The Peshawar Lancers

by S. M. Stirling

  These in turn drove farmers off their land, and resulted in the destruction of seed supplies, livestock, and irrigation and distribution systems. The result was catastrophic dieback in the areas south of the worst-hit zone, limited only by comparison to events in Europe; although there was no absolute break in the continuity of agriculture, population declines of up to 80 percent were common in a broad zone that included much of East Asia and the lands between Mexico and northern Brazil. The halting of world trade, and the loss of the only technologically developed part of the world, exaggerated the “crash” to preindustrial, and in some cases prehistoric, levels.

  Meanwhile, the southern hemisphere—subequatorial Africa, the southern cone of South America, Australasia, much of Indonesia—were spared the worst effects. Temperatures dropped, but generally not enough seriously to depress crop yields. Floods were a serious problem, but greater rainfall in arid areas actually increased their carrying capacity for most of the post-Fall decade.

  Appendix Two:

  The Exodus

  The British Isles suffered as badly as most parts of Europe from the Fall, but the consequences were not so immediately drastic.

  A combination of a dense surviving transport network and prompt emergency measures under strong leadership—Disraeli’s government, in which Lord Salisbury quickly became a leading figure—allowed the maintenance of order for some time, and avoided loss of what resources remained by preventing the breakdown of services that swept over most of Europe. Martial law was declared, and the long tradition of centralized authority made it possible to maintain a semblance of civilized life for nearly two years.

  Uniquely, the British government quickly became aware (thanks to Professor Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, and others) that the cold weather was likely to last for several years. Once this had been grasped, it was obvious that it would be impossible to feed the vast majority of the British population—still over 20 million, even with the loss of Ireland and much of the west coast. Since the harvest was in and imports had been substantial, there was food on hand for approximately 12 months, which might be stretched to 24 with extremely careful rationing. However, that left a gap of two years in which there would be, essentially, no food at all apart from a small trickle from Australia and the Rio de la Plate countries.

  Fortunately, a large proportion of the British merchant fleet had survived the Fall; either in ports on the east coast, on the deep oceans where the tsunamis were merely massive waves (the energy release only comes in shallow water), or in the Mediterranean and southern hemisphere. Together with impounded foreign ships, the navy, and some new emergency construction, roughly 700,000 tons of shipping was available.

  In the ensuing three years, this was used to ship out as much of the British population—and of British civilization—as possible. There were three major destinations: India, where Queen Victoria and the government were relocated, southern Africa, and Australia/New Zealand. Roughly 3.5 million were evacuated, a million and a half to India (the closest, through the Suez Canal), a half million to the Cape, and a million to Australia.

  By 1881 the rationing system broke down. It had become obvious that it would be impossible to remove many of the remaining people before famine started; there was also considerable resentment over the fact that the Exodus had been socially selective. The aristocracy and gentry—the “upper ten thousand” families—had gone first, and the upper echelons of the middle classes next. Soldiers and their families had followed, together with skilled workers; and the government had allocated shipping space to essential machine tools and other industrial equipment as well.

  Rioting broke out and could not be suppressed with the few troops remaining; by the end, the authorities held only London, and Prime Minister Disraeli himself was killed when the mobs overran the last outposts. In the following years, only heavily armed expeditions to retrieve valuable equipment, relics, and works of art set foot on British soil. When the New Empire’s soldiers and missionaries returned to recivilize the homeland two generations later, they found a wilderness with oak forest growing over the ruins of gutted cities, and small communities of isolated neobarbarians living amid the ruins.

  Most of the actual survivors seem to have been very small groups of country dwellers who managed to avoid hungry notice; the massive town-populations ate each other and died.

  THE SECOND MUTINY:

  Name given to a series of insurrections and rebellions in India, 1878-1890s; in popular memory, it includes the invasions from Afghanistan and elsewhere.

  Minor uprisings began as soon as the extent of damage in England was realized, but they were put down without great difficulty, as more and more of the British army and large numbers of refugees capable of bearing arms arrived.

  The first serious outbreaks of unrest occurred when it became clear that the 1879-80 harvest would be catastrophically bad throughout India; crop failures were worst in the mountain valleys of the Himalayas and the northwest, but flooding and unseasonable rain also damaged fields throughout the Indo-Gangetic plain. Only south of the Deccan and in Ceylon were yields sufficient even for subsistence levels, and there was no surplus for nonagricultural populations at all.

  Contrary to rumors at the time and legends since, little if any food was shipped to Britain. However, the Imperial government did give first priority to the refugees flooding into India, and to those native peoples of proven loyalty—for example, the Gurkhas, who relocated to the lowlands until it became possible to recolonize Nepal (starting in 1886).

  In the abstract, the addition of another million and a half mouths made little concrete difference in the midst of natural disaster on this scale. That was little consolation to those facing starvation, and often seeing what little they did possess confiscated by authorities driven to desperation themselves. Rumors that food was plentiful in “some other province” and that the ships heading back to England were stuffed with grain spread like wildfire.

