Krimrov
It was the latter part of the 19th
century Europe and Japan have taken part in great imperialism in China and
Africa. I have heard about these conquests of great amounts of land and the
violent wars that followed, but one smaller war for imperialism in Mongolia
would not have changed much in the world. Instead it changed me and my comrades’
outlook on life.
I am Peter Krimrov, native of Russia and
involved in a war between Japan and France for territory in Mongolia. The war
began in 1871 and has been going on for four years now, and from the looks of
it, Russia is going to be the first one out. Our new Czar Barkenov IV is a true
Russian nationalist, we do give him credit for industrializing Russia and
adopting the new steam technology, but the only reason he’s involved in the war
is not for imperialism, but only because he doesn’t want the “inferior nations”
to border Russia. I would have loved to avoid this war at all costs, but I am
one of the few men who knows how to employ a hissing tread, there aren’t a lot
of men who can drive a hissing tread, and the Russian corporal Bridgokov told
me that I either have to drive it in the war, or I will be executed for showing
cowardice.
Anyway, there I was on my hissing
tread, one man arming the front guns, two men arming the side guns, another man
shoveling coal and then there’s me, driving it. While driving it in an
abandoned field in Urumqi, I began to strike up a conversation with Ivan, the
front gunner when suddenly we were ambushed by the Japanese and their flying
machines known as “The Meiji’s Wings”, seeing as how it was powered by coal I
told Ivan to shoot at its coal supply so it could burn down. He fired blindly
into the cabin of the Meiji Wings and didn’t let up until he saw a roaring fire
envelop the cabin. The Meiji Wings then crashed down into the ground with such
force and heat that even its wings made of steel melted and poured down into
the soil of the Earth. I congratulated Ivan on a job well done and then I told
my men that we could rest knowing that the threat of the air is no more.
So, it was the five of us on our
hissing tread, resting and letting the engine cool down for a bit when one of
the side gunners fell asleep and accidentally shot a couple of rounds. I was
hoping for a quiet hour for myself and my men, but now it seems we have gotten
the attention of the French and they were coming over in large numbers. So we
fired up the treads and loaded the front gun with a Moscow Bullet, a bullet
full of gaseous Potassium Sulfate that sets off when it has reached its target.
Ivan shot the bullet into a French soldier and 2 seconds later and
greenish-yellow gas came out of his wound and after a few minutes of coughing
and choking, the French group of soldiers was dead.
After our experience with the Meiji
Wings and the French soldiers the sergeant told us to head back to camp and
rest up for tomorrow, because we are going to be fighting on a major battle in
which our generals dubbed “The Romanov Charge”. Our coal shoveler, Jacob, just
sat there trying to take it all in, Jacob grew up in a pacifist household and
would not have joined this war if given the chance, but it was mandatory for a
Hissing Tread shoveler to be enlisted or face death. Jacob just looked with a
blackened face to me and asked how large the battle was going to be, I told him
all I knew, we were going up against the French and the Japanese, from the look
on Jacob’s face I still wonder to this day if he soiled himself.
The next day we were there in a Mongolian pasture waiting for
the battle. The only sounds that filled the air was the hissing of the hissing
treads as their shovelers loaded their furnaces with massive amounts of coal. As
the hissing grew louder everybody knew that this was going to be a long bloody
battle. Guns and bombs were strategically placed, steam machinery waiting to be
filled up with coal then belch out steam and soldiers trying to figure out if
they will live to see another day. When the generals gave the order, all hell
broke loose, bullets were flying and exploding, chemical gas clouds choked
soldiers to death, Hissing treads and Meiji Wings filled up the battlefield and
me, well I’m just in here with my crew trying to not get blown to smithereens.
Our hissing tread just stayed stationary while the infantry
did all the work for us, although they weren’t pushing back the other armies,
they were doing a good job of holding them off. I told Jacob to lay easy on the
coal while I told Ivan and the side gunners, Marcus and Riley to just shoot
when necessary, but that necessary meant that they would be shooting about
every two minutes or so. Although Jacob was a pacifist he couldn’t help but
talk to the gunners about what they were really doing, “It’s just immoral to
shoot someone like that, these are people that have families and homes and you’re
just shooting them as if they were deer.” Jacob said. But Ivan replied “We may
be handling the bullets, but you’re the one who’s powering this machine”. Jacob
could not help but think that this was true, I then told everyone that we are
all doing our part in operating this contraption, but the least we can do with
it is try to survive inside of it while also obeying the Czar’s criminally
insane orders, which kind of discouraged everyone. So Ivan, Marcus and Riley
kept shooting while I and Jacob shared a bottle of Gin, of course the gunners
wanted some as well, so we gave it to them, then we all had a gay old time
telling stories and jokes to each other. Riley told us the joke about the bartender
and the Cossack and Jacob told us about the time he crossed the Ural Mountains
just to prove that he could. We all had another round of Gin, but that’s when
we all started getting a little tipsy, I told everyone that we should let
everyone who wants to fight in the war fight, but I will drive us all to
freedom and safety. Good thing I was drunk and didn’t mean it or else we all
would be in really big trouble, we all had one more round before we blacked
out, and I swear the last thing I heard before blacking out was a new language
I had not heard while on the battlefield.
When we woke up,
everything was quiet; we just sat there trying to figure out what was going on.
Did we win? Lose? Did everyone kill each other? We have no idea, but what
happened next was that a soldier from the Ottoman Empire told us to come out of
the treads and go with them. I could not believe what happened! The Ottomans
launched a surprise attack and wiped out all the other armies, but what will
they do with us? They pointed their guns at us and took as prisoners, and
that’s when I found out that Jacob really had soiled himself.
The Turks loaded us into this cart drawn by horses and put
Jacob, Ivan, Marcus, Riley and I in the back part of it while the Turks got in
the front part. Seeing as how Riley went to the Ottoman Empire a few years ago,
he knows the most about and continues to follow their current events, he told us
about Sultan Ismahil Badoun II and how he was not very welcoming to foreigners,
especially Russians. The Turks told us that they would be taking us to Istanbul
to be put in the special interrogation/prison camp known as Camp Güҫlü or
powerful. Riley told us at how it was one of their most notorious prison camps
and that most men who enter don’t leave, or even if they do leave they are
covered in scars and are even more scarred in their minds. Jacob said jokingly
that their putting all this money into torturing foreigners when they could use
the money to relieve their tax debts*.
*This is a
true piece of history because by this point the Ottoman Empire had put so much
money into reforming their military and defenses that might have been better
off relieving taxes.
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