das
Regeneration In Process
Ironically, his time will come too. 
After I finish the ITNES I update, maybe. Probably even later then that.
After I finish the ITNES I update, maybe. Probably even later then that.
Alternate History Thread II...
- Thread starter Xen
- Start date
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das
Regeneration In Process
"Bring a map... nay, a globe!"
- attrib. to Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. 1796.
The First Global War (a.k.a. World War Three, a.k.a. Lafayettian War, a.k.a. Francophone War, et cetera) begun in late 1796, when French-inspired rebellions in northern Italy established the "Italian Republic" centered in Parma. The Republic, which also controlled parts of Habsburg Lombardy, immediately invited French troops in to help defeat the counter-revolutionary movements (no mention of Austrians, ofcourse), and Lafayette was only too eager to agree. General Charles Murat led French armies into Italy; Austrians sent their own armies in to restore order; and after a brief diplomatic exchange, Austria declared war on France, supported by Spain, Germany and Britain, plus the Papal States and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. In response, Louisiana and Canada honoured their entente with the homeland and declared war on the "Holy Alliance" - this caused the New Englander Federation to declare war on Louisiana and Canada soon after, claimining that privateers already begun attacking New Englander ships. The British, grateful, begun to arrange for the transfer of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to NEF. Back in Europe, Netherlands and the Ottoman Empire honoured their obligations to France... and so did, unexpectedly, Sweden which has recently been once more taken over by the militant Hats, the king once more a figurehead and mentally ill (bloodlessly deposed altogether soon after the war begun, for solidarity's sake). And in India, Mysore and the Maratha Confederacy cast aside old rivalries, for a while anyway, to wage a joint war against that damn tyrant, the raja of Travancore, who happened to be a British ally/lackey. Nice casus belli, and the British scarcely had a choice lest the Indian powers get into an even stronger position.
In North America, the Francophone forces with the tacit support of DRA invaded the NEF. Louisianan and Canadian armies met up at Fort Vincennes, crushing the more numerous, but logistically-challenged and ill-led NEF troops. Anglo-NE forces meanwhile assaulted and took Quebec, but received heavy casualties at the hands of the stubborn defenders. Those were the opening moves, and neither of these battles resulted in the decisive, triumphant campaign expected by the military planners. The same could be observed in the colonies, where the early British operations (sieges of Port-au-Prince and Batavia) proved prolonged and difficult. In Europe, the early campaigns in Rhineland, Spain and Italy were much more significant and decisive - the latter two, anyway. Jean-Baptiste Kleber invaded Spain and routed the royal forces at Donostia and Vitoria, precipating and assisting a republican coup d'etat which soon spilled out into a Spanish Civil War. The French forces, led by Murat in the north and Napoleon Bonaparte in the south (landing in Sicily with a small force and organizing the local republicans into something like an army), quickly and schockingly captured most of Italy (supported by local pro-French risings), defeating Sicilians at Potenza, Papists at Tolentino, Austrians at Marengo and Austrian-Venetian armies at Treviso. This stunned the world, really, and upset any Austrian plans for taking the war into the French territory. Meanwhile, a major French-backed Polish rebellion begun as well, though the partitioned country was in a state of de facto rebellion for a few months before the war.
Ottoman forces were pushed out of the Banat and Yedisan, as well as some border territories in the Caucasus, but generally held strong, in spite of a major naval defeat at Kafa, against the Russo-Austrian onslaught.
Much as claimed by the NEF government, the Francophones from the start of the war had to commit to privateering. Lafeyette realized this as well, and despatched, in 1797, Admiral Georges Flandin with an Franco-Dutch fleet to attack the British at Spithead; the fleet was equipped with Montgolfier rockets, bomb ketches and an experimental submarine (which didn't work, but they tried!) and in a close-ran battle, albeit failing to score a total victory, it greatly devastated the British fleet. Later into the year, the Franco-Dutch fleet was reinforced by the Scandinavian one, and the British were forced on the defensive with the Battle at the Scilly Islands. British commerce came under an immense attack, with the (still-formidable, but rather demoralized and weakened) British fleet being too busy fighting the anti-British one. A great Irish rebellion was supported by French forces, and the British lost control over the southwestern half of the island as 1798 dawned. Britain itself, in spite of a (rather minor) naval victory at Boulogne, was threatened.
News from India weren't much better - British allies were defeated left and right, and albeit a major victory over the Marathas was achieved at Argaon, the Mysorians routed the British humiliatingly at Pulicat. Rebellions in British-held lands begun, and the situation was quite desperate. In North America, the DRA entered the war on the Entente's side, occupying Florida and defeating the New Englanders at Pittsburgh, where a promising young commander called Andrew Jackson showed himself well. Canadian forces, meanwhile, finally drove the British out of Quebec, and advanced into NEF's northern, semi-periphereal territories. Spanish colonial empire was a wreck, filled with revolutions and counter-revolutions. A Louisianan expedition secured land as far west as Rio Grande, and there the Entente gained a safe overland (naval situation in the Carribean was still favouring the British) route along which Mexican rebels could be supported.
The gravity of the situation was realized all too well. As Russians finally captured Helsinki, as Tadeusz Koshciuszko's rebellion in Poland was crushed and as the Turks were defeated at Jassy, Russia, Germany and Austria agreed to launch a decisive offensive in the Rhineland region, and another one in Italy. The summer of 1798 was to see the decisive campaigns.
- attrib. to Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. 1796.
The First Global War (a.k.a. World War Three, a.k.a. Lafayettian War, a.k.a. Francophone War, et cetera) begun in late 1796, when French-inspired rebellions in northern Italy established the "Italian Republic" centered in Parma. The Republic, which also controlled parts of Habsburg Lombardy, immediately invited French troops in to help defeat the counter-revolutionary movements (no mention of Austrians, ofcourse), and Lafayette was only too eager to agree. General Charles Murat led French armies into Italy; Austrians sent their own armies in to restore order; and after a brief diplomatic exchange, Austria declared war on France, supported by Spain, Germany and Britain, plus the Papal States and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. In response, Louisiana and Canada honoured their entente with the homeland and declared war on the "Holy Alliance" - this caused the New Englander Federation to declare war on Louisiana and Canada soon after, claimining that privateers already begun attacking New Englander ships. The British, grateful, begun to arrange for the transfer of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to NEF. Back in Europe, Netherlands and the Ottoman Empire honoured their obligations to France... and so did, unexpectedly, Sweden which has recently been once more taken over by the militant Hats, the king once more a figurehead and mentally ill (bloodlessly deposed altogether soon after the war begun, for solidarity's sake). And in India, Mysore and the Maratha Confederacy cast aside old rivalries, for a while anyway, to wage a joint war against that damn tyrant, the raja of Travancore, who happened to be a British ally/lackey. Nice casus belli, and the British scarcely had a choice lest the Indian powers get into an even stronger position.
In North America, the Francophone forces with the tacit support of DRA invaded the NEF. Louisianan and Canadian armies met up at Fort Vincennes, crushing the more numerous, but logistically-challenged and ill-led NEF troops. Anglo-NE forces meanwhile assaulted and took Quebec, but received heavy casualties at the hands of the stubborn defenders. Those were the opening moves, and neither of these battles resulted in the decisive, triumphant campaign expected by the military planners. The same could be observed in the colonies, where the early British operations (sieges of Port-au-Prince and Batavia) proved prolonged and difficult. In Europe, the early campaigns in Rhineland, Spain and Italy were much more significant and decisive - the latter two, anyway. Jean-Baptiste Kleber invaded Spain and routed the royal forces at Donostia and Vitoria, precipating and assisting a republican coup d'etat which soon spilled out into a Spanish Civil War. The French forces, led by Murat in the north and Napoleon Bonaparte in the south (landing in Sicily with a small force and organizing the local republicans into something like an army), quickly and schockingly captured most of Italy (supported by local pro-French risings), defeating Sicilians at Potenza, Papists at Tolentino, Austrians at Marengo and Austrian-Venetian armies at Treviso. This stunned the world, really, and upset any Austrian plans for taking the war into the French territory. Meanwhile, a major French-backed Polish rebellion begun as well, though the partitioned country was in a state of de facto rebellion for a few months before the war.
Ottoman forces were pushed out of the Banat and Yedisan, as well as some border territories in the Caucasus, but generally held strong, in spite of a major naval defeat at Kafa, against the Russo-Austrian onslaught.
