Streseland: 1930s Germany with the Nazis Marginalised

 

This is my fourth novel published by Sea Lion Press: www.sealionpress.co.uk and is also available for sale via: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B093QHCXNH/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 

There have been a lot of alternate history novels and analysis books about the Nazi Regime in Germany being more successful than it proved to be. As early as 1937, Katharine Burdekin published 'Swastika Night' a science fiction novel envisaging a future in which the Nazis dominated the world. Other books followed while the war was on and then alternate history books appeared on this theme once the regime had fallen. What is far less common are books that look at what would have happened if Adolf Hitler had not been appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30th January 1933. While he headed the largest party in the Reichstag, the NSDAP, the Nazis had lost 35 seats at the November 1932 election and there was a sense that they had passed their peak.

We have to bear in mind that while they were elections in Germany, effectively democracy had been suspended in July 1930 with President Hindenburg effectively ruling through emergency decrees. He appointed the Chancellors which made it easy for him to simply put Hitler into the role. Hitler made great use of it, making use of the Reichstag Fire to pass the Enabling Act in March 1933 which began to dismantle the Weimar Republic as a political system. Even then, he required the support of the Z and DNVP parties in the Reichstag to get this legislation through. While he moved quickly to consolidate his position it was not until the death of the President in August 1934 that he could become a true dictator. An uprising let alone resistance by the military could have headed off that step even at this late stage.

As with so much in history, Hitler coming to power was never 'inevitable' in the way that popular accounts of the period often seem to portray it. Yes, Hitler and his party were popular. However, as the period July 1930 - January 1933 had shown, there were other options and in fact the installation of a military dictatorship might have been the more probable outcome.

My novel turns things back a few more steps to see what Germany would have needed not simply for Hitler to be left out of office in January 1933, but to dent support for the Nazi Party at an earlier stage. The party tapped into enduring complaints among the German population, especially around the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, but also the sustained support for anti-Semitism which was present right across Europe to a greater or lesser extent. However, the prime factor which had triggered rising support for the Nazis was mass unemployment. This had come about as a result of the global Depression which had begun as early as 1927 but was heightened by the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. By 1930 German unemployment was 2.8-3.2 million with figures being higher in the winter than the summer. It peaked in the winter of 1931/32 at over 6 million and was still at 5.4 million that summer. The figures for 1933 were a little better. Nazi policies such as expelling Jews and left-wingers from posts reduced the official figures for unemployment though it does appear that by 1934 there was also an improvement in the economy, one matched across Europe and elsewhere.

One example of a democratic country combating mass unemployment was the USA. Here President Roosevelt who came to power in March 1933, pursued what was termed the New Deal, a policy of state investment in numerous sectors of the economy in order to stimulate demand and increase employment. The USA had minimal official unemployment in 1929 but this rose to around 15 million by 1931, about 25% of the working age population and does not include those underemployed, e.g. put on short hours. As in Germany it began to decline by 1934, though there was a summer peak once more before continuing to decline to 9.9% by 1941. It is now argued that the New Deal did more to reduce wage inequality. However, it is clear that public works projects did create jobs and it is disingenuous now to argue that Hitler's policies such as building the autobahns reduced unemployment and yet Roosevelt's schemes run by WPA and especially the TVA dam projects somehow provided no benefit. What is clear is that not simply in the dictatorships but in democracies including the USA, UK and France there was an increasing acceptance that greater industrial planning and stimulus put into the economy by governments were an approach which can be used, though often in the face of opposition from bankers and civil servants.

So, what does this have to do with German history. Well, my novel starts from the basis of asking, what if Germany had seen New Deal and/or Keynesian style policies to reduce unemployment before the Nazis came to power? Would reducing German unemployment to 4 million in 1931/32, have taken the sting out of the Nazis' popularity? Of course, the policies would neither have eliminated unemployment, nor the Nazi Party, but it seems feasible using the policies of the style soon to be adopted in the USA, that they could have reduced both. In this situation one can envisage that while Germany would not have suddenly seen democracy reinvigorated, conversely there would not be the fall into the harshest dictatorship seen in the era outside of the USSR ultimately leading to the persecution and extermination of millions of Germans, let alone other nationalities across Europe and North Africa.

