Fiction

Botho Lukas Chor - Der Tod in Flandern

The consulate room was empty. The silence was broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the clock. An early summer morning was beginning. Odesa was still asleep.

Harada approached the huge map of the world fixed to the wall.

On the map, everything was as usual: borders, flags on pins, pencil marks. But he did not see the paper, the black threads of borders, or the blue veins of rivers. His gaze passed through the map and saw images of the past rising in his memory.

And the past was engulfed in fire.

Since the middle of the last century, industrialization had begun in France, the most developed country in Europe. For centuries prior, the constitutional monarchy had invested vast resources in education and science, and at some point, the accumulated knowledge and technology sparked a true technical revolution. The rapid development of the French economy, like a locomotive, pulled all of Europe with it. Established alliances and successful diplomacy maintained a stable peace in Europe for nearly a hundred years.

In the German states, integration processes were underway: dozens of principalities, duchies, and lands created the Trade Union—an association not political, but purely economic. The Holy Roman Empire still existed formally—but its seals were stamped on documents that no one had reckoned with for a long time.

The Ottoman Empire was living out its final days. It was undermined by corruption of power and nationalist movements of conquered peoples. Turkish nationalists also raised their voices. Sultan Abdulhamid V lived in fear of a coup, but believed to the very end that he still had time and would manage to carry out reforms.

In the East, China slumbered in a semi-dream. In the Middle Ages, the Qing Empire had swallowed Japan and made it an overseas province. After that, China closed itself off from the outside world for centuries.

Any contact with "European barbarians" was permitted only on Tayoan, which became the center of trade—a thin thread connecting the Chinese Empire with the outside world.

Tayoan, by the Emperor's decision, became the exception to the rule. While continental China plunged into apathy behind the Great Wall—not only of stone but of the mind—the island lived. Through it went all deals, all news, all technologies, and all the silver that crossed the border between the Celestial Empire and the rest of the world. Tayoan did not close up. It grew. It was noisy, cramped, colorful. Strict European quarters neighbored bright pagodas, Swiss banks stood opposite tea shops, and in the bazaar, one could hear Hebrew, Portuguese, and Swahili. The Jewish quarter contained a medical academy, a pharmacy, and an orphanage. The French founded a university and a stock exchange, and the Germans—a military lyceum and a seaman's school.

Tayoan became the place where China peeked at the world. And in this look was everything—a desire for profit, caution, and an old, almost forgotten longing for change.

On the mainland, everything was different. The Great Wall stood not only on the ground but in minds. Emperor Guangxu, a wise ruler under the weight of traditions, tried to change something. Reforms, education, an attempt at modernization. Even railways—investments were cautiously attracted. But the people, accustomed to the traditional rural way of life, did not understand these changes. The officials—even less so. They knew only one thing: if the habitual order of things broke, they would lose their incomes. Modernization drowned in rice porridge and cheerful reports "on conducted reforms" from the provinces. China remained in the past, voluntarily. The future was on Tayoan.

The Moksan Khanate—this cultural relic, heir to the Golden Horde—after a series of failed military adventures, laid low, and only rumors of a new war leaked from behind the "Iron Stockade." It was a closed, archaic state, a significant part of whose resources were consumed by predatory campaigns.

Once they strove westward, but Poland and Rus (subsequently the Hetmanate of Rusyns), with the support of Germans and Baltic tribes, repelled their invasions. Then the Khanate turned east. The Moksans absorbed the steppe, Siberia, Manchuria—right up to the Pacific Ocean itself, where they collided with China.

Two giants looked at each other, assessed the enemy's strength, and realized that war would lead to catastrophe. After long negotiations, a permanent border was established, which was not violated for centuries. Cultural and economic exchange helped overcome distrust. They did not become allies, but learned to respect each other.

The state religion of the Moksan Khanate was the so-called "Steppe Islam" (Bozkır İslamı)—a passionary and uncompromising doctrine. This current is not recognized by the Ottoman Caliphate. Arising in conditions of cultural isolation, it was consciously adapted to the needs of an expansionist ideology.

