jalapeno_dude
AKA Panda Judo Eel
The penguin in your avatar looks more like Eudyptula minor to me...Lord_Iggy said:Look at scientific names Reno.
The Aptenodytes Forsteri was reading it.
Alternate History Thread II...
- Thread starter Xen
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das
Regeneration In Process
At night, weird thoughts come into the mind and weird things are typed; in my case, for some reason both the weird thoughts and the weird posts are mostly linguistical. If Gelion were to appear here, he'd appreciate the fact that a little penguin is termed a "penguin chick"/"pengvinchik", the latter being the Russian term for a little penguin but for a completely different etymological reason.
Weird thoughts and weird posts indeed. To make this not so spammy - silver, I know you're online, please confirm if you still want to start the Japanese althist NES.
Weird thoughts and weird posts indeed. To make this not so spammy - silver, I know you're online, please confirm if you still want to start the Japanese althist NES.
Symphony D.
Deity
On that note, I still need to do that technological prognostication, if it's still needed (is it?) - been kinda busy, my apologies.
jalapeno_dude
AKA Panda Judo Eel
Out of curiosity, what is the completely different etymological reason, Das?
das
Regeneration In Process
-chik is a usual suffix for a dimunitive name (whether personal or that of some object or animal) in Russian. "Pengvin"=penguin, "Pengvinchik"=little penguin, or possibly penguin chick.
das
Regeneration In Process
The first decade of the 19th century was filled with great social and ideological tension and conflict; with colonial expansion and consolidation; with economical reconfiguration, as trade routes and commerce priorities changed along with the very nature of economy (in Britain and France, at least); and lastly, with a growth of international tension, as a new alliance system emerged out of the confusion of Talleyrand's Diplomatic Revolution. Though in general, this decade could be described as that of "settling down", it still was chaotic and violent, though perhaps not as much as the 1790s.
Though some rebellions and assassinations ("terror from below") of this time, especially those in Western Europe, are rather more widely-known today (in Western Europe, anyway
), they were neither as famous in their own time nor as trully significant as the two big wars of these times.
Let us go not by the chronological order, and instead go by the geographical one. Ever since the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the United States of America had complicated relations with the UK and with France, but most importantly, with Spain. Aside from possible cooperation against some Amerind tribes and pretty limited commerce, USA had no real interests in common with Spain's, if only because the latter was pretty much impotent against Britain. Problematically, Spain was an ally of France, which, in turn, was a traditional ally of USA despite the presence of some complications here as well, as the Federalists - the American ruling party since independence - moved more and more towards a pro-British foreign policy, in part due to New England, the center of Federalist power, profiting first and foremost, from the trade with Britain. Meanwhile, the USA did have lots of problems WITH Spain - the usual border disagreements, aggravated by border clashes on the southern Georgian border and by Hamilton's centralization (and, some claim, provocation) efforts, the Spanish support for Amerind tribes fighting with the American settlers in the southwest, and, ofcourse, the issue of the Mississippi River waterway, which was controlled by Spain and through which the Americans wanted navigation rights.
Admittedly, all three questions were settled by the Treaty of San Lorenzo/Pinckney's Treaty as early as in 1795 - but they were settled on paper only. Border clashes only intensified after Hamilton became president, the Spanish still secretly assisted the Amerind resistors and as for the waterway, Manuel de Godoy - the Spanish prime minister and royal favourite - was increasingly in the support of curtailing the American navigation rights, or at least extracting more money from them for it. Spain's treasury was in a terrible shape.
In 1804, Spain took several measures to greatly raise the tariffs on trade with foreign powers in its American colonies, with an exception being made for France. But the French never did conduct much trade there; first and foremost this hurt the Americans and the British, the former as a small, yet ever-growing portion of American trade was going through the Mississippi and the Spanish port of New Orleans, the latter because of their great commercial infiltration of the Spanish colonial empire, especially since 1796. The Spanish ignored the diplomatic complaints, feeling safe behind the wall of the Basel Pact. Once Hamilton was succesfully reelected, he made good on his promises to remove and punish this injustice and to favourably revise the past settlement of the various issues with Spain. Both of these promises were sufficiently vague to pacify the anti-war and anti-British members of the Senate, as well as the Spaniards themselves - and to startle them a few days later when an alliance was negotiated (and forced through the Senate with some difficulty) with Britain and an united diplomatic front was formed againts Spain. Before the Spanish could properly react to this unexpected development, the Anglo-Americans already demanded removal of pretty much all tariffs (even earlier ones) aimed against them and Hamilton also proposed to buy the eastern parts of Louisiana, including, ofcourse, the River Mississippi itself. Godoy made the mistake of bluffing and rebuffing enemy demands; this was followed by a joint declaration of war. The few American settlers in Louisiana and just near it and/or Florida rose up and begun attacking Spaniards, and the American troops soon crossed the Mississippi to secure St. Louis and New Orleans. The British invaded Cuba and Buenos Aires, and crushed the Spanish navy at Golfo de Cadiz and another, lesser fleet at Great Inagua. The Spanish-American War, or the Mississippi War, had begun.
Now, ofcourse Godoy pleaded for French and Prussian help, but the Prussians couldn't care less and the French were not ready for war, busy fighting the Haitian slaves that took to hit-and-run attacks in the countryside and, though they didn't say so, utterly unwilling to ruin their relations with USA. Talleyrand proposed intermediation, but the Anglo-Americans ignored him as they landed blow after blow on the Spanish.
In 1805, the Spaniards gained a brief respite when diseases and skillful defenses made the British retreat from Cuba, while a desperate levy of militiamen forced the British out of Buenos Aires with much loss. That latter victory inspired the popular, ambitious viceroy of New Spain, Jose de Iturrigaray, to order levies of his own to reinforce the Spanish colonial armies that now couldn't be reinforced from Europe. This hadn't much positive effect in Louisiana, where the key population centers weren't Spanish at all and were in American hands in any case; in Florida, however, the levies, in combination with some volunteer brigades hastily formed out of runaway Georgian slaves and the Spanish Seminole allies, managed to incurr a humiliating defeat on the Americans at San Augustin. This respite was brief, almost immediately after a badly-organized Spanish army was defeated at Baton Rouge, while the British raided the Mexican coast and cut Florida's communications with Mexico as well as with Spain. In 1806 the British invaded southeastern Florida, while the Americans occupied West Florida and then moved into the north, with a fairly large (by American standards) army commanded by Andrew Jackson. The Spanish and the forces they have assembled resisted valorously, but were ultimately crushed.
This, and the death of Carlos IV back in Madrid (in part due to the stress of presiding over a painfully and irreversably declining empire), was the end of it, really. Fernando VII had no intentions of fighting an unwinnable war; he also hated Godoy, and so he had him imprisoned and later executted, while Fernando's mother and Godoy's lover Queen Maria Luisa was sent into a convent. Then he pinned the blame for everything on them and signed the humiliating Treaty of the Escorial, removing most tariffs impairing foreign trade in the Spanish colonial empire, paying out reparations to the UK and the USA, recognizing the Malvinas as British and returning Minorca to Britain. As for the Americans, to them he had to cede Louisiana in its entirety, as well as Florida, though he did manage to get the Americans to renounce all claims on Tejas and other territories officially recognized as part of the Vice-Royalty of New Spain. This victory confirmed Alexander Hamilton's popualrity and reinforced his policies of centralization and nationalism, as the USA was doubled in size and tripled in pride, while the economy prospered. It also cemented the Anglo-American alliance and destroyed the Franco-American one, while making Spain grow even more dependant on the French support. Pitt the Younger's government celebrated this diplomatic victory; now the Basel Pact was countered in the Americas and the Atlantic.
The other important war was ofcourse the Russo-Turkish one, yet another in the series many, started using the distraction of the other European powers. Pavel I had not counted on the Great French War ending so quickly, but nonetheless, ofcourse, he did not disengage his troops. He was quite correct in assuming that nobody was either ready or willing to challenge his present war; the French were busy recovering and intriguing against each other, while the British and the Austrians, the other two powers, wanted Russia as an ally and accordingly kept Prussia in check; not that the Prussians felt ready to challenge the Russian Empire, back then in one of its best days. Later on, the Austrians even entered the war on the Russian side, while the British, not involving themselves in the war, secretly leaned on the Ottoman government and "persuaded" it, eventually, to sign peace.
As for the war itself, it went smoothly. Sultan Selim III's reform efforts brought little result apart from further undermining the Ottoman authority in the Balkans and demoralizing the troops. Alexandru Ypsilanti - the twice-deposed prince of Wallachia, and once so of Moldavia - managed to organize a rebellion of Greek patriots, more liberale elements of the Romanian nobility and the desperate, starving Romanian peasantry. This rebellion was promptly backed by the Russians. A large army, commanded by the disgraced, but now once more recalled great Feldmarschall Aleksandr Suvorov, crossed the Dniester and in short order routed the weak Ottoman forces at Leova and at Buzau Pass. Alexandru Ypsilanti was proclaimed the prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia, and promptly placed under the Russian military protection. Meanwhile, in the Caucasus, Kartli likewise accepted the Russian protectorate (and was annexed a year later anyway due to the death of its last king) and allowed the Russians to push the Ottomans out of most of Georgia, threatening Kars. All the Ottoman counterattack attempts failed badly, and the Ottoman fleet was shattered in the naval battle at Nos Kaliakra, north of Varna in 1800. In 1801, as Russian forces advanced into Serbia and Bulgaria, Austria joined the war effort as well; repelled from Belgrade, the Austrians nonetheless occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. Revolts flared up in Serbia, and minor ones in Greece; disappointed with the Greeks (who in turn were still disillusioned with the cynical betrayal of the "Orlov Revolt" in one of the previous Russo-Turkish wars), Pavel I and Franz II decided to accept the British-proposed peace in 1802. The Ottoman Empire was forced to cede sovereignity over the Danubean Principalities, which now became the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, over to the Russian Empire and its protectorate. It also lost Georgian, Abkhazian and Circassian lands to Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria. Serbia became an autonomous principality under Karađorđe Petrović, vaguely aligned with Austria and Russia. And, ofcourse, Russian got right of passage through the Straits. Selim III had no choice but to agree, ofcourse.