To oversee this stimulus policy, there seems to be only one man who could have successfully pulled this off, former Chancellor, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Foreign Minister, Gustav Stresemann. Unfortunately for our world he died in October 1929, aged only 51, three weeks to the day before the Wall Street Crash. Why was Stresemann so important? His prime claim to fame was reorganising German banking in 1923/24 to counter the hyperinflation in the wake of the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr which had wrecked the economy. Stresemann pulled the country back from the scenes of worthless money with many transactions being carried out by bartering. He used innovative methods such as the Rentenmark to move to a stable position.

Stresemann was part of all the governments from August 1923 until his death so was well known and trusted in Germany and indeed in Europe and North America. Stresemann importantly was a patriotic, even nationalist liberal, so did pursue policies that were supported by the nationalist DNVP and formed part of the NSDAP's demands and was certainly anti-Communist. However, he formed a 'hard centre' around which democratic parties could coalesce. One can easily envisage that, if he had lived, he would have seen the new economic challenge triggered by the Wall Street Crash that he would have to address to save Germany.

Thus, the point of divergence in my novel is that Gustav Stresemann did not die in 1929 but lived on another 7 years. Following the Wall Street Crash he has been appointed emergency Chancellor as in 1923 and has adopted public works and stimulus schemes, notably the building of the Autostraßen motorways to create jobs and demand. This is not a radical departure as there had already been plans, stimulated by the Italian projects, to build the German motorways which feature in the book. Stresemann's schemes do not 'cure' German unemployment but reduce it notably and this adds to the decline in the Nazis' fortunes anyway. Slowly a greater degree of democracy can be established once more and naturally, on the death of President Paul Hindenburg, Stresemann, the 'saviour' of Germany once more, would be elected.

In this alternative, Stresemann is still not as enduring as the old field marshal he replaced (who had lived until aged 86) and so soon after the book opens, the stroke which killed Stresemann in our world in 1929, hits seven years later. Still, the stability he has provided for Germany and the projects he has initiated have tided the country over into a period when across the World things were improving, yet without Germany fixed on a course to war. As noted above Stresemann was patriotic and disapproved of the Treaty of Versailles and so these trends continue in his Germany, this 'Streseland', but he had learnt in the early 1920s that steady negotiation achieved much more in terms of revision than precipitate threats.

So with Germany having stepped back from the brink and still facing challenges but not falling to dictatorship, what of the Nazis? Hitler and his followers believed they were destined to come to power. Hitler had moved from his 1923 assumption that he could seize control to seeing it coming through the ballot box. In our world while he did not fully achieve this, he did enough to get him simply appointed Chancellor. With Chancellor and then President Stresemann, instead, this step would have been denied to him and indeed the Nazis' popularity may have continued to decline. Still they were a dogged political movement with a strong paramilitary wing, the SA. This enduring threat to the peace of Germany forms the core of my novel.

We follow the adventures of Gotthard Nachtigall an undercover agent employed by the RfV an internal security body, modelled on the British MI5, established by Stresemann in 1930 to combat those seeking those trying to overthrow his government. Nachtigall is sent to infiltrate the Nazis and especially their front organisation which conceals their enduring paramilitaries. While it is increasingly clear that Hitler is planning something big, it remains unclear what it is and what the authorities can do to combat it. In such a risky deception, Nachtigall has to think fast and act ruthlessly to survive in order to remain best placed to see off Hitler's threat.

Interviewing the Alternate History Community: Alexander Rooksmoor on the Sea Lion Press Website

While I imagine anyone who regularly reads this blog will know quite a lot about me. However, if you are particularly interested in my alternate history writing and what I think about the genre, you could do worse than check out the article about me by Gary Oswald. It appears on the Sea Lion Press website: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/  As well as being the leading publishers of alternate history books, they have regular articles including interviews with alternate history authors and other types of creators.

The article on me is based on an fascinating interview in which we ranged over how I got into the genre, the different phases that my writing has gone through, the challenges of fact in historical fiction and the potential crossovers for crime and alternate history fiction. The article can be found here: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/interviewing-the-ah-community-alexander-rooksmoor

Byzantium Express: The Byzantine Empire Persisting until the First World War

 

This book, my third published by Sea Lion Press: www.sealionpress.co.uk is also available for sale via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08M8X3TCZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

As is often the case when I cannot sleep and need to distract myself, late in 2019, I began thinking about different scenarios of the First World War. I have published both two books of analysis on some scenarios and an anthology of short fiction. However, I had considered shorter-term changes rather than introducing a country which had been gone for about 450 years by the time the war broke out. Of course, the persistence of Byzantium has often been discussed, you can find numerous articles about it on the Sea Lion website. Alternate history author, Harry Turtledove, did not go this far, but as a Byzantine scholar he did use the empire as the basis for his Videssos fantasy stories. Another prompt for me was one of my 'what if?' book art covers from 2007: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-if-art-3-history-book-that-never.html itself inspired a chapter in 'On Other Fields' (2012/14) about medieval alternatives.

