A Game of Soldiers
Stephen Miller
For Wendell
And down the embankment of history
Came not the calendar
But the real Twentieth Century
Akhmatova
The decadent Ottoman Empire is in retreat.
Poised on her northern borders, the Austrian and Russian Empires intrigue ceaselessly to further their own ambitions. For Russia it is the dream to possess Constantinople and guarantee herself an outlet to the Mediterranean. For Austria, it is hegemony over the Balkan nations, and naval domination of the Adriatic. Unable to restrain herself, in 1908 she annexes the province of Bosnia – a stroke that inflames Serb patriots.
By 1913 the Great Powers are locked into a frenzied arms race, spending themselves into debt producing dreadnoughts, howitzers, repeating rifles, experimental aeroplanes, and undersea boats. At the same time humans are connected as never before – by motorized vehicles on improved roads; by faster vessels, telephone exchanges, and telegraphic cables that girdle the Earth.
As the Ottoman tide ebbs, all the Balkan nations begin vying for supremacy over their neighbours. In a mad dance of betrayal and avarice, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia fight a bloody war. Momentarily separated by an armistice in April, they are joined by Rumania to clash again barely two months later.
Although the wars in the Balkans are remarkable for their cruelty and casualties, the Serbs are doing well. Their star is in the ascendant, but they are anxious that in a future war against Austria-Hungary they cannot win alone. As fellow Slavs they look towards Russia for protection.
Everyone is afraid to provoke mighty Russia. Her multi-million peasant armies are thought capable of annihilating any opposition. But Russia’s Tsar is more remarkable for his faults than his virtues. St Petersburg might be one of the great cities of Europe, but the court is in the grip of sycophantic corruption. Nicholas is an indecisive man who likes domestic life, who enjoys noting down the changes in the weather. The Tsarina Alexandra has given him four daughters and an heir – Alexei, afflicted with the barely-understood disease of haemophilia. Deeply religious, and despairing, the Romanovs are easy dupes for a series of faith healers and charlatans who promise a cure for the Tsarevich.
None of this is a secret. Indeed all of these topics are endlessly discussed in newspapers, cafés, and bars; in the streets and on trams, over expensive dinners in the finest restaurants, and over cigars and brandy in diplomatic salons, in bedrooms and bordellos. A whirlwind of gossip, speculations, and nightmares. Amateur strategies, and apocalyptic theories. All is known. All is pondered, all is anticipated.
Yet still there are secrets.
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