In Bozkır İslamı, the foundations of Sharia and Tawhid are distorted, and Ijma and the authority of traditional madhhabs are rejected. The doctrine is intertwined with Tengriist archetypes, ancestor worship, and the deification of the Khan's power. It became a tool of centralized control and militarization of society: Jihad in this doctrine turned into legitimation of seizures, and the will of the Khan—into the highest source of truth.

Religion served not only to unite conquered ethnic groups but also to form an aggressive military culture. Meanwhile, ideas of freedom and humanism slowly penetrated through the "Iron Stockade" and began to "corrupt the minds" of the subjects.

Khan Velmes II, a cruel but calculating ruler, saw the growing contradictions—and applied the ancient technique of all despots who have lost the love of the people: to warm it up by restoring "greatness." The best recipe is a "small victorious war."

All propaganda screams that a weak neighboring country dreams of destroying us. The Khanate strikes. A lightning operation, occupation, repressions. "Liquidation teams" arrest and shoot the elite of the conquered people. Resources and industrial enterprises are taken out of the conquered land. And behold—the people are happy again. The Khan is once again a genius strategist, defender, and gatherer of Moksan lands.

Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales—small island kingdoms, only about two hundred years ago managed to agree on borders and stop bloody wars. On the global map, these countries are extras. They seem to exist, but decide nothing. They do not participate in global conflicts, do not create alliances, do not dictate fashion. The maximum—they export herring, wool, and those who want to leave. To the New World...

Harada slowly ran his finger across the map of North America, reflecting on the fate of the continent that became a battlefield of cultures and worldviews.

Colonization began with French and German caravels. Three hundred years ago, Europe was mired in religious wars, and thousands of people, tired of grief and destruction, rushed across the ocean—in search of peace and freedom.

In the North, German colonies grew—stern and disciplined settlements of Protestants from German principalities and Switzerland. These people believed in labor, order, and strict hierarchy. Over time, industrialization blossomed on their lands, fed by the labor of black slaves. Accepting social Darwinism, the Northerners considered themselves descendants of Japhet—a chosen race called to rule over the dark-skinned "sons of Ham." Railways, factories, and mines worked on slave power, and the moral justification of this cruelty became part of their cultural code.

In the South, French Catholic colonies settled. The warm and fertile land was ideally suited for an agrarian economy. The Southerners, rejecting slavery for ethical and religious reasons, hired cheap labor from Europe—hungry Englishmen, Irishmen, Scots, and Welshmen fleeing poverty and internecine strife. Barely stepping ashore, they became farm laborers, cultivating cotton and tobacco fields for meager pay and a piece of bread. Their life was little easier than the lot of slaves in the North, but they knew they were free—and one day could rise. These people literally paved the road to the future for their children with their bodies.

Over time, their descendants, having received education and support in fair local laws, became a full-fledged part of society. The technological revolution allowed getting rid of mass manual labor, freeing up human resources for the development of industry and innovation.

Years passed, and the differences between North and South became stronger.

The North turned into an industrial power—a land of smoking chimneys and rumbling steam engines, where progress went hand in hand with ruthlessness toward human life.

The South remained faithful to agriculture, new agrarian technologies, and a longing for a pastoral way of life, absorbing French culture with its elegance, religiosity, and traditions of humanism.

Tension between these worlds grew. Southerners looked with contempt at the cruelty of Northern slavery, forming a powerful abolitionist movement. They strove for the liberation of blacks—not out of pragmatism, but out of a sense of justice.

The North, on the contrary, perceived these ideas as a threat to its prosperity and cultural identity. Propaganda claimed that without slavery, both the economy and public order would collapse.

Harada shifted his gaze from the map to the window. He knew what all this would lead to.

The Terrible Decade was approaching, and accumulated contradictions would soon explode, dragging the whole world with them—into a maelstrom of wars and tragedies.

We call it the Décennie Terrible—the Terrible Decade.

It was not a single fire. It was a chain reaction of catastrophes.

It all started with a climate malfunction. Scientists still argue about its causes, but the opinion prevails that a volcanic eruption was to blame.

