German Empire: News 1900

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Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz Resigns in Protest over German Naval Law!

The Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office believed that the recently signed law is totally inadequate to the needs of the German Fleet.  As a result the Emperor has accepted the resignation of admiral from imperial service. 

Reichstag Considering Army Bill
Reichstag Considering Bill to rationalize laws between Austria and rest of Germany
Handover of Deutsch-Neuguinea to British Empire Complete

Assume that unless posted otherwise that Germany is highly distracted by internal events.

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Act Relating to the German Army of July 24th, 1901
We, William, by the grace of God, Emperor of the Germans, King of Prussia, etc., order in the name of the Empire, with the consent of the Federal Council and the Reichstag, what follows:

I.   Formation Establishment

1.   The number of Korps and Divisions is to be fixed as below.
(a)   Maintained at full war mobilization level
Two Infantry Korps
One Calvary Korps
One Mountain Infantry Korps
One Naval Infantry Division
(b)   Maintained at 50% war mobilization level (active) and ready for war service within one week of mobilization order.
Ten Infantry Korps
One Calvary Korps
(c)   Maintained as 10% war mobilization level (reserve) and ready for war service within two weeks of mobilization order.
Thirteen Infantry Korps
Two Calvary Korps

2.   Counting formations existing on July 17th, 1901, there shall be reckon this establishment.
Fifteen Infantry Korps
Three Calvary Korps
Six Infantry Divisions
One Calvary division

3.   The provisions of the means for the new formations necessary for the attainment of the establishment (clause 1) is subject to annual determination by the Imperial Budget, with standard, that the completion of the legal establishment, can be attained by the end of the financial year 1907.
 
II.   Fortifications
New Imperial Fortifications are to be established to defend the cities of Aachen and Trier.

...

...

Legal Attested under our own signature and Imperial seal.
Given at Postdam, July 24th 1901

Wilhelm
Freiherr von der Goltz

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Auswärtiges Amt wishes to announce on this day that the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the German Empire have concluded a mutual non-aggression pact.

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Germany News 1902

Hamburg Zeiten:
"The following German Subjects have been awarded the Nobel Prize, Hermann Emil Fischer for Chemistry and Theodor Mommsen for Literature...."

Allgemeine Zeitung: 
"Economic boom in Germany following the Anschluss with Austria and the adding of Bohemia to the German Customs Union.  Today the Customs Union is made up of the German Empire, Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margraviate of Moravia.  The expansion of the Customs Union has created a single that covers most of central Europe and has over 80 million people.  Some estimates show that the economy of the Customs Union is the second largest in the world..."

Neues Volksblatt: (conservative newspaper connected to Christian Social Party in Austria)
"It is over a year since the long waited for unification of Austria with Germany and the creation of Greater Germany.  Some nationalists say that restoration of the once great Holy Roman Empire is complete.  Except that many of the historic lands, GERMAN lands are outside of Greater Germany.  The abomination called the Kingdom of Bohemia is the first to come to mind.  But also the German Cantons in Switzerland and the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg are outside of Greater Germany...."


Straßburger Post:
"ArchDuke Franz Ferdinand grants a constitution to his subjects in Elsaß-Lothringen and elections for a Parliament to be seated in Straßburg are to be held in the new year..."

Heer Täglich:
"General Reorganize of German Army to occur in new year with a redrawing of Army Korps boundaries and the movement of a number of Korps Head Quarters to occur.  As part of carrying out the 1901 Army Law the Reserve-Armeekorps V has been established and next year it is expected that three more Korps will follow..."


Auswärtiges Amt wishes to announce that the blockade of Venezuela will continue till its government agrees to repay its debt or to binding arbitration....

