Talk in ports around Gran Colombia focuses largely on one subject:  the last time the Hapsburgers started throwing around heaps of cash for chartered shipping, they invaded somebody.  Even a cabin boy can do the math. 

Only a limited number of Colombian merchies were chartered by the Allies in the Second Pacific War; with so many belligerents involved, there'd been huge disruptions to the global shipping sector.  Neutrals, safe from marauding raiders from either side, had stripped away business from the DKB, Swiss, and others. 

This time, though, the pending troubles look limited in extent.  Consensus is that the militarization of Iberian, Ottoman, and Austrian shipping won't create significant opportunities for neutrals to take advantage of.  Nor are the Ottomans viewed as having a capacity to wage successful raider warfare.  It could be more profitable to withdraw some of the under-utilized merchants from the market, charter them to the Hapburgers for princely fees, and let the consequential decrease in available shipping capacity increase the load factors and profits of those merchants remaining in civilian service.

The Hapsburger naval attache in Cartagena soon finds that smaller shipping lines, such as Angeles Transport, are willing to negotiate charter contracts...

The buzz around diplomatic circles in Vienna is that the Kaiserlich-und-koeniglich Ausslaenderministerium has approached the Normanns to restore their respective legations to ambassador level.
From the time the Normanns had recognised Argival Mars as the Director-General of the ACM, and the Despoiling of the Azores, contacts had been at the lowest possible level, lowly Minisiters.

Borys

Curitiba, Kingdom of Parana

Vice-Roy Schmydtke was going through the despatches from Vienna. The war was no longer a threat, it was a question of "when".
The armies of the Kaiser and of the Emperador-Rey were sure to march on the Turk as sure as eggs are eggs.

One despatch affected him personally. There was a desperate air about the order to visit Buenos Aires at shortest notice possible. 
He decided to take the train to Iguazu, and from there a boat. A good opportunity to evaluate, with his own eyes, of the potential of this route for commerce.
He rang the bell, to order telegrams to respective KuK and VSSA* offices.

* Vereinigtestatendersuedamerika - better known to the world as Naciones Unidas del Suramercia
Borys

After the Ottoman Ultimatum was handed to the Government, telegrams went out from Vienna caling for mobilisation of the Heimwehr. Due to their "Alert status", it should take 2-3 days, and be completed by the evening of the 7th June.
Orders to the long-moblised Reichswehr and Landwehr units were of dislocation. In the afternoon of the 5th June troops and their animals headed for RR stations. All took a broadely southerly direction. But some officers and more saavy soldiers soon started to wonder why were they going to Bosnia or the Banat by way of Transylvania?

July 1912, near Iguacu Falls on Paranese- NUSA border

Helmut Ferdinand Schmidt Mueller - or Nandinho to friends, swore softly through his chattering teeth. He was nineteen, blond-reddish, freckled, and very cold. And on night sentry duty. With traces of disbelief he observed his breath condense into a fine mist. He swore again, cursing the world in general, and the Habsburgs in particular. And shudered from the cold, unheard off at Novo Altdorf on the coast.

Just four months ago he had been proud to join the Guarda da Proteccao, or Schutzstand, how some of the older generation called it. Just like his father and uncles, who had defended their village, and the whole neighborhood - those 6 years ago when the Satan worshipers were burning churches and doing ... other things, which adults took care to discuss out of earshot of children.
As the French had abandoned them, the Brandenburgos arrived and drove the Mauolhados away. How nicely the spike helmeted troops marched, he remembered from his visit to Porto Alegre. And that beautiful music - Gloria da Prussia, someone had told him the name of the march.

This year, just as autumn had come, the Brandenburgos had left. Had sold all of Rio Grande, with all Gauchos living there, to the Absburgos, or Austriacos. In return for someplace in Asia. Which the crazy Absburgos had first destroyed, and then rebuilt. He remembered the older folks at the cervejaria reading papers and talking about Absburg soldiers throwing babies into burning buildings and building mounds of skulls. A name came back to him - Tottenkopfbezirk - the Land of Skulls. That's what poor, beautiful Rio Grande had been traded for.
The spiked helmets had left. And left them to these monsters.

He started alking to try and get the damp chill out of his bones. Those sadists had started war somewhere in the Old Country. And mobilised the Guarda da Proteccao. Instead of the spikey helmet officers, who had made the effort of learning Portuguese, like all educated men should, the new tshakoed (what a filthy tongue twisting word) officers didn't. They spoke German. A good thing his parents insisted that he speak it home, so could understand most of what the officers and regular NCOs were saying. Quite a few soldiers from his unit, from the freguesia de Nossa Senhoa de Bom Parto, also knew the language. But he knew that many units of the Guarda were not that lucky.

So he was brushing up his German, something he never thought he'd need. He had planned to leave Novo Altdorf for a city - where nobody used German - the soonest possible. What good would that unwritten peasant language be to him? And what a primitive language, too. Where "machine" + "gun" produced metralhadora.

Two weeks ago the Guarda had been called to the colours, and informed that they were now the .... Landwehr. Some fifteen or twenty thousand of them were now encamped in the freezing wastes of the Planalto. Of the freezing Plateau, so unlike the pleasantly warm Littoral. Training shoulder to shoulder with those baby impalers from the Legiao de Voluntarios Estrangeiros, some of which were not even Christian! Negros, even if few in Rio Grande, were no novelty to him. But Pagans and Mauros were something else.
The only good thing about the Austriacos was that  they surely made sure there were no Mauolhados about.
And the murderous cut-throats did not speak Portuguese, and their German - if any - was often much worse than his. Surprisingly, he ran into a few who spoke good Spanish - talking slowly and both making an effort, they managed to understand one another quite well.

