The British Empire looks back in the solemn early years of this, the 19th century of our time; for the fear of looking forward would take the heart of most. War. Bitter sustainable war on the horizon for generations to come. Glory was once something we shared in the warm taverns of our southern colonies, now it is a poison, a decaying toxin that brings our mighty empire to its knees and sends her sons to their untimely deaths.
It began with ‘The European Summer’, a bright and affluent time that spanned from the borders of Scotland to Northern Greece. We caste our religious tastes aside and embraced the new faith – trade. Our deity was gold, and she was everywhere.
The Summer was in its infancy in 1720 with the pioneering nations locking up trading ports and building ships by the day. Great galleons, bursting at the seams with fruits and goods from the sunnier parts of our world. Within two decades we had the ports that fed the world, we were an addiction for every culture on the planet. South American bays and harbours were decorated with the Union Flag which boldly rippled in the humid breeze, thousands of miles away in the isles of Guinea the same valiant colours could be seen port to port, harbour to harbour, ship to ship.
It was Britain’s time, and for once; she was at peace. France and Spain could sneer and growl all they wanted but no nation touched our might. The Russians called us ‘Terrifying and Spectacular’ and for once those horse-loving Cossacks were right. War was a game for the Saracens to play, a game that they would lose.
An ill-advised Ottoman Sultan stretched his greedy reach into the Spanish states of North Africa, and Europe met this attack with a mighty force. Banners stretched a mile long, the dozen tongues of Europe could be heard on the front line, hunting the Saracen through desert and mountain. It was in the battle for Armenia where the British flexed their muscles. Abandoned by their Persian cousins the Ottomans fell by the thousands and those grand cities saturated in sun and wealth became ours. The Persians were cheaper than we thought; even the Poles could have bought them.
Europe had never been closer; it mirrored a crusade of old. Britain swept through the Maratha Confederacy, fighting side by side with the Mughal. Northern India became our most Eastern boundary, Mughal our most trusted ally. But for all the fighting and blood spilling in the East, it was in the cool seas of the South Atlantic where the fate of the world would be decided.
Admiral Francois Le-Mere, a high born fool with war on his mind and too much gold in his pocket took a clumsy, naïve swing at a Spanish fleet which sunk without a trace… no doubt it was the shock that dug their watery grave. The famous golden trail from South to North was in the hands of this French pirate, trade fleets were met by the cannons and their admirals by the guillotine. In the counsels of North France, the French King folded his arms and waited for the Spanish to wake. The night was long, but news travels fast in catholic mouths.
No treaties, bargains or tributes would slow the wrath of the Spanish King that declared an immediate war, we felt the fury even within the walls of London. With his bloodthirsty cry came a call to arms, both sides rallied allies, both sides looked to their European brothers, the trinkets and banquets were cancelled this Winter, Europe had no need for them – they wanted warriors, they wanted blood for blood.
Paper and diplomats crammed the streets and halls of Westminster for a week, the Catholics wanted an answer. ‘Britain honours honour’ our leader barked to his generals, that meant one thing – Britain and France would be at war again. The rest of the world had to witness how Europe deals with fools and warmongers.
Fools of diplomacy weren’t as uncommon as we had hoped. The Polish, The Russians, the dwindling United Provinces all scribbled drunken promises to the French. Oaths that spat on their honourable past and their brave men that fell in those Southern sands just a few years past. Europe on a global scale would have to wait, pride took the order of things – scores had to be settled amongst the wreck less children of the papal nations.
Faith is a remarkable thing, its resilience would last the ages. When the death toll of Christendom reached hundreds of thousands, still the war ensued – the French paid for their idiocy, the cost one would always pay for such a thing: blood and land. We swallowed the Dutch harbour and engulfed the city of Amsterdam in blinding flames that could be seen on the shores of Scandanavia. Russia and Poland-Lithuania committed nothing but words to the war and it was that cowardice that inspired our forces into France and the jewel that is Paris. The French were expelled from history, their people adopted English words and Spanish chains.
Geography would tell you that Sicily is a minor island rock, a speck off the coast of the mainland of Italy. History would tell you it forged our time and sent millions to their deaths. For it was on those stony shores where a Spanish army landed its party of mercenaries and patriots, thirsty for men’s blood and women’s bodies. We had the city besieged for nearly two months by the time those Spanish dogs crashed the beaches. They charged in, all screams and steel – the Southern Europeans were never ones for patience. They took the city that should have been ours; her immaculate port was donned with the red and gold of Spain, their trade flourished at our cost. History can be cruel at times, we had fought for pride these last twenty years – it was pride once again that inspired the next great war. Spain and Britain, the brothers that crushed the Franks fought in what the Bishops touted ‘The Resolution of an Age’.
Not even a man of Oxford could tell you the death toll for the bodies piled so high. In Morocco we won the greatest battle that the years could speak of. Four thousand Spaniards sent to their grave by just twelve-hundred well trained sons of Britannia. They fled across the Strait of Gibraltar with wounded men on their backs and widows in their dust. Madrid was a chaotic pit of panic and prayer when we sieged her five years later. Spain wasn’t like the rest, once you took Madrid her colonies defected for those with coin. Our Persian friends cut off a Spanish front in Cairo, ending any noble fight. Mughal ships plundered Spanish fleets and shut down those Russian supply lines. Still the Poles and Cossacks shivered in their cold castles, frozen still like their great lakes. The Spanish cursed them with their final breath, not us.
Our lands were vast; knights and heroes had been made across the entirety of our glorious Empire. Diplomacy was a long overdue agenda, for it had been forty years since nations of Europe sat in counsel. The offer of peace and solitude was rejected by those in the East, with hearts as cold as their hearths they marched through Europe with armies the like of which we had never seen. Cowards, yes; but they had waited, waited whilst men of faith fell into early graves and now they looked to take Britain. Our Persian and Mughal friends sickened them, they claimed that our pure white milk had soured over the ages.
And here we sit, the early nineteenth century locked in an endless war in this narrow corridor of Europe, stretching from Flanders to Venice, we could build a road with the dead. Our Persian friends are overwhelmed by the horses of the Volga, Mughal grow tired of bloodshed and gunsmoke. Every year their tribute lessens and men of theirs that should die in the battlefields of Europe become fathers and grandfathers in their homeland.
Glory and pride has given us this, this stalemate. The ‘terrifying and spectacular’ grip on the world was a lie. Nothing will bring us true glory, not even victory – for the year is 1813 and it is too late.