To get to Byzantium surviving into the 20th Century, you need a lot of points of divergence. Not only do you need to prevent the steady Ottoman conquest of its territories in the 11th-15th centuries leading to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, but you need to see the empire far less damaged by the Crusades. For example, the leaders of the 1st Crusade, 1096-99, had sworn to the the Byzantine emperor to restore the cities recently lost to the Fatimids and Seljuks in Syria and Palestine. Instead they set up their own principalities, the Crusader States that shrunk over time until snuffed out in the late 13th Century. Even worse for Byzantium was the 4th Crusade of 1202-04 which smashed up the empire and replaced it with a series of Latin states which persisted until the 1260s. While this did not condemn the empire to Ottoman overthrow it severely weakened it. Removing crusader leaders, notably Bohemond of Taranto who established the Principality of Antioch in what had been Byzantine lands, is easy. The siege of Antioch was lengthy and the crusaders were almost defeated both by disease and their Muslim opponents.

A stronger Byzantium would only have endured when faced by weaker Seljuk opposition. Again, this is far from impossible. As it was the expansion and unity of the Seljuks was wrecked by the incursions of the Mongols in the 13th Century. It was out of these ashes that the Osman tribe of Seljuks rose to become the Ottomans and establish a vast empire stretching right across the Balkans and North Africa, into Arabia and Mesopotamia as well as over Anatolia and the Levant regions. In turn it was sliced up by European countries, but on the eve of the Great War, was still deemed a Power and one that Germany sought out as an ally. I have envisaged that Britain and France have seen Byzantium as a bulwark against Russian expansion in the 19th Century and so have provided funds and fought in a version of the Crimean War in the 1850s to check this.

For the Sejuks and Arabs I have envisaged that a number of smaller states would appear across eastern Syria, Transjordan, Mesopotamia and Arabia. They are quite diverse, with divisions between Sunni, Shi'ite and Wahhabi Muslims, even an Orthodox Christian state as well as between different dynasties. There is a chance that some of these would be taken over by European powers, especially via the Persian Gulf. I have envisaged that as in our world, by 1914, Britain would have taken Egypt, Italy taken Libya and France taken Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. However, it is likely that they would have been taken from Arab or Bedouin rulers rather than Turkish ones.

I have envisaged that the enduring Byzantine Empire, by 1914, would be rather like the Chinese Empire. It would be able to hold off full-scale colonisation by European powers, but there would be economic and political penetration. I envisage a British 'treaty port', at Limassol on Cyprus and the Italians holding Rhodes on a 99-year lease. In our world, Britain effectively controlled all of Cyprus from 1878 and annexed it in 1914. Italy took Rhodes and the rest of the Dodecanese Islands in 1912. Maybe this is too few and more realistic would have been a number of treaty ports along Byzantium's various coasts, more akin to what happened in China 1840s-90s. However, my sense was that being more compact, Byzantium has been that bit stronger and largely able to resist most such demands. In addition, the independence of Bulgaria from the Byzantine Empire has been slowed up a little compared to its break from the Ottoman Empire, but again this helps the story I planned, too.

I know some fans of alternate history baulk against 'parallelism', but even with the changed situation, it seemed to make sense that as happened with the Ottoman Empire in our world, the German businesses and government would seek to penetrate the Byzantine Empire in the early 20th Century. It also provided a motive for the heroine, half-British, half-Greek to be there and provide the context for a spy story which seemed perfect for the time setting I had chosen. Too often, women are left out as main characters from alternate history novels, unless there prime focus is romance, so I always seek suitable ways to mix the genders in my novels into the action and a woman spy in 1914 seemed to fit trends of the time. Given how advanced Germany was in electricity and electrical engineering, it seemed to make sense that they would have sold such technology to Byzantium. The absence of coal in the region led me to envisage an earlier exploitation of oil from the fields in  northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia. This is not too much of a leap given the US and British navies were moving to oil power for warships at this time.