This action had pushed the Ottomans - unofficially - into the French sphere of interest and alliance, and the British were quite aware of it; but here, too, they won a great victory, for Russia was now on their side. They did however realize that they might come to regret this later - Austria, weakened by its past defeats militarilly and politically, clearly became Russia's lesser partner now; in its difficult present geopolitical situation, Austria increasingly had to subordinate its foreign policies to the ones of Russia.
Both of these wars also had numerous influences on the development of military doctrine and technology in early 19th century. For instance, aerial reconaissance and the semaphore code - both of which were already in use in France and to a lesser extent in several other countries - were now employed by all the western great powers, from USA to Russia. The death of the positionary warfare predominant since the days of Vauban was complete as well. Ordnance and transportation were improved, better rifles and cannons were created (or, rather, they were designed earlier and now tested and adapted as weapons). The Anglo-American alliance was a change in and of itself; it guaranteed British naval supremacy further, as did the victory at Golfo de Cadiz, whilst the Americans grew less concerned about naval warfare, with their naval enemy number one turned into an ally. Ironically, both the British and the Americans suffered in the technological field because of this; the British, growing arrogant due to their now-unchallangeable naval supremacy, no longer cared much for innovation in that field (discarding, amongst other things, Congreve's designs for war rockets that were seen as a waste of money). The American government also no longer seeked various ingenious ways to thwart the British naval supremacy, as it was a good thing now. The French, on the other hand, despaired, and put greater effort to the development of superior naval weapons, employing, amongst other people, Robert Fulton who was in Paris since 1797 anyway. Various new ship types were secretly developed, though neither the ironclads nor the submarines that Fulton had designed at first were very practical. But Talleyrand saw potential in this research, and besides, he reasoned, they needed to do something, and hadn't a chance to beat Britain in a conventional naval race by simply building new ships. Instead, they needed a few better ships... just in case.
---
These wars, however, were far from the only things happening in the world during that decade.
For one thing, the Age of Nationalism was beginning. At this stage, possibly due to cultural and social differences, its ideas did not catch on in neither Great Britain nor Germany; in Ireland, Spain and Italy, not to mention France where it all begun, nationalist ideas - especially in combination with neo-Jacobinism - slowly but surely gained esteem. Curiously, a form of nationalism arose in an English-speaking country as well - not in the UK, but the US. Fostered by president Alexander Hamilton and the succesful war with Spain, an united American national identity began to emerge.
That, however, was a steady long-term process. More short-term were Hamilton's various reforms. Though the Federalists had been in control since independence, Alexander Hamilton, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, was clearly the most convinced, fanatical proponent of Federalism. He seeked to reform America along the lines of said Papers; needless to say, he had only limited success, but he did manage to reinforce the presidential power and generally the power of the central government, and create a new, modern, mass Federal Army that only saw action at the very end of the Spanish-American War, but showed itself quite well. Generally, as said, his efforts towards strenghthening the government and bringing the country together were a very limited success, but a success nonetheless. Several mostly succesful wars were fought with a variety of Amerind tribes. All-in-all, USA was on the ascendant, especially New England.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it was now officially styled) underwent much social strife. The conditions of life in the navy were reformed after the mutinies, and so the fleet remained mostly loyal, but in the very early 19th century a variety of Jacobinist, Irish and Luddite rebellions, which prompted reprisals, which prompted more rebellions. Fortunately Britain didn't need to deploy too many forces abroad at the time, and had plenty enough left to subdue everyone. But this was clearly wasteful, and eventually, in 1808, over George III's protests, some minor political reforms took place, some grievances taken care of, and, most importantly, Catholic Emancipation Act went into place. Sometimes, the survival of a nation matters more than even the ramblings of a mad king, who promptly died anyway, overstressed, completely insane and possibly a bit poisoned. The Prince-Regent took power as George IV and grudgingly approved the reforms, lest Britain not survive its next clash with the French. Aside from this and the various diplomatical intrigues against the French, Britain concentrated on colonial affairs. Though temporarily thwarted in Buenos Aires, the British consolidated their hold on the Cape Colony and defeated a Boer rebellion and a Khoisan invasion. Trade ties with West African peoples were furthered. In India, the British were very active. Sir Arthur Wellesley crushed the Marathas completely in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, defeating even Jaswant Rao Holkar; Central India came under British control, and the Marathas reduced to a puppet state. The governor-general, his brother Richard Colley Wellesley, was almost recalled, but Pitt the Younger persuaded the alarmed board of directors of the East Indies Company (whose funds the Welleslies wasted on their extensive military campaigns) that it is crucial to establish total control over the Indian inland, lest the local princes side up with France in the next war. So the warmongering continued, with the Fourth Mysore War in 1807 just after the long-awaited death of Tippu Sultan (Mysore was turned into an utter British puppet state). First colony on Tasmania was established as well.
France underwent much instability, especially after Pichegru's assassination by neo-Jacobins in 1803 and the ensuing purges. Louis XVIII attempted to claim absolute power, with Cadoudal's help, but was defeated by a triumvirate Lafayette (who had been returned to France after the Treaty of Versailles), Talleyrand and Augereau, who had united, respectively, the liberal segments of the aristocracy, the liberal/moderate middle class and the military. In the "Second Revolution", Louis XVIII, Cadoudal and their retainers were forced to flee for London from where they plotted their return after losing the battle just outside of Paris, and Talleyrand promptly engineered the ascension of the Duc d'Orleans, Louis-Philippe, who agreed to conform with the liberal constitution and was, after initial confusion, recognized by the Prussians and the Spaniards. Eventually, all the European governments but the British one recognized the new, Orleanist branch of the Bourbons, and even the British de facto recognized the new government of Prime Minister Talleyrand, who still retained control over the foreign politics it must be mentioned. He had thwarted threats from the far left (Fouche's conspiracy) and the far right (the Second Vendee War), and managed to restore law and order in France pretty quickly with the help of his collaborators. Abroad, France subdued Toussaint-Louverture's slave rebellion on Haiti back in 1801, though Dessalines continued a war in the countryside until his betrayal, capture and execution six years later. Under Talleyrand in particular, France intensified its colonial programmes; as propagandized by Talleyrand since his return to France, the French turned away from the Americas and India, and concentrated on building an African empire instead. First and foremost, France ceased paying tributes to the Barbary states; when their pirates begun attacking French shipping, punitive expeditions brought Algeria and Tunisia in line, as their key coastal cities were occupied with ease. Tripolitania was also reined in, but the French didn't bother conquering it and simply bombarded the harbour and destroyed the Tripolitanian fleet. Then the French left, and by a strange coincidence precisely after that the shaken Tripolitanians were overwhelmed by the Ottomans, who now annexed this land directly, in an effort to compensate for their losses in the Balkans. As for Algeria and Tunisia, both were ultimately conquered by the French, despite the heavy resistance encountered. Likewise, the Senegal colony was improved and expanded. French influence on Madagascar was strenghthened, though the Merina king Radama I was clearly in contact with the British.
Back in Europe, after the Spanish-American War and Fernando VII's extremist reprisals, a genuine neo-Jacobin nationalist rebelllion commenced in Spain (but interestingly enough only in Spain; the dissent in the colonies was rising, but not to such an extent). Fortunately, some forces still remained loyal to Fernando, and he managed to hold out in Madrid long enough for the French forces to arrive. Despite being fairly liberal at home, in Spain the French simply defended the reactionary absolute monarchy and dispersed everyone who resisted. The resistance wasn't well-organized, and gradually it dissipated despite the British attempts to fuel it up into a full-scale rebellions, although Fernando's power still did rest mostly on the French bayonets. Spain became a French satellite, practically.
Portugal sat by quietly while all this went on and expanded its African empire.
Germany and Italy alike saw much intrigue and disagreements. In Germany, though most states remained aligned with the Basel Pact, some, such as Munster have defected to the side of Austria. In Italy, in the aftermath of some neo-Jacobin rebellions, the Austrians occupied most of the states there, apart from Sardinia-Piedmont, where the rebels were defeated by France and where the local government had no choice but to align itself with France, even though the others allied with Austria instead.
Aside from that change, neither Prussia nor Austria changed much, though the Prussians put more and more efforts towards uniting northern Germany and both sides underwent military and buercratic reshuffling and reorganization, as larger armies were raised.