Much as claimed by the NEF government, the Francophones from the start of the war had to commit to privateering. Lafeyette realized this as well, and despatched, in 1797, Admiral Georges Flandin with an Franco-Dutch fleet to attack the British at Spithead; the fleet was equipped with Montgolfier rockets, bomb ketches and an experimental submarine (which didn't work, but they tried!) and in a close-ran battle, albeit failing to score a total victory, it greatly devastated the British fleet. Later into the year, the Franco-Dutch fleet was reinforced by the Scandinavian one, and the British were forced on the defensive with the Battle at the Scilly Islands. British commerce came under an immense attack, with the (still-formidable, but rather demoralized and weakened) British fleet being too busy fighting the anti-British one. A great Irish rebellion was supported by French forces, and the British lost control over the southwestern half of the island as 1798 dawned. Britain itself, in spite of a (rather minor) naval victory at Boulogne, was threatened.
News from India weren't much better - British allies were defeated left and right, and albeit a major victory over the Marathas was achieved at Argaon, the Mysorians routed the British humiliatingly at Pulicat. Rebellions in British-held lands begun, and the situation was quite desperate. In North America, the DRA entered the war on the Entente's side, occupying Florida and defeating the New Englanders at Pittsburgh, where a promising young commander called Andrew Jackson showed himself well. Canadian forces, meanwhile, finally drove the British out of Quebec, and advanced into NEF's northern, semi-periphereal territories. Spanish colonial empire was a wreck, filled with revolutions and counter-revolutions. A Louisianan expedition secured land as far west as Rio Grande, and there the Entente gained a safe overland (naval situation in the Carribean was still favouring the British) route along which Mexican rebels could be supported.
The gravity of the situation was realized all too well. As Russians finally captured Helsinki, as Tadeusz Koshciuszko's rebellion in Poland was crushed and as the Turks were defeated at Jassy, Russia, Germany and Austria agreed to launch a decisive offensive in the Rhineland region, and another one in Italy. The summer of 1798 was to see the decisive campaigns.
Insane_Panda
Deity
Death to Andrew Jackson!
Vive l'Empereur!*
Vive le Roi de Naples!*
*Napoleon and Murat, for those less historically inclined. Although, I doubt those less historically inclined would be reading the althist thread....
Nevertheless, death to Andrew Jackson, and Vive l'Empereur. Oh, and le roi de Naples.
Edit: Upon consideration, and due to Andrew Jackson's great services to the international Francophone empire, we have one thing to say - Vive l'Andrew Jackson!
Vive l'Empereur!*
Vive le Roi de Naples!*
*Napoleon and Murat, for those less historically inclined. Although, I doubt those less historically inclined would be reading the althist thread....
Nevertheless, death to Andrew Jackson, and Vive l'Empereur. Oh, and le roi de Naples.Edit: Upon consideration, and due to Andrew Jackson's great services to the international Francophone empire, we have one thing to say - Vive l'Andrew Jackson!
das
Regeneration In Process
Actually, this is an alternate Murat. Not sure if he will be a king. Am still pondering the future political development of France, too (continued moderate Republican dictatorship vs. an Empire... the Imperial Republic of France? :crazyeyes: ).
Insane_Panda
Deity
Imperial Republic, ala Napoleon III's riegn, except not rife with discontent and near dissolution 
das
Regeneration In Process
The summer of 1798, indeed, saw many decisive (and not-so-decisive) campaigns, in Europe and elsewhere. Most of you are probably more interested in Europe, so I'll begin with the elsewhere.
In North America, in spite of some early victories, the New Englanders were crushed decisively in the Battle of Four Nations at Stanwix. As Francophone-American forces closed in on the vital coastal regions, the Congress has ratified separate peace negotiations in August 19th.
In Latin America, slave rebellions in the Carribean and continued revolts in Spanish territory (now spreading even into the loyalist Peru) have by now destroyed virtually all chances of the Spanish control in the region recovering any time soon, especially as even the island of Cuba was occupied by rebels. Ironically, this situation helped the British in long-term, as their commercial and political influence in South America increased dramatically, especially in the southern parts.
In South Africa, annoyed with the British loyalist colonists and sensing Britain's weakness, the Dutch colonists rose up in arms, declaring the Sudafrikan Republik. The spontaneous rising wasn't well-planned, there were many casualties and the natives, primarily Xhosas, quickly used this to intensify raids from the north beginning the Third Xhosa War, but it was something, wasn't it?
In Caucasus, Russian forces made some more gains, but guerrila warfare and the distractions in Europe prevented anything decisive.
In India, the British military fortunes were uneven. Albeit they did win a great victory at Dalmacherry, the subsequent offensive towards Seringapatam, although initially-succesful, ended in a costly, humiliating retreat. Rebellions in Bengal were crushed, but in southern India, the situation was too precarious and much of it had to eventually evacuated.
In Dutch East Indies, the British actually did very well. In particular, the brother of the Indian viceroy, one Arthur Wellesley, finally took Batavia after a brief (second) siege. Generally, all of Java fell to the British, and most other colonies were also taken.
Okay, so the events in Europe were much more important, so now I'll talk about them as well. Until July and outside of Spain (where the Franco-Republican forces gradually crushed the Spanish Royalists, who however hung on to much of the countryside waging a guerrila war, whereas Portugal was intimidated into neutrality), there were skirmishes, stocking-up of supplies and other preparations, not to mention both sides waiting for the other to make the first move. In June, France made it...
...by invading Britain. Wolfe Toneby then has defeated the British at Monaghan and at Belfast, and now assisted General Lazar Hoche's invasion of Wales, whereas southern England was attacked by General Victor Moreau. On the sea, Nelson and Flandin fought it out indecisively, but eventually the united Republican fleet triumphed at the Island of Wight - and by then, the French armies have already converged on London, taking it after a furious battle. Belatedly, the Prussians, or rather the Hannoverians plus a small Prussian contingent, tried to save the British, using the fact that French naval supremacy was not yet full, but they failed to have much of an effect. The Parliament (that fled to Manchester), quite aware of the horrible situation, forced a raving George III to get rid of Pitt and have Fox form a government, in hopes that his combination of republican sympathies and British patriotism would allow him to bargain out an... agreeable, if nothing else, treaty. In retrospect, they could have fought on. But frankly, even if they had expelled the French, the English land would have been too devastated, and so would have been the commerce. Ireland (a likely French demand) just wasn't worth that, was it?
Meanwhile, in the Continent, certain things were resolved as well. Prussian forces in Rhineland won a crushing victory at Siebengebirge, and, led by the courageous Marschall Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, plunged into France itself, taking Brussels and preventing a link-up of Dutch and French forces. For a while, it seemed as if Paris itself would fall, but in a bloody battle at Verdun, where two massive (Prussians - thanks to Friedrich the Great's social reforms, French - thanks to the levee en masse) armies clashed in a chaotic (neither Blucher nor his enemy, Massena, were used to commanding SUCH masses of troops, and frankly few people did; think something like OTL Leipzig, though on a smaller scale) struggle that ended with France greatly wounded, yet victorious. Prussians were subsequently forced to retreat back from France, but their defeat was too great for them to mount an efficient defense when Dutch and French forces (a large part of them fresh conscripts) once again invaded Rhineland, pushing the Prussians out.
And in Italy... things started out well for the Holy Alliance armies. The military genius of Alexander Suvorov led the Austro-Russian forces to victory after victory, threatening French communication lines in Tuscany. It was at lake Bolsena that Suvorov clashed with the best French commander - Napoleon Bonaparte. In a furious skirmish, neither side emerged triumphant; eventually, Suvorov had to retreat north as the French begun to threaten his own communications. A classic war of maneuvers ensued, but eventually, the Austro-Russian forces were defeated at Piacenza by superior French (and Italian volunteer/conscript) forces, Suvorov himself dying in battle. Demoralized, the Austro-Russians fell back to Venice, but Napoleon gave pursuit and defeated them again at Padua. The second Holy Alliance offensive in Italy was even less succesful, crushed at Pordenone.
As Britain and New England dropped out and as the Turks once more invaded Hungary, the Holy Alliance was forced to the peace table and in early 1799, the First Global War has ended...
...or so it had, on paper. The struggle in Latin America, however, was to go on for quite a while, and a new rebellion in Bengal would take a comparatively long time to defeat. Still, apart from that, the new world order has emerged.
In North America, Britain lost everything - Canada annexed the Maritimes, including Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay's Company lands. Canada also took over all of the Northwestern Territory and that northern part of Massachusetts called Maine. The DRA got Florida and Delaware. Louisianian ambitions were rather frustrated - all they got was what they have captured, the lands east of Rio Grande. Good lands, that said...
