form’s sake, and the Liberian government duly ignored those protests. The mutineers were tried by military court and sentenced in absentia, and most of them lived out the remainder of their lives in exile in Liberia.
* * *
Excerpts from: “When Honour Is Not Enough”
(c) 1917 by Nicholas Forbes
Vanderbilt Press, New York City, LI, New England
The presidency always involves many hard decisions, for it is an office which will weary any man who accepts it. But of all the difficult choices I faced in my term, the two which I most agonised over were whether to accept Washington [i.e. the Treaty of Washington], and whether to order the Army to disperse the rioters in Hartford after they heard of the treaty’s signature.
In my heart, I knew the reasons why the rioters were surrounding Federal House [1] and the House of Congress. To be sure, I sympathised with their despair and hatred. But realistically, I had to order the Army to forcibly disperse the rioters. It is a hard thing indeed to see New Englanders turn their guns on each other. But I had no other choice. Anarchy would have been even worse. While I would have sacrificed my own life for the sake of New England, an ungoverned country would only invite the United States to come back.
As for the peace treaty they were protesting, while I regretted that even more, it was a much easier choice to make. No-one could doubt that we had lost the war. For whatever His reasons, God had allowed the Americans to win on land and at sea. To continue the war would only have seen New England suffer the same fate as Colombia. So while continuing the war might have meant that history looked on me more fondly, I did not care. I would rather have my country remember me as a traitor than have no country to remember me.
* * *
22 February 1907
Hartford, Connecticut
Republic of New England
Snow still covered the streets of Hartford, in a winter which had seemed the longest he had ever seen. Cold, and oh so bitter. When the feeble sun appeared through the clouds, it did nothing but make the snow gleam. But at least the blanket of white covered the red which had once flowed on the streets.
Senator John Hunter knew without any false modesty that he was the leading voice amongst the Radicals in the Senate. He had been following a long political tradition of former presidents taking up residence in the Senate and acting as amongst its guiding voices. With J. Baird Weaver, the man who followed him as President, looking always more tired and ready for a grave, Hunter had become the determining voice amongst the Radicals. And as he had done in his previous career as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he had done his best to arrange political compromises which benefited all parties. But what he faced here was perhaps the most difficult one of all.
He had gathered four other Radical Senators here to make the decision. The Senate was the proving ground for any possible action against President Forbes, after all. While last year’s elections had delivered a few more Senators to be sworn in ten days later, those junior ones would not have the influence of those gathered here. And the House of Representatives would have a large enough Radical majority to guarantee that any impeachment proceedings would pass it. Which would leave the Senate to decide Forbes’ fate.
Senator Mahlon Pitney, who now represented a shrunken state, opened the conversation, and was every bit as vehement as Hunter had expected. “Forbes has to be removed. He has dragged the country into a time of bitter bloodshed, criminally abandoned New England soil, and he cannot be allowed to continue in office.”
“You mean, you want to impeach him for losing a war?” said Senator Eugene Hale of Maine, whose voice still reminded Hunter of that man’s Scottish origins.
“Easy for you to dismiss,” Pitney muttered. He had half a point; Maine had not exactly suffered as badly in the war as New Jersey. “If bungling a war does not count as a high crime, what does?”
“Good question,” Hunter said. He tried to keep his voice one of moderation. “The question of what would qualify for impeachment was one our founding fathers never really addressed definitively.”
“Much as I regret to say it, I don’t think that incompetence is a grounds for impeachment,” Senator J. Baird Weaver of Niagara said. “Nor is losing a war.”
“It would be, if we define it as that,” Pitney said.
“Besides, we need to do something to calm the people,” Timothy Vanderbilt said. He kept looking morosely at the window. But everyone in the room, including Hunter, needed little reminding of how restless the streets remained. The Army had broken the rioters who had tried to storm Congress, but street marches continued almost daily, despite the inclement weather. “We’ve never lost a war before. I don’t think the people know how to lose a war.”
“If we look at things that way, I’m not sure if impeachment would make things better or worse,” Hunter said. “It would embolden the protestors, I think, more than quell them. What the country needs now is stability.
Hale said, “Forbes in office will make an easier election campaign for us next year than if we remove him and make John Lodge the President. He could stand for re-election and even win some public sympathy.”
Pitney said, “You really want to leave him there?”
“So long as he leaves the governance of the country to Congress, why not?” Hale said. “If he interferes with the actions we need to stabilise the country – certainly if he vetos anything – then we can remove him. Otherwise, why not leave him there?”
By the nods of everyone in the room –except Pitney – Hunter knew that this was the right course to take.
* * *
The Ballington Express (5 November 1946)
Ballington, Jackson State
United States of America
Today In History:
On this day in 1907, in the aftermath of the North American War, the former British dependencies of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island held plebiscites to determine whether they would unify with Canada or New England, or seek independence. The voters in neither dependency showed much interest in joining strife-torn Canada, with Prince Edward Island narrowly voting for admission as a territory of New England, while Newfoundland voters opted for independence. This led to the creation of the Kingdom of Newfoundland in the following year...
