February, 1897
Boston
Bundled against the dismal February northern weather, President Adlai Stevenson entered the First Church of Boston, cap in hand.
I’ve attended far too many of these services, he considered sadly.
After a week of laying in state in Philadelphia, Richard Olney’s body was...
February, 1897
West of Okinawa (Columbian Protectorate)
“Damn it!” Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur shouted up the ladder towards the Master Chief as the roiling sea battered the USS Whitehead back and forth. “Bernard! Git that towline cut NOW!!!”
The commander of the Whitehead’s words were nearly...
January, 1897
Jigokudani, Central Honshu
The young Nihonjin woman merely stared dumbly at the baffling sight below, shaking her heavily hooded head, “I…have no words…”
Bound head to toe against the frigid winter weather in whatever scraps of cloth the petty band could find, it was difficult...
January, 1897
Philadelphia
“…this is…quite disappointing…Ambassador Von Strove,” Secretary of State Olney managed to spit out between clenched teeth. “Naturally, should the Czar change his mind…”
“You shall be the first to know, sir,” the Russian emissary mercifully inserted, already rising...
January, 1897
Guangzhou
Witnessing the scowl upon the visage of the petite woman storming through President Sun’s offices, the army of adjutants and functionaries wisely opted not to challenge Shi Ping as she approached the door to Sun’s inner sanctum.
To her surprise, the recently installed...
January, 1897
West of Nanjing
“…Jesus!” Yelped Private Hans Czinka as a bullet cracked into a tree barely six inches from his head. Ducking behind the ravaged edifice, the soldier attempted to merge himself into the wood as the cacophony of combat proved almost deafening.
“Third squad!”...
January, 1897
Sandouping Village, Hubei Province, Southern shore of Yangtze
Prince Zaitian ducked back into the hastily dug trench as the screaming projectiles arced over the protective crest of the knobby peaks only to explode in midair upon encountering the barren branches of the normally...
January, 1897
Philadelphia
Having granted an informal level of unofficial recognition to the appointed Ambassador of the new “Reino de las Indias Occidentales Espanolas”, President Adlai Stevenson repeated almost verbatim the words he’d already expressed to Ambassador Garcia’s counterparts...
January, 1897
East China Sea, twenty miles west of Okinawa
Cutting through the cold waves of the East China Sea under the sputtering petrol engines of his ungainly craft, now mercifully released from the torpedo destroyer’s towline, the commander of the USS Whitehead pulled tugged his thick...
Always glad to have someone following. I needed a few months to recharge my batteries at the end of last year.
I think the rifle technology is very similar to OTL (both China and the US use version of Mausers).
January, 1897
Five miles west of Puebla
Ignoring the bullet whizzing past his temple (and the objections of his senior officers), the new commander of “2nd Army”, Major General Wesley Merritt, continued glaring through his binoculars towards the mountain passes meandering west towards the...