Gran Colombia, H2/1908

[The Rock Doctor]

Clippings from La Prensa Nacional:

18 August 1908

With the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific War, President Alizandro has concluded his lengthy stay in Madrid.  The First Family travelled by rail to the Netherlands, where the President is meeting with the Dutch head of state today.

19 August 1908

The Darien Canal Authority wishes to advise that, due to concerns over widespread civil disturbances and the uncertain political situation in New Switzerland, the Darien Canal has been closed to all Swiss traffic, effective immediately. 

The Government of the Republic of Gran Colombia wishes to advise that, to ensure the security of the Darien Canal, the ports of San Miguelito and Colon have been closed to all Swiss traffic, effective immediately.  Swiss-flagged vessels currently located in the ports shall be escorted out of the roadstead, and may proceed to other Gran Colombian ports to conduct their business.  The Government of the Republic of Gran Colombia apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.

21 August 1908

Following a day of touring historical sites and a dinner at the Noordeinde Palace, President Alizandro and his Dutch counterpart spent yesterday in a more formal setting, discussing matters of mutual interest.  The recent peace treaty brokered in large part by Foreign Affairs Minister Eduard Torres was a subject of discussion during the morning, with trade and administrative matters warranting brief discussion. 

Following lunch, the meetings continued with President Alizandro advising his counterpart of a mutual defence treaty being established between Gran Colombia and the Empire of Iberia.  The President's Press Secretary told this newspaper, "Given the somewhat acrimonious relationship between Iberia and the Netherlands, the President felt it appropriate that the Netherlands be aware of the new agreement - which, I might add, is not quite ratified just yet.  Gran Colombia is concluding the treaty with Iberia out of mutual economic, political, and defensive interests in the Western hemisphere, and certainly not, for our part, out of any specific concern regarding the Netherlands.  Indeed, Gran Colombia looks forward to a continued peaceful and prosperous relationship with the Netherlands."

The meeting concluded with President Alizandro briefing the Dutch government on the status of French Guyana and the French Lesser Antillies, both of which will transferred from French to Gran Colombian jurisdiction at the beginning of the coming year.

25 August 1908

Foreign Affairs Minister Eduard Torres told reporters that he was, "most pleased to be home", as he arrived in San Miguelito today.  Senor Torres' work at the recent Mithlond conference was key towards re-establishing peace in the Pacific after nearly a year of bloody and generally inconclusive warfare between New Switzerland and a Dutch-led alliance of powers.

Senor Torres' travels are not quite concluded, as he will be embarking on a ship to complete the final leg of travel between San Miguelito and Cartagena.  After that, it is expected that he may be busy in advance of a conference of American powers being hosted by the Confederate States of America later this year.

29 August 1908

It was an unusual sight, and it caused the modest port city of La Guaira to come almost to a standstill this afternoon, as the new protected cruiser Roraima went through a set of high speed trials for the first time.

Completed just two weeks ago, the sleek gray warship enthralled spectators by racing through a measured course at its top speed of over twenty-seven knots - as fast as a torpedo-boat, and several knots faster than the older cruisers she will replace.

The ship's captain, E. V. Orbegoso, told this reporter, "Roraima is one of eight new protected cruisers being added to the Armada over the next eighteen months.  She and her sisters demonstrate the Armada's commitment to maintain the security of our shipping routes and our lands in this time of significant technological progress."

Senor Obregoso noted that the design is an evolution of the cruiser Puerta Espana, which entered service in 1906.  "We pack five excellent medium-caliber guns and a heavy load of torpedos on a fast, well armored hull.  We're capable of running down and sinking pirates and raiders that might prey upon our civilian counterparts, ensuring their ability to conduct their business safely.  In the unlikely event that Roraima were to encounter a raider more powerful than herself, she has the speed to shadow her, and the wireless facilities necessary to warn civilian traffic and direct the Armada's battleships and armored cruisers to an engagement."

[The Rock Doctor]

Admiral de Irujo and Vice-Admiral Calderon watched Ricardo Alizandro's face as the defence minister read through the executive summary at the front of a much-revised 1909 Naval Estimates document.  His expression primarily moved back and forth between puzzlement and pleasure, which came more as a surprise to Calderon than de Irujo, who'd been through these kinds of meetings a few times in Calderon's shoes.

"Okay...", Ricardo remarked, setting down the folder.  "I'm certainly not displeased, but explain to me how this is all possible.  Are we blackmailing the Deputy Minister of Finance?"

de Irujo smiled thinly.  "It turns out that accountants have somewhat more power than we might have thought, Minister."  He left the statement hanging for a moment, taking a bit of perverse delight in his superior's impatient reaction.  "It turns out that a little known organization - the International Accounting Standards Organization - has issued guidelines for revised accounting methods.  Basically, it dumps the old practice of paying for large projects up front, and instead spreads the spending over the life of a project.  Such as a warship."

"And why the change?"

"I believe the accountants decided that the old method required them to pay for work that might not actually take place until the next fiscal year - or the one beyond that.  It offended their sensibilities."