* * *
From “The New Oxford Historical Dictionary”
(c) 1949 New Oxford University,
Liverpool [Melbourne], Kingdom of Australia
Used with permission.
Vitalism: The name given to a group of nationalistic and authoritarian political movements and governments across the world, but which is most particularly identified with that of the post-North American War movements in New England. The term originated from one small nationalistic party within that nation, who called themselves Vitalists because they wanted to “bring like back to a dead nation.” It soon became broadened to include the range of militaristic, populist groups which appeared in New England. It remained as a descriptive term for that movement after most of those groups, including the Vitalists proper, were subsumed into the Patriotic Democratic Party.
There is ongoing controversy over which political parties and governments can be described as vitalists. The narrowest definition would restrict the term purely to the New England political movement, while the widest definitions could include every authoritarian government or movement which has ever existed...
* * *
From “1810-1910: A Century of New England Political History”
(c) 1912 by William H. Baldwin
Sandler Publishing Company, Long Island
The 1908 presidential election was, in one sense, the most bitterly contested campaign which this nation has seen in its long history. Yet most of the bitterness in this campaign did not come from an expectation of winning the election. It was already widely-recognised that the Radicals would inherit the presidency. Rather, the animosity arose amongst a wide variety of parties who vied to displace the Federalists as one of the two main parties, or even to create a three-party system as had existed for a time between Radicals, Republicans and Federalists.
In the lead-up to the election, both of the major parties had faced difficult choices in selecting their presidential candidates. The Federalists were hardly expecting to win the election, but were most concerned with trying to salvage their position and ensure the survival of their party. So they had to choose whether to give Vice-President John Lowell Lodge the nomination, or to seek an outsider. Eventually, they settled on Senator George Meyer in Massachusetts, who had had little involvement in the war and who offered the chance for a fresh start.
The Radicals, on the other hand, faced another kind of choice in that so many of their leading members sought the presidential nomination. Here too, the debates were long and vigorous, but the party eventually settled on an outsider as well, since even the existing Senators were sometimes considered as being associated with the loss of the war. Lemuel John Tweedie had scarcely been known outside of his home state of New Brunswick, but in 1906 he had swept to the governorship of that state on the Radical ticket. His efforts were aided by the nationwide sweep against the Radicals, but winning the governorship of this historically Federalist state was a dramatic indication of his campaigning ability.
Both of the major candidates ran quite civil campaigns, if only by contrast with the unrest which the minor parties displayed. Street marches by the ex-soldiers’ organisations such as the Vitalists, the United Democrats and the Veterans League were commonplace. So were brawls between supporters of those organisations, or sometimes with the Socialists, who held marches of their own. When election day came, it was quickly followed by accusations of intimidatory tactics by Vitalist and United Democrat supporters outside polling booths in districts where they dominated.
But none of this could change the expected result. The Radical vote surged across the nation, with the Federalists holding only Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, and Lemuel Tweedie being chosen as New England’s 22nd President...
* * *
13 March 1909
Offices of Baer et cie,
Free City of Geneva
Anthony Vanderbilt had heard of the renowned discretion of Genevan bankers, but for something like this, he wanted assurances doubly sure. “There is no way for anyone to compel you to disclose the names of your clients?” he asked.
“None whatsoever,” Jean Dufour replied. “Our confidentiality is protected both by contract and by Genevan law. No government, either our own or foreign, may require us to disclose any details of our clients’ activities, or even whether someone is our client, without their consent.”
Vanderbilt smiled. “Excellent. In that case, I would like to engage your bank’s services to represent myself and... my associates.” No need to name names yet, until the contract was signed. He believed he was safe, but caution was part of his nature. “Is your bank able to conduct business on our behalf in Liberia?”
Dufour raised an eyebrow. Evidently he had not been expecting that. “You wish us to run a business for you?”
“To route funds there from us, as necessary. And to appoint local agents to build and run certain factories, based on our recommendations.”
Dufour nodded. “That, we can certainly do, sir.”
Vanderbilt said, “Excellent.” There were certain heavy industries which could be most conveniently constructed in Liberia, well away from prying eyes. And which now would not easily be traced back to New England. “The first will be a horst factory we have made some preliminary arrangements to construct in Liberia. Others will follow.” He smiled as he continued the discussions for what should be included in the contract. A factory which could build horsts could rapidly be adapted to build other kinds of vehicles.
* * *
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
- Lemuel Tweedie, President of New England, during his 1909 inaugural address
* * *
[1] Federal House is the formal name for the residence of the New England President. Informally, it is most often called Pickering’s Cottage.
* * *
Thoughts?
Kaiser Wilhelm III
https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
http://decadesofdarkness.blogspot.com/