Dislocated to Success (13 page)

Of course, the first stop was easy: Genoa, where the easy relationship from trans-time had switched to our new alliance. The Genoese were frankly a little desperate - a mighty maritime empire had been shrunk down to some mainland possessions, Corsica and a small island off the coast of Tunisia; it was the latter than interested us the most. The other major point was that Genoa was happy to act as our agent in the peninsula, trading for goods to sell to us where we may have found it difficult otherwise - a Hamburg on the Med.

Doge Francesco was most welcoming and the confirmation of the trade part of the treaty was very easy; just some minor alterations around what goods could be imported - we had decided to be a little more generous with Genoa due to its useful role, and placed them on the same list as Portugal. They were most interested in wine-making equipment; I was delighted to help them with this. There was also a second part about them providing colonists - the Doge was dubious about this, as he felt Genoa needed his men, but a number of young Genoese had applied to leave. A compromise was reached in that Britain would accept only 500 Genoese a year for colonisation, but could be offered an unlimited number of contract work places which would send valuable remittances home. It was felt that would be particularly useful in the River Plate Colony or Costa Rica; of course, as we all know, most of the Genoese ended up in Western Australia and not that many returned.

I was shown around the new "English School" which they had started; it was quite impressive from a trans-point of view, especially as the only cis-influence I could see was the text books. They said there was a queue of people who wanted lessons, and they had hoped to send some of the best students to the UK so they could teach others - a very wise move.

I also looked around their new food inspection centre; my officials said it wasn't really quite up to scratch, although we could work with them on it, but they had done it themselves - and there was certainly some items that could be passed through. The reappearance of some Italian hard cheeses and salamis would be very much welcomed; of course, the quantities were initially tiny and there was no great business backing for them, so they only grew slowly.

The military part was the most difficult. Genoa wanted protection from Savoy/Sardinia, which was understandable; it also wanted to reclaim certain lands from Savoy/Sardinia, which was also understandable but less supportable; and, like most of the Italian maritime republics, it had long term possessions which were now in the hands of the Sublime Porte. We had a certain interest in establishing a very small facility in a certain place. They, of course, wanted modern weapons - which we were denying to everyone. Eventually, we came to a reasonable deal which involved training rather than weapons and - of course - had more secret annexes than I care to think about. Whilst we ended up with no formal obligation to defend Genoa, we made it pretty clear that they were on a level with Poland-Lithuania, Hamburg and Hannover. A couple of times during the tour, I was asked if we had a formal obligation; I replied “only to Portugal” and then slapped down any little smiles from that by pointing out that our closest friends could expect support. I would then idly turn the conversation to how badly Spain was doing after losing nearly all its Merchant Marine.

Then we had the little surprise - and a pleasant one it was too. The Doge and the ruling council were aware that the balance of payments ran nicely in their direction so far, and had put a very small tax on money being sent back to Genoa. They had accumulated a decent sum so far and they wanted two things: firstly, a more formal money payment system in partnership with a British bank; and secondly, they wanted a Radio station.

I was quite impressed - no sewers, no tarmac, no railways; they were deepening the port themselves, and had come up with a pair of interesting suggestions. We had been looking at radio-payments and partnerships and were delighted to give them pointers; little did we know that we would be creating such a large industry so quickly. As for the radio station, that took some further talks and some involvement of the World Service, but in return for a decent amount of cash and two relays - one in Genoa and one on Tabarka - that was agreed after Norman signed it off. I was impressed by their can-do attitudes; if only the rest of the tour had been like that.

Torino was dull; the court of the King of Sardinia was even duller. Charles Emmanuel had not been portrayed kindly by history, and it was easy to see why; the man was deeply nervous about everything, but mainly of the French and the Austrians - which was understandable, he was after all sandwiched between them. He had sort of been forced into this visit by the instructions of the Cardinal who had reminded him of his obligations to France and clearly wanted to keep it all fairly short.

Except he couldn't shut up when he started; the man had clearly been vaccinated with a gramophone needle. However, nearly everything he said was of no consequence - he wasn't interested in trade, he wasn't particularly interested in his economy, nor was he interested in an alliance. But he did want to rant and rave about the Parmesan succession, the wicked Genoese, the wicked French who propped him up, the very wicked Hapsburgs and his lunatic father who was trying to raise rebellion against him. I sympathised as diplomatically as I could. The Parmesan succession was the only point where we had any sort of meeting of minds. He did not want either a Bourbon or a Hapsburg; I must admit the UK quietly agreed with him. However, it was my sad duty to tell him that the Farnese pregnancy was almost certainly phantom. To be fair, he didn't press any sort of claim, but said that maybe they should revert to the Papal States. Oddly enough, of all the Italian rulers, he was the only one not to mention a united Italy.

Of course, we weren't just there for the Savoyards; whilst Duke Rinaldo of Modena was far too old to travel, he did send his son Francesco to visit. Francesco was also concerned with the Parmesan succession, where he favoured the Hapsburg claim as you would expect. However, he had clearly been doing some reading and was more concerned with how Modena was slowly going bankrupt. He freely admitted that his orders were to treat with us as if using a long spoon; however, he was quite well prepared and very interested in cultural matters. Of course, this being my former bailiwick, I was aware of the contents of the Gallery Estense. We came to a very basic treaty, but with a couple of interesting clauses about cultural exchange; essentially, he was willing to lease works to Britain on a medium term basis, and he was also willing to allow an exchange of scholars. As we departed, he clasped me close and said “
when my father dies, we can work together better”
. It felt like a very Godfather moment.

