A Confederate Lake


   By the late summer of 1900, some were beginning to speculate that the war was thankfully drawing to a close. This was largely conjecture and being spouted in the opinion columns of any number of contemporary periodicals. What none of these opines seemed to take into consideration was that their enemies were predicting victory as much as they were. What all of these writers seemed to be detecting, both Allied and Entente, was that the war had indeed taken a few turns that left everyone in a precarious situation. They simply chose to see this situation as an opportunity for victory.
Strangely enough, only two prominent writers managed to see the situation for what it really was and both of these men were more known for their fiction than their fact. One was an American and the other British. They were both as much novelist as they were journalist and, judging by their opines, they both called the situation correctly and pointed out the dangers. The first, the American, was better known by his pen name of Mark Twain. His real name was Samuel Clemens and, for the entirety of the war, he wrote for a San Francisco newspaper but also contributed to the growing wire service of the time. The British author was later known as one of the founders of science fiction and his name was George Orwell.
Both of these men did not so much warn of the dangers that their respective nations faced but, instead, felt that the reality was that no one was in danger because no one could really win this conflict. Clemens had more of a common sense approach when he likened the war to a corral full of mules who all decided to have a kicking contest. His predicted outcome was, “and by the end of it all, what you got is a stable full of bruised asses.”
Orwell was more technical in his evaluations and here was where he showed his true genius. Unfortunately, no one was listening too him and he quickly earned the reputation of a “nay sayer.” Despite his unpopularity he had something that so few other newspaper men did, a clarity of vision when it came to the employment of new weapon systems. It appears as if Orwell, who had no military background at all, was self taught on the subject. He voraciously corresponded with those who did have the proper backgrounds and Orwell had the ability to digest this information and draw a clear picture of their inevitable results. He was one of the few journalists in England that called the German bombing attacks, on France, as nothing more than, “pins making microscopic pricks on a cushion.” He was not as taken, or horrified for that matter, with these new wonder weapons that so many in his profession were.  
Orwell did not see these weapons as useless, he did state that “air supremacy will be crucial in the days and century to come.” What he was really questioning was their employment and, in that at least, there were many who silently agreed with him and a few of those voices counted. Among those men were Admiral’s Fisher and Tirpitz, both of whom were becoming, more and more as the war went on, the de facto leaders of their national navies. Unlike Orwell, or Clemens for that matter, the Admirals did see a possible opening for victory and they saw it coming before the rapidly approaching turn of the century.
While Tirpitz enjoyed the full support of his emperor, that he had made very happy with the headlines that were being grabbed by Germany’s new air fleet, Fisher was in a somewhat more precarious situation. Not only did he lack the support of some key fellow admirals, he was also squarely at odds with the Cabinet and, in particular, Chamberlain and Balfour who were, for all practical purposes, running Great Britain at this point. These two key officials, who were acting in the name of Lord Salisbury, were following the recommendations of General Woseley, no matter how gloomy those predictions might be. Their approach to the war was very conservative while Fisher argued that in order to win, they would have to take chances. This included committing elements of the home fleet to theaters abroad. The Cabinet would have none of that and routinely got in the habit of ignoring even the most mundane memo‘s coming from Plymouth and, specifically, the office of the Second Lord of the Admiralty.
Despite this handicap, Fisher still had a great deal of leeway in the execution of his office and he had wasted no time in consolidating his authority. He had removed many officers who refused to follow his lead and replaced them with like minded reformers, many of whom had a few radical ideas of their own. Fisher had a few other cards to play and he used them well. These were his allies all of whom had assets to bring to the table and were far more eager, than the Royal Navy, to try new things.
Of course, Fisher and Tirpitz had developed a very smooth running partnership since they first met in the spring. This would lead Tirpitz to suggest too Fisher that the British Admiral take a page out of the playbook of a certain British General, of whom Tirpitz had also come to know from their joint venture to southern Africa. This was Lord Horatio Kitchener, now Commander of Forces Middle East. This suggestion led to another partnership that Fisher developed because, what he could not get out of his own cabinet, he could easily get from the navy of the Confederate States of America.
The death of the Confederate Secretary Bulloch was somewhat discouraging to Fisher at first, however, it proved to be a blessing in disguise. While there was much political turmoil over who would replace Bulloch, the Confederate Navy was still steaming right along under the competent direction of their first Admiral, a man by the name of John Mercer Brooke. Admiral Brooke had been around Mobile as long as Bulloch had been in Richmond and, while Brooke was aging and almost ready to retire, he was one of the many technological progressives that Bulloch kept around precisely because of that very reason.
Many in Richmond considered Brooke to be nothing more than Bulloch’s former yes man. There is some truth to that view even if Brooke was a more than competent administrator in his own right. While he was temporarily the de facto leader of the entire department of the navy, he also managed to step out of Bulloch’s shadow and make some decisions of his own, with little to no interference from Richmond.