Sweden and the Ottoman Empire also struggled desperately to modernize their army along the modern line, especially the latter one. Janissary rebellions in 1804 were rather hindering, as did the constant need to fight back Wahabbi raids, but generally, progress was achieved by both countries, not without the help of French advisors - unable to turn Russia into an ally, Talleyrand begun propping up its enemies. The Ottomans succesfuly put down all the rebellions against him in the end of the decade anyway, apart from the Wahabbi one.
Despite several conspiracies against Tsar Pavel I, he simply went on ruling Russia, patronizing hospitallers and freemasons, forcefully reforming the Russian aristocracy, rooting out corruption, starting ambitious and ambigous social reforms (mostly the emancipation of serfdom), dispatching explorers everywhere, sending the conspirators to the various distant Siberian mines, organizing the colonization of Alaska and nearby territories, creating a Mediterranean fleet (based on Malta - the Knights Hospitaller had good bilateral relations with the Tsar, as for the British, they were somewhat annoyed, but didn't want to risk antagonizing Russia, so they tolerated it) and, ofcourse, expanding in Caucasia and Central Asia, having subdued the Cerkassians and the Kazakhs. All this really caused a growth of social strife and badly strained the Russian economy, but at the same time brought much prestige to Pavel's court. As the conspiracies against him formed one by one, Pavel grew more and more paranoid, and granted increasing power to kanzler Aleksey Andreevich Arakcheyev, who had created what was later called one of the first modern police states and in this manner saw to it that Pavel's reforms were carried out not only on paper, while the corrupt and/or disloyal officials were increasingly often simply executed.
Yet all in all, Russia was in its prime, and it was gaining ground in Central Asia.
Qajar Persia was recovering from its past civil wars, with the help of British subsidies; in exchange for these, it officially abandoned all claims on Russian Georgia and agreed to raid the Ottomans in Iraq instead, mostly unsuccesfully.
In Qing China, the Jiaqing Emperor struggled with corruption and crushed the White Lotus rebellion. However resplendant and arrogant the Qing Chinese Empire might yet have been, its problems that will plague it for the rest of the century were already obvious - lack of support amongst the people, chronic, indestructible corruption, increasing backwardness and economical crisis (the treasury, as of 1810, was kept partially filled only by bleeding the population dry with taxes). Japan's bakuhan system was barely being reinforced as poverty and dissent grinded away at it from within, and Russian and British attempts (all unsuccesful) to open up Japan - from without. Lastly, in Indochina, Bodawpaya of Myanmar, Rama I of Siam and Gia Long of Vietnam all reformed and strenghthened their realms, especially Rama I who codified religious and secular laws alike, reformed the buerocracy, built up a mighty army, subdued discontent tribes (though that was done by everybody, ofcourse) and lavishly patronized culture. Bodawpaya created a curious Buddhist theocratic monarchy, while Gia Long crushed rebels and opened up the country, most notably to the French missionaries. To the south from there, the Dutch and the British consolidated their colonial empires, but the Indochinese were oblivious to all this, oblivious to the fact that a new wave of colonialism was beginning, spurred onwards by Talleyrand and Wellesley, and socioeconomic factors too numerous and dull to mention.
---
As all this went on, back in Europe the alliance system took on a more-or-less definite shape. Talleyrand's great diplomatic victories of 1798 were not completely reversed, but countered they were as the Austro-Russian and Anglo-American alliances grew closer together. The Americans had further ambitions towards Spain, despite all their treaties, and a large, ever more influential faction supported the complete dismantlement of the Spanish colonial empire; this was not too unpopular in Britain neither, as Britain would have automatically gained great influence over an independent Plaitne state. But the British were clearly more concerned by France, and the threat to Britain's safety that it clearly constitued especially now that it begun to stabilize after a tumultous decade. The Austrians didn't care too much about Spain, but their dreams of German hegemony were challenged by Bavaria (which now joined the Basel Pact) and Prussia, while the dream of Italian hegemony was challenged by France. Finally, Russia was rightly suspicious of French assistance to Sweden and Turkey (both of them de facto members of the Basel Pact by now as well), and strongly disliked Prussia. The two alliance systems would not clash for over a decade; but already now, the preparations for that eventual clash begun...
Though some rebellions and assassinations ("terror from below") of this time, especially those in Western Europe, are rather more widely-known today (in Western Europe, anyway
), they were neither as famous in their own time nor as trully significant as the two big wars of these times.Let us go not by the chronological order, and instead go by the geographical one. Ever since the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the United States of America had complicated relations with the UK and with France, but most importantly, with Spain. Aside from possible cooperation against some Amerind tribes and pretty limited commerce, USA had no real interests in common with Spain's, if only because the latter was pretty much impotent against Britain. Problematically, Spain was an ally of France, which, in turn, was a traditional ally of USA despite the presence of some complications here as well, as the Federalists - the American ruling party since independence - moved more and more towards a pro-British foreign policy, in part due to New England, the center of Federalist power, profiting first and foremost, from the trade with Britain. Meanwhile, the USA did have lots of problems WITH Spain - the usual border disagreements, aggravated by border clashes on the southern Georgian border and by Hamilton's centralization (and, some claim, provocation) efforts, the Spanish support for Amerind tribes fighting with the American settlers in the southwest, and, ofcourse, the issue of the Mississippi River waterway, which was controlled by Spain and through which the Americans wanted navigation rights.
Admittedly, all three questions were settled by the Treaty of San Lorenzo/Pinckney's Treaty as early as in 1795 - but they were settled on paper only. Border clashes only intensified after Hamilton became president, the Spanish still secretly assisted the Amerind resistors and as for the waterway, Manuel de Godoy - the Spanish prime minister and royal favourite - was increasingly in the support of curtailing the American navigation rights, or at least extracting more money from them for it. Spain's treasury was in a terrible shape.
In 1804, Spain took several measures to greatly raise the tariffs on trade with foreign powers in its American colonies, with an exception being made for France. But the French never did conduct much trade there; first and foremost this hurt the Americans and the British, the former as a small, yet ever-growing portion of American trade was going through the Mississippi and the Spanish port of New Orleans, the latter because of their great commercial infiltration of the Spanish colonial empire, especially since 1796. The Spanish ignored the diplomatic complaints, feeling safe behind the wall of the Basel Pact. Once Hamilton was succesfully reelected, he made good on his promises to remove and punish this injustice and to favourably revise the past settlement of the various issues with Spain. Both of these promises were sufficiently vague to pacify the anti-war and anti-British members of the Senate, as well as the Spaniards themselves - and to startle them a few days later when an alliance was negotiated (and forced through the Senate with some difficulty) with Britain and an united diplomatic front was formed againts Spain. Before the Spanish could properly react to this unexpected development, the Anglo-Americans already demanded removal of pretty much all tariffs (even earlier ones) aimed against them and Hamilton also proposed to buy the eastern parts of Louisiana, including, ofcourse, the River Mississippi itself. Godoy made the mistake of bluffing and rebuffing enemy demands; this was followed by a joint declaration of war. The few American settlers in Louisiana and just near it and/or Florida rose up and begun attacking Spaniards, and the American troops soon crossed the Mississippi to secure St. Louis and New Orleans. The British invaded Cuba and Buenos Aires, and crushed the Spanish navy at Golfo de Cadiz and another, lesser fleet at Great Inagua. The Spanish-American War, or the Mississippi War, had begun.
Now, ofcourse Godoy pleaded for French and Prussian help, but the Prussians couldn't care less and the French were not ready for war, busy fighting the Haitian slaves that took to hit-and-run attacks in the countryside and, though they didn't say so, utterly unwilling to ruin their relations with USA. Talleyrand proposed intermediation, but the Anglo-Americans ignored him as they landed blow after blow on the Spanish.
In 1805, the Spaniards gained a brief respite when diseases and skillful defenses made the British retreat from Cuba, while a desperate levy of militiamen forced the British out of Buenos Aires with much loss. That latter victory inspired the popular, ambitious viceroy of New Spain, Jose de Iturrigaray, to order levies of his own to reinforce the Spanish colonial armies that now couldn't be reinforced from Europe. This hadn't much positive effect in Louisiana, where the key population centers weren't Spanish at all and were in American hands in any case; in Florida, however, the levies, in combination with some volunteer brigades hastily formed out of runaway Georgian slaves and the Spanish Seminole allies, managed to incurr a humiliating defeat on the Americans at San Augustin. This respite was brief, almost immediately after a badly-organized Spanish army was defeated at Baton Rouge, while the British raided the Mexican coast and cut Florida's communications with Mexico as well as with Spain. In 1806 the British invaded southeastern Florida, while the Americans occupied West Florida and then moved into the north, with a fairly large (by American standards) army commanded by Andrew Jackson. The Spanish and the forces they have assembled resisted valorously, but were ultimately crushed.
This, and the death of Carlos IV back in Madrid (in part due to the stress of presiding over a painfully and irreversably declining empire), was the end of it, really. Fernando VII had no intentions of fighting an unwinnable war; he also hated Godoy, and so he had him imprisoned and later executted, while Fernando's mother and Godoy's lover Queen Maria Luisa was sent into a convent. Then he pinned the blame for everything on them and signed the humiliating Treaty of the Escorial, removing most tariffs impairing foreign trade in the Spanish colonial empire, paying out reparations to the UK and the USA, recognizing the Malvinas as British and returning Minorca to Britain. As for the Americans, to them he had to cede Louisiana in its entirety, as well as Florida, though he did manage to get the Americans to renounce all claims on Tejas and other territories officially recognized as part of the Vice-Royalty of New Spain. This victory confirmed Alexander Hamilton's popualrity and reinforced his policies of centralization and nationalism, as the USA was doubled in size and tripled in pride, while the economy prospered. It also cemented the Anglo-American alliance and destroyed the Franco-American one, while making Spain grow even more dependant on the French support. Pitt the Younger's government celebrated this diplomatic victory; now the Basel Pact was countered in the Americas and the Atlantic.