The political and economic elements of an alternate historical country are always interesting to work on. However, with this story there was another challenge that I actually found more fulfilling than I might have expected. I had to come up with a culture for Byzantium across the more than four centuries that it existed in my world compared to reality. I wanted it to be modern, especially as much of the action is in the capital, but also to show connections to the heritage that Byzantines would naturally have been proud of. I looked at a lot of Greek and Russian clothing and styles, e.g. with housing, from the late 19th/early 20th centuries and then sought to give them a distinctive twist. Thus men wear suits as they might in London, but cut higher to the neck; their bowler hats have a lower crown. Women wear kohl and more ornate jewellery day-to-day, conical rather that brimmed hats and the apomalli, a fictional counterpart of the pashmina, is an essential part of a Byzantine lady's wardrobe. With an enduring Greek culture in Anatolia, more Greek artists who in our world went to Athens or Paris have remained there. Constantinople was always a crossroads and in this novel we see foods that are typically Greek but others in our world we associate with Turkey. As a Christian rather than Muslim empire, alcohol is more widespread. The same goes for buildings in Constantinople. Much of the geography of the city would have developed on the same lines, but for example, we find the St. Eirene Chambers, gallery and theatre, where in our world the Topkapi Palace was built.

Some things did not need alteration. As it was Greece and Russia, plus other countries of the region, still used the Julian calendar in 1914, meaning I had to keep a close check on dates, especially when referring to battles that happened in our First World War and occurred just the same in this alternate world. The Metropolitan of Constantinople, the leading churchman, is portrayed unchanged from our history. I did have to extend the ruling dynasty and work out feasible names and numbers for the emperors after 1453 and their families. For other things, such as government positions and the currency, I updated what we know about the Byzantine era. Byzantium had a very complex military and civic society, perhaps highlighted by the term 'byzantine', but again it helps to give the reader a feel for what would be a distinct society and an ancient one dealing with the modern world. Given this effort, I hope that readers feel that they are stepping into an engaging alternative but also one that is feasible given centuries of divergence.

This is also the first spy story I have written. I hope that this works well for readers, how Eugeneia Cranston [reasons for the spelling are explained in the book] works as an agent and deals with sometimes very frustrating controllers in that work. I hope I have made it both seem realistic but show the characters in genuine jeopardy. I am certainly tempted to produce another alternate history spy story, given that I can find an appropriate context for one. This period when so much was still up for grabs in the early days of the war, seemed ideal and there may not be other settings that work so well. I always welcome feedback from readers and look forward to hearing your views.

Fictional Alternate History Map of the Byzantine Empire in 1914

In the Absence of Powder: The Napoleonic Wars without Gunpowder

 

This book is available for sale via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CD1RMCZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 

This is my second book published through Sea Lion Press: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/ I do not even recall where I heard the quote which is attributed to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, implying that he said he would have been better off having a corps of archers at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, rather than more men armed with muskets. I do not even know if he actually said it. However, it was a sufficient seed for an idea about writing a story where this could have happened. The novel covers not only the fighting named after Waterloo, though occurring quite a bit further south, but also at Quatre Bras and to a lesser extent at Ligny, in the preceding days.

I also watched the Alternate History Hub podcast on the issue of a world in which gunpowder was not invented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycEZIbQqA8A Interestingly that made me see that even with such an apparently large change to history many events would still have run as they did in our world, for example, the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This led me to see that writing a parallelist novel, i.e. one in which there was a big difference to our world, but in which people got to (roughly) the same position as in ours and followed similar if not identical policies was feasible. This parallelist approach has been challenged with people arguing that my novel is not a 'proper' alternate history story, but rather simply a 'thought experiment'. This is because it is assumed that the moment you introduce such a change there are numerous 'ripple' effects, meaning that no-one would end up doing the same thing as in our world, and indeed, many of the characters we know would not have been born. This tends to overlook the attitudes and behaviours of people in the past, and for example, in early 19th Century Britain there was a limited number of families who had opportunities to rise to power or to gain high positions in the military, something the absence of gunpowder would not have altered.

In 'Thinking of Writing Alternate History?' (2020): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/03/thinking-of-writing-alternate-history.html I make what I feel is a legitimate case for parallelist alternate history. By only altering one aspect but maintaining the others as they were in our history, you can really test whether that change would have made a small difference, a major one or effectively no difference at all. If you begin to substitute other men for Wellington and Napoleon, let alone all their generals, you cannot be certain whether the outcome portrayed would have been the case due to there being no gunpowder or some flaw or skill in the generals and overall commanders and so on. Thus, I kept all the people who were at the battle in the situation, though the different weaponry did mean the battle ran differently and in some cases people were injured rather than killed. The battle did see a large number of deaths among high-ranking officers on both sides.