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Münchner Residenz, Königreich Bayern, GroßDeutsches Kaiserreich
Saturday January 17th, 1904

The Palace in Munich at its lowest levels dates from the late 14th century and had been an administrative center ever since.  As such the Palace was the official residence of the Bavarian Monarchy in this case, the Prince Regent Ludwig.  The majordomo announced a new group of petitioners headed by Herr Lowe.  The Prince has been expecting the group and took note of the two officers with the merchant, one in Prussian Army Blue and the other in the Navy Blue of the Kaiserliche Marine.   Nodding to the Majordomo who announced that this would be a private audience and the other petitioners were escorted out of the room.

"Herr Lowe when we last spoke you said that you would see about making some contacts with the navy and I take it that you have."  The prince nodded at the officer.

Hipper took a step forward and gave a bow to the Regent of his country, "I am Korvettenkapitän Franz von Hipper, we have meet a few times before your Highness."

"I recall the most recent meeting Captain, you used to command the Emperors Private Yacht.  I heard you now command a small cruiser."

"That is correct your Highness my new command is the Niobe."  The captain noted with pride a small cruiser or not she was HIS ship.

With that out of the way the prince turned back to the merchant, "So you are ready to procced?"

The plump merchant nodded, "My factor in Antananarivo, the capital of the Kingdom of Madagascar..."

The General from Prussian Saxony snorted in contempt at the merchant calling Madagascar a kingdom. 

Deciding it was best to not start and argument Lowe ignored the General and continued on, "...reports that the Malagasy government of Queen Ranavalona III is refusing to meet with us to discuss the debt we purchased from the French Merchants.  The French thought it was worthless and gave us a discount as they had been unable to collect."

The prince was pleased that everything is in order and turned to the General.  "Von Trotha you understand our requirements?" 

The General gave an evil smile, "I will be taking a leave of absence from the Prussian Army, it's hardly the first time I have done so to take a trip to Africa and of course why Herr Lowe approached me.  Afterwards  I will take command of two Bayerische Brigades.  I have spoken to certain agents in Hamburg and Bremen, in particular the Norddeutscher Lloyd and they can assemble the required shipping.  It will take four ships to transport the expedition and three more to transport the required supplies.  I need to point out your highness that this activity is going to be impossible to hide.  All we can do is mask our destination, I expect that Berlin will get some interesting questions from abroad. "

The prince gave a chuckle at the idea of foreign powers contacting the Foreign Ministry in Berlin who would have no clue what was going on.  "How long do you expect the trip to take?"

Von Hipper at a nod from the General now spoke, the Naval Officer was part of this for two reasons.  First his command was to be the Indian Ocean as part of a show the flag voyage and second he was a Bavarian.  "I estimate the trip will take 40 days if we go via the Suez.  I strongly suggest that the convoy stop before making the final trip to Diego Suarez, which by the way is a fantastic deep water port, perhaps the best in the Indian Ocean."

"Where do you suggest Captain?"

"Dar es Salaam its part of Zanzibar which the Italians have taken over recently or we go south past Madagascar and make port at Durban on the East Coast of the British Cape Colony.  Either would be fine it's a question of which government you can get approval from for say a week's stay to let the men recover.   From either port its only a few days travel to the final destination."   

February 1904

Trains head towards northern German ports from Bavaria transporting two ready brigades of the Bavarian I Army Corps.
In Berlin the Railroad Administration Notes the movement and contacted General Alfred von Schlieffen who in turn contacted the Chief of the Bavarian General Staff to ask what the hell was going on who in turn said very little.  This lead to von Schlieffen contacting the Chancellor and Kaiser who in turn...  By the time they got ahold of the Prince Regent the ships had set sail.  Once they did Berlin was faced with two choices, one to recall the expedition and look like fools or say nothing and give silent blessing.  The Chancellor distracted by domestic issues chose to wash his hands of the situation. 


March 1904

The British and Italian Governments are contacted by the BAVARIAN Government.  Note that Bavaria keeps its own embassy's in certain key nations capitals, London and Rome are on that short list; IE the great powers.  So the two governments are both presented with the Identical Notes.