The other important war was ofcourse the Russo-Turkish one, yet another in the series many, started using the distraction of the other European powers. Pavel I had not counted on the Great French War ending so quickly, but nonetheless, ofcourse, he did not disengage his troops. He was quite correct in assuming that nobody was either ready or willing to challenge his present war; the French were busy recovering and intriguing against each other, while the British and the Austrians, the other two powers, wanted Russia as an ally and accordingly kept Prussia in check; not that the Prussians felt ready to challenge the Russian Empire, back then in one of its best days. Later on, the Austrians even entered the war on the Russian side, while the British, not involving themselves in the war, secretly leaned on the Ottoman government and "persuaded" it, eventually, to sign peace.
As for the war itself, it went smoothly. Sultan Selim III's reform efforts brought little result apart from further undermining the Ottoman authority in the Balkans and demoralizing the troops. Alexandru Ypsilanti - the twice-deposed prince of Wallachia, and once so of Moldavia - managed to organize a rebellion of Greek patriots, more liberale elements of the Romanian nobility and the desperate, starving Romanian peasantry. This rebellion was promptly backed by the Russians. A large army, commanded by the disgraced, but now once more recalled great Feldmarschall Aleksandr Suvorov, crossed the Dniester and in short order routed the weak Ottoman forces at Leova and at Buzau Pass. Alexandru Ypsilanti was proclaimed the prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia, and promptly placed under the Russian military protection. Meanwhile, in the Caucasus, Kartli likewise accepted the Russian protectorate (and was annexed a year later anyway due to the death of its last king) and allowed the Russians to push the Ottomans out of most of Georgia, threatening Kars. All the Ottoman counterattack attempts failed badly, and the Ottoman fleet was shattered in the naval battle at Nos Kaliakra, north of Varna in 1800. In 1801, as Russian forces advanced into Serbia and Bulgaria, Austria joined the war effort as well; repelled from Belgrade, the Austrians nonetheless occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. Revolts flared up in Serbia, and minor ones in Greece; disappointed with the Greeks (who in turn were still disillusioned with the cynical betrayal of the "Orlov Revolt" in one of the previous Russo-Turkish wars), Pavel I and Franz II decided to accept the British-proposed peace in 1802. The Ottoman Empire was forced to cede sovereignity over the Danubean Principalities, which now became the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, over to the Russian Empire and its protectorate. It also lost Georgian, Abkhazian and Circassian lands to Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria. Serbia became an autonomous principality under Karađorđe Petrović, vaguely aligned with Austria and Russia. And, ofcourse, Russian got right of passage through the Straits. Selim III had no choice but to agree, ofcourse.
This action had pushed the Ottomans - unofficially - into the French sphere of interest and alliance, and the British were quite aware of it; but here, too, they won a great victory, for Russia was now on their side. They did however realize that they might come to regret this later - Austria, weakened by its past defeats militarilly and politically, clearly became Russia's lesser partner now; in its difficult present geopolitical situation, Austria increasingly had to subordinate its foreign policies to the ones of Russia.
Both of these wars also had numerous influences on the development of military doctrine and technology in early 19th century. For instance, aerial reconaissance and the semaphore code - both of which were already in use in France and to a lesser extent in several other countries - were now employed by all the western great powers, from USA to Russia. The death of the positionary warfare predominant since the days of Vauban was complete as well. Ordnance and transportation were improved, better rifles and cannons were created (or, rather, they were designed earlier and now tested and adapted as weapons). The Anglo-American alliance was a change in and of itself; it guaranteed British naval supremacy further, as did the victory at Golfo de Cadiz, whilst the Americans grew less concerned about naval warfare, with their naval enemy number one turned into an ally. Ironically, both the British and the Americans suffered in the technological field because of this; the British, growing arrogant due to their now-unchallangeable naval supremacy, no longer cared much for innovation in that field (discarding, amongst other things, Congreve's designs for war rockets that were seen as a waste of money). The American government also no longer seeked various ingenious ways to thwart the British naval supremacy, as it was a good thing now. The French, on the other hand, despaired, and put greater effort to the development of superior naval weapons, employing, amongst other people, Robert Fulton who was in Paris since 1797 anyway. Various new ship types were secretly developed, though neither the ironclads nor the submarines that Fulton had designed at first were very practical. But Talleyrand saw potential in this research, and besides, he reasoned, they needed to do something, and hadn't a chance to beat Britain in a conventional naval race by simply building new ships. Instead, they needed a few better ships... just in case.
---
These wars, however, were far from the only things happening in the world during that decade.
For one thing, the Age of Nationalism was beginning. At this stage, possibly due to cultural and social differences, its ideas did not catch on in neither Great Britain nor Germany; in Ireland, Spain and Italy, not to mention France where it all begun, nationalist ideas - especially in combination with neo-Jacobinism - slowly but surely gained esteem. Curiously, a form of nationalism arose in an English-speaking country as well - not in the UK, but the US. Fostered by president Alexander Hamilton and the succesful war with Spain, an united American national identity began to emerge.
That, however, was a steady long-term process. More short-term were Hamilton's various reforms. Though the Federalists had been in control since independence, Alexander Hamilton, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, was clearly the most convinced, fanatical proponent of Federalism. He seeked to reform America along the lines of said Papers; needless to say, he had only limited success, but he did manage to reinforce the presidential power and generally the power of the central government, and create a new, modern, mass Federal Army that only saw action at the very end of the Spanish-American War, but showed itself quite well. Generally, as said, his efforts towards strenghthening the government and bringing the country together were a very limited success, but a success nonetheless. Several mostly succesful wars were fought with a variety of Amerind tribes. All-in-all, USA was on the ascendant, especially New England.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it was now officially styled) underwent much social strife. The conditions of life in the navy were reformed after the mutinies, and so the fleet remained mostly loyal, but in the very early 19th century a variety of Jacobinist, Irish and Luddite rebellions, which prompted reprisals, which prompted more rebellions. Fortunately Britain didn't need to deploy too many forces abroad at the time, and had plenty enough left to subdue everyone. But this was clearly wasteful, and eventually, in 1808, over George III's protests, some minor political reforms took place, some grievances taken care of, and, most importantly, Catholic Emancipation Act went into place. Sometimes, the survival of a nation matters more than even the ramblings of a mad king, who promptly died anyway, overstressed, completely insane and possibly a bit poisoned. The Prince-Regent took power as George IV and grudgingly approved the reforms, lest Britain not survive its next clash with the French. Aside from this and the various diplomatical intrigues against the French, Britain concentrated on colonial affairs. Though temporarily thwarted in Buenos Aires, the British consolidated their hold on the Cape Colony and defeated a Boer rebellion and a Khoisan invasion. Trade ties with West African peoples were furthered. In India, the British were very active. Sir Arthur Wellesley crushed the Marathas completely in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, defeating even Jaswant Rao Holkar; Central India came under British control, and the Marathas reduced to a puppet state. The governor-general, his brother Richard Colley Wellesley, was almost recalled, but Pitt the Younger persuaded the alarmed board of directors of the East Indies Company (whose funds the Welleslies wasted on their extensive military campaigns) that it is crucial to establish total control over the Indian inland, lest the local princes side up with France in the next war. So the warmongering continued, with the Fourth Mysore War in 1807 just after the long-awaited death of Tippu Sultan (Mysore was turned into an utter British puppet state). First colony on Tasmania was established as well.
France underwent much instability, especially after Pichegru's assassination by neo-Jacobins in 1803 and the ensuing purges. Louis XVIII attempted to claim absolute power, with Cadoudal's help, but was defeated by a triumvirate Lafayette (who had been returned to France after the Treaty of Versailles), Talleyrand and Augereau, who had united, respectively, the liberal segments of the aristocracy, the liberal/moderate middle class and the military. In the "Second Revolution", Louis XVIII, Cadoudal and their retainers were forced to flee for London from where they plotted their return after losing the battle just outside of Paris, and Talleyrand promptly engineered the ascension of the Duc d'Orleans, Louis-Philippe, who agreed to conform with the liberal constitution and was, after initial confusion, recognized by the Prussians and the Spaniards. Eventually, all the European governments but the British one recognized the new, Orleanist branch of the Bourbons, and even the British de facto recognized the new government of Prime Minister Talleyrand, who still retained control over the foreign politics it must be mentioned. He had thwarted threats from the far left (Fouche's conspiracy) and the far right (the Second Vendee War), and managed to restore law and order in France pretty quickly with the help of his collaborators. Abroad, France subdued Toussaint-Louverture's slave rebellion on Haiti back in 1801, though Dessalines continued a war in the countryside until his betrayal, capture and execution six years later. Under Talleyrand in particular, France intensified its colonial programmes; as propagandized by Talleyrand since his return to France, the French turned away from the Americas and India, and concentrated on building an African empire instead. First and foremost, France ceased paying tributes to the Barbary states; when their pirates begun attacking French shipping, punitive expeditions brought Algeria and Tunisia in line, as their key coastal cities were occupied with ease. Tripolitania was also reined in, but the French didn't bother conquering it and simply bombarded the harbour and destroyed the Tripolitanian fleet. Then the French left, and by a strange coincidence precisely after that the shaken Tripolitanians were overwhelmed by the Ottomans, who now annexed this land directly, in an effort to compensate for their losses in the Balkans. As for Algeria and Tunisia, both were ultimately conquered by the French, despite the heavy resistance encountered. Likewise, the Senegal colony was improved and expanded. French influence on Madagascar was strenghthened, though the Merina king Radama I was clearly in contact with the British.