Ten years ago, in 1861, happened what was later called the "year without a summer." In March the snow did not melt, in April trees did not bloom, and in June snow fell in northern Europe and America. The harvest perished almost completely.

Grain prices rose seven, and in places—ten times over. Riots began in the cities. In the villages—famine. Army requisition teams became the only way to ensure food for the cities, and war again became a tool for survival. He who did not go to fight, died.

The old Landsknecht song Der Tod in Flandern became a funeral march for the whole world.

> Death rides on a coal-black horse,

> In a black, opaque hood.

> When Landsknechts march in the field,

> She lets her horse gallop.

> Flanders in trouble! Death rides through Flanders!

> Death rides on a white horse,

> Beautiful as a cherub from heaven.

> When girls dance in a ring,

> She wants to glide with them in the dance.

> Flanders in trouble! Death rides through Flanders!

> When Death beats the drum,

> You feel a whirlwind in your heart.

> She drums long, she drums loud,

> She beats on the skin of the dead.

> Flanders in trouble! Death rides through Flanders!

> When she stirs up the first whirlwind,

> Blood drains from the heart.

> When she stirs up the second whirlwind,

> The Landsknecht is carried to the grave.

> Flanders in trouble! Death rides through Flanders!

> Death may ride on a black horse and on a white,

> Death may circle with a smile in the dance.

> She beats the drum loud,

> She beats the drum well:

> Dead, dead, dead one must be.

> Flanders in trouble! Death rides through Flanders!

> 

The economic and social consequences of the climate catastrophe were not long in coming. First, weak kingdoms collapsed. Then empires began to crumble. Old orders, held together by external gloss and national debt, could withstand neither the onslaught of nature nor social upheavals. First the Holy Roman Empire disintegrated, followed by the Ottoman. A revolution occurred in France, and a republic was proclaimed. The King attempted to flee but was executed by revolutionaries.

Financial systems collapsed. Following the economy, old alliances were destroyed. But there were those who managed to mobilize all forces and unite scattered parts into a single country. Prussia, taking advantage of the decline of German states, proclaimed the creation of the German Reich. At the same time, after a short war with weakened Austria, the Kingdom of Italy was formed.

Countries such as Poland and the Hetmanate of Rusyns were among the few that stood firm. Closed borders, large food reserves, transition to martial law—and widespread self-organization of society. This reaction to the crisis was the result of the fact that relatively recently, about 20 years ago, these countries had survived a war with the Moksan Khanate (the so-called First War for Coal), and public institutions of volunteering and mutual aid were very strong. While anarchy and looting reigned in many European countries, in Poland, a traditionally stable state and a crisis management plan played their role, and in the Hetmanate—primarily—the self-organization of civil society.

Martial law was declared. Power in the regions passed under the control of "crisis commandants," to whom local self-defense units, armed at the expense of army arsenals, were subordinate. Order was maintained at all levels, right down to "Peace Guard" (Vartovi spokoyu) patrols recruited from city residents, patrolling their district around the clock and guarding the entrance to their homes. The few who tried to take advantage of the situation and engage in robbery and looting were ruthlessly exterminated by field tribunals.

In 1862, the Polish Republic concluded a military alliance with the newly created German Reich. But the Hetmanate of Rusyns, which traditionally occupied a neutral position, faced a new severe trial.

The Moksan Khanate—a huge country in the north of Eurasia—had been experiencing a crisis for the last thirty years. A series of military failures, such as the lost First War for Coal and the failed attempt to conquer the peoples of the Caucasus, caused depression in society. A series of harvest years preceding the "Terrible Decade" led to a drop in grain prices—the Khanate's main export product. The treasury emptied, and Khan Velmes II decided to seize the moment. According to the Khan's plan, a "special military operation" in the Southwest was to provide the Central Uluses with coal and metal. Propaganda screamed: "Yussonievka is primordially Moksan land. Two weeks—and by the day of the Khan's accession to the throne, the iron is ours."

Thus, the first stone that launched the avalanche of military conflicts was the attack of the Moksan Khanate on the Hetmanate. The world, already standing on the threshold of upheavals, shuddered from this brutal aggression. As if someone invisible held a fuse to a bomb—and the world exploded.