The Bavarian Government requests the assistance of <Insert Monarchs name> Government with settling of a delicate matter.  The government of Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar has refused to meet with agents of the subjects of our kingdom with respect to several debts.  As such the Kingdom of Bavaria has decided that more forceful measures are necessary and an expedition has been dispatched.  10,000 infantry under the command of General Lothar von Trotha will be dispatched to force compliance.  We request the use of the port of <Durban for British or Dar es Salaam for Italy> to rest the troops of the expedition before they make their final movements for Madagascar. 

Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria


May 12th, 1904
Mahajanga (west coast)

The Bavarian Expedition after their week layover in Dar Es Salaam had at last arrived at their destination, Madagascar.  The German small cruiser SMS Niobe began a small and careful bombardment of the coast guns after the port had been summoned to surrender and refused.  After two hours the first of the boats and motor launches from the German Liners of the Norddeutscher Lloyd landed on the white sandy beaches.  One boat swamped when a wave bashed it against the liner and the Bavarians with their combat loads sank to their watery deaths.  These were the only losses as the Malagasy troops were taken totally by surprise with the attack and badly out numbered.  So the Malagasy troops withdrew into the interior.  Once the first battalion secured the port of roughly 5,000 souls the smaller liners tied up at the lone dock one by one and began unloading the rest of the brigade.   

Captain von Hipper escorted the rest of the convoy north to Diego Suarez and the Bavarians repeated the occupation with the Second Brigade.  The liners began the long voyage back to Germany where they would pick up two more Brigades and return in three months. In the meantime General Von Trotha and his ten thousand men were on their own and were faced with the task of conquering a country of two million people that covered nearly 600,000 square kilometers.  A single freighter and the Niobe stayed behind to get supplies and move troops around as needed. 

Over the rest of the month one thing became clear and that was there was no road by any reasonable standard that connected Diego Suarez to the rest of the country.  In fact much of the northern part of the island was dominated by Tsaratanana Massif that rose to nearly 3,000 meters.  As such by the end of the month von Trotha order one regiment (1,250 men) to occupy the port while a second regiment march well over 500 km down the North West Coast.  The other two regiments of the brigade would be moved by the freighter back to Mahajanga this would be very time consuming. 

Meanwhile von Trotha back at Mahajanga marched along the Betsiboka River to the town of Marovoay 50 km away with three regiments (3,750 men).  There the first skirmish of the campaign occurred on May 29th.  A native force of roughly 2,000 men had been assembled and they were armed with an esoteric collection of iron headed spears, locally produced muskets and perhaps a 100 breach loading rifles.  The rifles varied between American Winchester Repeaters on to Martini–Henry Rifles.  Also the Malagasy troops had a bronze 12 pound canon.  The native commander, Radama, dug in his troops on the heights that Marovoay occupied and planned to make the Bavarians come to him.  Radama age 51 had traveled abroad several times and talked to Zulu's following their defeat at the hands of the British two decades before and had some idea of the firepower of European troops.  So meeting von Trotha in an open field engagement when outnumbered two to one sounded like suicide. 

Of course von Trotha had his own ideas and seeing the Malagasy troops in their field works on the heights gave him pause.  He couldn't fight bloody battle after bloody battle even if he killed the natives 10 to 1 he would be ground down.  Instead the General sent one regiment as a flying column around the heights to get in the rear of Radama's defenses.  Calling up his artillery including 150mm Model 1892 heavy field guns.  From a range of 30,000 meters the big Krupp guns opened fire.  It took a little time to get the range but once the artillery had it von Trotha decided to make a point and expanded 100 shells on the town.  The Malagasy never experiencing anything like the firepower of a modern European artillery were badly shaken and perhaps half of Radama's troops, especially those without firearms, fled.  The bombardment killed and wounded hundred of the civilians in the town and as many of Radama's troops.  Even Radama was shocked by the display and decided there is nothing more he could do here so he attempted to withdraw to the interior but East of the town encountered the flying column sent out by von Trotha.  The Bavarians poured mass rifle fire, including a Maximum Machingun and two 77mm field guns into Radama's less than a thousand men.  The result was a blowout as von Trotha lost 2 men total but a more worrisome issue occurred as the next day the first of the campaigns great many Malaria cases for the Bavarians appeared.  Radama was captured when he and his remaining 200 men surrendered.  Von Trotha as an experienced African explorer had prepared a large supply of Quinine but it was not foolproof and once the symptoms appeared Malaria could kill in hours.

