A State of Unending War: The House of Stuart Sequence, #7

By George Kearton

For reasons of political expediency, United Whigs and Tories Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, has persuaded Queen Victoria to accept the title of Queen-Empress of the Stuart realms.

Whilst the great and good assemble at Glenfinnan for the ceremony, vast numbers of Russian troops are on the move. Denmark is attacked; Russian forces capture Norway and the Belgian provinces of the Republic of The Netherlands. As the frontiers of France are threatened, Sweden falls to the Russians without a shot being fired and the Baltic becomes practically a Russian lake.

The Russian onslaught is not confined to Europe. Her troops invade Afghanistan and, as Nipponese troops land at Shanghai, Russian armies occupy the north of China.

New and terrible weapons make their first appearance; Paris suffers aerial bombardment and is placed under siege. Armoured fleets clash in the Aegean Sea and a mighty battleship is sunk by submarine attack. Massed armies cross and re-cross northern France, turning it into a muddy mass graveyard. A global pandemic erupts; the disease will kill millions from the Outer Hebrides to the islands of the Pacific.

Amid political dissent at home and an expansion of conflict into the Balkans, the House of Stuart faces its greatest challenge yet; can peace be restored to a world which has fallen into a state of unending war?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sea Lion Press
• Release date: Dec 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386661443

Book preview

The Alexandra Hotel, Fort William, Scotland – 19th August 1895

Gentlemen, our new Empire may soon find itself at war.

So spoke British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury as he faced his grim-faced Cabinet colleagues across the dining-table of the hotel.

As Great Britain had been celebrating the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Queen-Empress in Glenfinnan, Russian armed forces had moved decisively on many different fronts in both Europe and Asia.

They had seized the Rhineland states which France had taken under her protection in 1860, at the end of the General European Wars, and Paris had come under aerial attack from a fleet of heavier-than-air dirigibles, new and terrifying weapons the like of which had never before been seen. French President Emile Loubet had already sent several telegrams pleading for immediate British military aid.

Further north, Hanover and Mecklenburg, now parts of Denmark, were also being attacked and the Danish Army was already engaged. A large fleet of Russian ships was attempting to disembark thousands of men onto the western coast of Denmark; distant artillery fire could be heard, and plumes of dark smoke were observed, by the garrison of the British outpost of Heligoland in the North Sea.

In the Far East, there were reports that Russian troops had invaded Afghanistan and captured the capital, Kabul. Imperial China was also under threat, as over 100,000 Russians advanced on a 200-mile front into several northern Chinese provinces. The Imperial Chinese Army was in full retreat and seemed unable to offer any resistance to the invaders.

As yet there had been no Russian aggression against Great Britain or any of the other Stuart realms, and this was the only consolation that Salisbury and his colleagues could glean from the telegrams spread across the dining-table. Their first decision was obvious; an international crisis of this magnitude could not be dealt with or managed by a Cabinet nearly 500 miles away from London. The Chancellor, not at Glenfinnan because of his rheumatism, had already sent telegrams to the War Office and the Admiralty calling on all British forces to be brought up to a full state of alert, and the Prime Ministers of the United States of British North America, British South Africa, Australia and the Queen’s Islands had also been told of the situation. A cavalry rider had been sent north to take the news to the Glenfinnan House Hotel, where the Queen-Empress and her newly-ennobled husband Franz, Duke of Rothesay and Freiherr von Ruttenstein, were staying the night. Salisbury realised that Spain, a Stuart realm since the 1850s, had unaccountably been left out of the notifications, but this was swiftly remedied. For the other Stuart realms, under the control of their local Governors, alerts would be sent out by Whitehall. Feeling that they had done as much as possible from their Highland location, Salisbury and his colleagues then hastily boarded a special express train bound for the capital.

To fight or not to fight?

When the Cabinet arrived in London, they found a city in panic.

The stock market was in a state of frenzy; shares in concerns such as the armaments company Armstrong’s had risen substantially, while shipping shares, including those of the INC, had fallen considerably but were now, perhaps, settling down again, albeit at bargain basement levels. Long-term commodity markets had risen to all-time highs, presaging increases in food prices and all the social dangers associated with such increases. As news came through from the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street the following day, the details of their trading gains and losses closely mirrored those of London. The London Stock Market had considered closing down temporarily to allow matters to become clearer, but Salisbury forbade this; in his view, the current events were merely a matter of some disturbances on the Continent. Great Britain was not at war and it would be best to wait and see how the situation developed.