In the Carribean, French islands lost since 1750 were restored, and so were French and Dutch holdings in the Guinea.
The Scandinavians regained Iceland and Greenland.
In Europe, French victory was solidified. A series of republics was established - in Ireland, in Spain and in two Italies (northern, or Lombardian Republic, and southern, or Italian Republic). Catalonia and German lands west of the Rhine were annexed by France, and so was the Genoan Republic. Britain lost the Channel Islands to France and Gibraltar to Spain. Scandinavia got the status quo restored back at home, this meaning that they got all that they lost back without a fight. Prussia was forced to make concessions to the Poles, granting autonomy to Great Poland. Turks got the status quo back, somewhat anticlimatically. They did, however, make some gains in Caucasia, gaining recognition as the protector of the Islamic peoples there, and thus turning the Cherkessy into a vassal state.
In Africa, the Cape Colony was restored to the Dutch rule, and there gained an autonomous status thanks to the "Sudafrikan Rising". The British were also forced to restore French Senegal to France.
In India, the British kept Bengal and the Northern Circars. Ceylon went to the Dutch, Marathas got the lands they lost in the First Maratha War back, whereas Mysore took over, directly or just nominally, all of southern India (Golconda and southwards from there), apart from Pondicherry, which was restored to France.
And in Dutch East Indies, things were restored to nearly pre-American War sitaution - the Dutch have, magnaminously (and aware that if they press even FURTHER with their demands the British will just refuse and start the fighting again with whatever they still had) allowed the British to keep Malay Peninsula, but retook the other colonies lost, most notably Sumatra and Borneo. A very vague agreement about Australia was reached - the still-unexplored continent was to be partitioned between Netherlands (Arnhem Land), France (Terra Australis, later renamed to Lafayettia; west of a virtual line drawn from the westernmost point of Arnhem Land's border) and Britain (Australia; weast from that virtual line).
In North America, in spite of some early victories, the New Englanders were crushed decisively in the Battle of Four Nations at Stanwix. As Francophone-American forces closed in on the vital coastal regions, the Congress has ratified separate peace negotiations in August 19th.
In Latin America, slave rebellions in the Carribean and continued revolts in Spanish territory (now spreading even into the loyalist Peru) have by now destroyed virtually all chances of the Spanish control in the region recovering any time soon, especially as even the island of Cuba was occupied by rebels. Ironically, this situation helped the British in long-term, as their commercial and political influence in South America increased dramatically, especially in the southern parts.
In South Africa, annoyed with the British loyalist colonists and sensing Britain's weakness, the Dutch colonists rose up in arms, declaring the Sudafrikan Republik. The spontaneous rising wasn't well-planned, there were many casualties and the natives, primarily Xhosas, quickly used this to intensify raids from the north beginning the Third Xhosa War, but it was something, wasn't it?
In Caucasus, Russian forces made some more gains, but guerrila warfare and the distractions in Europe prevented anything decisive.
In India, the British military fortunes were uneven. Albeit they did win a great victory at Dalmacherry, the subsequent offensive towards Seringapatam, although initially-succesful, ended in a costly, humiliating retreat. Rebellions in Bengal were crushed, but in southern India, the situation was too precarious and much of it had to eventually evacuated.
In Dutch East Indies, the British actually did very well. In particular, the brother of the Indian viceroy, one Arthur Wellesley, finally took Batavia after a brief (second) siege. Generally, all of Java fell to the British, and most other colonies were also taken.
Okay, so the events in Europe were much more important, so now I'll talk about them as well. Until July and outside of Spain (where the Franco-Republican forces gradually crushed the Spanish Royalists, who however hung on to much of the countryside waging a guerrila war, whereas Portugal was intimidated into neutrality), there were skirmishes, stocking-up of supplies and other preparations, not to mention both sides waiting for the other to make the first move. In June, France made it...
...by invading Britain. Wolfe Toneby then has defeated the British at Monaghan and at Belfast, and now assisted General Lazar Hoche's invasion of Wales, whereas southern England was attacked by General Victor Moreau. On the sea, Nelson and Flandin fought it out indecisively, but eventually the united Republican fleet triumphed at the Island of Wight - and by then, the French armies have already converged on London, taking it after a furious battle. Belatedly, the Prussians, or rather the Hannoverians plus a small Prussian contingent, tried to save the British, using the fact that French naval supremacy was not yet full, but they failed to have much of an effect. The Parliament (that fled to Manchester), quite aware of the horrible situation, forced a raving George III to get rid of Pitt and have Fox form a government, in hopes that his combination of republican sympathies and British patriotism would allow him to bargain out an... agreeable, if nothing else, treaty. In retrospect, they could have fought on. But frankly, even if they had expelled the French, the English land would have been too devastated, and so would have been the commerce. Ireland (a likely French demand) just wasn't worth that, was it?
Meanwhile, in the Continent, certain things were resolved as well. Prussian forces in Rhineland won a crushing victory at Siebengebirge, and, led by the courageous Marschall Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, plunged into France itself, taking Brussels and preventing a link-up of Dutch and French forces. For a while, it seemed as if Paris itself would fall, but in a bloody battle at Verdun, where two massive (Prussians - thanks to Friedrich the Great's social reforms, French - thanks to the levee en masse) armies clashed in a chaotic (neither Blucher nor his enemy, Massena, were used to commanding SUCH masses of troops, and frankly few people did; think something like OTL Leipzig, though on a smaller scale) struggle that ended with France greatly wounded, yet victorious. Prussians were subsequently forced to retreat back from France, but their defeat was too great for them to mount an efficient defense when Dutch and French forces (a large part of them fresh conscripts) once again invaded Rhineland, pushing the Prussians out.
And in Italy... things started out well for the Holy Alliance armies. The military genius of Alexander Suvorov led the Austro-Russian forces to victory after victory, threatening French communication lines in Tuscany. It was at lake Bolsena that Suvorov clashed with the best French commander - Napoleon Bonaparte. In a furious skirmish, neither side emerged triumphant; eventually, Suvorov had to retreat north as the French begun to threaten his own communications. A classic war of maneuvers ensued, but eventually, the Austro-Russian forces were defeated at Piacenza by superior French (and Italian volunteer/conscript) forces, Suvorov himself dying in battle. Demoralized, the Austro-Russians fell back to Venice, but Napoleon gave pursuit and defeated them again at Padua. The second Holy Alliance offensive in Italy was even less succesful, crushed at Pordenone.
As Britain and New England dropped out and as the Turks once more invaded Hungary, the Holy Alliance was forced to the peace table and in early 1799, the First Global War has ended...
...or so it had, on paper. The struggle in Latin America, however, was to go on for quite a while, and a new rebellion in Bengal would take a comparatively long time to defeat. Still, apart from that, the new world order has emerged.
In North America, Britain lost everything - Canada annexed the Maritimes, including Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay's Company lands. Canada also took over all of the Northwestern Territory and that northern part of Massachusetts called Maine. The DRA got Florida and Delaware. Louisianian ambitions were rather frustrated - all they got was what they have captured, the lands east of Rio Grande. Good lands, that said...
In the Carribean, French islands lost since 1750 were restored, and so were French and Dutch holdings in the Guinea.
The Scandinavians regained Iceland and Greenland.
In Europe, French victory was solidified. A series of republics was established - in Ireland, in Spain and in two Italies (northern, or Lombardian Republic, and southern, or Italian Republic). Catalonia and German lands west of the Rhine were annexed by France, and so was the Genoan Republic. Britain lost the Channel Islands to France and Gibraltar to Spain. Scandinavia got the status quo restored back at home, this meaning that they got all that they lost back without a fight. Prussia was forced to make concessions to the Poles, granting autonomy to Great Poland. Turks got the status quo back, somewhat anticlimatically. They did, however, make some gains in Caucasia, gaining recognition as the protector of the Islamic peoples there, and thus turning the Cherkessy into a vassal state.
In Africa, the Cape Colony was restored to the Dutch rule, and there gained an autonomous status thanks to the "Sudafrikan Rising". The British were also forced to restore French Senegal to France.
In India, the British kept Bengal and the Northern Circars. Ceylon went to the Dutch, Marathas got the lands they lost in the First Maratha War back, whereas Mysore took over, directly or just nominally, all of southern India (Golconda and southwards from there), apart from Pondicherry, which was restored to France.