Back in Europe, after the Spanish-American War and Fernando VII's extremist reprisals, a genuine neo-Jacobin nationalist rebelllion commenced in Spain (but interestingly enough only in Spain; the dissent in the colonies was rising, but not to such an extent). Fortunately, some forces still remained loyal to Fernando, and he managed to hold out in Madrid long enough for the French forces to arrive. Despite being fairly liberal at home, in Spain the French simply defended the reactionary absolute monarchy and dispersed everyone who resisted. The resistance wasn't well-organized, and gradually it dissipated despite the British attempts to fuel it up into a full-scale rebellions, although Fernando's power still did rest mostly on the French bayonets. Spain became a French satellite, practically.
Portugal sat by quietly while all this went on and expanded its African empire.
Germany and Italy alike saw much intrigue and disagreements. In Germany, though most states remained aligned with the Basel Pact, some, such as Munster have defected to the side of Austria. In Italy, in the aftermath of some neo-Jacobin rebellions, the Austrians occupied most of the states there, apart from Sardinia-Piedmont, where the rebels were defeated by France and where the local government had no choice but to align itself with France, even though the others allied with Austria instead.
Aside from that change, neither Prussia nor Austria changed much, though the Prussians put more and more efforts towards uniting northern Germany and both sides underwent military and buercratic reshuffling and reorganization, as larger armies were raised.
Sweden and the Ottoman Empire also struggled desperately to modernize their army along the modern line, especially the latter one. Janissary rebellions in 1804 were rather hindering, as did the constant need to fight back Wahabbi raids, but generally, progress was achieved by both countries, not without the help of French advisors - unable to turn Russia into an ally, Talleyrand begun propping up its enemies. The Ottomans succesfuly put down all the rebellions against him in the end of the decade anyway, apart from the Wahabbi one.
Despite several conspiracies against Tsar Pavel I, he simply went on ruling Russia, patronizing hospitallers and freemasons, forcefully reforming the Russian aristocracy, rooting out corruption, starting ambitious and ambigous social reforms (mostly the emancipation of serfdom), dispatching explorers everywhere, sending the conspirators to the various distant Siberian mines, organizing the colonization of Alaska and nearby territories, creating a Mediterranean fleet (based on Malta - the Knights Hospitaller had good bilateral relations with the Tsar, as for the British, they were somewhat annoyed, but didn't want to risk antagonizing Russia, so they tolerated it) and, ofcourse, expanding in Caucasia and Central Asia, having subdued the Cerkassians and the Kazakhs. All this really caused a growth of social strife and badly strained the Russian economy, but at the same time brought much prestige to Pavel's court. As the conspiracies against him formed one by one, Pavel grew more and more paranoid, and granted increasing power to kanzler Aleksey Andreevich Arakcheyev, who had created what was later called one of the first modern police states and in this manner saw to it that Pavel's reforms were carried out not only on paper, while the corrupt and/or disloyal officials were increasingly often simply executed.
Yet all in all, Russia was in its prime, and it was gaining ground in Central Asia.
Qajar Persia was recovering from its past civil wars, with the help of British subsidies; in exchange for these, it officially abandoned all claims on Russian Georgia and agreed to raid the Ottomans in Iraq instead, mostly unsuccesfully.
In Qing China, the Jiaqing Emperor struggled with corruption and crushed the White Lotus rebellion. However resplendant and arrogant the Qing Chinese Empire might yet have been, its problems that will plague it for the rest of the century were already obvious - lack of support amongst the people, chronic, indestructible corruption, increasing backwardness and economical crisis (the treasury, as of 1810, was kept partially filled only by bleeding the population dry with taxes). Japan's bakuhan system was barely being reinforced as poverty and dissent grinded away at it from within, and Russian and British attempts (all unsuccesful) to open up Japan - from without. Lastly, in Indochina, Bodawpaya of Myanmar, Rama I of Siam and Gia Long of Vietnam all reformed and strenghthened their realms, especially Rama I who codified religious and secular laws alike, reformed the buerocracy, built up a mighty army, subdued discontent tribes (though that was done by everybody, ofcourse) and lavishly patronized culture. Bodawpaya created a curious Buddhist theocratic monarchy, while Gia Long crushed rebels and opened up the country, most notably to the French missionaries. To the south from there, the Dutch and the British consolidated their colonial empires, but the Indochinese were oblivious to all this, oblivious to the fact that a new wave of colonialism was beginning, spurred onwards by Talleyrand and Wellesley, and socioeconomic factors too numerous and dull to mention.
---
As all this went on, back in Europe the alliance system took on a more-or-less definite shape. Talleyrand's great diplomatic victories of 1798 were not completely reversed, but countered they were as the Austro-Russian and Anglo-American alliances grew closer together. The Americans had further ambitions towards Spain, despite all their treaties, and a large, ever more influential faction supported the complete dismantlement of the Spanish colonial empire; this was not too unpopular in Britain neither, as Britain would have automatically gained great influence over an independent Plaitne state. But the British were clearly more concerned by France, and the threat to Britain's safety that it clearly constitued especially now that it begun to stabilize after a tumultous decade. The Austrians didn't care too much about Spain, but their dreams of German hegemony were challenged by Bavaria (which now joined the Basel Pact) and Prussia, while the dream of Italian hegemony was challenged by France. Finally, Russia was rightly suspicious of French assistance to Sweden and Turkey (both of them de facto members of the Basel Pact by now as well), and strongly disliked Prussia. The two alliance systems would not clash for over a decade; but already now, the preparations for that eventual clash begun...
das
Regeneration In Process
I won't do a new map for this part, but instead will do one for just before the next big war, or rather two - an ordinary one and an alliances one.
silver 2039
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
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Indeed I do however with the bountiful amount of NES's I'm not sure how long it will live....also I was considering starting it a bit earlier than 2040, 2013 maybe, it would be much easier in terms of technology, and much more intreasting, people will have loads of intreasting technolgies they can develope and use....
das
Regeneration In Process
2040 has a more interesting geopolitical situation, IMHO.
das
Regeneration In Process
By going into the future of an alternate timeline. Unlike some inferior species, we polar bears can do that without any silly devices, though we still use them just to show off.
Honestly, re-read the previous few pages. I found a link for a very good, detailed althist with a surviving, though weakened (and democratized) Japanese Empire and an absence of WWII. It happens to extend into the 21st century - beyond 2040, really, but for 2040 there is a summary, with flags and so forth. A paranoid, revanchist USA plots its revenge, post-Soviet Russian leaders plan reunification, Germany searches for allies, France creates a "West European Union" around itself, People's Republic of Arabia is doing whatever its doing and a Macronesian Alliance is rapidly becoming a superpower amidst rejoicing of all the ovines on this forum.
Honestly, re-read the previous few pages. I found a link for a very good, detailed althist with a surviving, though weakened (and democratized) Japanese Empire and an absence of WWII. It happens to extend into the 21st century - beyond 2040, really, but for 2040 there is a summary, with flags and so forth. A paranoid, revanchist USA plots its revenge, post-Soviet Russian leaders plan reunification, Germany searches for allies, France creates a "West European Union" around itself, People's Republic of Arabia is doing whatever its doing and a Macronesian Alliance is rapidly becoming a superpower amidst rejoicing of all the ovines on this forum.
das
Regeneration In Process
YesthereisbutIwon'ttellyouwhattheproofismuwhahahaha.
In the meantime, feel free to comment about my althist.
Incidentally, I'd really appreciate it if more people were to post their ideas here. Sure, I'll most probably attack them viciously when they do, but... really.
das
Regeneration In Process
The 1810s saw the Industrial Revolution continue, the revolutionary and nationalistic ideas slowly, but surely spread, the colonial and commercial European empires expand, the alliances configure and prepare. Tensions grew, and both sides of the upcoming conflict (from hereon, the Basel Pact (France, Prussia, Bavaria, Sardinia, Spain) and the Second Coalition (UK, USA, Russia, Austria)) built up their respective militaries and sought new allies. France, for instance, befriended Sweden and Turkey, assisting the latter in its bid for modernization and reform; Britain had woed and threatened Denmark-Norway, and renegotiated its past alliance with Portugal; Russo-British pressure and financial incentives also forced Persia over to their side. The Italian states sans Sardinia were all on the Austrian side, but the lesser German states were uncertain, and both grand alliances had found allies there. The "neighbour's neighbour" rule of European diplomacy still applied here, but to a much lesser extent due to the awfully confused situation and the fact that every principality had many neighbours. Austria had managed to rally most of the southern and northern German states around itself, but the center was, despite all the efforts and pressures of the Austro-British (or rather Hannoverian) diplomacy, firmly in the Franco-Prussian hands, with the alliances with both Hesse-Kassel and Nassau, both of which hadn't any flowery feelings towards either the French or the Prussians, but at the same time knew that the French were in position to crush them quick and easy, as opposed to the more distant Austrians.