This phlegmatic view was not shared by the citizens of London or those on the East coast of England. The chilling rumours (soon confirmed) of bombs falling from the sky onto an undefended Paris were enough to send tens of thousands of people in full flight westwards. London lost nearly a quarter of its population in the uncontrolled exodus, and many towns and villages in Essex and Lincolnshire were left totally empty as their residents sought shelter further inland, often in open countryside. Salisbury ordered local police forces and garrison towns to do what they could to help, but it was not sufficient to alleviate the refugee situation.  Empty houses in London soon became targets for looters and the government was forced to call troops out onto the streets, with the situation being officially declared as critical. Salisbury requested that Victoria and Franz should, for the time being, remain in Scotland; it would be ten days before the Royal pair returned to London.

By Friday August 23rd, thanks to various British Embassies and also with telegrams coming in from across Europe and beyond (some from official sources, others merely local rumours), the government was able to gain a clearer picture of the international situation.

Denmark and France were clearly in the most dangerous situation, but the position of the Republic of the Netherlands was also precarious. Both Belgium and Holland had been annexed by the Prussians during Bonaparte’s War and had remained under Prussian control until liberated by the British during the General European Wars. The combining into a Republic of the two vastly differing countries had not been without problems, but the wise rule of their first President, James Langstraet, had helped to bring their different communities together.

The north German states which Denmark had taken into its protection at the end of the General European Wars were now fully occupied by the Russians. Hanover and Mecklenburg were declared as open states, with their local defence forces allowed to retreat into Denmark, as they had mounted little opposition to the invading Russians. The addition of some 20,000 extra men to the Danish Army should have been welcomed, but the British Ambassador in Copenhagen reported that both sets of troops were poorly armed and without any battle experience. The former Imperial cities of Hamburg and Lubeck resisted the invaders; Lubeck held out for three days before falling, but Hamburg was still holding out and would continue to resist for a further week. Both cities would be extensively damaged by heavy artillery fire; in the years since 1860, the Russians had managed to re-open the famous Krupp factories and their armies were now very well-equipped with field guns and horse artillery. A large Russian fleet had sailed through the Kattegat, being given a ceremonial salute from the Swedish fortress of Alvsborg, despite there being a treaty of mutual support between Sweden and Denmark. The heavily-defended eastern coast of Denmark was left untouched, but after the Russian fleet had navigated the tricky waters of the Skagerrak the western coast of Denmark suffered many landings by Russian troops. All of the assaults had been beaten off by the small but professional and well-trained Danish Army, albeit at very high costs.

Paris had been attacked from the air by four enormous airships. For years there had been rumours of such contraptions, designed and developed by German inventor Ferdinand Zeppelin, but they had never been seen in flight before and their advent came as a major shock. Tethered balloons had been used by Napoleon over ninety years earlier for military observation purposes but were, of course, at the mercy of the winds. The engine-driven Zeppelins, however, appeared to have few such constraints on their operation.

Their attacking tactics were horrendously simple: slung beneath each airship was a large wooden gondola, housing the primitive petrol-driven engine, and bombs were simply dropped over the edge of this by the crew members. In some cases, fuses had apparently been cut too short and several bombs exploded in mid-air. Many others, however, did reach the ground; over a hundred buildings were damaged or destroyed, two hundred people died, many trapped in collapsed buildings, and over a thousand were wounded. As with Denmark and north Germany, the former German states along the Rhine which had been annexed by France in 1860 had been taken over by the Russians. Cossack cavalry now watered their horses on the Rhine, but no concerted effort had yet been made to invade historic French territory. French President Emile Loubet was still sending increasingly hysterical telegrams (according to one Cabinet member) which requested military aid from Great Britain. In addition, the French Army had now been mobilised; over 250,000 French soldiers would soon stare across the Rhine at the Russians.

Southern Europe did not seem immune from the general panic; the armies of Serbia, Italy, Greece and the Austrian Confederacy were all mobilising. Even determinedly neutral Switzerland had called up its 70,000-strong citizen army. The Serbians had also signed a treaty of mutual non-aggression with Russia.

From further afield, much of the news coming in was speculative and little could be confirmed. The rumours that Afghanistan had been invaded by the Russians was not exactly dismissed, but with no reliable British sources within a thousand miles or more it was relegated to the interesting but possibly not significant pile of telegrams and other papers at Salisbury’s side in the Cabinet Room.

More reliable, and certainly more significant, were the telegrams from Sir Claude MacDonald, British Minister in Peking. Russian troops had crossed into China along a front which extended across five northern Chinese provinces. Empress Tzu Hsi and her court were preparing to leave Peking for the Chinese southern capital of Nanking, but – and here Sir Claude’s messages did become speculative – Nipponese troops in large numbers (some said 50,000) had also reportedly landed on the Chinese coast near to Shanghai.