And in Dutch East Indies, things were restored to nearly pre-American War sitaution - the Dutch have, magnaminously (and aware that if they press even FURTHER with their demands the British will just refuse and start the fighting again with whatever they still had) allowed the British to keep Malay Peninsula, but retook the other colonies lost, most notably Sumatra and Borneo. A very vague agreement about Australia was reached - the still-unexplored continent was to be partitioned between Netherlands (Arnhem Land), France (Terra Australis, later renamed to Lafayettia; west of a virtual line drawn from the westernmost point of Arnhem Land's border) and Britain (Australia; weast from that virtual line).
Insane_Panda
Deity
Vive le France!
Great stuff das, please, continue!
Great stuff das, please, continue!
North King
blech
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The War of Austrian Succession: 1455-1456
Of course, the Hussites werent too pleased. Not that this was at all surprisingthey had territorial ambitions in Austria from their very start, and they were not too fond of French presence so near to their own lands. Thus, acting on a minor pretext of a diplomatic note that would otherwise have been forgotten, the Hussites declared war on Austria.
This activated a whole chain of alliances that was impossible to stop, and that coalesced into a war of near mythic proportions, one that would be even greater than the War of Religion, or the Eighty Years War.
France quickly declared war on the Hussite Confederacy for their declaration of war on Austria. The northern Italian states soon followed suit, because of their alliance with France, but Venice remained fairly neutral, though aiding and abetting both sides. Aragon declared for France. England declared war on France, eager to regain old possessions. Scotland in turn declared war on England, and Ireland roared up in rebellion. Castile declared war on Valois Aragon, which plunged Iberia into war, even though Portugal remained neutral.
The war soon involved even the fringes of Europe. As the French and Hussite armies mobilized for war, diplomatic notes flew back and forth. The Danes, eager to devastate the Hanseatic statelets in the Hussite Confederacy, declared for France. Perhaps the only question was what the Poles would do, but they answered that themselves by finally declaring for the Hussites.
In short, the alliances pitted the Hussites and the Poles against the vast French entourage. Already by 1456, the chroniclers were calling it the Great War, and The War to End all Wars, and it would soon rapidly live up to these new names.
The first skirmishes were fought in the Rhineland, and the first battles shortly followed. Charles Valois arrived in full force, smashing the armies of Baden before the rest of the Hussites could come to its aid. Straussburg was quickly occupied, and the Rheine was crossed with little fight. Another fight, though, was lost in turna smaller French field army near Mannheim was destroyed fairly easily by Hussite forces. Koln, meanwhile, was besieged by French forces, but nothing notable happened.
Hussite forces, meanwhile, moved to intercept the southern French army. Austrian reinforcements were miles away, and this would most likely be a one on one confrontation. As it happened, the armies encountered each other near the town of Freiburg, where they arrayed for battle.
The French advanced cautiously at first, their probes being driven away by Hussite infantrybut they granted Charles knowledge enoughthe Hussites were fairly undisciplined, and their commander was not nearly the equal of Zizka.
The French committed their infantry to the battle fairly early on, and soon they were broken, just as Charles had expectedthey were not his elite, and they could not be relied upon. So he didnt. Instead, as the Hussite war wagons came rumbling forward, his cavalry deftly outflanked them and managed to destroy a great many of them, even as pitfalls and traps severely limited their mobility. With an awe inspiring, thundering charge, the French then broke the Hussite army, and drove them back.
Freiburg was a proof of what the French had dared not hope for dozens of yearsthe Hussites could be beaten, if the French armies were handled competently.
With that, Charles brought up further reinforcements, and advanced to Ulmthough taking heavy casualties from Hussite raidersand made it to Munchen by autumns break. Bayern was in the hands of the French, and they had established a definite line of communications to the Austrians.
This was, of course, not all that happened in 1445. Polish armies gathered in Hungary, skirmishes occurred on the Austrian borders. A fairly large Hussite field army advanced into the Netherlands, seizing Geldre. The English massed armies against the Scots and massacred a few thousand Irish peasants at Cork. Indecisive galley skirmishes were fought in the Baltic, and Riga was taken with little fight by the Poles. In Iberia, the forces of Castile were repulsed at Cuenca.
On all fronts, then, it seemed the French were fully victorious, defeating all their foes and rivals. The Hussite cause seemed fairly lost.
With the determinist view of history, one would presume that the war would simply go all in Frances favor, but this took out several human, unpredictable factors from the equation.
The battle of Freiburg had been a catastrophe for the Hussites, but a small force still remained, to harass the flanks of the French. Now, though, the French had won a great line of fortresses to secure their lines of communication from Lorraine to Austria, and this was the great factor in the strength of the French alliance.
An unknown commoner, Friedrich Gutenberg, rose to the unlikely position of Lieutenant for feats of gallantry during the retreat from the battle of Freiburg, and his small company of soldiers managed to win skirmish after skirmish from the French. Commandeering a small portion of the German southern army, he then made a daring winter attack and seized Ulm, severing the line of French communications.
A larger Hussite army moved to reinforce him, and he was made into a brigadier, commanding a good portion of their southern army.
Thus, in the spring of 1456, Charles led a force of over a hundred thousand by some accounts, nearly a third of them Austrians, to engage this southern Hussite army. They outnumbered the Hussites almost three to one, and all hope seemed lost for the Germans.
The third battle of Ulm went fairly predictably initially. The French, with some resistance, drove back the Hussite right and center, and pinned their left against the Danube, slaughtering them. Soon it seemed as if the entire army was fated to fall that way, when a Hussite brigade struck the French from the south, in the rear. Charles the Victorious was killed by a stray arrow, and the French army was routed. Frederick V of Austria barely managed to withdraw his forces even partially intact, and Gutenberg rose to ever greater heights.
******************
Introduction
The War of the Roses
Europe to c. 1440
Europe: 1440-1445
Previous Entries:
The War of Austrian Succession: 1455-1456
Of course, the Hussites werent too pleased. Not that this was at all surprisingthey had territorial ambitions in Austria from their very start, and they were not too fond of French presence so near to their own lands. Thus, acting on a minor pretext of a diplomatic note that would otherwise have been forgotten, the Hussites declared war on Austria.
This activated a whole chain of alliances that was impossible to stop, and that coalesced into a war of near mythic proportions, one that would be even greater than the War of Religion, or the Eighty Years War.
France quickly declared war on the Hussite Confederacy for their declaration of war on Austria. The northern Italian states soon followed suit, because of their alliance with France, but Venice remained fairly neutral, though aiding and abetting both sides. Aragon declared for France. England declared war on France, eager to regain old possessions. Scotland in turn declared war on England, and Ireland roared up in rebellion. Castile declared war on Valois Aragon, which plunged Iberia into war, even though Portugal remained neutral.
The war soon involved even the fringes of Europe. As the French and Hussite armies mobilized for war, diplomatic notes flew back and forth. The Danes, eager to devastate the Hanseatic statelets in the Hussite Confederacy, declared for France. Perhaps the only question was what the Poles would do, but they answered that themselves by finally declaring for the Hussites.
In short, the alliances pitted the Hussites and the Poles against the vast French entourage. Already by 1456, the chroniclers were calling it the Great War, and The War to End all Wars, and it would soon rapidly live up to these new names.
The first skirmishes were fought in the Rhineland, and the first battles shortly followed. Charles Valois arrived in full force, smashing the armies of Baden before the rest of the Hussites could come to its aid. Straussburg was quickly occupied, and the Rheine was crossed with little fight. Another fight, though, was lost in turna smaller French field army near Mannheim was destroyed fairly easily by Hussite forces. Koln, meanwhile, was besieged by French forces, but nothing notable happened.
Hussite forces, meanwhile, moved to intercept the southern French army. Austrian reinforcements were miles away, and this would most likely be a one on one confrontation. As it happened, the armies encountered each other near the town of Freiburg, where they arrayed for battle.
The French advanced cautiously at first, their probes being driven away by Hussite infantrybut they granted Charles knowledge enoughthe Hussites were fairly undisciplined, and their commander was not nearly the equal of Zizka.
The French committed their infantry to the battle fairly early on, and soon they were broken, just as Charles had expectedthey were not his elite, and they could not be relied upon. So he didnt. Instead, as the Hussite war wagons came rumbling forward, his cavalry deftly outflanked them and managed to destroy a great many of them, even as pitfalls and traps severely limited their mobility. With an awe inspiring, thundering charge, the French then broke the Hussite army, and drove them back.
Freiburg was a proof of what the French had dared not hope for dozens of yearsthe Hussites could be beaten, if the French armies were handled competently.
