1920s/30s Germany: cabaret, alcohol; WW1 militaria; mourning customs

[akiko]

Greetings! I'm working on an alternate history short story, in which WW1 never happens. Sort of; there's a large European War from about 1930-35, which then leads to the Cold War

Comments

[orthent]

Aha. I knew the book where I'd read about the fire opal was around the house somewhere. It was Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, which is an all-around good reference for influences of WWI on Western culture--all the influences that, of course, your world won't have.

Here's what Fussell says about talismans:

"One would have to be mad, or close to it, to credit talismans, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, with the power to deflect bullets and shell fragments. And yet no front-line soldier or officer was without his amulet, and every tunic pocket became a reliquary. Lucky coins, buttons, dried flowers, hair cuttings, New Testaments, medals of St. Christopher and St. George [n.b.: even though George is a soldier-saint, I'm not sure a German soldier would have the same regard for him as a British one, since he's also the patron saint of England], childhood dolls and teddy bears, poems or Scripture verses written out and worn in a small bag around the neck like a phylactery, Sassoon's fire opal--so urgent was the need that no talisman was too absurd."

That's from chapter 4, "Myth, Ritual, and Romance"--p. 124. He's talking about British soldiers, but there's no reason to suppose that German ones would be very different.

Plus, not all talismans were material:

"And sometimes luck depended not on what one carried, but on what one did, or refrained from doing. Robert Graves asserts that he regarded the preservation of his virginity as essential to his survival at the front, and imputes to his continence his remarkable good fortune in surviving many weeks when the average front-line life of a 'wart' was only six weeks."

And sometimes the "talisman" was pure batshit: one war memoirist met a colonel of the North Staffordshires who told him:

"I have a mystical power. I go through any barrage unscathed because my will is strong enough to turn aside explosive shells and machine-gun bullets. As matter they must obey my intelligence. They are powerless to resist the mind of a man in touch with the Universal Spirit."

The memoirist adds: "He spoke quietly and soberly, in a matter-of-fact way. I decided that he was mad."

[akiko]

Thank you so much! If you were in person, I'd hug you.

(There's a character in the anime Last Exile who chants before battle "bullets will not hit Moran Shetland's body." (That was his name.) While I doubt Studio Gonzo was inspired by this British colonel, it seems to be somewhat universal.)

Lucky underwear, pre-game rituals, all that sort of thing, seen here in war. Superstition is a fascinating thing.

I wonder if there would be any meaningful impetus to get France or England involved, since this war with Russia is vaguely intended to replace WW1. Or combine WW1 and WW2, since the result is a cold war and fortification of the Russia-Germany border. But I can't see why either of them would care about a border dispute all the way over there. Unless England and Germany had a mutual-defence treaty. I *think* Turkey is allied, being also on a border with Russia. I haven't worked out yet exactly how the Ottomans crumble or how closely it resembles reality.

Then again, I also don't know how relevant it's going to be for the immediate topic (two young women commiserating about a brother's death), but it will be for the worldbuilding part.

Not An Expert, but...

[tamtrible]

Wars can spread in some funny ways. Particularly if it seems like the "wrong" side is winning, or if one side or the other starts thinking that someone is likely to ally with the enemy and launches a preemptive strike...

For example, maybe France/England doesn't have a treaty with Germany, but they have one with the Austrio-Hungarian empire. Or with Sweden, and Russia starts eyeing parts of Sweden too. Or with poor little Romania. Or one or t'other gets territorial ambitions in the crumbling Ottoman Empire, and decides that they need to thrash Russia if they want to secure a claim there.

Or something like that.

Re: Not An Expert, but...

[akiko]

Ooh, good point. Russia seems to have given up Finland at the same time they dropped out of WW1 to deal with the little Revolution. Since I'm having a Russian Revolution, and I recall reading that the Finns weren't too happy about being occupied by Russia, they can make matters interesting, though I'm not sure if that's more 1915 or 1930. I'll have to work that out, but not necessarily right now.

Re: Not An Expert, but...

[orthent]

It's worth remembering that through most of the 19th century, England was hostile to Russia and preoccupied with the Eastern Question--with propping up the Ottoman Empire as a counterweight to Russia. The Foreign Office was very uneasy about the Tsar's self-appointed position as protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire--it looked too much like an excuse for Russia to meddle at will in the Balkans and the Near East. Then, from 1814 on (i.e., once French colonial aspirations in India had been basically quashed), the British were also concerned about Russian expansionism in Central Asia--the Khanates of Bokhara, Khiva, and Merv, but especially Afghanistan--as a threat to India. Despite Gladstone's campaign to get the "Unspeakable Turk" out of (Balkan) Europe, "bag and baggage," after the Bulgarian Massacres of 1878, I don't think the Foreign Office really ditched its policy of supporting the Turkish Empire until the Young Turks--Emin Pasha, Ataturk, others--came on the scene.

As for the French, of course they were England's historic enemies. And, Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort being from German families, they tended to be more sympathetic to Germany than otherwise...until, first, German Unification, and second, Wilhelm II's decision to build a navy to rival that of Great Britain. It was impossible for the British at the time to consider that anything but a threat.

I think the linchpin of your alliance system might still be Turkey, and how the British decided to deal with the Eastern Question.

Re: Not An Expert, but...

[akiko]

You know a lot of history :D I'm looking for some good resources on Central Asia around that time (and possibly more recently). I know they won't be in my local library, but the Major University Down the Road might have them or be able to ILL them. Any suggestions?

In my brainstorming, so far I've come up with the Russians (Nicholas' ... father? have to check the dates on that) booting the Turk/Ottoman out of the Balkans. It sounds like this would make Britain rather uncomfortable, in addition to the German states (incl. Austria-Hungary). So possibly Britain would ally with the German states, though in the real world, they were commutatively allied with Russia via France. (And George liked Nicholas more than Will.) But we're talking alt-1890s or early 1900s, so the monarchs were Victoria in England, Friedrich III in Germany, and either Alexander III or Nicholas II, depending.

In something I read recently, the author said that Wilhelm II succeeded where no one else had in allying France and England by invading Belgium. I'm reading King, Kaiser, Tsar by Catrine Clay at the moment, and I feel kinda sorry for young Will. Not that it particularly excuses his actions as an adult, of course. Also, Bertie was a rakish cad. I'm only at chapter 4, and the cousins are only age 10 at most, so I'm not very far yet. I also keep getting distracted by the pictures in the middle of the book.