And a seemingly unconnected telegram from the British Minister in Rio de Janeiro reported that Argentina had called up its military reserves and was moving into Brazilian-controlled Uruguay.

More encouraging to Salisbury and his colleagues, however, were the telegrams which had been received from the Prime Ministers of The United States of British North America, British South Africa, Australia, the Queens Islands and Spain. All expressed their loyalty and utmost support for Great Britain in the very difficult situation which was unfolding, and pledged to supply troops if needed.

Another pleasing telegram had come from President Aeneas MacKay of the Netherlands. He wrote that the people of the Netherlands had not forgotten that it was the British government and British troops who had given them their freedom from Prussian occupation. Although their army was small, consisting of only ten divisions, they would stand with Great Britain, shoulder to shoulder, in order not only to protect themselves but also to turn back the tide of Russian aggression in Europe. MacKay was of proud Scottish heritage, and as an experienced politician in the Netherlands he was also, without doubt, hoping that the Russians would think twice about invading his country; they were well aware that the Netherlands only existed by virtue of British government support and British Army action.

This was very heartening, but the first decision which the British government had to make was, at the same time, very simple but fraught with long-term challenges. Should Britain go to war? To fight or not to fight?

Great Britain had always been ambivalent about Europe. There had apparently once been a newspaper headline in the Times – though it was, perhaps sadly, mythical – which had read:

Thick fog in the English Channel; Europe cut off

The Scandinavian countries were, of course, members of WEFTA and shared the British pound as their common currency. The newly-acclaimed Queen-Empress Victoria was half-Danish by descent, and British troops had fought to help preserve the independence and territory of Denmark during the General European Wars. Salisbury’s Cabinet were thus unanimous; help would be offered to Denmark even though relations between Great Britain and Denmark had cooled, for understandable reasons connected with Queen Sophie, since the beginning of 1871. Arms exports from Britain had always been the one exclusion to standard WEFTA Free Trade protocols, with government approval being essential and usually hard to procure. That policy was reversed; Great Britain would now be happy to supply arms to Denmark and would also guarantee payment to British armaments companies should Denmark be eventually unable to pay its own shopping bill. The Cabinet also indicated privately to the Danish government that a request for troops would be seriously considered if Russian attacks on Danish territory were renewed. The question of supplying troops to assist the Danes in recovering territories such as Hanover and Mecklenburg was, however, not alluded to in the British government’s offer of support.

This declaration came, sadly, too late for Norway, then part of the Kingdom of Denmark. After failing in their attempt to storm the western coast of Denmark, the Russian invasion fleet had turned north and, within two days, had captured the major Norwegian centres of population in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. Local militia and citizens did what they could but were swiftly swept aside. The remainder of Norway’s political leaders and military forces retreated to the far north, making Narvik their centre of activity. The Russians, perhaps mindful of their experiences in Finland in 1860, made little attempt to follow them, and for the next eight years the Free Norway partisans, although split between those who wanted a return to Danish rule and those who wanted independence from Denmark and a separate Norwegian state, carried out a successful irregular campaign against the Russians throughout Norway. From 1898 onwards they would be led by the young Danish Prince Carl, second son of Crown Prince Frederick who would later become King of Denmark.

British policy towards Denmark had, therefore, been easy to resolve; policy towards France would be much less so.

During the first half of the eighteenth century, successive French Kings had been strong supporters of the exiled House of Stuart. Though that support had, at times, been erratic, it was a major factor in the 1745 Uprising which had led to the Stuart Restoration. Immediately after the Restoration, major territorial differences between Great Britain and France had been successfully resolved with peaceful exchanges of territories in America and India. The relationship had, however, cooled considerably since then, and the territorial ambitions of Louis Napoleon had led to French armies invading Spain (which had a Stuart King on its throne) in the 1850s.

Throughout the period which followed, France had been viewed as a threat by Great Britain; the decision as to whether or not to supply military aid was a very difficult one for Salisbury and his colleagues who had, only recently, been the latest British government to reject the French request that they should be allowed to join WEFTA. In total, France had made seven such requests since the establishment of what was now practically a global free trade area; all had been rejected by Great Britain.