With that, Charles brought up further reinforcements, and advanced to Ulmthough taking heavy casualties from Hussite raidersand made it to Munchen by autumns break. Bayern was in the hands of the French, and they had established a definite line of communications to the Austrians.
This was, of course, not all that happened in 1445. Polish armies gathered in Hungary, skirmishes occurred on the Austrian borders. A fairly large Hussite field army advanced into the Netherlands, seizing Geldre. The English massed armies against the Scots and massacred a few thousand Irish peasants at Cork. Indecisive galley skirmishes were fought in the Baltic, and Riga was taken with little fight by the Poles. In Iberia, the forces of Castile were repulsed at Cuenca.
On all fronts, then, it seemed the French were fully victorious, defeating all their foes and rivals. The Hussite cause seemed fairly lost.
With the determinist view of history, one would presume that the war would simply go all in Frances favor, but this took out several human, unpredictable factors from the equation.
The battle of Freiburg had been a catastrophe for the Hussites, but a small force still remained, to harass the flanks of the French. Now, though, the French had won a great line of fortresses to secure their lines of communication from Lorraine to Austria, and this was the great factor in the strength of the French alliance.
An unknown commoner, Friedrich Gutenberg, rose to the unlikely position of Lieutenant for feats of gallantry during the retreat from the battle of Freiburg, and his small company of soldiers managed to win skirmish after skirmish from the French. Commandeering a small portion of the German southern army, he then made a daring winter attack and seized Ulm, severing the line of French communications.
A larger Hussite army moved to reinforce him, and he was made into a brigadier, commanding a good portion of their southern army.
Thus, in the spring of 1456, Charles led a force of over a hundred thousand by some accounts, nearly a third of them Austrians, to engage this southern Hussite army. They outnumbered the Hussites almost three to one, and all hope seemed lost for the Germans.
The third battle of Ulm went fairly predictably initially. The French, with some resistance, drove back the Hussite right and center, and pinned their left against the Danube, slaughtering them. Soon it seemed as if the entire army was fated to fall that way, when a Hussite brigade struck the French from the south, in the rear. Charles the Victorious was killed by a stray arrow, and the French army was routed. Frederick V of Austria barely managed to withdraw his forces even partially intact, and Gutenberg rose to ever greater heights.
******************
Introduction
The War of the Roses
Europe to c. 1440
Europe: 1440-1445
das
Regeneration In Process
I'm currently pondering as to how far I should take it. Probably to some time after the Second Global War, but frankly I'm not at all sure as to anything in that war apart from the name.
I do hope it won't be the end of *all* wars, just like with the OTL analogue, otherwise the world would be rather dull and stagnant. An interesting coincidence, btw, that Andzjey Sapkowsky's novels (those that I know of, anyway) are either about the Hussites (the new, ongoing series), either about a high fantasy "War to end All Wars" (the old series).
Either way, very interesting, NK. Good battle descriptions, too.
Btw, anybody else read this althist: http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/bronzeagenewworld? IMHO it could make a very good Americas-based NES, though polar bears know that I dislike area-limited NESes so it can, after a while, be expanded into a world map one. Or something like that. Either way, food for thought...
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
Oh, come, das. Do you really think any of my timelines can evolve into a world of peace and plenty?
Insane_Panda
Deity
Yes, knowing you the world will probably be renamed to 'Workers Paradise'
alex994
Hail Divine Emperor!
Agreed! With the world dominated by extreme left wing socialists where tradition and religion is scoffed at
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
...
No...
No...
das
Regeneration In Process
"Give everything to the people."
- Peter the Great's Will.
His successors carried that will out and gave everything to the people as represented by themselves. Going by that logic, my answer to your question is "perhaps".
das
Regeneration In Process
1799-1812.
After the First Global War, a new world order has emerged, a very uncertain one. Spain was devastated and lost much of its empire, Britain was humbled and lost numerous possessions, Russian expansion was continuously frustrated in the west and France seemingly ruled supreme, but was still surrounded by enemies and mistrusted. Apart from that, Scandinavia suddenly emerged (or reemerged) as a great power, Prussia still dominated Germany east of Rhine and north of Austria but was quite discredited by recent defeats, Austria was hemmed in between not-so-cordial allies and even less cordial enemies and the Ottoman Empire was unstable, yet resurgent in the face of Selim III's reforms. Outside of Europe, colonization of new lands continued and intensified, whilst the Western Hemisphere saw much strife. The early 19th century was to be that of change all over the world.
In North America, the four post-Presidential nations coexisted with much hostility and border skirmishes, but no major war between them came. The strife resulted in the emergence of two alliances, along cultural lines - the "English Alliance" (a reconciled DRA and NEF, united by their fear of the Francophone powers; this alliance also was increasingly friendly with the British) and the same old Francophone Entente (Canada and Louisiana, which solved a border crisis by drawing a horizontal line west from Mississippi River's northernmost point; territories south were to go to Louisiana, territories north were to go to Canada). All-out chaos in the Carribean was ended by a French intervention in 1806-1809; in spite of fierce resistance by the rebel slave forces, the French have (re)captured Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba. They used the newly-acquired base to intervene in Mexico, assisting liberal rebels against "Emperor Manuel I of Mexico". In spite of British protests, France and Louisiana soon enough won a total victory against Mexican government forces; "sister republics" in Sonora (north Mexico Proper), Mexico (south Mexico Proper), Yucatan (Yucatan) and Guatemala (all of Central America including Panama) were set up, and Lousiana annexed all Mexican territories north of the Sonoran Desert, expanding all the way to the Pacific Ocean; the new lands were sparsely-populated and rebellious, though. In response, Canada somewhat sped up its slow westwards expansion, mostly driven by fur trade until then. Russian expansion in the region was, however, nearly nonexistant as the Russians concentrated on other matters at the time.
In South America, it took many wars, rebellions and interventions for a semblance of stability to appear, or at least for vague boundries between new nations to appear. Francisco de Miranda played a large part in this - having led an early Venezuelan rebellion, he then made a bid for the unification of South America, but was defeated badly at Ibarra in 1806 by British-backed Peruvian troops (the conservative Peru immediately refused to acknowledge the Spanish Republic and rose up in arms, led by a Spanish soldier and nobleman, Ramon Odria, who was declared "regent of the Peruvian Empire"). With French "assistance", he was persuaded to ally with the Spanish Republic, in exchange for becoming the ruler of an "Autonomous Republic of New Granada", but this only ignited a bitter civil war within the former Vice-Royalty, and Peruvian Imperial troops, augmented by the auxillary "llanero" cavalry, quickly advanced to Bogota. The eventual peace treaty left the Peruvian Empire in control of roughly the southwestern half of the ARNG, with the rest becoming a rather less autonomous part of Spain, though occupied by France. To counter-balance the growing French influence, however, Britain has formally allied with Peru, and assisted it in taking over the chaotic Capitancy-General of Chile and in consolidating rule of the southeastern part of Peru itself (namely, Charcas, which is approximately OTL Bolivia; in OTL it was shifted to the Provinces de la Plata, but due to British control of Buenos Aires, that Vice-Royalty is much weaker and smaller then in OTL). The British intervention, in spite of French protests, also helped the Portuguese crown maintain hold on all of Brazil - the north was pro-Portuguese anyway, and the south was hemmed in between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. All-out chaos in the remnants of Provinces de la Plata and need for a land supply route to southwestern Brazil (the comparatively recently-acquired regions east of Parana) allowed and caused, respectively, the establishment of a British protectorate, as the conservatives in the country gladly declared George IV (George III died soon after the defeat in the FGW) their king. As time went, the Platine Protectorate evolved into a "dominion" (which is less auotnomous then in OTL, but more autonomous then a protectorate). The French looked on with dismay as the British influence in South America grew tenfold, but were unable to do more then what they did (moral and slight financial support for the rebels) due to other concerns.
