LordWorthing-Topper

The Hofburg Palace, the City of Vienna, the Austrian Empire, October 1809. As soon as Napoleon left Kaiser Franz and their combined entourages, his massive, imposing automaton-construct, the Mameluke Arion suddenly appeared at his side. The partly mechanical, partly flesh construct was formed in the fashion of a heavily armoured and armed warrior of the Egyptian Mameluke Army standing some six feet tall, with an eclectic mix of Ottoman, Egyptian and Byzantine influences concerning the ornamentation of it's person and the gear it carried. Napoleon had picked Arion up as a most unusual personal memento, during his Egyptian campaigning. A peculiar happenstance, which Napoleon felt that he would never have cause to regret. Arion, who had first been activated as a bodyguard automaton-construct in the dying days of the Roman Empire, and had served the Empire of East Rome, and it's successors the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Empire, and finally the Egyptian Mamelukes with a quiet

The Hofburg Palace, the City of Vienna, the Austrian Empire, October 1809. Archduke Johann, dressed in his own neat and well tailored uniform of an Austrian feldzeugmeister joined, Marie Luise and her coterie, their congenial company appealed to him rather more then the assembly of vapid courtiers and irksome notables who surround virtually every member of the Habsburg family present in the vast room. For their part, Marie Luise, Weiss and Blankenberg were delighted to see him and immediately made him welcome in their informal circle of pleasant, free flowing conversation on a variety of subjects and topics that interested them. It was certainly more interesting then the usual rounds of dull politics, vicious court gossip and petty intrigue, that was all too frequently the norm within the halls of the Hofburg, as far as Johann was concerned. Johann, who had known, Marie Luise for many years, was struck by how suave and poised she was, especially here in the heart of the Austrian

Schlossberg Fortress, Graz, Crownland of Styria, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, January 1866. After a few long minutes the woman, finished her religious observances and stood, before looking about herself and began walking slowly deeper into the memorial chapel proper, in a silent, unhurried way, examining the various memorials, memento mori that decorated the chapel, literally from floor to ceiling. Again, both the Chapel master and the Dean, caught a flash of luminous green eyes, as her gaze wandered about her surrounding, abruptly the whole chapel shook as a particularly violent roll of thunder crashed against the immense stony solidity of Schlossberg. The harsh glare and flicker flash of lightning illuminated the memorial chapel, through the open doors, which were always keep open to admit visitors regardless of the hour. The woman suddenly grabbed both hands to her head as if suddenly stricken with terrible pain, her eyes blazed with an intense green light that engulfed the pupils

Schloss Eggenberg, Graz, the Crownland of Styria, the Austrian Empire, 1810. The carriage rumbled down the roads towards the estate of the Princes of Eggenberg, the mistress of the palace was coming home after a long absence. Marie Luise, returned to her family seat, not in triumph but in disgrace, for she was now an exile, a pariah within her own country. The sky was dark and brooding, as night covered the land while the road and forests were lashed by a torrential downpour, her mother had once commented that God was in the rain, if that was so, at least he seemed to spare her his tears, as no one else in Vienna seemed so inclined. The Kaiser, the Imperial Court, the Roman Catholic Church and it seemed just about everyone else within the boundaries of the Austrian Empire, had collectively turned their back on her, her prior service, her personal valour and accomplishments seemed to count for nothing. She touched her stomach, she was at least three months pregnant. It had happened in

The Hofburg Palace, the City of Vienna, the Austrian Empire, October 1809. Feldzeugmeister and Fürstin Marie Luise von Eggenberg, stood talking quietly with two of her fellow Austrian kriegherren, in the great hall, amidst the stifling masses of courtiers, court and governmental officials, diplomats and military officers of both Kaiser Franz I of Austria's and Emperor Napoleon I of France's entourages in addition to various other civilian or political luminaries and persons of importance. Her two conversational companions, being Feldmarschalleutnant Ortwin Freiherr Weiss von Tannhauser and Oberst Gustav Johann Vizegraf von Blankenberg, the commandant of the Graz Garnison Korps, and commandant of the 18th Grenzer Infantry Regiment respectively. both veterans, like her of the battles and Siege of Graz. The ball, had so far gone off well, they all thought, despite the tension that sizzled barely concealed in the air of the rooms of the great imperial palace, which was

The White House, Washington D.C., Maryland, United States of America, January 1889. President Rutherford Birchard Hayes stood in front of his desk in the Oval Office, in the White House gazing meditatively at the maps spread across it's cluttered surface. He spent most of his days, since his election to the job, pouring over maps and documents, memorandums and reports, dealling with ongoing economic, political and military crises or scandals which seemed to be his lot practically every day. He had had his successes and his failures, though on reflection he felt future historians might remember his achievements in various governmental and administrative spheres more favourable then his own party, the Republicans. Though Hayes could not claim this as exclusive to his own term of office as president, Presidents Abraham Lincoln (4 terms, 1861-1872), Ulysses Simpson Grant (2 terms, 1873-77 and 1883-1887), James Abram Garfield (1 term, 1878-1882) had all had to grapple with

French Ministry of War, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France, Janurary 1889. Général de division Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger, sat at his desk, working through the last of his day's despatch boxes and the mountain of files he had to review and sign each day, which required his attention as the French Minister of War. He had been appointed to the job in 1886 to assist the Cabinet and the Supreme War Council in reforming the Third Republic's army and navy. He had inherited the colossual mess that the French military found itself in, in the wake of the various wars and internal and external traumas that France had experienced throughtout the 1880s. While, Boulanger felt that he and his service and political collegues had made considerable progress in various structural and administrative reforms within the military, a great deal still remained to be done, especially in the areas of recuritment and training. The French record in the various colonial and European

Puget Sound, Washington State, United States of America, Jan 1889. Admiral Samuel Perry "Powhatan" Carter, sat at his desk in his day cabin aboard the gunboat turned Admiralty yacht and fleet dispatch vessel, the USS Monocacy, a ship he had formerly commanded as a much younger naval officer. At present Carter used it as his administrative headquarters for the Union Pacific Fleet. His newly arrive battleship flagship was in dockyard hands, refitting it's flagship, staffing and communications facilities. It's installations while previously adequate for divisional and squadron commands it had formerly held, were he had found somewhat inadequate for managing and directing a gathering fleet of well over a hundred warships and auxiliaries, with even more on the way. The Naval Dockyard, however had the matter well in hand and he and his staff could resume use of the fleet flagship in another two weeks. Carter was working his way through a desk covered in routine

Schlossberg Fortress, Graz, Crownland of Styria, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, January 1866. The Chapel master was a well preserved, fit seventy, having been born in 1796 into an Austro-Slovenian farming and merchant family from Marburg. He had joined the Imperial-Royal Army in 1814 as a common infantryman in Infantry Regiment "Fürstin von Eggenberg" Nr.45, and seen action in the 1813, 1814 and 1815-16 campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. He had stayed in the army after his initial term of service, largely because he cheerfully admitted, he had nothing better to do and fought in the campaigns in Italy from the 1820s and 1830s on wards, and in the suppression of the Galician Polish Nobles and the Peasants Revolts of 1846. Following service in the suppression of the various Insurrections and revolts of 1848-49, the Chapel master had decided he was done with the life of a soldier. He had resolved to do something more productive or at least peaceful with the remainder of his life, so he