Ofcourse, both sides did not stop there in their search for more allies. And I'm not talking about all those bungled Russo-British diplomatic missions to China and Japan, they're largely irrelevant really. I am talking about the search for clandestine allies, and not only Jacobin conspirators in France and corrupt Swiss and Dutch officials that grew very rich from all that bribe money shoveled at their persistantly-neutral countries. The French, despite the end of the Revolution, now used their liberal nationalistic ideology and simple pragmatic judgement to search for allies amongst the rebel movements in Ireland and Italy; Russia, Austria and Britain all worked to set the Ottoman Empire aflame, or at least to incite some Slavic and Greek rebellions; but most importantly and most famously, the Anglo-American agents were working to speed up the collapse of the rotten Spanish colonial empire. In the end, after an Irish conspiracy and a series of naval clashes, after court scandals and spy arrests, after several false mobilizations and threats, war started precisely due to the South American rebels - in December 1818, Francisco de Miranda, former Spanish soldier, the father of Latin American masonry (or at least its localized equivalent, the Logia Lautara, dedicated both to the usual Mason goals (that is to say, ofcourse, global domination) and to the liberation of Latin America) and long-term Anglo-American ally, organized a second rebellion in Venezuela (he had tried one before, but failed). This Mirandinista rebellion was much more succesful than the previous one; it had spread like wildfire from Mexico to Buenos Aires, with Lautarists, Amerinds, creole civilians, army deserters and foreign volunteers alike rebelling. However, the Mirandinistas were foolish to think themselves victorious; after the initial surprise effect wore out, the conservative majority defeated the badly-organized rebellions in Peru and Bolivia, while Viceroy Gabriel de Yermo repelled rebel attacks on both Ciudad Mexico and Veracruz. Ranceros in Colombia, led by Jose Tomas Boves, succesfully stopped Miranda himself at Tunja. Rebels did establish more-or-less reliable control over de la Plata, despite defeats in Paraguay and Buenos Aires.
The insurgents quickly lost much in coordination as their primary communications were cut off, but even though they failed to make much more progress, they repulsed the initial Spanish attempts to recapture what they had lost. Fernando VII had no choice but to dispatch more and more regular troops to the colonies, and request French help as well; despite Lafayette's protests, Talleyrand forced the dispatchment of an intervention force under Bernadotte. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and General Iturbide succesfully crushed the rebels in Mexico in a decisve battle at Queretaro, forcing Juan Aldama, leader of the rebels in Mexico, to retreat northwards, towards the Rio Grande. It was precisely this retreat that helped provide the ultimate casus belli. Although the Anglo-Americans have been shipping supplies and "volunteers" for some time, they got away with it for the most part because Talleyrand didn't want to start a war with them yet. But in mid-1821, Aldama's forces received a particularily large shipment of American supplies and an entire division full of "volunteers" under Samuel Houston. The Franco-Spanish force that attacked Aldama's positions three days later was completely unprepared for such an encounter, having received mostly reliable reports that the rebels were demoralized and running out of ammunition. But now they got ammunition and powerful allies, and their spirits went up; they went even further upwards after this victory at Matamoros and the start of the second march on Veracruz. This wasn't a rout for the Franco-Spanish; only a small force was defeated, and even then, not destroyed. But it still made for a jolly good scandal.
Well, somewhere the line needed to be drawn, so, a few weeks later, the aging wily French premier issued an ultimatum, demanding that the USA and Britain disengage from Mexico. That they refused to do, jubilant that Talleyrand finally bit their bait - at last, there would be war, the War of 1820, or the War of Spanish Colonies, or the Mexican War, or the Second Spanish-American War, or the War of the Second Coalition, or - as it came to be known in one country - the War of Independence. That war had many, many other names, actually. Some even called it "World War Two", taking the Seven Years War as "World War One".
But before we get to the war itself, let us review the main combatants and their war plans.
The Mirandinistas don't really need lots of explanations, I already deliberated enough about them, as for their exact plans they are quite neat and interesting, and for these reasons I will leave it at that and return to it later. In any case, for now they were beginning to recover and counterattack, and hoped to work together with the Anglo-Americans.
The United States of America were very confusing. After a brief Democratic-Republican reign under Andrew Jackson (who lost the reelection precisely because of his attempts to undo many past Federalist achievements, most notably - the alliance with Britain), the Federalists retook power under President Daniel Webster. A politician of the new generation that ascended during the days of great Hamilton and rose even higher after the shock of the brief Federalist exile to opposition, he continued all past policies of the Federalists, but brought them to a new level, in particular taking great care to strengthen the American military and generally prepare for a war with Spain, seeking to wreck the decadent colonial empire, and strenghthen both the internal ties and the ties with Britain; furthermore, Webster was influenced by the American commercial interests that suffered from the Spanish hostility and corruption and at the same time from the raging anarchy (well, from it they gained as well, but they could gain even more from a friendly, independent, stable Mexico). Problematically, despite the Federalist pragmatical and unitaristic policies, American war aims were neither fully pragmatical nor completley unified; to appease the discontent southern states, Webster had to divide his forces between the planned Mexican campaign (goals - link up with Aldama and kick the Franco-Spanish out of Mexico altogether in a classical offensive campaign backed by a popular insurgency; another flaw in American planning was excessive optimism and general overestimation of their strenght and underestimation of their enemies) and an invasion of Cuba, fortunately assisted by the British and Deep South volunteers. He had also perhaps made the mistake of choosing to intervenne so comparatively late - by now, the chances of a "popular insurgency" revived were much lesser than back in 1819. Finally, there were coordination issues with Aldama, the British and worst of all the various surviving state militias (how ever lessened in their importance).
Britain's war aims were much more clear, but also much more complex. Admittedly, with the Catholic emancipation, the (limited) social reform of the 1810s and the gradual Wellesley Brothers conquest of India, the United Kingdom was far safer, stabler and ready for war than in was back in the War of the First Coalition, but so were its enemies, negating the advantage. The British fleet was the mightiest, but the French one was beginning to catch up - which was why the primary British goal was, as usual and whether they like it or not, the defeat of the French fleet. If it is achieved, Britain would be in position to freely attain all of its other numerous goals - in this case, the destruction of the Spanish fleet, the termination of Spanish naval communication routes, the intervention in South America to secure farflung British commercial interests there (especially in Buenos Aires), the defense of Holland (if it is indeed invaded), Hannover, Portugal and Gibraltar, and, lastly, operations against French and other Spanish colonies; the British particularily had their eyes set on the Phillipines and the flourishing Senegal. But if the French do prevail... No, Prime Minister Castlereagh (the best the British could find to match Talleyrand in the grand diplomatic-geopolitical game ongoing in and out of Europe) shook his head, that could never happen because it simply couldn't happen, but if it did by some miracle then it would be a true disaster. For Britain, having by now stretched out across the globe, depended on its unchallenged naval supremacy; if it was broken or even damaged, that might as well be the end of the world.
The end of Britain was not something Talleyrand would have minded, on the other hand, but he was too much of a realist to consider that a feasible goal. Nor did he really need it all that much. What he wanted was a quick, acceptably-victorious war and a compromise peace after that to reinforce his shaky position at home (alas! Soon after the succesful and nearly complete defeat of the Legitimists, the French far left begun to look up again, as the more adverse effects of the industrialization showed themselves, with the social tensions and the dissent of the worker class. By 1820, the Orleanist regime of Talleyrand increasingly held on the very conditional support of the bourgoise and dubious support of the military, with Augereau increasingly acting like a new Pichegru despite being a mere marechal) - at least in regards to America. Like British strategy, the French one was complex, multiregional and diverse. In the Americas, Talleyrand seeked to defend, hoping to give the Americans a few bloody noses and make them shift their vector of expansion northwards. In the Atlantic Ocean, he wanted to break - or at least weaken - the British sea power, to ensure a quick peace with Britain. In Africa, it was mostly defensive. The Spanish should take care of Portugal. Most importantly, however, France was to launch two large offensives - both aimed to breaking Austrian power and persuading the lesser Austrian allies to switch sides. One invasion, in Italy, was to draw on local support and simply throw the Austrians out of Italy altogether. Another, across the Rhine, was to prevent the Austrians from securing any positions there, occupy Hannover and reinforce Prussia and Bavaria as both were likely to be fighting to save their lifes. With luck, Austrians could be pushed out of much of Germany and Italy and Vienna could come under threat; in that case, ofcourse, Austrians will have no choice but to give up, disband the Holy Roman Empire and admit the hegemony of Sardinia-Piedmont in Italy, Prussian hegemony in northern Germany and Bavarian in southern - all three states being loyal French allies. Finally, Austria itself would be redirected against Russia, forming the final component in Talleyrand's anti-Russian coalition. Sweden, Prussia, Austria and Turkey, with French help, will push the Russians out of their Romanian and Polish holdings. In this manner, Britain's key European allies would all be neutralized or forced onto the French side, and France would be safe at last.
