The air in the President's office at the Élysée Palace was thick enough to be bottled, a stale concoction of cigar smoke, sweat, and dread. Half-full glasses of water beaded with condensation sat next to untouched decanters of brandy on the grand Boulle table. A single telegram lay in the center, looking as innocent and as deadly as a dueling pistol.
President Félix Faure paced the length of the Savonnerie carpet, his footsteps a frantic, muffled rhythm against the room's heavy silence. "Unacceptable," he repeated for what felt like the tenth time, his voice tight with outrage. "Utterly, fundamentally unacceptable. We are the French Republic. We are the civilizing force of Indochina, a light in the darkness. We do not take orders from Beijing. We do not bow to this… this resurrected barbarian and his Siamese puppet!"
Seated at the table, General Jean-Baptiste Billot, the Minister of War, slammed a meaty fist down, making the crystal glasses tremble. "The President is right! To yield an inch of sovereign French territory based on a threat is an insult to every soldier who has ever bled for the glory of France. It is a stain on the Tricolore. Our garrisons in Tonkin, though small, are French to the bone. They will fight to the last man for the honor of the uniform."
Prime Minister Jules Méline, a man who looked as though he hadn't slept in a week, sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The weight of pragmatism seemed to physically press down on his shoulders. "Jean-Baptiste, please. Let us, for one moment, dispense with the poetry of the barracks and face the grim prose of reality. What will your garrisons fight with? Their honor? Their courage? I do not doubt it for a second. But the Qing have an army of two hundred thousand men mobilized on the border. They have the Beiyang Fleet—the very same fleet that annihilated Japan's navy in a single afternoon—sitting in the Gulf of Tonkin. We have seen the intelligence reports. Their artillery is modern Krupp steel, their rifles are new Mausers, their logistics are ruthlessly efficient. Now, tell me again, what do we have?"
"We have the finest fighting spirit in the world!" the General blustered, his face reddening. "We have forts, we have experience in the terrain, we have..."
"We have nothing," Foreign Minister Gabriel Hanotaux interrupted. His voice was soft, academic, and utterly devoid of hope, which made his words all the more devastating. "We have a few thousand colonial troops, a handful of outdated gunboats that would be on the bottom of the sea within the first hour, and a supply line that stretches halfway across the globe. The General Staff's assessment was unequivocal, General. You read it yourself. We cannot defend French Indochina from a full-scale Qing invasion. We would be fortunate to evacuate our civilians before Hanoi falls. It would not be a battle; it would be a slaughter."
President Faure stopped his pacing, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "Then we send the Mediterranean Fleet! We issue a national mobilization! We blockade his ports and starve him out! We show this upstart Emperor the true might of a global power!"
"And initiate a full-scale war with the Chinese Empire?" Méline countered, his voice sharp with strain. "A war we are utterly unprepared for? A war that will bankrupt the treasury and see tens of thousands of our sons dying in the swamps of Asia? And for what? For colonies that, forgive my candor, cost the state more to administer than they provide in revenue? The public has no stomach for such a conflict, gentlemen. Not after the whispers from the Japanese campaign. Not after hearing tales of the Qing's brutality, their 'total war' doctrine. Support would collapse in a month."
Just then, the ornate doors swung open and a nervous aide announced the arrival of the British Ambassador. Sir Edmund Monson entered, a tall, impeccably dressed man whose face was a perfect mask of polite neutrality. But his eyes, cold and clear, carried a weight that instantly drew the breath from the room.
"Sir Edmund," President Faure said, forcing a degree of composure into his tone. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. We trust your government has been briefed on the… aggressive posture of the Qing Emperor."
Sir Edmund Monson inclined his head in a slight, formal bow. "Mr. President, Prime Minister, Ministers. The situation is indeed most grave. Her Majesty's Government has received your formal inquiry regarding the activation of our mutual understanding in the face of extra-regional aggression in Asia."
General Billot leaned forward, a desperate, hopeful glint in his eye. "And? The Royal Navy will stand with us, surely! Together, our fleets can challenge this dragon in his own waters. A joint blockade of the Yellow Sea would bring him to his knees!"
Sir Edmund cleared his throat, a small, precise sound that cut through the General's enthusiasm like a shard of glass. "Her Majesty's Government expresses its deepest sympathies for the unenviable position in which the Republic finds itself. It is a most unfortunate development." He paused, letting the silence stretch. "However..."
The word hung in the air, a guillotine blade of sound.
Prime Minister Méline closed his eyes for a moment. "However, London will not intervene," he finished, his voice flat. It wasn't a question.