  The result was a series of massive uprisings throughout the northern lowlands, and spreading to some areas of the south, particularly the important Native state of Hyderabad. At the worst period of the mid-1880s, the control of the Raj was limited to the major cities and patches elsewhere—parts of the Punjab, for instance, where the Sikhs largely stood by the Sirkar, the government, and Rajputana, where the local rulers remained loyal.

  The military measures necessary to put down the rebellion, and to seize food and supplies where administration had broken down, greatly exacerbated the losses due to bad weather and the epidemics of bubonic plague and influenza that spread among populations weakened by hunger. The overall population of India sank from in excess of 200 million to less than 50 million from 1878 to 1898; and in the middle of the revolt came the invasion from Afghanistan, where conditions in the cold uplands were almost as bad as in Europe. Many of the British refugees also perished, in the fighting and due to exposure to the unfamiliar disease environment.

  The crisis was over by the mid-1890s, with regular monsoonal weather restored, and order reestablished throughout the subcontinent. In some respects, the Second Mutiny may actually have helped establish the nascent New Empire. The sheer stark requirements of survival welded the refugees into a nation-army, and solidified their relationships with their local allies; the Sikhs, the upper castes of Rajputana and the Marathas, the refugee population of Nepal, and a number of others. The confiscations which followed revolt provided a solution to one major problem, as hundreds of thousands of square miles were handed out to sahib-log settlers, who formed both a new gentry and, together with their yeoman-tenants, a garrison.

  And the absolute necessity of keeping up a flow of weapons, ammunition, locomotives and rolling stock, steamboats, and other crucial pieces of Victorian technology was also important in forming the new system. Mines, smelters, and factories had to be maintained, or built if they didn’t already exist. The educational system established in the New Empire may well have been more practical, and more science-and-
technology oriented, than that of pre-Fall Britain.

  Appendix Three:

  The Angrezi Raj/British Empire

  The state known as the “British Empire” in the early twenty-first century—the term most commonly used by its own population was in fact “Angrezi Raj” with “New Empire” a close second—was a constitutional monarchy centered on Delhi.

  Territory and population: As of A.D. 2025, 148 years after the Fall, the Empire (not including territories claimed but not administered) encompassed approximately 17 million square miles and roughly 230 million human beings—40 percent of the Earth’s habitable surface, and slightly less than 50 percent of its population.

  Roughly in order of importance, its components were:

  India: India proper, what would otherwise have become the republics of India and Pakistan, plus Ceylon/Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, and the western half of Thailand.

  Area: c. 1.5 million square miles

  Population: 130 million, of which sahib-log 10.7 million; Eurasians 6 million; Christians 18 percent, Muslims 7 percent, Sikhs 7 percent, remainder other Hindu and Buddhist.

  Viceroyalty of Australia: Australia, New Zealand, with New Guinea and many of the South Pacific islands as colonial dependencies.

  Area: c. 3.2 million square miles.

  Population: 20 million. Note: This does not include the populations of the interior of New Guinea, most of which were not in contact with the theoretical “government.”

  In Australia and New Zealand proper the remnants of the indigenous populations had been completely assimilated by the end of the twentieth century, and the Australian Viceroyalty had the most ethnically and socially homogenous population of any large area in the Empire. All were English-speaking, and virtually all were members of the Imperial Church, the Anglicans having absorbed the large Roman Catholic minority after the Fall and the severing of connections with Rome.

  Viceroyalty of the Cape: Including South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, and Mozambique, with enclaves farther north to Kenya.

  Area: c. 5 million square miles

  Population: c. 40 million, of which 6 million were white and 34 million African and mixed. The white population included descendants of the old Dutch-Afrikaner settler population, the pre-Fall British immigrants, and the much larger body of post-Fall refugees; these were gradually homogenized by intermarriage and post-Fall movements. By the twenty-first century Afrikaans had died out except among some remote rural communities in the Cape, and most of the nonwhite population south of the Zambezi had also adopted dialects of English as their first language.

  Crown Colonies:

  These were areas not represented in the Houses of Parliament, but ruled directly from either Delhi or one of the Viceroyalties.

  Britain: Beginning in the early twentieth century, an effort was made to recivilize the British Isles. Small garrisons were established in suitable ports—London, Liverpool, Southampton, Glasgow, Dublin—and missionaries sent out to reclaim and reeducate the savages, seed and stock and tools supplied, etc.; funding was steady but not generous. The total population was less than 200,000 in 1900, when the London base was set up. A scattering of new settlers also arrived, mostly from Australia and the Cape; those from India tended to be in higher-status or administrative positions.

  By 2025, this had grown by natural increase and immigration to approximately 6.5 million, and there was talk of eventual promotion to Viceroyalty status. The main concentrations were in the south and east, with outposts in Scotland and a belt of recolonized territory in eastern Ireland. A few bands of wandering savages remained in the fringe zones.