June saw von Trotha slowly advance along the Betsiboka River towards the Malagasy capital of Antananarivo deep in the interior.  After Radama's defeat Queen Ranavalona III's ministers were not interested in another battle.  So the order went out to instead harass the Bavarian invaders.  Night ambushes and attacks on detachments guarding supply wagons were instead the order of the day.  Once the Bavarians had been weakened only then would another attempt at a field battle.  Von Trotha quickly noticed the change in Malagasy tactics and he had his own response.  Any time a night attack or ambush on his supply lines occurred Von Trotha ordered a dozen men from the nearest village or town executed and another fifty for each Bavarian killed.  Several times this practice depopulated entire villages.  In addition hostages were taken from the leading families of major towns.  Soon natives were fleeing from their villages and towns along the Bavarians Line of march.  The Bavarians lost 50 men killed and wounded to these attacks, another 500 killed by Malaria and other African dieses and nearly two thousand sick.  With as many again guarding his line of communications and supply by the end of June von Trotha had field force of 3,586 men as he got near the town of Ambohimasina 25km away from the capital.  The Bavarians had by now killed at least 10,000 perhaps more with their reprisals and unknown numbers dead from being forced out of their homes.

July 7th saw the only major field battle of the campaign.  Queen Ranavalona III's ministers and generals had assembled a force of 37,000 tribal levies backed by 3,000 soldiers armed with a miss mash of muzzle loading muskets and odds and ends of repeating rifles of all generations.  Not able to coordinate supply for such a large force as it was half the size the population of the capital of Antananarivo for long the Malagasy had to fight or disperse the force.  Rainilaiarivony the nephew of Ranavalona and heir apparent was in command.  On July 5th Ranavalona and von Trotha exchanged mutual demands to surrender.  Von Trotha had his force dig field entrenchments with the ends of his line covered by grand batteries of artillery.   The Bavarians waited and Ranavolona with his tribal troops getting restless ordered the attack on the 7th.  Von Trotha waited till the Malagasy were deep into rifle range before ordering his troops to open fire.  He didn't want the Malagasy to bolt too soon and wanted to smash them.  On the 6th skirmishers had placed ranging stakes out to 1,000 meters all along the line so when the Bavarians opened fire they knew the exact distance.  The battle could hardly be called such as 3,000 Mausers, four  Maximum Machingun and eleven 77mm field guns opened fire almost at the same time.  The heavier guns had been left back along the coast as the 13,000 lb weight of the heavy Krupp guns proved too massive to move through the mountainous interior.  When the Malagasy held together for perhaps ten minutes under the Bavarian onslaught.  Thousands charged the Bavarian entrenchments from 500 meters, none got there alive as the Bavarians poured rapid fire into the tribes men.  The rear of the Malagasy broke and the force fled back to the capital.  With the Malagasy force in tatters von Trotha ordered a general advance and over the next day chased the Malagasy back to the Capital.  The Bavarians killed at least 10,000 perhaps as many as 20,000 as the wounded died over the next weeks with most going into mass graves.  Not a single Bavarian died.