Public opinion in Great Britain was already making itself heard and, in common with the views of the Cabinet, was fairly evenly split. On the one hand, mainly within the ranks of UWAT, were those who argued that Great Britain had, regrettably, no alternative but to assist the French. Not to do so might well produce a situation where Russian armies were only twenty miles across the English Channel and in a position to invade. The contrary view was taken by those who opposed any armed intervention in Europe, mainly, but not exclusively, found within the ranks of the RAT Party. Their argument was that war, with all its attendant horrors, could not possibly be contemplated by any civilised state, that Europe’s problems were Europe’s problems and that Great Britain should not become involved. They totally ignored the viewpoint that perhaps Russia was not an entirely civilised state and that its political morality was very different from that of Great Britain and the rest of Western Europe.

Evidence of how different Russian outlooks were, especially among the senior ranks of the army, included the various contemporary accounts of the vision of St Simeon seen by Siberian holy man Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin in Tobolsk Cathedral in 1893. In his vision, Rasputin was told that the only way Russia could be great was if she were to conquer the whole of Europe and take it in blood. Inspired by this vision, Rasputin had travelled to Kazan, where he was provided with a letter of introduction to Bishop Sergei of St Petersburg. Once in St Petersburg, Rasputin was introduced to several senior Russian military officers who found his vision extremely useful in convincing the Tsar that their policies and their plans for war were in the interests of Russia. Rasputin would later be appointed as tutor to Nicholas’ heir, the young Alexei, and was for many years a dominant and persuasive voice among pan-Slav nationalists in both Russia and Serbia.

Salisbury and his Cabinet debated the divergent views for and against military intervention for several days over the Bank Holiday weekend of August 23rd-26th. No final decisions were reached; however, the restriction on arms sales, already removed for Denmark, was similarly removed for the Netherlands, with guarantees of British payment in the case of Dutch difficulty. Ships of the Royal Navy would also commence patrols in strength along the Dutch coast, and an Army Corps of 8,000 men was assembled in York. They would cross the North Sea to assist Dutch or Danish forces in the case of a Russian invasion. Thus the Dutch, and to a lesser extent the Danes, were assured of British support. As far as France was concerned, however, British support was heavily qualified. Restrictions on arms sales were relaxed, but the British government did not feel able to make any guarantees to British companies in case of a French default on payment. A small British military mission would proceed to Paris to discuss hypothetical matters with the French government. These would include how British troops might be needed to help defend France’s border, and, more importantly for the British, how the command structures for any such intervention might be established.

Salisbury and his colleagues noted developments in southern Germany and in the Balkans, with particular regard to the ongoing Serbian mobilisation, but they chose to take no further action at this stage.

Outwith Europe, British actions were minimal. The Staff College at Aldershot were asked if they were aware of any officers who might be prepared to travel, incognito, to India and, if possible, into Afghanistan in order to ascertain the situation there, and a 200-strong party of Royal Marines, drawn from ships already in Asiatic waters, were ordered to proceed to Peking to strengthen the guards of the British Embassy. Sir Claude MacDonald, the British Minister in Peking, was also requested to gather as much information as he could about the Russian invasion in China’s northern provinces and the rumoured Nipponese landings in the south of China. How Sir Claude was to garner this information would be left for him to determine.

As details of the policies emerged after the Bank Holiday, there were, perhaps predictably, howls of outrage from both sides of the argument as to whether or not Britain should go to war.

Veteran reporter William Howard Russell had already led the arguments against Russia and in favour of British intervention during the General European Wars when both Finland and Germany had been invaded. He had quoted the view of earlier French writer Charles Louis-Lesure, who had warned:

Europe is inevitably in the process of becoming booty for Russia.

Russell had railed then against Russian savagery, had warned of the dangers of a tide of Eastern barbarism sweeping into Western Europe and had prophesied the end of civilization if the Russian hordes prevailed. He now picked up his pen again for the Times and let fly with his all of his original arguments, linking them with the even greater dangers posed by new weaponry such as the Zeppelin airships. Great Britain had no effective defences against such monster machines, he wrote – and invited his readers to submit suggestions for possible counter-measures against the pirates of the air should they cross the Channel and attack London. The responses received from his readership were colourful to say the least. They ranged from long-range sniper rifles firing explosive bullets, whaling harpoons and archers armed with flammable arrows, to the use of rockets and the training of flocks of goshawks and falcons who would fly at the Zeppelins and use their sharpened beaks to puncture them. All of the comments received by Russell were passed on to the War Office, but there is no evidence that any of them were followed up. Major armaments firm Armstrong’s were, however, asked to investigate whether field guns could increase their trajectory to enable them to fire vertically into the air, and whether some form of fire bomb could be developed.