On 13 July, in the evening, bells rang throught the Habsburg Empire.
Mass, of all possible denominations (and with compulsory attendence of State and Miltary Officials), was held to comemorate the Rupture of Border Fortress Line. Some synagogues and mosques, ingored by the official notices, voluntarily joined in the celebrations.
In the morning of the 14th, casualty lists were affixed on notice stands and other appropriate surfaces. Anxious women massed around them immediatelly. There was some grief when names of ones kin were found. Some astute minds quickly noticed, that most of the losses were from the regular formations, thus deaths of family men from the Heimwehr were few.

July 1912, Habsburg press in general

General merriment and derision of the Ottoman offer addressed at Muslim owned and operated shipping interests of the Habsburg Empire - due to fact that such do not exist.

The Papal address was a well hidden dissapointment to many. However, many wits, including high ranking churchmen, supplied the press with notes that:
- Papal Infallibility applies solely to matters of the Faith, not current events;
- the barbarisms mentioned by the Holy Father were perpetuated either by Pagans, or by the self styled "Progressive, Civilised, Modern Men, not bound by Shacles of Medieval Superstition" - the inventors of Poison Gas - the French;
- the Avignonian Captivity of the Holy Father is highly likely to colour the tone of his Public Addresses;

After recieving the Habsburgs derision of the Papal speech concerning the Crusades.
The Pope had a long conclave with his closest advisors. A papal document is send out to the right persons.

Quote- Papal Infallibility applies solely to matters of the Faith, not current events.

The absolute rejection towards abuse of the faith for worldy gains by greedy leaders is against the teachings of Christ. If that isn't inside the faith, the high clergymen mentioning that this bloodshed in name of the faith isn't concerning the faith itself, should have a long look into their hearts, and come clean with their own misguidance.

Quote- the barbarisms mentioned by the Holy Father were perpetuated either by Pagans, or by the self styled "Progressive, Civilised, Modern Men, not bound by Shacles of Medieval Superstition" - the inventors of Poison Gas - the French.

The inventivity of men, and the applications of this inventivity to further the goals of the devil should be counteracted and nihilised by men and woman true to the faith. Not increased by attricities, nor being justified by calling the faith into massacres.

Quote- the Avignonian Captivity of the Holy Father is highly likely to colour the tone of his Public Addresses;

The Habsburg/Iberian Wars in Italy drove out my  predecessors from the Vatican, escaping barely with the lifes of the faithfull.  The French offered suitable shelter for the church. Even if the basic premise of the then new French state was less than promising, France remained true to its words.
But as we speak, with Rome becoming safer and safer to return to, Mother Church will have to look into the soul and heart of history, and make out where the Papal seat will be in the future.

1 - We are but Imprefect Sinners, and we pray for Divine Guidance for Our Acts;

2 - neither the Habsburg no Iberian forces use Gas, and are fighting to put an end to the atrocities  comitted against the Greeks. And where the Greeks are massacaring the Mussulaman, there the Crusading forces will be an end to sch acts just as well;

3 - the Court and Government in Viena rejoice in the Holy Father giving consideration to putting an end to the present circumstances of the Holy See.

Quote
1 - We are but Imprefect Sinners, and we pray for Divine Guidance for Our Acts;

And whom better than the placekeeper of Christ Himself?

Quote2 - neither the Habsburg no Iberian forces use Gas, and are fighting to put an end to the atrocities  comitted against the Greeks. And where the Greeks are massacaring the Mussulaman, there the Crusading forces will be an end to sch acts just as well;

Did not our Lord say :"turn the other cheek"?

Quote3 - the Court and Government in Viena rejoice in the Holy Father giving consideration to putting an end to the present circumstances of the Holy See.

If the courts of Vienna and Madrid wouldn't have fought and destroyed Rome the Holy See would never have been displaced.
Heed the message of Peace. We are all brothers and sisters of the same Parent.

In Kraków the venerable Cardinal de Puzyna Koscielski re-read the product of the 1870 Vatican council, the Pastor Aeternus. A codification of a practice going back a thousand years, yet which had come close to tearing the Church apart.  It had spawned various "Old Catholic" churches and much "break with Avignon" sentiment.

QuoteWe teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.

The old churchman muttered - the Holy Father should talk less, and pray more ...

Upon hearing the news of Wilhelm's of Deutches Kaiserreich Brandenburg's passing, the Court in Vienna went into week long mourning.
Stefan made good his privilige and manu propria inscribed in the condolences book laid out at the DKB Embassy.

A Good Man. A Good Monarch. A Friend. Requiestate in pacem.

July/August 1912
The War Ministry analised various facets of the Breakthrough Battle. One of the findings was the fact, that over one week, artillery ammunition expenditure was equal to three weeks' worth of pre-war estimates. Discretely, ammuniton manufacturers in neighbouring countries were contacted, with inquiries concerning possible placement of contracts.

July/August 1912
The show of force which has been in place since May in Bosnia was working. There were no more outbursts against the Loyal Bosnians. Memory of several dozen bodies in the wind was still fresh ...

August 30th
Belgrade is Free!
The Ottoman commander of the Fortress of Belgrade, Mehmed Bey, accepted the generous surrender terms offered by the Command of the 2nd Army, by Feldzugmeister Herman von Trutnov.
Although the next morning Mehmed Bey was found dead in his office, with a pistol wound to his head,  the agreement made with the Honourable Warrior was adhered to by both sides.
The garrison, bearing its arms and banners, and playing Turkish Marches, set off on its march to the Vlach border. It was saluted by the swarthy, mustachioed men of the Szent Istvan Rechswehr Korps. It is being provided an escort of honour until it passes under the care of Vlach authorities.