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The Absolute at Large

was proclaimed at Stettin. The German Emperor, Kaspar I, assumed command in person.

March 16th: A Chinese army, two million strong, poured over the Siberian and Manchurian frontiers. The army of the Anti-Pope Martin took Rome by storm. Pope Urban fled to Portugal.

March 18th: Spain demanded that the Lisbon Government should deliver up Pope Urban; refusal followed ipso facto by war between Spain and Portugal.

March 26th: The South American States presented an ultimatum to the North American Union, demanding the repeal of Prohibition and the abolition of religious liberty.

March 27th: The Japanese fleet landed troops in California and British Columbia.

On April 1st the world situation was approximately as follows: In Central Europe the great world-conflict between the Catholics and Protestants was running its course. The Protestant Union had forced back the Crusaders out of Berlin, had got a firm hold on Saxony, and had occupied even the neutral territory of Czechoslovakia. The City of Prague was, by a peculiar coincidence, under the command of the Swedish Major-General Wrangel, possibly a descendant of the general of the same name who figured in the Thirty Years' War. On