Despite having spent most of his later career under the coat tails of Bulloch, Brooke was no stranger to the world of politics. He preferred dealing with machines as opposed to people but, interestingly enough, his first love had a lot to do with his political entanglements. Much of that had to do with him shielding his “wizards and warlocks” from the almost constant medaling of Confederate politicians who distrusted new technology almost as much as they did their black sailors. One of the most prominent of these wiz kids was none other than Astin Greene.
Brooke was primarily an engineer above all else. His way of thinking was precisely the kind of thing that Bulloch had looked for and staffed the navy with. That made Brooke something of a shoe in for the top seat in Mobile. Brooke was instrumental in the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cables between England and the CSA. He was also a well known oceanographer and maritime scientist who was known in his fields on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fortunately for Admiral Fisher, this gave Brooke the contacts that had formulated any number of close ties with many high officers in the Royal Navy. He also knew William Preece very well as the two men had worked closely together on the trans-Atlantic telegraphs. In 1900, the two admirals were only professionally aware of each other, due to these professional connections, and had only met briefly on a few occasions. This would rapidly change over the course of the summer of that year.
By this time the Mexican/Confederate offensive into New Mexico was in full gear and looked to be making spectacular progress. It seemed as if the US troops were being pushed north at a rapid pace. This meant that Richmond gave Mobile the green light on executing the second phase of their grand strategy. Everything appeared to be ready.
It has to be noted that this plan must have seemed only logical to the war planners at Mechanics Hall, in Richmond. When looking at it from their point of view it does seem to make perfect sense. The Confederate war planners knew the facts and figures and in no way could you juggle them around in order to spin the data into victory. There was simply no possibility that the CSA could defeat the USA in a large scale, protracted, war.  Even with the Confederacy’s allies, the numbers were simply too much in favor of the US. The Confederates realized that the only way they could win was the exact same way they did the first time around. They had to create and exploit political turmoil in the US. In the summer of 1900 they did have some cause to be optimistic.
After an exchange of many telegrams, both Brooke and Fisher agreed that there were now only two vital factors that would lead to victory. The first was stopping the Russians in the Balkans and the second was the defeat of Elihu Root in the US presidential election. Strangely enough, this made two cities, with absolutely nothing in common, the two most important cities on planet Earth. The first was Constantinople in Thrace. The second was Albuquerque in New Mexico. If the allies could take the latter and hold the former then the Entente would collapse and the Allies would hold together. If the opposite side of the coin came up then the reverse was likely true.
Fisher saw that he was in a position to do something about this situation and Brooke, along with Tirpitz and Kitchener, became willing accomplices. They were all more than ready to bet big.  This very thing was one of the decision points that Woseley had warned the cabinet about. It is ironic that Woseley, himself, did not see this developing situation for what it was. He was in complete agreement with Balfour on the matter. Both men thought that Roberts and Waldersee had the situation on the continent well in hand and, as a result, they were unwilling to risk even a small portion of the Royal Navy.
Brooke was under no such restrictions. He already had a major naval offensive prepared to go. This might have presented something of a problem once he agreed to cooperate fully with Fisher, however, it actually worked to Brooke’s advantage in several ways. The first reason was simply because the CSN operation had been in the planning stages since well before Bulloch’s death. No one was likely to stop it for that reason alone, however, there was the added benefit that President Wheeler wanted some more quick and easy victories of the kind that Operation Grand Tour was likely to produce.
There were only a few operational details that needed to be changed in order for Brooke to provide Fisher with the required aid. Most of these went unnoticed by enemy spies who had already determined that this operation was coming as well as deducing the likely targets of the CSN. We now know that US spies never even noticed the changes in the orders of some of the Confederate ships or, some of the new equipment that was being loaded on two transports and even one warship. Brooke had managed to successfully keep a lid on his true intentions and, oddly enough, it was more to keep his own superiors in the dark than his actual enemies.
It was mid July when Brooke was ready to unleash his newest weapon, the CSS Texas. She was at the core of a task force that consisted of two battleships, six cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and a host of non capital ships that included everything from armed flotilla vessels too fleet service ships and, of course, what they were guarding which were transports of every type that was currently in the Confederate Merchant Service. These transports were mostly filled with troops of the CSMC and state troops from Florida, Louisiana, and even a few from Texas. The reason that these particular units were chosen for this mission was the fact that most of these units had been recruited from Latino and Canjun communities, within the CSA, and all of them had a large number of Spanish and Creole speaking troops.
This fact was not something that had been overlooked by US military intelligence. They had assumed the Confederate objective was Cuba, however, the task force of Grand Tour did not steam from it’s bases to Havana nor even Santiago. Instead, Grand Tour dropped anchor just off the administrative capital of the French Protectorate, Martinique. St. Pierre and the islands largest city of Fort De France had been used extensively by French cruisers as supply bases for most of the war.
Occasionally, ships of the Royal Navy would sail to the island, lob some shells at the main base, and then retreat. Past that, life in Martinique went on as if there was no war at all. Manufactured goods had become extremely difficult to obtain on most of the Caribbean Islands but these had never been readily obtainable to most of the inhabitants anyway, so, very little had changed and, as it turned out, life under the CSA would actually improve for many of the islands residents most of whom were, ironically, black.