On July 10th von Trotha accepted the surrender of the capital of Madagascar but Queen Ranavalona III and her ministers had fled. On July 12th the Bavarians received an offer of an indemnity of 500,000 Gold Marks if they would leave.  Von Trotha demanded 5 million, treaty ports and establishing of a Resident to 'advise' the Madagascar Government.   The Queen formally rejected the Bavarians demands on the 14th.  Von Trotha was tempted to wait but the rainy season would start in a few months and more and more of his men were getting sick.  So with the formal rejection in hand von Trotha spent a week looting the capital and then burned it only sparing buildings inhabited by Europeans Merchants, Missionaries and their converts.  The vast majority of the 80,000 inhabitants were now homeless.  On July 22nd von Trotha began his long march back to the coast.

Making good time von Trotha's column returned to the coast on August 25th and burned every village or town as he withdrew.  Malaria had by now killed a total of 3,000 Bavarians but two more brigades had arrived from Europe and more than made good von Trotha's losses.    General Radama was released with a note demanding the Queen accept the Bavarians terms or von Trotha would repeat his campaign till every city surrendered or was in ruins.

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Heer Zeit

The expansion of the reserves continues with the establishment of Reserve-Armeekorps VI to X raising the total war strength of the army to 1.3 million troops. This expansion is expected to continue for at least another 3 Korps.   The next army budget item is expected to be the building of fortress complexes to guard Aachen and Trier in the west.

Foreign News


Madagascar

Bavarian's invade Madagascar?  Many in Berlin are frankly shocked at the strange adventure of General Von Trotha, noted African explore, with his invasion of Madagascar at the behest of the Bavarian Monarch.  While so far the Imperial Government has taken no official stance on the Bavarian Adventure rumor is that von der Goltz's Government is hoping that the Bavarian's will either fail or accept some type of settlement.

Middle East

The great railway is more than halfway completed and should be completed well before 1910 at which point direct train service from Berlin to Tehran will be a reality.

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1904
Wilhelmshaven, Greater German Empire

One of several dinning halls on the German Naval base had been taken over for the meeting.  The British and American governments had approached Germany to be arbitrator on the what the press was calling the Robyn C. Quincy Incident.  Several observers in the press had questioned the move to side step the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Kingdom of United Netherlands.  As a result the eyes of the United Kingdom and the United States turned towards the main base of the German Navy.


Because of the nature of the situation the German Navy decided that they needed to be sure the court members were familiar with international affairs.  So rather than just making a selection of active ship commanders and flag officers at Wilhelmshaven the German Navy and the Imperial Government generated a list of possible court members and then forwarded those to London and Washington.  There were two dozen names on the list and the Americans and British were requested to note any reservations the might have with the candidates.  The United States and United Kingdom managed to purge two thirds of the list between them but that still left six officers no one objected to.  One of those became sick and so the final court was made up of five German Naval Officers.


Admiral Otto von Diederichs while on the retired list had agreed to serve on the court and was named its president.  Diederichs had served several times over seas and was a former Chief of the Admiralty Staff (Admiralstab).


A coin toss decided between the Americans and British as whom would begin their presentation.  The Americans won the toss and started.  The presentations by the UK and USA lasted 8 days, April 4th through April 12th.  Witness were called including the commander of HMS Prometheus and the Prometheus's bridge watch and the survivors from the American fishing vessel Robyn C. Quincy.  The German Court took till the 15th before it presented its ruling.  In the end the German Court focused on the weather being the key element of the case.  On February 9th the winds were out of the North gusting up to 35 knots, the seas where up to 12 feet in height and with fog banks greatly limiting visibility.  Despite it being mid day visibility was at times very poor thanks to the fog and the waves had obscured the much smaller American vessel from view of the bridge of the British Cruiser and vice versa.  One interesting element of the ruling as that it made no mention of the location beyond 'Gulf of Maine'.  The ruling made for very dry reading with talk of distances between the two vessels, sea state, view range and movements.


In effect von Diederichs said that there was no malice involved by either party and if anything was to blame it was bad weather of that fateful day.