"That's probably as much as I want to know about accounting", Ricardo commented.

"It's about as much as I could tell you", de Irujo replied.  "The other factor, no less significant, is that the private sector has been moving towards new mass production techniques.  Introduction of assembly lines has allowed rapid modernization and expansion of sectors such as steel-making and ordnance production."

"Why weren't we seeing this come in gradually?", Ricardo asked.

"I think we, the end-users of complex machinery, are the last ones to see the effects."  de Irujo shrugged.  "I'm no more an economist than I am an accountant. Minister."

"Yeah, yeah.  I take it that neither of these events are isolated to our own selves?"

"Both are global phenomena."

"So no huge advantage to us", Ricardo replied.  "So be it.  Okay, run me through the changes."

"The net effect of all of this is that we spread out costs and thereby can take advantage of the increased industrial output available to us.   In a sense, it also means that we have to smooth out our construction:  if we go heavy on torpedo boats one year, it occupies a lot of our slipways, but doesn't really consume a lot of steel.  Instead, we need to determine an ideal average construction pace for these smaller craft, and build at a constant tempo for the long term", de Irujo said.  "It is, in a sense, mass production; the shipwrights will become quite familiar with the types of ship they are building, and should get better at doint that work."

"That's why there are fewer torpedo boats, submarines and minesweepers planned", Ricardo noted.

"The numbers haven't changed.  We're just spreading out the construction differently."

"And the larger ships?"

"We're going to move up Porfiado to begin construction at the beginning of the year, just like Triunfante.  That's an easy call; we could have done it anyway except for the cash squeeze under the old accounting system."

"The unresolved question lies with cruisers.  We have two options; either we lay down two of the colonial cruisers right away, or we lay down one, and divert our energies to expanding an idle slipway at the dockyard here in town.  In the latter scenario, we can lay down Luchador in July, rather than next year."

"I'm okay with that scenario in general, but are you guys sure about the design itself?  I wasn't really that impressed", Ricardo declared.  "Frankly, it looks like a larger, slower, and more expensive version of that ship the Austrians were yakking about the other day."

"Examined in a narrow sense, this is correct.  However, there's a much heavier protective scheme, and that drives the displacement up.  The freeboard and bunkerage are both greater as well."

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning she should be able to stand in the line of battle, if necessary, and that we can re-engine her with newer, lighter machinery in eight or ten years to bump the speed up by three or four knots."

"Ah", Ricardo said.  "We're just building the one?"

"Once the slipway's clear of Luchador, we can start a second unit.  We're also planning on building one unit at Cromwell once the port and slipway there are expanded.  The trick is that we might have a new generation of machinery ready for installation before then, which would lead to design changes.  Luchador might technically be a one-off."

"Doesn't bother me", Ricardo replied.  "Mid-size cruisers are out?"

"We're pondering a pair with 234 mm guns, but haven't committed.  They seem to have their uses, but it's a question of whether two of them are better than another battlecruiser.  We'll be puzzling that out for some time yet, and we're continuing work on the guns, so it keeps our options open."

"Gotcha", Ricardo said.  "Okay, I'll accept that you guys know what you're doing with Luchador.  God knows it's better than just relying on those old armored cruisers we got plodding around."

[The Rock Doctor]

Mid-September 1908:  Cartagena

The Austrian battleship looked like it had seen better days - quite a few of them, in fact - but his previous posts aboard Swiss battleships had been no flashier, so Captain Frederico Juarez restrained himself from complaining.  He wasn't quite certain why he'd been included in the delegation - near as he could see, it was all flag officers, their aides, several battleship captains, and a couple of junior translators.  He assumed that Vice-Admiral Castillo had his reasons, but the old cyclops hadn't shared them with him. 

Of course, having not been re-assigned since his return from New Switzerland meant that he was arguably the least important Colombian aboard, and was therefore at the back of the group as it clomped into the bridge of the Franzreich to watch the firing drill.  When the herd came to a stand-still, he was still out in the narrow corridor aft of the bridge, beside the captain's day-cabin.  He sighed, loudly and theatrically.

"It's okay, Sir", an Austrian lieutenant said from nearby.  "I'm sure your own navy must conduct firing drills from time to time.  Perhaps you'll be able to see one another time."

Juarez was comforted by the knowledge that lieutentants in the Hapsburger service were just as capable of sounding stupid as those in the Armada.  "Lieutenant", he said, "I spent most of this recent war on the bridge of Swiss battleships.  Rest assured, I'm not unfamiliar with the sound and sight of naval gunfire."

The lieutentant's eyebrows shot up like signal flags on a mast.  "Really, Sir?  How did you manage to survive the experience?"

"I guess it's because we never ran into you", Juarez replied. 

Evidently, his sarcasm was buried under the heavy accent of his German.  The lieutenant instead nodded sagely.  "Our gunnery is far superior to anything the Swiss might have to offer."

"I don't know about that - Hawaii had some pretty sharp gunners."

The lieutenant frowned.  "With all due respect, Sir, you're wrong."