The fighting on Martinique was short and less than furious. The French had installed some shore batteries to protect their supply base but, these half measures proved to be too few and completely inadequate. Most of them failed to fire a single shell anyway. The invaders destroyed them before their crews could reach the positions. Confederate Marines managed to land completely unopposed on three separate shore lines and the only ground fighting took place just outside of St Pierre where the small garrison found itself overwhelmed. It was over in an hour and the French were forced to strike their colors. The entire island would be surrendered three days later.
This began the island hopping campaign that would move from south to north along the chain of islands that had formerly been almost exclusively European colonies, about half of which would change their flags from the French tricolor to the stars and bars. The presence of CS troops that spoke Creole, Acadian, and French all helped in dealing with the local civilians. The presence of black sailors also helped. It showed the degree of meticulous planning that the CSN had put into what was the largest operation in their history. Not only were the former French colonies now receiving the benefit of a short supply chain that could provide goods and services but, they saw many of these invaders as liberators. It was clear from the early results that the campaign was getting off to a good start.
In a few years, the Gulf of Mexico would become a major headache for the Confederacy. Not only would the local populations eventually become restless, and many on going insurgencies would not only continue but flourish, natural disasters would also take their toll. Two years later, a volcano would erupt on Martinique and completely destroy the Confederate Naval station and kill every single human at the base, and the city, save one man. This would come on the heels of another natural disaster that would do even more damage in Texas.
The rest of the fighting would also not go as easy as it had in Martinique. Guadeloupe, the island that held the second largest French supply base, would not fall so easily. While the Confederates were able to quickly seize the important points on the island, a small band of French sailors, naval infantry, some local militia, along with a company of Foreign Legionnaires, fell back into the hills where it would take months of hard fighting before the Confederates were able to finally root them all out. This fighting would prove to be some of the most vicious, and personal, of the war. The fact that very few prisoners were taken, by either side, speaks volumes to that.
Despite the problems that would come, and were quite unforeseeable, in 1900 it was quite a coup for the allies. The French cruisers and their support vessels did not attempt to oppose the Confederate task force. They were under orders to operate in the area for as long as they could before retreating to the west coast of Africa. That is exactly what they did and when it was finally clear to the allies that this had happened, they moved on their final objectives. The Confederates steamed the main part of their task force to Santiago, Cuba where they anchored right next to the Spanish squadron stationed there. The smaller portion of their task force, centered around the battleship Shenandoah, peacefully put in at San Juan, Puerto Rico. In both cases, the CSA peacefully took possession of both islands from Spain. This would be the last peaceful thing to happen on either island for some time to come.
For the time being, in a cheap and quick campaign, the CSN had turned the Gulf of Mexico into what Joseph Wheeler would go on to call, “a Confederate Lake.” It all but ended US ambitions of building a canal in northern Columbia or, at least, for the time being. Strangely enough, one of the more important results of the campaign was not known at the time and it had little to do with Confederate operations.
Using the shock and confusion caused by the Confederate offensive, the Royal Navy saw an opportunity to carry out a few of their own plans that, up till now, they had simply lacked the resources to do. With the French raiders finally out of the region, several British ships were freed up to carry out their own strike on an island that the CSA had very little interest in. Ironically enough, this plan had been drawn up by none other than Jackie Fisher while he commanded the Caribbean Naval Squadron.
The target of the Royal Navy was a small and unremarkable island off the coast of French Guiana. Nothing was there but a controversial prison that was appropriately known as “Devil’s Island.” It was militarily insignificant but, Fisher had recognized that there was at least one thing of value there. British Sailors occupied the island and the French authorities not only failed to resist but, actually ran to the British for protection as their prisoners had revolted on them several days earlier. The British had to actually fight some of the very men they would later set free.
Since President Boulanger had come to power, he had stocked the prison with any number of political opponents. These men were more than eager to help the British in weakening the French Government. Some of them would later prove to be useful but, they were also not the main target of the raid. The British were only interested in one man on the island. He was the subject of a witch hunt that had resulted from the exposure of a spy ring in French Counter Intelligence.
The real culprit of this spy ring was Ferdinand Esterhazy. He had been the same man that was providing Field Marshall Waldersee with information that allowed the German general to see the war that was coming. Esterhazy was now living free, in neutral Switzerland, where he had moved once he mustered out of the French Army. The man was living off the funds he was paid as a German spy.
The man that had been blamed for Esterhazy’s crimes, suddenly, found himself a guest of the Royal Navy and he was eager to cooperate in bringing down the French dictator. This man had been the subject of a world wide media storm when his trial took place. He was still well known in France where many thought he was railroaded because he happened to be a Jew. There was a great deal of truth to this belief even if it was far more complicated than just simple ethnic prejudices. Alfred Dreyfus was the man’s name and he would eventually become a central figure in the movement to overthrow Boulanger.