  The economy remained largely agricultural, but some railway lines had been repaired, mines reopened, etc. Exports were mainly wool, flax, dairy products, frozen meat, and cloth.

  Extensive wilderness areas remained, and there was considerable prejudice in other parts of the Empire against the “Britons,” mainly because of their descent from cannibals; the Britons themselves tended to be rather defensive about it. One aspect of that attitude was their insistence on speaking a “pure Imperial” form of English and following Delhi fashions; the post-Fall dialects had nearly disappeared by the 2020s.

  After the mid twentieth century, the British operation was used as a base for a similar reentry into Western Europe generally, with outposts at the mouths of the main navigable rivers.

  North America: The Empire claimed the whole North American continent.

  In practical terms, it controlled a fringe on the eastern and Gulf coasts, outposts at the mouths of the St. Lawrence and the Mississipi, and trading posts inland along the Great Lakes and the interior river systems. The Atlantic coast was virtually empty second-growth forest when Imperial explorers arrived in the mid twentieth century, having no more than a few thousand neosavages. Somewhat larger populations of mixed African and European stock occupied small enclaves on the Gulf Coast, and there were remnant groups of varying background scattered through the interior, some under substantial Imperial influence, others “wild.” Colonization of the east coast from Britain began in the 1940s.

  On the west coast, city-states of Anglo-Hispano background occupied the coast of California; initially backward, they played off the Empire against Dai-Nippon, and some maintained a substantial degree of independence from both the Raj and the East Asian empire. Explorers and entrepreneurs from Australia had established footholds and colonies along the Oregon and British Columbian coasts, while Dai-Nippon claimed Alaska and had some fishing and fur-trading settlements there.

  The Empire’s American establishments numbered some 6 million in all; there were probably as many again in the Free Cities of California, and another few million among the wild tribes of the interior.

  Batavian Republic: After the Fall, the administration of the Dutch East Indies retained control of central Java, with what aid the Angrezi Raj could supply; there was an influx of refugees from the Netherlands and adjacent territories, although on a much smaller scale than in the Empire.

  In 1910, the relationship with the Empire was regularized as a protectorate with a high degree of internal autonomy, and over the next few generations the rest of Java and Sumatra, and the more important islands to the east, were reconquered. Imperial influence grew steadily, with the Angrezi city of Singapore becoming the dominant entrepôt and source of trade and investment for the Indonesian archipelago. There was some speculation that the Republic would apply for formal annexation, probably becoming part of India proper.

  The total population was approximately 8 million, with 750,000 of Dutch or mainly Dutch descent; they had been heavily influenced by their subjects, in a manner roughly similar to the sahib-log in India.

  Outposts: The Empire had a worldwide scattering of islands, outposts, naval and coaling bases, etc. These ranged from South Pacific islands visited once a year to fairly substantial communities such as Mauritius to fortified ports such as Aden or Bahrain.

  Constitution:

  Unless otherwise stated, the constitutional status quo given is as of A.D. 2025.

  Supreme authority rested with the King-Emperor-in-Parliament; in effect, the King-Emperor was bound by the “advice of his Ministers,” who in turn required a majority in the Imperial House of Commons. The King-Emperor had more influence than actual power, although the occupant of the Lion Throne possessed more of both by the early twenty-first century than Victoria I had ever had; the influence of the Indian conception of monarchy probably played a large part in this gradual shift.

  The House of Lords occupied a roughly coequal role with the Commons; ordinary nonfinancial legislation required majorities in both Houses. The Lords included both descendants of the original British peerage settled throughout the Empire, and new creations. These included a substantial number of the ancient aristocracies of India, or at least of those who had demonstrated their loyalty to the Raj. However, the House of Commons had a monopoly on financial legislation; it alone could vote taxes or authorize the bu
dget.

  Membership in the House of Lords was hereditary, with the exception of Archbishops of the established Imperial Church, of which there were fourteen including the Archbishop of Delhi, the head of the Church under the King-Emperor. Some areas, particularly client states in India under treaty relationships to the Raj (e.g., Nepal) had representation in the House of Lords but not in the Commons. About one-third of India proper in area and population was comprised of such “protected states.” The equivalent in the Viceroyalty of the Cape were “native reserves,” and did not generally have representation in the Lords.

  The House of Commons was elected (with elections at the discretion of Parliament but with intervals not to exceed seven years) on a common Empire-wide qualified franchise. As of 2025, qualifications necessary for the franchise (or for election to the Commons) included:a. that the voter be male and at least 21 years of age, and a British subject by birth or naturalization;

  b. that he be literate and numerate in English;

  c. that he possess landed property to the value of 10,000 rupees (equivalent to approximately $125,000 US in 2000 values); or other property to the value of 50,000 rupees;

  d. have an income of not less than 2,500 rupees per annum.

  Extra votes could be gained in a number of ways; by university degrees, by gaining a commission in the Imperial forces, by securing one of a number of Imperial service decorations or knighthoods, etc.