"Well, you're not going to convince me if all I can see is the back of my superiors' heads", Juarez responded.

"Sir, if you don't need to be right here, we could go up top to observe", the lieutenant replied.  "Then you'll see what I mean."

"Lead the way, Lieutenant", Juarez said.

The lieutenant led him up a ladder to the open compass platform, then back towards the massive tripod mast looming overhead.  "The higher we get, the better you can see the target", he noted.

"Indeed", Juarez replied.  He could not help but notice several men clustered about a contraption atop the conning tower.  "Are they not bothered by blast effects there?"

"No, there haven't been any problems", the lieutenant replied.  "I suppose in the worst case, with the turret aiming aft at high elevations, it might be.  But then we'd just use the rangefinder in the tripod."

Juarez looked upward and noted the presence of a similar item in the old battleship's fighting top.  "Indeed", he said slowly, as his mind regurgitated the memory of a conversation with a Swiss officer back in April.  The Hapsburger gunnery was accurate despite the long range; we were hit twice in short order.   "Well, how far up can we go?"

"We go up to the fighting top, Sir", the lieutenant replied.  "There ought to be room for us."  Turret Anton thundered as the Hapsburger finished the sentence.  The concussion of the blast slapped at them, followed several seconds later by a wash of acrid smoke.  "This way, Sir." 

They reached the fighting top as Anton spoke a second time.  Juarez found himself several feet away from a twin of the device adorning the conning tower.  It resembled a small tin-clad shack with a tube projecting from the sides, although at the moment, the tube was oriented almost parallel to the ship's length...which would be perpendicular to the direction of shot.  "There's the target there, Sir", the lieutenant said, pointing at a distant smudge off to starboard.

"Umm...", Juarez muttered.  "I'm not sure I see..."  In truth, he could pick out the target well enough - but moving about the fighting top, for the overt purpose of getting a better line of sight to the target, would also get him different looks at this "rangefinder" thing. 

From behind, he could see there were two small hatches in the rear of the main structure.  Both were open - probably because of the afternoon heat - and he could see three or four men crowded inside.  One was jabbering into a voice pipe, another looking at a sheet of paper featuring a chart of sorts, and a third peering into what looked like the eyepiece of a field glass or small telescope. 

Just then, Anton fired its third shot.   Juarez's eyes flicked over to the target, and a splash soon rose in its vicinity.  The Austrian looking into the eyepiece said something softly, the man with the paper moved his finger along the chart slightly, then spoke, and then the fellow at the voice pipe called out what sounded like, "Raise one tenth."  A half-minute later, the big gun roared once more and the process repeated itself. 

"We're getting closer, Sir", the lieutenant observed, having joined Juarez. 

"If you say so", the Colombian replied.  "Maybe I can see better over there."

"Just don't obscure their view, Sir."  Juarez nodded and circled around the fighting top so that he could look at the front of the contraption.  There were two small windows in the shack itself, and smaller openings near the ends of the tube.  As the fifth shot boomed out, peripheral motion caught his eye; one of the Austrians had emerged from the shack and was muttering into the lieutenant's ear, all the while squinting at Juarez as if he were an Anahuac high priest.

The lieutenant began to look stricken, and called out, "Umm...Sir, we should really be getting back to the bridge."

"But I can see the target now", Juarez replied innocently.

"I know...but...we really need to be getting back to the bridge", the lieutenant reiterated with a slight tremble to his voice.  "Sir."

Juarez sighed.  "Very well, lieutenant.  Let us return below, then.  Perhaps you can direct me to the head once we're there." 

...so I can sit down and write down a few notes, he didn't add.   

[The Rock Doctor]

Loose Ends...

On 25 August, the armored cruiser Campeon and the protected cruiser Matanzas arrive off Easter Island / Isla de Pascua.  They are greeted by the NUS protected cruiser Buenos Aires, and Campeon's captain is invited aboard for tea.  His NUS counterpart informs him of the termination of the DKB lease and the island's re-occupation by NUS. 

As this scenario does not require any intervention by the Armada, Campeon's captain thanks his southern counterpart for the imformation, bids him a good day, and returns to his ship.  The two Gran Colombian cruisers turn for home.

Over the course of late August, the Swiss ambassador is called upon repeatedly to explain the situation in his nation.  He has difficulty doing so.

President Alizandro and company return to Cartagena in late August.  The trip to Europe was over-long, and the schedule disrupted by developments at the Mithlond Conference. 

The Army and Armada quietly disband the "Java Occupation Planning Group", swear the involved officers to secrecy.  Some participants return to their previous duties.  Others, given the uncertain situation in New Switzerland, are assigned to the "East Swiss Occupation Planning Group", which remains active.

The minesweeper Orinoco is sent on a cruise to the western Pacific; offers are transmitted to the local powers, offering her assistance in clearing war-time minefields.

Inquiries are sent to the Confederate embassy about the summit meeting proposed by Richmond some time earlier.  Gran Colombia makes the recommendation that such a conference be deferred to early in the new year, given the uncertain Swiss situation and the President's travel fatigue.