On the other side of the argument, several prominent Members of Parliament and clergymen declared that, on the grounds of conscience, they would not fight for Queen and Country were they called on to do so. The Oxford Union debated this, and the motion not to fight was roundly defeated, but agitation against Britain going to war did not evaporate and the issue was picked up by the newly emergent Labour Representation Committee, which was starting to organise and which planned to fight several seats at the next General Election, widely expected in 1898.

As fuller details of government policy became clear, both sides of the domestic argument declared themselves unsatisfied and their anger and frustration spilled out onto the streets of London. Already overworked policemen and soldiers now had the extra task of keeping large and mutually hostile demonstrations from attacking one another in the name of peace. On the one side were those favouring intervention, with their placards of Free France, Defend Denmark and Save Europe. Facing them were the peace faction; No War, Peace in our Time and Not in my Name were the slogans on their placards and, assisted by several Trades Unions, they did seem to be the better supported.

Matters came to a head on Saturday 31st August. Both sides had called for mass demonstrations; those in favour of intervention planned to march to Downing Street while the other side planned to march on Parliament, even though the House was not sitting. Both groups, however, without any consultation with each other or with the authorities, decided to assemble in Drumossie Square, a large paved and open space in the centre of London. Royal Unicorns and Lions sat on plinths at each corner, and in the centre of the Square was a 218-foot tall column surmounted by a statue of King James III, the first Stuart monarch after the Restoration.

The marchers in favour of intervention had been the early risers, and most of their numbers (estimated at between three and four thousand) had reached the square by 11am. Their late-arriving contingents, however, were hindered by members of the peace faction, who were now also starting to arrive and whose numbers eventually reached over five thousand. A force of one hundred police and two hundred soldiers, mainly members of the Household Cavalry (dismounted and armed with carbines, though only blank ammunition had been issued), struggled to keep the two sides apart while tempers grew shorter and shorter. We shall never know who cast the first stone, though Russell, watching from a safe vantage point, maintained that it was the peace faction who started the physical violence, using their placards (as well as walking sticks, umbrellas and stones) to attack the police and then to push forward in an attempt to reach the interventionists. Their initial charge nearly succeeded; the police were scattered and pushed to one side. The Household Cavalry were made of sterner stuff, however; presenting their carbines, they fired a volley over the heads of the advancing demonstrators. Those at the front of the crowd fell back but those at the rear, not fully aware of what was happening, continued their efforts to reach the pro-interventionists.

Stones continued to arc across the square, and were joined by empty bottles in a furious fusillade. In the centre of the peace faction, many people were in danger of being crushed and a horrific disaster was only avoided by the actions of some trades union stewards who re-ordered the crowd and started to organise the would-be marchers into compact groups ready to march on Parliament. As the first of these groups moved off, the situation eased, and the pro-interventionists also started their march towards Downing Street. Major casualties had been avoided, but it was not by either police or army action; in some ways this was viewed as a good thing, but it did illustrate that, to some extent, the government no longer controlled the streets.

Similar demonstrations took place in Manchester, in Glasgow and in Birmingham, where Austen Chamberlain was one of the speakers arguing for limited intervention. What this actually meant was unclear, and it was now apparent that the House of Commons would have to hold a full debate on the entire situation when it re-assembled on 23rd of September, some three weeks earlier than usual for an autumn session. The shape and outcome of that debate would largely be determined not only by what had transpired thus far, but also by any events which might take place over the next three weeks.

Division! Clear the Lobbies!

Members of the House of Commons now had three weeks to prepare themselves for a major parliamentary debate that might determine whether British troops would go to war in Europe. Salisbury had enjoyed one success in advance of the debate; the First Ministers of Wales, Ireland and Scotland had all agreed not to debate the matter in their individual parliaments, but to follow the lead of the English parliament. This was not, perhaps, surprising, as Defence was not within their purview, but Salisbury wanted to make certain that all parts of the British Isles would be clearly seen to follow the lead of Westminster. Similar assurances had been received from the Prime Ministers of Australia and the Queens Islands, though Sir Cecil Rhodes in British South Africa and, interestingly, Theodore Roosevelt in the United States expressed their hopes that Great Britain would only go to war if an Imperial Parliament could be convened which would then, by committee, take responsibility for waging the war.

During this period there were no further moves by the Russians, but the British government, perhaps to show more determination than had been the case thus far, ordered the Royal Navy patrols of the Dutch coast to be extended to cover the western coast of Denmark. They also strengthened naval forces in Malta, and part of a new Mediterranean squadron was ordered to patrol the northern entrance to the Victoria Canal at