The Spaniards hadn't any choice but to follow the French lead and plan; outside of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean (where they seeked to help out the French), they were forced to sit on the defensive and try to wait out the storm, defending until the enemies tire of attacking and agree to peace. Fernando VII also had to watch out for a revolution at home. He wasn't exactly sure that he could trust his troops, but he didn't admit that to Talleyrand.
Portugal intended to defend - with British help ofcourse - and generally assist the British in their naval campaigns. The main theatre for Portuguese operations was to be South America - and their reward, a general revision of the borders, with the possibility of gaining lands to the Parana and possibly making gians in the Amazon Basin as well.
Sweden intended to, predictably enough, try and recapture Karelia and defeat the Russians on the sea. Initially the Swedes also wanted to attack St. Petersburg, hoping to frighten the Tsar into signing peace, but the sudden Danish alliance with Great Britain forced a change of plans. In general, the Danes seeked to recapture Skane and threaten Stockholm, while the Swedes intended to capture Norway and threaten Copenhagen.
The Prussian plan was primarily a defensive one. Apart from some forces sent to secure northern Germany - perhaps including Holstein - Friedrich Wilhelm III with uncharacteristic wisdom decided that he needed to mostly defend himself from enemy onslaught. For this reason, many forts were constructed in East Prussia, Poland, Silesia and Saxony, and, no matter his usual skepticism for reform, Prussia's comparatively small population was prepared for mobilization, albeit both preparations begun a tad late, in 1819, when it became quite clear that war was just a matter of time.
Bavaria, needless to say, only seeked to defend itself as well. But it had few chances of surviving without quick French reinforcement - its population was too small to form a large army, and its territory was ensemicircled by the Austrian borders, so all too many forts would be required.
Austria intended to wage a defensive war in Italy, which was why the already-formidable fortifications inherited from past local rulers were strenghthened further ,but few other measures were taken. Bavaria was a secondary objective only. The main Austrian goal was the defeat of Prussia. Towards that end, the rather frail Austrian army was reformed, though the usual emphasis on quality rather than quantity was maintained, for better or worse. Austrian forces stood poised to plunge forward into Silesia, to block the passage into Bohemia near Reichenberg and to liberate Saxony, where the population was not exactly supportive of the Prussian conquerors. Here, as in the Balkans (where the Austrians however had few plans, apart from possibly occupying Serbia if a good opportunity appears), the Austrians needed to work with the Russians, who, fortunately, also saw it fit to concentrate on the Prussian theatre rather than the Turkish one as the Austrian generals had feared; well, technically the Russians intended to concentrate on all fronts at once... but as long as that meant enough forces for Prussia, Kaiser Karl IV (better known as the Erzherzog, of military competence and fame (OOC: he came to power in this world due to some early deaths and other butterfly effects))
The Russians, despite all efforts to the counterwise, had an ever more backwards and generally degenerated military; this in part was caused by rather unrealistic and ill-advised attempts to rebuild it on the Austrian basis; the rigorous disciplinne annoyed the soldiers, and the emphasis on parades dulled the senses of the commanders - commanders, one might add, of a new generation that was yet to sniff the proverbial, grand tactical and strategic gunpowder, quite unlike the generation of Suvorov that saw war after war, at times with some of Europe's finest soldiers. In any case, however, Pavel I ensured that his army was still capable of fighting by introducing lots of conscription as the war drew ever closer. This made one of Russia's least popular rulers even less popular than before, and damaged the agriculture - but it provided Pavel with enough forces for offensive operations in all three-four theatres. According to Pavel's grand plans, Finland was to be overran, Russian forces were to land at Stockholm, a straightforward offensive was to take Berlin once more (the first time was in the Seven Years War) with everything before it falling into Russian hands as well, and lastly - invasions of Turkish Armenia, northern Anatolia and Bulgaria, combined with a maritime operation at Constantinople, with the ultimate goal being, ofcourse, the restoration of the Byzantine Empire with Pavel in charge. Those ambitious plans were barely workable, especially due to the various logistical challenges and the Prussian fortifications, but if even a half of this worked Russia would be in position to predominate the entire eastern half of Europe. The next step was to be the defeat of France and complete European hegemony.
The Turks had no such grand plans, they just wanted to save as much as possible and also kill as many Serbs as even remotely possible. Selim III realized the gravity of the situation all too well; though his reforms did somewhat strenghthen Turkey, the best hopes of the Ottomans were merely that nobody would notice them. None apart from Pavel and the weakish Persians did, mind you...
As for the war itself, it will be in the next installment. Maps (usual and alliance) coming soon.
Ofcourse, both sides did not stop there in their search for more allies. And I'm not talking about all those bungled Russo-British diplomatic missions to China and Japan, they're largely irrelevant really. I am talking about the search for clandestine allies, and not only Jacobin conspirators in France and corrupt Swiss and Dutch officials that grew very rich from all that bribe money shoveled at their persistantly-neutral countries. The French, despite the end of the Revolution, now used their liberal nationalistic ideology and simple pragmatic judgement to search for allies amongst the rebel movements in Ireland and Italy; Russia, Austria and Britain all worked to set the Ottoman Empire aflame, or at least to incite some Slavic and Greek rebellions; but most importantly and most famously, the Anglo-American agents were working to speed up the collapse of the rotten Spanish colonial empire. In the end, after an Irish conspiracy and a series of naval clashes, after court scandals and spy arrests, after several false mobilizations and threats, war started precisely due to the South American rebels - in December 1818, Francisco de Miranda, former Spanish soldier, the father of Latin American masonry (or at least its localized equivalent, the Logia Lautara, dedicated both to the usual Mason goals (that is to say, ofcourse, global domination) and to the liberation of Latin America) and long-term Anglo-American ally, organized a second rebellion in Venezuela (he had tried one before, but failed). This Mirandinista rebellion was much more succesful than the previous one; it had spread like wildfire from Mexico to Buenos Aires, with Lautarists, Amerinds, creole civilians, army deserters and foreign volunteers alike rebelling. However, the Mirandinistas were foolish to think themselves victorious; after the initial surprise effect wore out, the conservative majority defeated the badly-organized rebellions in Peru and Bolivia, while Viceroy Gabriel de Yermo repelled rebel attacks on both Ciudad Mexico and Veracruz. Ranceros in Colombia, led by Jose Tomas Boves, succesfully stopped Miranda himself at Tunja. Rebels did establish more-or-less reliable control over de la Plata, despite defeats in Paraguay and Buenos Aires.
The insurgents quickly lost much in coordination as their primary communications were cut off, but even though they failed to make much more progress, they repulsed the initial Spanish attempts to recapture what they had lost. Fernando VII had no choice but to dispatch more and more regular troops to the colonies, and request French help as well; despite Lafayette's protests, Talleyrand forced the dispatchment of an intervention force under Bernadotte. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and General Iturbide succesfully crushed the rebels in Mexico in a decisve battle at Queretaro, forcing Juan Aldama, leader of the rebels in Mexico, to retreat northwards, towards the Rio Grande. It was precisely this retreat that helped provide the ultimate casus belli. Although the Anglo-Americans have been shipping supplies and "volunteers" for some time, they got away with it for the most part because Talleyrand didn't want to start a war with them yet. But in mid-1821, Aldama's forces received a particularily large shipment of American supplies and an entire division full of "volunteers" under Samuel Houston. The Franco-Spanish force that attacked Aldama's positions three days later was completely unprepared for such an encounter, having received mostly reliable reports that the rebels were demoralized and running out of ammunition. But now they got ammunition and powerful allies, and their spirits went up; they went even further upwards after this victory at Matamoros and the start of the second march on Veracruz. This wasn't a rout for the Franco-Spanish; only a small force was defeated, and even then, not destroyed. But it still made for a jolly good scandal.
Well, somewhere the line needed to be drawn, so, a few weeks later, the aging wily French premier issued an ultimatum, demanding that the USA and Britain disengage from Mexico. That they refused to do, jubilant that Talleyrand finally bit their bait - at last, there would be war, the War of 1820, or the War of Spanish Colonies, or the Mexican War, or the Second Spanish-American War, or the War of the Second Coalition, or - as it came to be known in one country - the War of Independence. That war had many, many other names, actually. Some even called it "World War Two", taking the Seven Years War as "World War One".
But before we get to the war itself, let us review the main combatants and their war plans.
The Mirandinistas don't really need lots of explanations, I already deliberated enough about them, as for their exact plans they are quite neat and interesting, and for these reasons I will leave it at that and return to it later. In any case, for now they were beginning to recover and counterattack, and hoped to work together with the Anglo-Americans.
The United States of America were very confusing. After a brief Democratic-Republican reign under Andrew Jackson (who lost the reelection precisely because of his attempts to undo many past Federalist achievements, most notably - the alliance with Britain), the Federalists retook power under President Daniel Webster. A politician of the new generation that ascended during the days of great Hamilton and rose even higher after the shock of the brief Federalist exile to opposition, he continued all past policies of the Federalists, but brought them to a new level, in particular taking great care to strengthen the American military and generally prepare for a war with Spain, seeking to wreck the decadent colonial empire, and strenghthen both the internal ties and the ties with Britain; furthermore, Webster was influenced by the American commercial interests that suffered from the Spanish hostility and corruption and at the same time from the raging anarchy (well, from it they gained as well, but they could gain even more from a friendly, independent, stable Mexico). Problematically, despite the Federalist pragmatical and unitaristic policies, American war aims were neither fully pragmatical nor completley unified; to appease the discontent southern states, Webster had to divide his forces between the planned Mexican campaign (goals - link up with Aldama and kick the Franco-Spanish out of Mexico altogether in a classical offensive campaign backed by a popular insurgency; another flaw in American planning was excessive optimism and general overestimation of their strenght and underestimation of their enemies) and an invasion of Cuba, fortunately assisted by the British and Deep South volunteers. He had also perhaps made the mistake of choosing to intervenne so comparatively late - by now, the chances of a "popular insurgency" revived were much lesser than back in 1819. Finally, there were coordination issues with Aldama, the British and worst of all the various surviving state militias (how ever lessened in their importance).
