Juggernauty

by Clinton Wolf

(With absolutely no apologies to Lewis Carroll. Nyah.)

This little piece of insani....er, genius, came to me quite suddenly as I looked over the Spring 1901 results of a game I'm in (I'm playing England). Press from Turkey to me was rabidly anti-Russian prior to the move, perhaps too rabid -- you just never know. In any case, it wouldn't hurt me to remind A/I to be cautious, and then the poem began to whirl in my brain...and I thought, what better way to make someone remember a particularly important piece of Diplomacy than to make clever rhymes out of it? So what I originally just shaped up for my own amusement, I actually ended up sending it on as a joint diplomatic message to A/I in the game. :) And I'm just so darn taken by it I'm inflicting it on the Pouch readership as well.

'Twas Autumn, and the Turkish fleet
Did thorn and threaten in the Black:
An army in Armenia,
And Russia seemed under attack.

'Beware the Juggernaut, my friend!
The roll that steams, the plots that hatch!
Beware the pseudo war, and end
The devious center snatch!'

They took their rattled swords in hand:
Long time the battle fake they fought-
Unsurety plagued Hungary,
And the Archduke paused in thought.

And, as he paused with waffling thoughts,
The Juggernaut, to his great shame,
Came crashing through the Balkan dots,
And gobbled as it came!

Spring, Fall! Spring, Fall! And all to all
The Juggernaut just grew and grew!
The nations died in R-T tide:
The game, alas, was through.

But canst thou slay the Juggernaut?
Hark to my words, my I-A hearts!
Ally today, with no delay!
And stop it 'ere it starts.

'Twas Autumn, and the Turkish fleet
Did thorn and threaten in the Black:
An army in Armenia,
And Russia seemed under attack.

Clinton Wolf
(wolf@oxy.edu)

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