Researching both the use of what was effectively medieval weaponry and the forces and individuals at the battle, did throw up some difficulties. There is certainly no agreement, for example, on how far a medieval crossbow could throw a bolt or quarrel and the differences between effective and maximum range. People are often bemused by why onagers, which had a shorter range, replaced ballistae, neglecting that it was far easier to manufacture and repair an onager than a ballista. 

Even with individuals there is dispute over their stories. The gravestone, the portrait and other sources, imply that Lieutenant Colonel John Fremantle one of Wellington's aides-de-camp was born in 1780 or 1790 or 1792 and died in 1845 or 1847 or even 1854. If he had died in 1847 at the age of 55 as quoted, he would have joined the Coldstream Guards in 1805 at the age of 13, supposedly, according to some, having already attended both the Royal Military College and Lüneburg University already. I can accept he might have been 23 and a lieutenant colonel at the Battle of Waterloo, given ranks could be bought and a Guards captain would serve as a lieutenant colonel when seconded to other units. So far I can find no-one able to reconcile the different information. I assume he died in 1847 aged 65, rather than 55 as his gravestone (destroyed in 1944 by bombing) apparently said. His rank at death is also disputed with some saying he was a Major General and others, a rank higher, a Lieutenant General - this confusion though may be explained by the fact that he was a Guard and they generally held two ranks, a lower one among the Guards and a higher one when serving with other units. Anyway, this is a classic example of when people say you must write the 'actual' or 'true' history that it is not always easy to do!

One thing that I did enjoy was looking at the different units in the battle and seeing what the equivalent armour and weapons would be if gunpowder was not available. The Guards, as an elite unit, end up with longbows, as they need dedication over many years and distort the body. The Rifles, have arbalests, like rifles, having a long range and penetrating power, but like them too, slow to load. Napoleon's skirmishers, the voltigeurs, given Napoleon's use of Roman iconography, have become javelin-throwing velites. In our world those French cavalry wearing metal breastplates, were called cuirassiers. However, this comes from 'cuir' meaning leather after the boiled leather breastplates of the Classical world and in my alternative a lot of people are wearing them, so those in real metal breastplates have been given 'ferassiers' from the French word 'fer' for iron. One thing that has always attracted wargamers to the Napoleonic period is the wealth of different uniforms and weapons used and I hope readers will find interest in what I have substituted these with in this alternative, only a few of which I have mentioned here. I used this very useful diagram for naming different types of helmets various used.

One challenge with any war story or alternate history is being able to show different aspects of the context to the reader. Initially I thought to do something like Iain Gale's novel of the Battle of Waterloo, 'Four Days in June' (2006). He has five characters he follows. However, I was conscious of criticisms of 'Scavenged Days' (2018) which to show a range of changes that France experienced in that alternative, I used a multiplicity of characters whose eyes we see through at various stages of the novel. In contrast, readers largely want just one main character and expect that you will also write all the details of the minor characters' stories right to the end. This was, in the end, why rather than select a soldier in the line, the story is seen through the eyes of a 'galloper' one of Wellington's battlefield messengers, in this case Cornet Ruper Aske. This allowed me the opportunity for him to be sent to various parts of the battlefields and to witness what the Duke of Wellington and other commanders were doing as well as seeing how the ordinary soldiers were faring. I hope having this perspective gives readers a feel for what was going on and, for this alternative, how the absence of gunpowder weapons altered the battles. This novel is fast paced and I am optimistic that I have made an adventurous story while at the same time exploring how much of a difference changing one aspect of warfare would have made, meaning that the book is far more than simply a 'thought experiment'.

Thinking of Writing Alternate History?: A Guide to the Important Questions

 

This book is available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LQ6H8Q/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i20 

I was particularly pleased with the front cover. I had thought first to have William Shakespeare with a laptop, but apparently so have hundreds of other people, so I worked to do an Ancient Greek version which I hope both sums up the alternate history aspect and the fact that it is about writing. My only concern was that given so many people who commentate in the alternate history context are very much from the 'manosphere', seeing a woman portrayed on the front would put them off even considering this book as one they might want to rant about.

