Recent content by SenatorChickpea

I do have a certain appreciation for this book. It knows that it's pulp, and I can almost forgive the anschluss plot.

Cornwell really strikes me as having been taken prisoner by his characters at this point. His standalone books and short series are still really fun, but Saxons and the Rifles have rather overpowered the joy.

This is a great idea, and I would love to read such a scenario.

Good god, I missed the last article! Splendid job, Alex. Exhaustively detailed, with a great eye for personality. Well done.

This is a great question, but it runs into the problem that most people here have a limited knowledge of Central Asia; even apart from the neglect of the region in education and popular culture beyond generalised clichés about the Silk Road and conquering hordes, it's hard for a layman to know...

Damn it, Arthur, I knew there was a screamingly obvious one I was missing.

I thought this was going to be an article about a French government that somehow decides to go ahead with intervening in Rhineland (or escalating the occupation back in the twenties,) but apparently no. I do wish more alternate history dealt with the idea that the Third Republic lasted from...

I never really got around to this. The answer will depend, in great part, as to when the borders are redrawn. Despite all I said upthread, it's quite possible that a 'New Zealand' that joins the 'Commonwealth' could try and secede; if it does- which would require a British government that's...

The hoax is a representation of real fears- through the 1870s and 1880s there were various war scares between Britain and Russia, and New Zealand convinced itself that it was at risk. So through the 1880s you see a whole bunch of fortifications built at the major harbors- some with the very...

Oh, one other thing that might help drive NZ into Federation- more great power competition in the South Pacific. The 1883 Federal Convention saw all the colonies- including NZ- demand that the UK not permit any further expansion into the islands from anyone else. The bogeyman in question...

1. Depends what you mean. One thing to remember is that when Queensland unilaterally annexed the territory in 1883, it did so in the name of the British Empire, not its own local colonial ambitions. I won't bore you with the theoretical underpinnings of my take on Australasian imperialism, but...

Horatio Bottomley is surely the goer here.

You know, I'd completely forgotten about that, and I honestly don't know enough to give a meaningful answer.

Ha! Clearly, it's the Dominion of Van Diemen's Land.