Kaap Kourier

[P3D]

Cape Town
November 05, 1907

The Battleship row was teaming with life. The three oldest battleships of Taiwan Straits fame were prepared to leave with a peacetime complement, while an armored cruiser and a frigate was loaden with supplies. Thee smaller passenger ships were also chartered, to go along the ships - basically empty.

[P3D]

Elizabethavn
December 12, 1907

The hulk of the French cruiser Gloire, arriving after a long sea voyage, arrived at the harbor for its supposed repair. But the drydock it was towed into  was operated by breakers not shipwrights...

[P3D]

OOC
Moved 2 days forward to make sense.

October 19, Swiss Tortugas

The Marine company disembarked at the single pier the locals called 'harbor' on this infamous pirate islands. They established a small camp on the main island, and small detachments were installing flagpoles next to telegraph stations, where the sea cables reached the shore. On the flagpoles an Orange flag was weaving in the wind.

The harbor was full, and some ships of the Orange fleet had to look for a different anchorage. The cruisers Ajax, Odysseus, the frigates Windhoek, Ketmanshoop and torpedoboat tender Pleiades, with three small chartered merchant ships were waiting in the ominous tropical silence.

[P3D]

October 28, 1907
Loanda, Angola

The Master of the SS Miranda (Zwingli&Zwingli, Homeport Phoenix, New Switzerland) sighed in relief as he sighted the fortress guarding Loanda harbor. He guessed right, the French were focusing their patrols along the more frequented shipping lanes.
Loanda did not have much traffic with Europe as before, although it was picking up again lately. It did not surprise thim either that his vessel was apparently not the first to come this way. At least a dozen vessels of different sizes were tied at the quais, sporting the white-wedge-in-blue flag of New Switzerland.

...
Cape Town, Port Authority

"We must have to do something with the Swiss. There are already more than a hundred vessels in this harbor, alone, and I doubt they will be leaving soon. They are already interfereing with commerce, and the navy started to complain."
"Send them to Durban. That's the largest natural harbor around."
"They have similar problems."
"Then Walvis bay."
"Indeed."

[P3D]

Ministry of Navy, Early November

"Shipping firms are complaining that they are forced to go around Australia or Sumatra on their way to Japan. And they are so loud that we will have to do something."
"Hm, let's see..."

The Republic of Orange acknowledges the Holland declaration of the mining of the Sunda straits. Betginning December, Orange will start convoying Orange mercantile shipping through the Kalimantan Straits, escorting them frigates,  and semding minesweepers to clear the path ahead of them.

[Korpen]

Ministry of Navy, Early November

"Shipping firms are complaining that they are forced to go around Australia or Sumatra on their way to Japan. And they are so loud that we will have to do something."
"Hm, let's see..."

The Republic of Orange acknowledges the Holland declaration of the mining of the Sunda straits. Betginning December, Orange will start convoying Orange mercantile shipping through the Kalimantan Straits, escorting them frigates,  and semding minesweepers to clear the path ahead of them.

So...
Oranje merchantmen is so annoyed by a 600nm way around that they prefere a 2000nm way around instead? And than travell much of they way at around 4kts...

[P3D]

Orange still have some shipping to NS. That Singapore is clogged with merchant traffic, and that the traffic is slowed down the minefields won't help either. And there's no guarantee that the Malacca strait would remain open. They'd rather use the Sunda straits, but that's closed.

[Korpen]

Orange still have some shipping to NS. That Singapore is clogged with merchant traffic, and that the traffic is slowed down the minefields won't help either. And there's no guarantee that the Malacca strait would remain open. They'd rather use the Sunda straits, but that's closed.

Everything is possible, but that is not for open discussion...

[P3D]

After details on the piratical Swiss attack on the French cruisers emerge, Orange issue a declaration that if other warships approach Orange ships  to battle ranges* uninvited and won't turn back after warning, then Orange might consider them hostile, i.e. the equivalent of firing an aimed shot or a torpedo.

*Battle range is defined here as 6000yds.

[P3D]

*post and following discussion removed*

[The Rock Doctor]

I wish you guys wouldn't do that.  Clearly I've missed something, but I don't know what.

[P3D]

December 22, 1907
Cape Town

The Republic of Orange announces that the sovereignity and control of the former Swiss Chagos Islands and Keeling Islands was handed to Orange, and Orange troops were landed to maintain communication lines between Orange and the Dutch East Indies.

[Borys]

What Swuaa Chagos
No Swiss Chagos on map
Borys

[P3D]

Tortugas

[swamphen]

Keeling was captured by the DKB on 21 October, there are Stürmtruppen on the island occupying it, and it is therefore already claimed by the Reich by right of conquest. Therefore the Swissmen have provided Orange with a fraudlent sale.

(It's also already been "sold" to Firanj to boot...)