As anyone who has followed this blog down the years will know, I have long been interested in alternate history writing, whether as the basis for analysis or fiction. I had planned this book to come out in 2019. I had been aware of Grey Wolf's book, 'How to Write Alternate History' (2013): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/02/books-i-listened-toread-in-february.html but, despite establishing a relationship with Sea Lion Press, I had been ignorant that they were releasing, 'How to Write Alternate History' (2019) in August 2019, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W44DQHG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3 so I had to postpone my book, read that one and reflect my thoughts on it in my own book which has not followed some five months later.

I have read the work of a lot of alternate history authors, though these days it can be a challenge to keep up with all the books coming out, even just on alternate outcomes of the American Civil War and the Second World War, let alone more widely. However, I felt I had learnt a great deal about the genre and so could offer advice to other authors who were considering it. In addition, I had seen the appearance of 'rules' such as 'only one point of divergence is permitted' that I felt were not only unnecessary but wrong and in fact did not take into consideration what renowned alternate history authors of the past had done.

This is a common trend in the 2010s. I know people (typically men) feel they can and should assert their 'authority' on various issues through online fora to the exclusion of any other views. I faced this with reviews of 'Stop Line' (2017) with one reviewer saying that because some online forum had decided that no German invasion of Britain in 1940 would have been possible, any author writing on that should be ridiculed forever more for even trying. Despite such scenarios being common in books written over the past decades, the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy wargame of 1974 on this very topic which suggested something very different is simply swept aside. In this era, apparently the shouting of some men in the public arena, counts for far more than analysis by senior military staff from a generation with knowledge of the war itself. In this context, this book was my shot at getting back at such indignation and indeed an attempted suppression of alternate history writing by self-appointed judges on the genre.

Drawing on loads of books and movies, this analysis looks at what kind of alternate history you might want to write. While at present fiction is the prime focus, in previous decades books of analysis have been popular and I have enjoyed writing some myself. Though not attracting so much attention now, people continue to produce sober, fascinating analysis which can actually help the alternate history fiction author. I look at podcasts on alternate history, a growth area. I also look at the role alternate history short stories can play, whether stand alone or part of a 'fix-up' anthology. I look at the principles of alternate history and without imposing any rules, highlight bases on which your book might be challenged, in terms of feasibility and even including characters. One revelation to me in recent years has been in reading historical novels, usually set in wartime, which do not feature any (female) characters. Having read so much Bernard Cornwell, I had not realised that was a sub-set of historical writing and it can be used as a way to criticise alternate history novels for 'wasting time' and 'not getting to the real alternate history' if you develop characters in your story.

I look at the mechanics of alternate history novels, such as whether the main character arrives or lives there; the use of points of divergence and how far you set your story from them. I address the challenges when featuring time periods or events that readers may be unfamiliar with, let alone may cling very strongly to popular, though actually inaccurate, views about. I look at the controversial concept of 'parallelism', i.e. using people from our history over in quite a different context. While people dismiss this as 'wrong' in alternate history, again it is in fact very common in some of the most successful alternate history novels and stories. One large section drawing on numerous books, shows how alternate history is often the context for another genre, for example spy thrillers, murder mysteries, fantasy, slice of life stories or even romance.

There are some sections advising alternate history writers on how to deal with the kind of hostility writing in the genre is liable to attract. This is especially the case, as the book explores further, when alternate history writing is so often put to contemporary political uses especially in the USA. The book ends with a select bibliography outlining a range of books, stories and movies that you may not have encountered.

Overall, I hope authors and anyone interested in alternate history writing, whether fiction, analysis or for the screen, will find this a useful and interesting book. As always, I expect that some will be indignant with what I have written and will dismiss me as an idiot. However, one of the main reasons why I came write alternate history was to stimulate discussion and debate. Maybe I am naive in this age when it seems that people are primarily motivated to enter 'discussions' simply to shut down opinions which differ from their own. However, I do cling to some optimism that this book will generate discussion about the full scope of alternate history writing and the different ways in which it can be done.