"Britain's global interests are complex," Sir Edmund stated, his tone unwavering. "While we view the Qing Emperor's expansionism with profound concern, our official position at present is one of strategic observation. Committing the full might of the Royal Navy to a potential, and likely protracted, war in the Far East over the precise demarcation of the Laotian border is, at this juncture, deemed… inadvisable."
General Billot shot to his feet, his face a mask of purple, apoplectic rage. "Inadvisable? INADVISABLE? This is perfidious Albion at its most cynical! You signed agreements! You spoke of a united front to contain this menace! In Beijing, in London, in this very city! You let us believe we stood together against this tyranny!"
Sir Edmund's expression remained utterly placid, a cliff face against which the General's anger broke uselessly. "We agreed to a policy of containment, General. The method and timing of such containment are matters of sovereign British policy. A direct naval confrontation is not the only means at our disposal. And might I remind you, this 'united front' was meant to be one of diplomacy and strategic pressure. The Qing Emperor, however, seems to have chosen to play an entirely different game, one for which a premature military response would be… profoundly unwise."
Foreign Minister Hanotaux, who had been studying the Ambassador with the dispassionate gaze of an entomologist, spoke up. "It's Sir Claude MacDonald, isn't it? Your man in Beijing. Our sources at the legation say he was instrumental in advising a... 'cautious' approach to this crisis. That he argued most forcefully against intervention."
For the first time, a flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps, or discomfort—crossed Sir Edmund's face before it was instantly suppressed. "Sir Claude is one of our most experienced and capable diplomats. His counsel on matters concerning the Qing is, naturally, highly valued. He believes, and Her Majesty's Government is inclined to agree, that a direct war now would only serve to consolidate the Emperor's power domestically by uniting his people against a foreign devil. It is better, perhaps, to let him overextend his resources."
President Faure sank heavily into his chair, the fight draining out of him like blood from a mortal wound. "Overextend? He is demanding we hand him Laos and Cambodia on a silver platter, served by the King of Siam. He is not overextending, Sir Edmund. He is dining. He is feasting at our expense. And you… you are not just watching. You are holding the door open for him."
"That is a regrettable, though colorful, interpretation of events, Mr. President," Sir Edmund said, unfazed. "The official position of Her Majesty's Government is that this is a regional dispute between the Qing Empire and the Kingdom of Siam, in which the French Republic is an interested party. We strongly urge a diplomatic resolution."
"A diplomatic resolution where he holds a cannon to our head and you have just informed us that you will not help us push it away," Méline retorted tiredly. "Your message is perfectly, crystalline clear, Ambassador. Thank you for your time."
Sir Edmund gave another of his stiff, formal bows and departed, leaving behind a vacuum of despair that was colder and heavier than the smoky air had been. For a long, agonizing minute, there was only the sound of President Faure's ragged breathing.
"They have abandoned us," General Billot whispered, slumping back into his chair, his fury replaced by a hollow shock. "The whole of Europe. Germany is silent. Russia is consumed with its own demons on its new border. And now Britain… they are all watching, waiting for us to be devoured."
"They are not waiting, Jean-Baptiste," Hanotaux murmured, his eyes distant. "They are terrified. Every chancellery in Europe is in a state of quiet, abject panic. They see what happened to Japan, an island empire with a proud military tradition, dismantled in a matter of months. They see what is happening to us now. They look at this… this industrial leviathan with limitless manpower, ruled by a ruthless genius from another age, and they see their own colonial empires, built over centuries, suddenly looking as fragile as houses of spun glass."
President Faure stared at the telegram on the table. When he spoke, his voice was a ghost of its former strength. "So we do it. We sign the papers. We draft the treaty. We announce to the world that the French Republic is ceding colonial territory to the Kingdom of Siam..."
Prime Minister Méline finished the thought, his tone grimly resolute. "…while knowing full well that we are ceding it directly to the Emperor of China. We will frame it as a 'treaty of friendship and border clarification' with Siam to save what little face we have left. But the world will know. Every newspaper from London to New York will call it what it is."
"And what is that, Jules?" the President asked, his gaze vacant.
Méline picked up a heavy fountain pen, his hand moving as if it were carved from lead. "Capitulation," he said softly. "The first great European capitulation of the new century. Gabriel, get the foreign ministry drafting the document. Send word to our ambassador in Bangkok. We will comply with the 'King's' request. We have no other choice."
He lowered the nib to the paper. The scratching of his pen was the only sound in the room, each stroke signing away a piece of the French empire and signaling the dawn of a new, terrifying era of history.