Most of said concerns were in Europe. Britain itself, after the defeat, begun quickly strenghthening itself. The Industrial Revolution was given additional impetus by the great damage done to the British commerce during the war. It was quickly reestablished, but if revenge was to be achieved, Britain needed to be more self-sufficient. And industrialization was an important element in the internal development that, the Parliament concluded, was neccessary. Lafayette may not have come to similar conclusions, but regardless, he didn't matter much after 1806, when he, tired of intrigue and of the burden of reign, exhausted by the mounting conspiracies against him, and perhaps blackmailed by certain persons, resigned. But he didn't declare any "successor" - he, instead, declared the formation of a real republic. A Montesquieuan democracy was to be established. Electinos were held, and the war hero Napoleon Bonaparte won. But the early instability doomed the "democratic republic" - Charles-Philippe (who wanted to become Charles X) decided to stage a coup d'etat, using the conservative sentiments in the countryside. Arriving from Britain by ship, he landed at Saint-Nazaire, and started the "Royalist War". Vendee immediately rose up in arms against Bonaparte, and rebellion spread fast. Peasants took up arms, and urban conservatives were only waiting for Napoleon's grip to loosen... which it, however, didn't. The Corsican wasn't about to let go of the power. He declared martial law, and weeks after the First Consul lost dictatorial powers the new one has regained them all, the Assemblee being either Bonapartist, either non-Bonapartist but still afraid of Charles-Philippe, either too busy defecting to the Royalists.
Napoleon Bonaparte's organizing skills proved crucial in the first two months of the Royalist War. He picked the right people for the job, leaving only the grand strategy for himself, at first anyway. Lazare Carnot organized a mobilization of the French population, Georges Couthon terrorized the conservatives into submission in the north, where he was still in position to do so, Marechals Lazar Hoche and Andre Massena marched to Rhineland and Italy respectively, whilst Admiral Georges Flandin established a blockade of Vendee and prepared the fleet for a clash with the British (those military measures were, ofcourse, undertaken to make sure that the Holy Alliance didn't intervenne). And meanwhile, Marechal Victor Moreau marched to clash with Charles X... but things went wrong there. Harrased by the Royalists who didn't want to give battle yet, Moreau advanced towards Nantes, and there he was allowed into the city, then attacked from inside and outside. The situation might have been salvaged, but Victor was hit by a stray bullet and thus a rather small part of his army managed to escape. Thankfully, his army wasn't very large when compared to the ones about to be ready, only 20,000 men, but those were good, experienced men, and even if the defeat itself was quite reversable, the psyschological effect wasn't, or at least not as easily. Rebellions spread. Napoleon Bonaparte had to take personal command.
And that he did, with results. In early 1807, or more specifically in the 27th of January, the Royalists suffered a decisive defeat at Le Mans, and Charles X's triumphant "march to Paris" was cut short. Rebellions in the south of France were cracked down upon quickly. After another defeat at Loir, the battered Royalist army disintegrated. What came afterwards was a grueling guerrila war, but the worst was over. Eventually, Charles X was caught and guillotined, and the Royalist partisans were tracked down and exterminated. Vendee was badly depopulated by the fighting, the reprisals (by both sides) and by the following "exodus" to Britain of Royalist sympathisers afraid of the victorious Republicans. The rest of France wasn't hit as badly, but things were unpleasant.
Italy and Rhineland were increasingly hard to maintain due to the growth of Italian and German nationalism respectively. The rise of Napoleon, a Corsican and thus related to Italians, to power in France has resulted in a slight improvement of this situation, but it nonetheless was a menace, especially as Austrians begun courting the more conservative and/or pragmatic of the Italian nationalists...
...and indeed, whilst Lafayette faced fairly incompetent enemies, Napoleon had to face a whole new generation of Holy Alliance leaders. In Britain, as mentioned before, George III was replaced by his son, whilst the new Prime Minister was Richard Sheridan, who was determined to avenge the defeat of the FGW no matter what, being rather embittred by the French invasion of Britain, during which he lost his son. In Prussia, Fredrich Wilhelm III (who is quite different from OTL, due to a much different Prussian history) was just as determined to right the wrongs of 1799. In Austria, Leopold III made some concessions to liberalism and parliamentarism, but kept power in his hands through capable intrigue; he also had far-reaching plans for extension of influence in Italy and the Balkans. An interesting situation developed in Russia (as far as France was concerned) - Empress Maria I (who came to power after the five month reign of Pavel I), though definitely a political genius and not too predisposed towards France, was much more interested in internal development and Asian expansion, whilst paying lip service to the anti-French cause. Or perhaps it was all a ploy?
On the French side, apart from the sister republics, there were the Scandinavian Republic and the Ottoman Empire. The former was an odd one; created in the wake of the bloodless coup that got rid of the incompliant king, it was rather resemblant of pre-Patriot Netherlands, a mercantile-aristocratic "republic", though the poor were also represented. It still was rather weak, but it has been preparing for war this time, fortifying Helsingfors and Stralsund. As for the Ottoman Empire, some progress was actually done. The Janissaries, whom Selim suspected of treachery and hated for inefficiency shown in the previous wars, were executed to a man. The feudals were cracked down upon as well. The Sublime Porte was being revived, with lots of French help. For instance, French engineers were, as of 1812, hard at work on the Suez Canal, to link French and Dutch Indian Ocean possessions with Europe and to outmaneuver the rapidly-rebuilding British fleet. In the Middle East, an Egyptian rebellion (amongst its causes was the French presence in Suez) was put down, Hejjaz was reconquered and a bitter war with the Saudis was taking place. Finally, in 1809 the Saudis, battered by previous defeats at Karbala and at Medina, suddenly came under direct Turkish attack. A large Turkish army marched into Arabia and razed ad-Dir'iyah, the Saudi capital, to the ground. The Saudi family was slaughtered nearly to a man, and any towns of importance were occupied by Turkish troops. Most Arab tribes were won over by lavish gifts and adroit diplomacy, and the Wahhabi heresy was subject to a ruthless repression, being hunted down and exterminated by the Ottomans and their allies. The Wahhabis had nowhere to flee, and most of them either died in battle, either were reduced to small, sparse bands of nomads, although many crypto-Wahhabis remained.
Elsewhere in Africa, Moroccan support for anti-French rebellions in Algeria resulted in a temporary success of said rebellion... until the French got around to putting it out and to invading Morocco. Sultan Mawlay Sulayman died in battle, and thus Morocco was occupied and annexed by France, apart from some lands around Tangier that were taken by Spain and the port of Agadir, which was occupied by the British. That was one pre-war crisis more. France also expanded in Senegambia and grew its influence in Madagascar, whilst the Dutch settlers in Cape Colony dealt a decisive defeat on the Xhosas, extending Sudafrika north to the Orange River; the crippled Xhosa were finally destroyed as a force by Dingiswaya of Mtethwa, although not before inflicting heavy casualties (one of the dead was a promising young warrior, Shaka, whose heroic sacrifice saved the Mtethwa horde in the final battle at Thaba Nchu). Dingiswaya went off to found a tribal empire in the east of southmost Africa, which collapsed after his death. Scandinavia jumped in into the colonization, mostly for the sake of the prestige involved but also to get slave trade income, which the ruling mercantilist faction really wanted, no matter what the French said about slavery; Scandinavian trade outposts were established in Gustavia (OTL Liberia).
Empress Maria's Russia was determined to extend its influence in Central Asia, where expansion was feasable and comparatively easy. The annoying Kazakh raiders of the Middle Horde were put down by a series of expeditions in 1802-1806; the unstable non-Ottoman Caucasian states, most notably in Aizerbadjan, were forced to acknowledge Russian protection, to the Ottoman outrage and dismay; war-wrecked Qajar Persia was provoked into a war by a Russian-backed Azeri rebellion (the Azeri elite decided that better Russia then Persia; taking into account the fact that Persia was increasingly anarchic, that wasn't an unreasonable choice considering that Russia was likely to come there anyway) and, with tacit British support, was reduced into a joint Anglo-Russian protectorate, also ceding Persian Aizerbadjan and the Caspian coast to Russia; and finally, Russia extended its caring protection and economic-poltiical domination to the Uzbek khanates, that were by then quite desperate due to the Turkmen raids. These conquests improved Russia's economic situation (as new markets were forcefully opened) and allowed Maria to crack down on those annoying nomad raiders and slavers.
Under Arthur Wellesley's brilliant leadership (he was appointed viceroy after his brother's death in 1809 (due to old wounds and bad health), continuing the "Wellesley Dynasty"), British power in India begun to recover in spite of the rise of the Sikhs and the Gurkhas; indeed, the latter were crushed and subjugated in 1811. Internal reforms in British Bengal and the disintegration of the Maratha Confederacy allowed the British to reclaim Central India in spite of a botched Mysorian intervention. Aside from that little accident, however, Mysore was still quite strong. A hybrid Hindu-Muslim culture (but not a Sikh one) was emerging, an alliance with Punjab was signed, and Turkish-style French-assisted reforms continued.