Britain's war aims were much more clear, but also much more complex. Admittedly, with the Catholic emancipation, the (limited) social reform of the 1810s and the gradual Wellesley Brothers conquest of India, the United Kingdom was far safer, stabler and ready for war than in was back in the War of the First Coalition, but so were its enemies, negating the advantage. The British fleet was the mightiest, but the French one was beginning to catch up - which was why the primary British goal was, as usual and whether they like it or not, the defeat of the French fleet. If it is achieved, Britain would be in position to freely attain all of its other numerous goals - in this case, the destruction of the Spanish fleet, the termination of Spanish naval communication routes, the intervention in South America to secure farflung British commercial interests there (especially in Buenos Aires), the defense of Holland (if it is indeed invaded), Hannover, Portugal and Gibraltar, and, lastly, operations against French and other Spanish colonies; the British particularily had their eyes set on the Phillipines and the flourishing Senegal. But if the French do prevail... No, Prime Minister Castlereagh (the best the British could find to match Talleyrand in the grand diplomatic-geopolitical game ongoing in and out of Europe) shook his head, that could never happen because it simply couldn't happen, but if it did by some miracle then it would be a true disaster. For Britain, having by now stretched out across the globe, depended on its unchallenged naval supremacy; if it was broken or even damaged, that might as well be the end of the world.
The end of Britain was not something Talleyrand would have minded, on the other hand, but he was too much of a realist to consider that a feasible goal. Nor did he really need it all that much. What he wanted was a quick, acceptably-victorious war and a compromise peace after that to reinforce his shaky position at home (alas! Soon after the succesful and nearly complete defeat of the Legitimists, the French far left begun to look up again, as the more adverse effects of the industrialization showed themselves, with the social tensions and the dissent of the worker class. By 1820, the Orleanist regime of Talleyrand increasingly held on the very conditional support of the bourgoise and dubious support of the military, with Augereau increasingly acting like a new Pichegru despite being a mere marechal) - at least in regards to America. Like British strategy, the French one was complex, multiregional and diverse. In the Americas, Talleyrand seeked to defend, hoping to give the Americans a few bloody noses and make them shift their vector of expansion northwards. In the Atlantic Ocean, he wanted to break - or at least weaken - the British sea power, to ensure a quick peace with Britain. In Africa, it was mostly defensive. The Spanish should take care of Portugal. Most importantly, however, France was to launch two large offensives - both aimed to breaking Austrian power and persuading the lesser Austrian allies to switch sides. One invasion, in Italy, was to draw on local support and simply throw the Austrians out of Italy altogether. Another, across the Rhine, was to prevent the Austrians from securing any positions there, occupy Hannover and reinforce Prussia and Bavaria as both were likely to be fighting to save their lifes. With luck, Austrians could be pushed out of much of Germany and Italy and Vienna could come under threat; in that case, ofcourse, Austrians will have no choice but to give up, disband the Holy Roman Empire and admit the hegemony of Sardinia-Piedmont in Italy, Prussian hegemony in northern Germany and Bavarian in southern - all three states being loyal French allies. Finally, Austria itself would be redirected against Russia, forming the final component in Talleyrand's anti-Russian coalition. Sweden, Prussia, Austria and Turkey, with French help, will push the Russians out of their Romanian and Polish holdings. In this manner, Britain's key European allies would all be neutralized or forced onto the French side, and France would be safe at last.
The Spaniards hadn't any choice but to follow the French lead and plan; outside of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean (where they seeked to help out the French), they were forced to sit on the defensive and try to wait out the storm, defending until the enemies tire of attacking and agree to peace. Fernando VII also had to watch out for a revolution at home. He wasn't exactly sure that he could trust his troops, but he didn't admit that to Talleyrand.
Portugal intended to defend - with British help ofcourse - and generally assist the British in their naval campaigns. The main theatre for Portuguese operations was to be South America - and their reward, a general revision of the borders, with the possibility of gaining lands to the Parana and possibly making gians in the Amazon Basin as well.
Sweden intended to, predictably enough, try and recapture Karelia and defeat the Russians on the sea. Initially the Swedes also wanted to attack St. Petersburg, hoping to frighten the Tsar into signing peace, but the sudden Danish alliance with Great Britain forced a change of plans. In general, the Danes seeked to recapture Skane and threaten Stockholm, while the Swedes intended to capture Norway and threaten Copenhagen.
The Prussian plan was primarily a defensive one. Apart from some forces sent to secure northern Germany - perhaps including Holstein - Friedrich Wilhelm III with uncharacteristic wisdom decided that he needed to mostly defend himself from enemy onslaught. For this reason, many forts were constructed in East Prussia, Poland, Silesia and Saxony, and, no matter his usual skepticism for reform, Prussia's comparatively small population was prepared for mobilization, albeit both preparations begun a tad late, in 1819, when it became quite clear that war was just a matter of time.
Bavaria, needless to say, only seeked to defend itself as well. But it had few chances of surviving without quick French reinforcement - its population was too small to form a large army, and its territory was ensemicircled by the Austrian borders, so all too many forts would be required.
Austria intended to wage a defensive war in Italy, which was why the already-formidable fortifications inherited from past local rulers were strenghthened further ,but few other measures were taken. Bavaria was a secondary objective only. The main Austrian goal was the defeat of Prussia. Towards that end, the rather frail Austrian army was reformed, though the usual emphasis on quality rather than quantity was maintained, for better or worse. Austrian forces stood poised to plunge forward into Silesia, to block the passage into Bohemia near Reichenberg and to liberate Saxony, where the population was not exactly supportive of the Prussian conquerors. Here, as in the Balkans (where the Austrians however had few plans, apart from possibly occupying Serbia if a good opportunity appears), the Austrians needed to work with the Russians, who, fortunately, also saw it fit to concentrate on the Prussian theatre rather than the Turkish one as the Austrian generals had feared; well, technically the Russians intended to concentrate on all fronts at once... but as long as that meant enough forces for Prussia, Kaiser Karl IV (better known as the Erzherzog, of military competence and fame (OOC: he came to power in this world due to some early deaths and other butterfly effects))
The Russians, despite all efforts to the counterwise, had an ever more backwards and generally degenerated military; this in part was caused by rather unrealistic and ill-advised attempts to rebuild it on the Austrian basis; the rigorous disciplinne annoyed the soldiers, and the emphasis on parades dulled the senses of the commanders - commanders, one might add, of a new generation that was yet to sniff the proverbial, grand tactical and strategic gunpowder, quite unlike the generation of Suvorov that saw war after war, at times with some of Europe's finest soldiers. In any case, however, Pavel I ensured that his army was still capable of fighting by introducing lots of conscription as the war drew ever closer. This made one of Russia's least popular rulers even less popular than before, and damaged the agriculture - but it provided Pavel with enough forces for offensive operations in all three-four theatres. According to Pavel's grand plans, Finland was to be overran, Russian forces were to land at Stockholm, a straightforward offensive was to take Berlin once more (the first time was in the Seven Years War) with everything before it falling into Russian hands as well, and lastly - invasions of Turkish Armenia, northern Anatolia and Bulgaria, combined with a maritime operation at Constantinople, with the ultimate goal being, ofcourse, the restoration of the Byzantine Empire with Pavel in charge. Those ambitious plans were barely workable, especially due to the various logistical challenges and the Prussian fortifications, but if even a half of this worked Russia would be in position to predominate the entire eastern half of Europe. The next step was to be the defeat of France and complete European hegemony.
The Turks had no such grand plans, they just wanted to save as much as possible and also kill as many Serbs as even remotely possible. Selim III realized the gravity of the situation all too well; though his reforms did somewhat strenghthen Turkey, the best hopes of the Ottomans were merely that nobody would notice them. None apart from Pavel and the weakish Persians did, mind you...
As for the war itself, it will be in the next installment.
Maps (usual and alliance) coming soon.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
Good, nice, yes-s-s, at what year this will land?
das
Regeneration In Process
That I am not sure about at all. Probably after the world is put on its head a few more times, though... Well, at least two more times, but I might just carry this over to the 20th century and beyond. Its rather hard to predict.
das
Regeneration In Process
das
Regeneration In Process
Same as above, but with the two alliances and their associates. Dark blue for the "Basel Pact", orange for the "Second Coalition" (both names are mere popular terms, the Basel Pact in particular not making much sense now that it was expanded; officially far from all the powers within were affiliated beyond co-belligerence and some basic treaties or, more often, a web of seemingly-separate alliances).
A bit messy, but that's late Talleyrandian geopolitics for you.
A bit messy, but that's late Talleyrandian geopolitics for you.
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