Expanding the World of Madasahatta

Bob Cordery’s excellent compilation of the Madasahatta archives.

The new map of the island, again prepared by Bob Cordery.

Sometime ago I gave serious thought to expanding the scope of Madasahatta to include the Arabian peninsula, the Red Sea and East Africa. I even went as far as raising the required naval forces in 1:2400th via the excellent models produced by Tumbling Dice. It was a sound idea but I could not get over the feeling that I was undertaking the project because I could rather than because I should. It would have been a challenge, nay heresy to essentially rewrite the history of Madasahatta and so, out of due reverence for the events of early 1914 on the island, I decided to leave well alone. I also flirted with an idea to involve the French in the history of the island but aside from a blog post never really pursued the idea.

The French also never featured in Eric’s WW1 South East Asian naval campaign which was a shame as they had some wonderfully bonkers looking ships for the period. I never knew why he left them out but am sure that it was for reasons of practicality around the availability of models rather than anything else.

Anyways, all of this has gotten me thinking once again about the island and how I could add to its history in a plausible fashion. The answer actually came to me whilst I was busy building the Royal Navy ironclads for the Portable Ironclads Wargame: Definitive Edition, to be followed by the Turks.

The Anglo-Turkish War of 1883 will feature Madasahatta as both a casus belli as well as a casus foederis but I need to fine tune the details of exactly how the island became involved in the affairs of the British Empire and that of the Ottoman Turks. Oh, and with a nod to the Germans.

I am unable to furnish any further details about this at present, mainly due to the need to weave an alternate history into the alternate history of the actual history of the period. It may be fictional but there is no excuse for sloppiness with the timeline. In a sense I am hoping that my undertaking will serve as a kind of prequel to the events, people and places outlined in The Madasahatta Campaign, the book compiled and written by Bob Cordery based on Eric’s notes etc.

There is more to follow with this idea and I hope to report back with more details in due course but for now it is back to the ironclad building.