Indochina was in crisis, and disturbances spread, followed by reforms and (more or less) strenghthening of the three mainland states: Myanmar, Siam and Vietnam. Resources of Myanmar, under Bodawpaya, were pushed to their limits in wars with all neighbours, culminating, in 1801-1808, with a war against Britain and Siam. In spite of early successes in Assam and Arakan, in part due to French assistance, but eventually Rama I of Siam and Arthur Wellesley of British India defeated and captured him at Bassein. Arakan, Assam and Irrawaddy went to Britain, whereas Siam took over Tenasserim, Pegu, Shan, Chiengmai and Kayan - thus, Myanmar was reduced to a rump, land-locked state in the north. Back in Siam, Rama I (also known as Phraphutthayotfa Chulalok...) reformed with British help, turned the village of Bangkok into a great capital and expanded into Cambodia and Laos (disunited as it was). In Vietnam, the Tay Son rebellion, backed by the French who seeked to counter the pro-British Siam, resulted in the reunification of the country and in French-backed reforms. It also caused another event that will have repercussions later on - the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, back when the counter-revolution led by Nguyen Anh (who in OTL became Gia Long) seemed to be on the brink of success, was beaten back with French help, and the Chinese had accidentally learned of this. The war was over as soon as the invasion ended, as neither side bothered to push forward, but Franco-Chinese relations would suffer. The British, meanwhile, took note...
First serious French settlement in Australia was established in Lafayettesville (OTL Perth); colonization of Australia was generally slow, though the concentration of British loyalists in British Australia gave the British an edge.
The year of 1812 didn't see the Second Great War begin; neither with the year of 1813. But the road to war has already begun, and both sides were preparing for a showdown that will be even more global and even more bloody then the FGW...
After the First Global War, a new world order has emerged, a very uncertain one. Spain was devastated and lost much of its empire, Britain was humbled and lost numerous possessions, Russian expansion was continuously frustrated in the west and France seemingly ruled supreme, but was still surrounded by enemies and mistrusted. Apart from that, Scandinavia suddenly emerged (or reemerged) as a great power, Prussia still dominated Germany east of Rhine and north of Austria but was quite discredited by recent defeats, Austria was hemmed in between not-so-cordial allies and even less cordial enemies and the Ottoman Empire was unstable, yet resurgent in the face of Selim III's reforms. Outside of Europe, colonization of new lands continued and intensified, whilst the Western Hemisphere saw much strife. The early 19th century was to be that of change all over the world.
In North America, the four post-Presidential nations coexisted with much hostility and border skirmishes, but no major war between them came. The strife resulted in the emergence of two alliances, along cultural lines - the "English Alliance" (a reconciled DRA and NEF, united by their fear of the Francophone powers; this alliance also was increasingly friendly with the British) and the same old Francophone Entente (Canada and Louisiana, which solved a border crisis by drawing a horizontal line west from Mississippi River's northernmost point; territories south were to go to Louisiana, territories north were to go to Canada). All-out chaos in the Carribean was ended by a French intervention in 1806-1809; in spite of fierce resistance by the rebel slave forces, the French have (re)captured Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba. They used the newly-acquired base to intervene in Mexico, assisting liberal rebels against "Emperor Manuel I of Mexico". In spite of British protests, France and Louisiana soon enough won a total victory against Mexican government forces; "sister republics" in Sonora (north Mexico Proper), Mexico (south Mexico Proper), Yucatan (Yucatan) and Guatemala (all of Central America including Panama) were set up, and Lousiana annexed all Mexican territories north of the Sonoran Desert, expanding all the way to the Pacific Ocean; the new lands were sparsely-populated and rebellious, though. In response, Canada somewhat sped up its slow westwards expansion, mostly driven by fur trade until then. Russian expansion in the region was, however, nearly nonexistant as the Russians concentrated on other matters at the time.
In South America, it took many wars, rebellions and interventions for a semblance of stability to appear, or at least for vague boundries between new nations to appear. Francisco de Miranda played a large part in this - having led an early Venezuelan rebellion, he then made a bid for the unification of South America, but was defeated badly at Ibarra in 1806 by British-backed Peruvian troops (the conservative Peru immediately refused to acknowledge the Spanish Republic and rose up in arms, led by a Spanish soldier and nobleman, Ramon Odria, who was declared "regent of the Peruvian Empire"). With French "assistance", he was persuaded to ally with the Spanish Republic, in exchange for becoming the ruler of an "Autonomous Republic of New Granada", but this only ignited a bitter civil war within the former Vice-Royalty, and Peruvian Imperial troops, augmented by the auxillary "llanero" cavalry, quickly advanced to Bogota. The eventual peace treaty left the Peruvian Empire in control of roughly the southwestern half of the ARNG, with the rest becoming a rather less autonomous part of Spain, though occupied by France. To counter-balance the growing French influence, however, Britain has formally allied with Peru, and assisted it in taking over the chaotic Capitancy-General of Chile and in consolidating rule of the southeastern part of Peru itself (namely, Charcas, which is approximately OTL Bolivia; in OTL it was shifted to the Provinces de la Plata, but due to British control of Buenos Aires, that Vice-Royalty is much weaker and smaller then in OTL). The British intervention, in spite of French protests, also helped the Portuguese crown maintain hold on all of Brazil - the north was pro-Portuguese anyway, and the south was hemmed in between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. All-out chaos in the remnants of Provinces de la Plata and need for a land supply route to southwestern Brazil (the comparatively recently-acquired regions east of Parana) allowed and caused, respectively, the establishment of a British protectorate, as the conservatives in the country gladly declared George IV (George III died soon after the defeat in the FGW) their king. As time went, the Platine Protectorate evolved into a "dominion" (which is less auotnomous then in OTL, but more autonomous then a protectorate). The French looked on with dismay as the British influence in South America grew tenfold, but were unable to do more then what they did (moral and slight financial support for the rebels) due to other concerns.
Most of said concerns were in Europe. Britain itself, after the defeat, begun quickly strenghthening itself. The Industrial Revolution was given additional impetus by the great damage done to the British commerce during the war. It was quickly reestablished, but if revenge was to be achieved, Britain needed to be more self-sufficient. And industrialization was an important element in the internal development that, the Parliament concluded, was neccessary. Lafayette may not have come to similar conclusions, but regardless, he didn't matter much after 1806, when he, tired of intrigue and of the burden of reign, exhausted by the mounting conspiracies against him, and perhaps blackmailed by certain persons, resigned. But he didn't declare any "successor" - he, instead, declared the formation of a real republic. A Montesquieuan democracy was to be established. Electinos were held, and the war hero Napoleon Bonaparte won. But the early instability doomed the "democratic republic" - Charles-Philippe (who wanted to become Charles X) decided to stage a coup d'etat, using the conservative sentiments in the countryside. Arriving from Britain by ship, he landed at Saint-Nazaire, and started the "Royalist War". Vendee immediately rose up in arms against Bonaparte, and rebellion spread fast. Peasants took up arms, and urban conservatives were only waiting for Napoleon's grip to loosen... which it, however, didn't. The Corsican wasn't about to let go of the power. He declared martial law, and weeks after the First Consul lost dictatorial powers the new one has regained them all, the Assemblee being either Bonapartist, either non-Bonapartist but still afraid of Charles-Philippe, either too busy defecting to the Royalists.
Napoleon Bonaparte's organizing skills proved crucial in the first two months of the Royalist War. He picked the right people for the job, leaving only the grand strategy for himself, at first anyway. Lazare Carnot organized a mobilization of the French population, Georges Couthon terrorized the conservatives into submission in the north, where he was still in position to do so, Marechals Lazar Hoche and Andre Massena marched to Rhineland and Italy respectively, whilst Admiral Georges Flandin established a blockade of Vendee and prepared the fleet for a clash with the British (those military measures were, ofcourse, undertaken to make sure that the Holy Alliance didn't intervenne). And meanwhile, Marechal Victor Moreau marched to clash with Charles X... but things went wrong there. Harrased by the Royalists who didn't want to give battle yet, Moreau advanced towards Nantes, and there he was allowed into the city, then attacked from inside and outside. The situation might have been salvaged, but Victor was hit by a stray bullet and thus a rather small part of his army managed to escape. Thankfully, his army wasn't very large when compared to the ones about to be ready, only 20,000 men, but those were good, experienced men, and even if the defeat itself was quite reversable, the psyschological effect wasn't, or at least not as easily. Rebellions spread. Napoleon Bonaparte had to take personal command.