Against the Devil's Men: 'What If?' Novel of Greater Success of the Mongols in Europe in the 13th Century

 

This is my first book published via Sea Lion Press: https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/ I approached them in the summer of 2017 with 'Eve of the Globe's War' (2017): https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2017/09/eve-of-globes-war-what-if-novel-of.html but very foolishly pulled out of the arrangement, I am not certain now why I did that. However, I was glad that Tom Black, head of Sea Lion, gave me a second chance with this book. I had always been interested in having a story about what if, in 1242, the Mongols had not simply turned back from Europe following the death of their great khan, Ögedei Khan. This had been stimulated, as had the title, by the non-fiction book, 'The Devil's Horsemen' (1979; revised 2003) by James Chambers. I had picked up a copy remaindered in the mid-1980s though it was not until many years later that I read it, as is often the case with non-fiction books I buy.

My first shot at a story along these lines had been with a novella which is now encompassed as 'Facing the Devil' within 'Déviation: What If? Stories of the French' (revised 2015): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L45ATYC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i12 That story covers events later than 'Against the Devil's Men' being set in 1272 and based in northern France. The story was not well received especially by one reviewer who is an advocate of the medieval Mongol expansion and feels that any story of the time which is shown from any perspective that is non-Mongol, must be like a project for primary school children. However, I thought, for myself, it highlighted how western European states might have dealt with the Mongols if they had continued progressing farther west. I envisaged that trying to cling on to the European enclaves in Palestine and Syria would have to be abandoned, but that the various crusading orders would have turned their focus on fighting the Mongols. I also saw that the Papacy, under threat in northern Italy and with southern France at risk too, would have withdrawn to the Iberian Peninsula. Given that the threat would have involved numerous Christian states, and indeed Muslim ones too, I imagined that the Papacy would have 'weaponised' much of western European society with both religious and military orders focused on repelling the existential threat.

Thus, from these ideas, I began to decide how I could make a full novel. I settled on three characters to enable me to give different perspectives on what was happening. I wanted to emphasis just how cruel the Mongols were and how unlike other enemies European soldiers had faced, were so destructive no matter whether their victims were Christian, Muslim or Pagan. Thus, I came to include a Cuman horseman, Captain Braçayda 'Barc' Ulas. The Cumans are interesting people who were pushed westwards by the Mongols and received somewhat of a warm reception in Hungary. The Magyars themselves had been a similar nomadic people who had previously settled on the Hungarian plains and become what we know as Hungarians. I also wanted someone who could fight to give action for the story. I also wanted to show the impact of the Mongols on the people in the areas in which they settled, so this led to Sister Aurea of the Mercedarians. She is a half-Mongol, half-Italian woman born as a result of rape who fled into 'France' from Mongol held northern 'Italy'. The Mercedarians were a bold order that were willing to risk their lives for imprisoned Christians; she also provided a way in for what I saw as an undercover mission among the Mongols. Then, finally, to represent how the weaponised clergy was used, I included Brother Cataldo, a Trinitarian friar originally from Venice. The states of Venice and Genoa were known to be flexible in relations with the Mongols and I saw that as liable to grow as the invaders' power extended.

All that remained was to determine what these Papal agents would do and this led to lots of exploration of diseases among horses and how these could be spread. With all these factors in place, my trio - though the story is primarily seen through the eyes of Cataldo - were ready along with a band of soldiers and later some sickening horses to go on their mission. Their journey allowed me to show the complexity of society at the time, especially the multiple states in what is now southern France. There is room for jealousies of both secular and clerical authorities and to look at some of the stunning towns in the region though those in northern Italy, as happened elsewhere the Mongols went, have been reduced to ruins. Along the way the characters encounter people showing what impact the grim threat of people many genuinely believed to be demonic, would have, so there are heretics and millennial cults arising. The Cathars were strong in the region even in our version of the history and have continued when an even greater threat to Christendom has taken priority.

I hope readers appreciate all the details, of food, clothing, weapons, horses, towns and different groups. I was pleased with what I felt was a rich experience with numerous points of tension and scenes of action as well as reflections on the political and religious developments of the time. Some pressed me to include things like sex between Cataldo and Aurea, despite an 18 year age difference between them and both being sworn to chastity. However, I am glad I resisted this and that one reviewer has picked up on the fact that I have been careful to show characters following the views of the time rather than me including anachronistic attitudes from my own. This includes showing people, whether in religious orders or following a heresy or simply fearful of the Mongols, sincerely believing the views of the time; accepting the supernatural and the reality of the Devil and his agents. As such, I hope that while providing an interesting exercise in alternate history story-telling, readers can also enjoy exploring a rich historical context based on extensive research. Of course, if you spot some error, please let me know first before emblazoning them across Amazon reviews.