The Luccans turned up too. They were unhappy at visiting the Tuscan court; I would understand why when I got there. They had little to offer and I had little to give. They did, however, come up with their suggestion to the Parmesan problem - it appeared there was an illegitimate cadet line, who they considered would keep the fine balance in the area. Of course, it was not a huge surprise to find their pretender lived in Lucca.

The Swiss also came to visit; we had a lengthy and constructive discussion on the navigation of the Rhein, and they also expressed a great deal of interest in hydroelectricity. However, they were broke, and produced little of value except mercenaries. They were, however, fairly cordial and I felt that if they weren't so difficult to access we could have made further progress.

My final visit was done under great secrecy; the Old Pretender was lurking in Torino, mainly because things had got a little hot for him in Rome. Not our doing, but there were a number of angry Spaniards and also some of our more nutty Jacobites around. He was living in a fairly squalid palazzo, and it was clear that his sources of funds had dried up somewhat. Now I had slightly differing instructions here - the PM wanted to just warn him off, but the Prince of Wales was willing to be more generous. It must be said that James Stuart did look old before his time and whilst he did apologise - not for his Irish venture
per se
, but he did for the deaths it caused. He swore that he would not attempt such again, in return for which I was willing to offer a small pension out of Foreign Office funds under the condition that he never attempted to leave Italy except under
force majeure
. The value of the pension would be determined on where he made his residence - the more insignificant it was, the larger it would be. I then presented the Prince of  Wales’ offer; he talked a lot of guff about how demeaning parts of it were, and made some impossible suggestions about Jacobite peerages. I said that if cases were made to the courts, the Irish creations of 1689 might be looked at; there were sound legal reasons for this, but I did not enlighten him to that. Of course, it was fairly irrelevant. However, after some discussion he agreed to the final part of the Prince’s proposal subject to suitable Catholic schools being found; I reminded him that this would all have to be done incognito.

One other item was of interest - we came back from the Swiss meeting to find two pretty young ladies who had been trying to gain access to our rooms being evicted by my security detail. Someone had obviously had an amusing idea, but entirely the wrong amusing idea.

With this we moved onward by ship to Venice - which was a pleasant three day voyage.The Most Serene Republic was anything but serene these days; quietly, the FO staff had been calling it the Most Senile Republic. In real terms, it was a minor player; removed from many of its former possessions and markets, with a declining merchant fleet, diminished influence and only the security of the Lagoon between it and annihilation. All its land possessions except the city could easily be taken from it and often were, but no one could take Venice and no one could stop them harrying the Adriatic.

Until we came along, with hovercraft and helicopters, and stirred up the pot more. Our military capabilities made us immensely dangerous to Venice - we were the ones who could overcome a thousand years of history and vanquish her. This, and our apparent friendship with their eternal rivals Genoa, made us objects of immense fear within the Council of Ten.

However, it became apparent that we wished Venice no ill - but at the same time there was little trade with the diminished maritime republic. Its chief treasure was its culture, but there was precious little that could be made of that for quite some time after the Dislocation; if you thought the canals of Venice smelt back in cis-time, you ought to have smelt them in June 1981. It smelt like a place of fevers and disease, and often it was just that.

What Venice did have that we needed was knowledge - they had the best knowledge outside of the Ottoman Empire of conditions in the eastern Med, and having a separate viewpoint on such matters was always useful. I managed to cut them a little slack with regards to some small favours being done around appropriate modernisation of the Merchant Marine, and favourable terms for the import of Venetian Glass, in return for information about the Eastern Med - especially with regards to Palestine and Syria. They, of course, lobbied for the return of the Morea and Crete, but I kept safely quiet on that matter. They also agreed to access arrangements, which benefitted them with regards to brave and adventurous tourists and with the very small Austrian trade, but did later cause some problems in Corfu and the Ionian islands.

We also had a fairly cordial visit from the Graf von Thun, who was also the Bishop of Trent. His lands were somewhat intermixed with the Crownlands of the Tirol and contained a mix of "German" and "Italian" speakers, but was constantly under a certain amount of pressure from his Imperial overlord to give lands up. We pointed out that we really could not help in such matters, but we were happy to assist him with his excess rice; short-grained rices were in some demand, more for pudding than risotto; this trade was also helpful to Venice as the nearest port.

I was also delighted to further assist M. Canal, who had sought our help with regards to some of his vanished sponsors. There were, of course, any number of sponsors and institutions willing to pick up his works and he had been astounded by their generosity. He enquired as to a UK Visa, which I was delighted to grant, and to give him transportation back to the UK in my ship; this he repaid with a gift of a lovely painting of Rabat in Gozo. My very own Canaletto, albeit one I had to declare to the powers that be.

Of course, our next port of call remained a deathly secret for a number of years. Whilst we had been in Venice a decision had been taken - which I was not entirely in concordance with - by what was becoming known as the Inner Cabinet, probably at the behest of the RN. However, the decision was also to conduct said visit in the utmost secrecy and the full details of the visit were not revealed until after the islands passed under full British protection. I was not amused at the time, but it was made clear that There Is No Alternative except resignation.  There had been another pirate raid, this time on the charming island of Gozo.

Because of this, we veritably barnstormed down the Adriatic at 28 knots, which was really as fast as we dare take the ship. I was informed she could do 31 knots in an emergency, but when I suggested it I was told “really only a
wartime
emergency”. As it was, Engineering were very busy when we finally arrived at Leghorn and our departure for Naples was a little delayed.

The Knights did not want to engage, according to the Embassy, and no meeting was to be set up; they were uninterested and - according to the local staff - were considering PNG'ing our Embassy.  A short radiophone message went back to London, and a very sharp reply was received; it seemed that the Mail was in full flow over the tribulations of the George Cross Island, with a back-up Grecian chorus from the Express and the Telegraph. ‘Something must be done’ was the message from London.