And that he did, with results. In early 1807, or more specifically in the 27th of January, the Royalists suffered a decisive defeat at Le Mans, and Charles X's triumphant "march to Paris" was cut short. Rebellions in the south of France were cracked down upon quickly. After another defeat at Loir, the battered Royalist army disintegrated. What came afterwards was a grueling guerrila war, but the worst was over. Eventually, Charles X was caught and guillotined, and the Royalist partisans were tracked down and exterminated. Vendee was badly depopulated by the fighting, the reprisals (by both sides) and by the following "exodus" to Britain of Royalist sympathisers afraid of the victorious Republicans. The rest of France wasn't hit as badly, but things were unpleasant.
Italy and Rhineland were increasingly hard to maintain due to the growth of Italian and German nationalism respectively. The rise of Napoleon, a Corsican and thus related to Italians, to power in France has resulted in a slight improvement of this situation, but it nonetheless was a menace, especially as Austrians begun courting the more conservative and/or pragmatic of the Italian nationalists...
...and indeed, whilst Lafayette faced fairly incompetent enemies, Napoleon had to face a whole new generation of Holy Alliance leaders. In Britain, as mentioned before, George III was replaced by his son, whilst the new Prime Minister was Richard Sheridan, who was determined to avenge the defeat of the FGW no matter what, being rather embittred by the French invasion of Britain, during which he lost his son. In Prussia, Fredrich Wilhelm III (who is quite different from OTL, due to a much different Prussian history) was just as determined to right the wrongs of 1799. In Austria, Leopold III made some concessions to liberalism and parliamentarism, but kept power in his hands through capable intrigue; he also had far-reaching plans for extension of influence in Italy and the Balkans. An interesting situation developed in Russia (as far as France was concerned) - Empress Maria I (who came to power after the five month reign of Pavel I), though definitely a political genius and not too predisposed towards France, was much more interested in internal development and Asian expansion, whilst paying lip service to the anti-French cause. Or perhaps it was all a ploy?
On the French side, apart from the sister republics, there were the Scandinavian Republic and the Ottoman Empire. The former was an odd one; created in the wake of the bloodless coup that got rid of the incompliant king, it was rather resemblant of pre-Patriot Netherlands, a mercantile-aristocratic "republic", though the poor were also represented. It still was rather weak, but it has been preparing for war this time, fortifying Helsingfors and Stralsund. As for the Ottoman Empire, some progress was actually done. The Janissaries, whom Selim suspected of treachery and hated for inefficiency shown in the previous wars, were executed to a man. The feudals were cracked down upon as well. The Sublime Porte was being revived, with lots of French help. For instance, French engineers were, as of 1812, hard at work on the Suez Canal, to link French and Dutch Indian Ocean possessions with Europe and to outmaneuver the rapidly-rebuilding British fleet. In the Middle East, an Egyptian rebellion (amongst its causes was the French presence in Suez) was put down, Hejjaz was reconquered and a bitter war with the Saudis was taking place. Finally, in 1809 the Saudis, battered by previous defeats at Karbala and at Medina, suddenly came under direct Turkish attack. A large Turkish army marched into Arabia and razed ad-Dir'iyah, the Saudi capital, to the ground. The Saudi family was slaughtered nearly to a man, and any towns of importance were occupied by Turkish troops. Most Arab tribes were won over by lavish gifts and adroit diplomacy, and the Wahhabi heresy was subject to a ruthless repression, being hunted down and exterminated by the Ottomans and their allies. The Wahhabis had nowhere to flee, and most of them either died in battle, either were reduced to small, sparse bands of nomads, although many crypto-Wahhabis remained.
Elsewhere in Africa, Moroccan support for anti-French rebellions in Algeria resulted in a temporary success of said rebellion... until the French got around to putting it out and to invading Morocco. Sultan Mawlay Sulayman died in battle, and thus Morocco was occupied and annexed by France, apart from some lands around Tangier that were taken by Spain and the port of Agadir, which was occupied by the British. That was one pre-war crisis more. France also expanded in Senegambia and grew its influence in Madagascar, whilst the Dutch settlers in Cape Colony dealt a decisive defeat on the Xhosas, extending Sudafrika north to the Orange River; the crippled Xhosa were finally destroyed as a force by Dingiswaya of Mtethwa, although not before inflicting heavy casualties (one of the dead was a promising young warrior, Shaka, whose heroic sacrifice saved the Mtethwa horde in the final battle at Thaba Nchu). Dingiswaya went off to found a tribal empire in the east of southmost Africa, which collapsed after his death. Scandinavia jumped in into the colonization, mostly for the sake of the prestige involved but also to get slave trade income, which the ruling mercantilist faction really wanted, no matter what the French said about slavery; Scandinavian trade outposts were established in Gustavia (OTL Liberia).
Empress Maria's Russia was determined to extend its influence in Central Asia, where expansion was feasable and comparatively easy. The annoying Kazakh raiders of the Middle Horde were put down by a series of expeditions in 1802-1806; the unstable non-Ottoman Caucasian states, most notably in Aizerbadjan, were forced to acknowledge Russian protection, to the Ottoman outrage and dismay; war-wrecked Qajar Persia was provoked into a war by a Russian-backed Azeri rebellion (the Azeri elite decided that better Russia then Persia; taking into account the fact that Persia was increasingly anarchic, that wasn't an unreasonable choice considering that Russia was likely to come there anyway) and, with tacit British support, was reduced into a joint Anglo-Russian protectorate, also ceding Persian Aizerbadjan and the Caspian coast to Russia; and finally, Russia extended its caring protection and economic-poltiical domination to the Uzbek khanates, that were by then quite desperate due to the Turkmen raids. These conquests improved Russia's economic situation (as new markets were forcefully opened) and allowed Maria to crack down on those annoying nomad raiders and slavers.
Under Arthur Wellesley's brilliant leadership (he was appointed viceroy after his brother's death in 1809 (due to old wounds and bad health), continuing the "Wellesley Dynasty"), British power in India begun to recover in spite of the rise of the Sikhs and the Gurkhas; indeed, the latter were crushed and subjugated in 1811. Internal reforms in British Bengal and the disintegration of the Maratha Confederacy allowed the British to reclaim Central India in spite of a botched Mysorian intervention. Aside from that little accident, however, Mysore was still quite strong. A hybrid Hindu-Muslim culture (but not a Sikh one) was emerging, an alliance with Punjab was signed, and Turkish-style French-assisted reforms continued.
Indochina was in crisis, and disturbances spread, followed by reforms and (more or less) strenghthening of the three mainland states: Myanmar, Siam and Vietnam. Resources of Myanmar, under Bodawpaya, were pushed to their limits in wars with all neighbours, culminating, in 1801-1808, with a war against Britain and Siam. In spite of early successes in Assam and Arakan, in part due to French assistance, but eventually Rama I of Siam and Arthur Wellesley of British India defeated and captured him at Bassein. Arakan, Assam and Irrawaddy went to Britain, whereas Siam took over Tenasserim, Pegu, Shan, Chiengmai and Kayan - thus, Myanmar was reduced to a rump, land-locked state in the north. Back in Siam, Rama I (also known as Phraphutthayotfa Chulalok...) reformed with British help, turned the village of Bangkok into a great capital and expanded into Cambodia and Laos (disunited as it was). In Vietnam, the Tay Son rebellion, backed by the French who seeked to counter the pro-British Siam, resulted in the reunification of the country and in French-backed reforms. It also caused another event that will have repercussions later on - the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, back when the counter-revolution led by Nguyen Anh (who in OTL became Gia Long) seemed to be on the brink of success, was beaten back with French help, and the Chinese had accidentally learned of this. The war was over as soon as the invasion ended, as neither side bothered to push forward, but Franco-Chinese relations would suffer. The British, meanwhile, took note...
First serious French settlement in Australia was established in Lafayettesville (OTL Perth); colonization of Australia was generally slow, though the concentration of British loyalists in British Australia gave the British an edge.
The year of 1812 didn't see the Second Great War begin; neither with the year of 1813. But the road to war has already begun, and both sides were preparing for a showdown that will be even more global and even more bloody then the FGW...
Insane_Panda
Deity
THE FIRST CONSUL LIVES!
Someone needs to make a NES out of this right now. LIKE RIGHT NOW!
Won't be me though, I've got other plans
Someone needs to make a NES out of this right now. LIKE RIGHT NOW!
Won't be me though, I've got other plans
Insane_Panda
Deity
Such is my last name! Although, it is also the last name of many other vietnamese. I'm royal!
- Status
