1901 - A Thrilling Novel of a War that Never Was

Zusatztext “FASCINATING . . . A page-turner. The plot is skillfully crafted. Its style is clear! crisp! and bold.” –Oakland Press “IMAGINATIVE AND ENTERTAINING.” –Detroit Free Press “PACKED WITH ACTION.” –Detroit News “The yarn is likely to please both military history and alternate history buffs. . . . The writing . . . keeps us turning the pages.” – Booklist “An intriguing blend of historical fact and fiction.” –Detroit Free Press “A solid what-if historical . . . Cleverly conceived.” –Publishers Weekly Informationen zum Autor Robert Conroy Klappentext The year is 1901. Germany's navy is the second largest in the world; their army, the most powerful. But with the exception of a small piece of Africa and a few minor islands in the Pacific, Germany is without an empire. Kaiser Wilhelm II demands that the United States surrender its newly acquired territories: Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. President McKinley indignantly refuses, so with the honor and economic future of the Reich at stake, the Kaiser launches an invasion of the United States, striking first on Long Island. Now the Americans, with their army largely disbanded, must defend the homeland. When McKinley suffers a fatal heart attack, the new commander in chief, Theodore Roosevelt, rallies to the cause, along with Confederate general James Longstreet. From the burning of Manhattan to the climactic Battle of Danbury, American forces face Europe's most potent war machine in a blazing contest of will against strength. Leseprobe CHAPTER ONE War, thought the kaiser, was the natural order of the world, and only fools thought otherwise. It mattered not whether one was referring to animals, as Darwin had, or nations, as he now was. War was the lubricant that drove the successful to greatness and condemned the weak to a deserved obscurity. A nation that did not grow was doomed to shrivel and die. A nation that did not take from the weak was forever doomed to be weak herself. With so much of the world already under the jurisdiction of other powers, it was obvious that the essential growth that would spur Imperial Germany into the twentieth century could come only at the expense of others. Bismarck had understood that, but only to a point. To Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was a picture seen with utter clarity. For Germany's sake, he thanked God it was he who ruled the empire for the past twelve years. He was the grandson of the man who had, with Bismarck's help, formed the state of Germany. He was the descendant of Prussian kings whose military skills were feared; nevertheless, he had not yet fought a war. Worse, he knew that his English relatives thought him inadequate and had mocked him since his childhood. They would learn, he seethed; the world would learn. The kaiser squinted and tried to see out the rain-streaked window of the small office on the second floor of the chancellery. On the street below, a handful of people out on the ugly night scurried for cover from the cold wet rain that had originated in the North Sea. They had, the kaiser smiled to himself, just lost a minor war with the elements. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the window ledge. He was always impatient of late. If he hadn't been so impatient, he would have convened this meeting in the more convivial atmosphere of one of his residences and resolved matters over brandy and cigars. But no, he was in this dismal and sparsely furnished little room that would have better served as the office of a postal clerk than an emperor. Yet perhaps this way was more advantageous. The pomp of a formal meeting would have attracted the noses of the swinish liberal press, or, worse, the Socialist creatures who inhabit the Reichstag. Behind him, he heard the door open and close and the...

About the author

Robert Conroy

Product details

• Authors: Robert Conroy
• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 30.12.2003
• EAN: 9780891418436
• ISBN: 978-0-89141-843-6
• No. of pages: 416
• Dimensions: 107 mm x 171 mm x 23 mm
• Series: Random House Publishing Group
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature