Iron and Blood 7

Anyone who thought I actually was going to have my sign-up completed Monday or Tuesday was horribly mistaken. Anyway, it's updated now.
 
So when is this starting? :)
 
Soon™

(Realistically, sometime towards the tail end of next week)

Monday will be the handing in of my last essay this year, while Thusday will be the handing in of a 500 word report and the group project presentation: I may be able to finish the British sign up fully on Thusday night or early Friday, UK time.
 
My idea for La Plata is pretty much OTL Brazil. Some popular revolt forces the King of Spain to get exiled or something and create the Principality of La Plata as their fiefdom while hoping to one day be able to regain control of Spain. Something like that. I'll try to work on a timeline with everyone's history at some point this week, maybe.
 
Am I able to post claims and join or am I a little too late?
 
Changed my mind again

Congo, will do more later.
 
The Society for the Exploration of Africa and the Congo Basin


Administrative Capital: Mechelen (Netherlands)
Colonial Capital: Port Layton (OTL Boma)
Government: Corporatocracy
Current Colonial Governor for Congo: Julien Mertens
Other Seats on the Association Board: Thomas Layton, Timmothy Hadley, Heinrich Heckendorf, Marie-Charlotte Bonaparte, Lucas Willems, Jose-Rafael Puan, Alexandre de Montmorency
Subsidiary Ventures: Atlantic Postal Service

Political Structure

The Society is an Association of Investors forming a corporation that has aims for exploration and trade in Africa. Similar to the failed EIC and VOC the Society is a Public Company controlled by shareholders that meet regularly in the Society headquarters in Mechelen in Belgium. The society appoints the Association Board and elects a Colonial Governor for Congo in order to manage the company.
In Africa itself the Company's main base is Port Layton, named after Thomas Layton whom with the help of the Hadley family founded the company. From Port Leyton the day to day administration occurs which for the most part include the continued investigation into the extraction of resources in the basin and further exploration. Trade posts up and down the river allow the flow of goods and with its strategic position on the mouth of the river all goods must flow through Port Leyton in order to reach Europe. Its main export is Ivory but also many other industries have sprung up using the wealth of organic and mineral resources in the area. The Company offers use of the land for a price to investors in order that it be best used though all investors must pay heed to the rules and regulations stipulated in the Company charter including the banning of slavery and similar practices.

History:

The Company found its origins in the dreams of two rich families from England; the Laytons and the Hadleys. These two families had worked together with the EIC before its monumental financial failures at the beginning of the century. The two families had both had large influence in the administration of Ceylon and the city they had founded there named Port Hadley. Unfortunately in 1804 due to the economic collapse a local Tamil warlord took advantage of the situation and rose up against the EIC raising the city to the ground in the process. The two families returned to Europe with wounded prides and growing dissatisfaction for the government interference that had led to the collapse of the company and raising of their city. However they did not stand defeated, they were still two of the wealthiest families in Britain and their cooperation had served them well in the past and so the began to scheme on a new project, a corporation free of government control.

At the time the Netherlands, recently unified with Belgium, had also ended up with the VOC declaring bankruptcy. So Thomas Layton thought that there may be other families that shared the same dissatisfaction as the Hadleys and Laytons so he traveled over to Amsterdam where he met Adrian Willems who had been a large stockholder in the VOC. Willems and Layton along with Timothy Hadley then decided in 1809 to form their own company which the called the East India Association however they found little support for this as many were still too wary of investing where the EIC and VOC had failed. Then they met a Belgian trader named Mertens who told them of his expeditions around Africa as a trader and explorer. Layton, always public relations specialist of the operation, saw this as an opportunity too good to be missed: though there was a bad atmosphere associated with investment in East India there was no such stigma with Africa. After proposing the idea to the others he took an expedition off to the Congo and founded Port Layton on the mouth of the Congo. In 1812 the company was reborn as The Society for the Exploration of Africa and the Congo Basin and soon attracted numerous investors.

One such was the Marquis de Montmorency - exiled from France when Napoleon came to power but who still had huge amounts of land and wealth. It was his vision that the company should set up some sort of national identity. Though initially the major families were opposed to this it soon became increasingly clear that with nations such as New South Wales there was scope for a non-colonial European nation to feasibly exist. de Montmorency soon traveled to Port Layton with the mandate of building it into a real town rather than just a small trading post and as the Hadleys had in Ceylon he put great priority on encouraging art to flourish in the Congo giving a sense of European culture free from the shackles of European Imperialism. The project was initially not as successful as the Port Hadley enterprise due to the small population and harsher environment but soon a small town began to flourish on the banks of the Congo, fueled by the river trade and finely crafted by de Montmorency's artisans. It was also de Montmorency's influence that led to the creation of the Atlantic Postal Service in 1816 - a company owned enterprise that was established to facilitate postal links to Europe and America from Africa.

In 1817 Heckendorf, a German furniture manufacturer became a shareholder in the company. his concerns were setting up his furniture industry in the town of Port Layton, being closer to the raw materials and with the transport links necessary for intercontinental orders he thought it was a marvelous opportunity to expand the scope of the venture from just material extraction to processing as well. until this time all shareholders had processed the raw goods the took in Europe often in Amsterdam, Antwerp and other cities in the Netherlands but with Heckendorf came others who began to set up shops in Port Layton as it became cheaper to send finished goods by the APS then transporting the raw materials.

Though Port Leyton and its industry remain a very small settlement the mainstay of the Society's power comes through the wealth and influence of its shareholders. As of yet the Congo venture is not especially lucrative. But the foresight of the current investors means that they are willing to invest large amounts of money effort and influence into the Society. The Society is a powerful corporation that promises great wealth to all its investors.
 
the Dutch fought various wars with the Spanish, wresting control of Belgium and Luxemburg from the oppressor.

I merely took assumption from this statement. I'm not entierly sure what you are complaining about in my post.
 
There was a thing called the United States of Belgium in the late 19th century. Can't remember details off the top of my head, but it's not much of a stretch for that piece of land to be commonly called Belgium at this time TTL. Anyway, small stuff.
 
I'm in the process of writing my history.
 
:bump:
 
Principality of La Plata


Type of government: Absolute monarchy
Seat of government: Buenos Aires
Economic policy: Protectionism
Population: Mostly Spanish colonists and their descendants. great variety of other European nationalities along the coast, especially in Buenos Aires.
Spoiler History :
History: The story of Spain in the 18th Century was far from pleasant. With Joseph Ferdinand of Baviera's sudden death at age 7 in Brussels, the ill King Charles II signed a will favouring Philip d'Anjou, which led to the War of Spanish Succession in 1700. The Grand Alliance of England, the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Austrian Empire, along with Portugal and Savoy once they defected from the French side, declared war against the Two Crowns of France and Spain in order to preserve the European balance of power. In 1704 and 1705, the Alliance managed to take Madrid, seat of the Bourbon Philip V. They were however defeated and practically expelled from the Peninsula after the Battle of Almansa in 1707, although Archduke Charles remained in Barcelona as Charles III. Fortunately for the Austrian aspirations, the French defeats at Ramillies and Oudenaarde forced Louis XIV to negotiate his surrender.

After arduous but somewhat brief negotiations, France retired from the war and recognized Charles III as King of Spain. Naples was ceded to France in return, and the Grand Alliance easily wept out the scattered and demoralized Spanish forces loyal to Philip, which had been fatally weakened by the withdrawal of all French forces. After he fled to France with the Allies in pursuit, Philip was named Prince of Naples, coming to act as Regent during the infancy of his niece Louis XV after the death of his grandfather, Louis XIV.

The new Spanish monarch arguably conducted his affairs much more diligently than the last few Hapsburgs, so notably hindered by certain biological issues. He quickly created the Viceroyalty of La Plata to govern the southern half of the immensely huge Viceroyalty of Peru. A new, faster route was designed to carry the goods produced south from Potosí, transporting them down the river to the now-fortified port of Buenos Aires. From there, they would be directly transported to Spain. This marginally faster route had the advantage of being wholly ocean-going, thus being far less exposed to pirates and buccaneers than the Caribbean route.

Back in the Peninsula, however, things weren't going as smoothly. Many noblemen were still opposed to Charles III, and when his brother died unexpectedly and Charles rushed to Vienna to be crowned Emperor, a full-scale uprising was staged. The new Emperor had on his side the fact that much of the Spanish court had been filled with Catalan, Aragonese and Valencian noblemen, who had supported him in the war in front of the Castillian side which saw him as an imposed foreigner. This shunned the most reactionary noblemen from positions of relevance, with the revolted forces being scarce and sparse when the time came.

Unfortunately for Charles III, though, both France and England now saw it fit to support the revolted lords to avoid the concentration of forces in Hapsburg hands, reigniting a conflict that had just ended. Far away from Spain and with matters spiralling out of his control, Charles III resolved to preserve what still was the largest empire in the world. Quickly mustering as many men as he could, he sent a force to reinforce his loyal troops and put down the rebels. In Navarra, however, French troops reinforced the rebels. With the situation stalled in the Peninsula, Italy and the Austrian Netherlands were quickly ran over, forcing the Emperor to the table. In the peace treaty, the Austrian Netherlands were ceded to France (which would subsequently lose them to the United Provinces later in the century), and Charles III agreed to split his German and Spanish possessions in his will. Both Hapsburg and Bourbons renounced their Spanish claims, with the house of Savoy set to inherit the throne after the death of the last Spanish Hapsburg.

Thus, Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia came to become, in 1740, Charles Emmanuel I of Spain. Soon enough, he decided to join Maria Theresa's side in the War of Austrian Succession, hoping to reclaim Naples from the Bourbons in order to establish a true Italian kingdom which would be part of a great Latin Empire. Charles Emmanuel had already lost some of his lands in Savoy when again he sided with the Hapsburg in the War of Polish Succession, but this time he was expelled from Italy altogether: The will of Charles III already left the remaining Italian possessions of Spain to the Austrian heir.

Barely a decade later, Britain declared war on Spain for its colonies, and after much worthless fighting, the Seven-Year War ended with the loss of Florida and the cession of Louisiana by the French. Things would not fare well for the House of Savoy afterwards. In 1789, merely months before France woke in the most violent revolution that would be seen, Spain itself saw its own malnourished peasantry rise in arms in some regions in protest for the rise of bread prices. This aborted revolution would be but a warning of the events that were to shock Europe in the following decades.

By then, Victor Amadeus of Spain had replaced his father, saving Spain from the total decadence that it hinted at since the last Hapsburgs. This came at a cost, however, as he saw himself forced to bow to Aragonese, Valencian and Catalan institutions, old remnants of medieval times that no ruler had yet squashed. He managed to get from them what the Count-Duke of Olivares hadn't more than a century ago: a military union of all kingdoms for the defence of the Empire, merely at the cost of commercial privileges with the colonies and marginally greater autonomy. Military efficiency, however, would prove too costly for Spain once coupled with the autonomy of lands on which the Napoleonic Wars would be fought.

When the new Republic of France grew, Spain seemed ready to strike at them, but the seemingly precarious forces of the infant state would prove a hard opponent for the apparently superior Spanish forces. A few key but costly victories of Victor Amadeus I led to a favourable settlement in which Spain would see the Roussillon returned and the King of Spain would regain the empty title of Duke of Burgundy. Satisfied with the settlement but weary of the growing Republic, the king stationed his army in Catalan lands until they were defeated by the bold Emperor and the same land was subsequently occupied by the French. This drained many resources from the land and generated bitter resentment towards the king, seeing in it a repetition of the Thirty Years War that led precisely to the loss of Roussillon to the French.

Thus, when the French crushed the Spanish army in Roussillon and Catalonia and occupied the Peninsula, the damage done to the crown was irreparable. In the upcoming years, in order to ensure the better military defence of the colonies, the Viceroyalty of La Plata had been upgraded to Principality, and Prince Charles, Duke of Burgundy was sent there. It was considered by Victor Amadeus that the management of the South American colonies would make for the best of education in governance. This measure tightened the royalist grip on the lands around the rivers, but no effects of this strengthened military and royal presence were much felt on the other side of the Andes.

Not ten years had passed that, in 1796, Prince Charles was recalled to assume the throne on the death of his father. Thus, given his lack of offspring, his brother Victor Emmanuel became Prince of La Plata. Soon thereafter, however, the brief Charles IV would be expelled from the Peninsula by the unstoppable French forces. Attempting to escape to the colonies, the unprepared Spanish Navy suffered a great defeat at the hands of the French, with the King himself being lost. Napoleon was quick to install his brother Joseph in the throne, preventing the far away Victor Emmanuel to reclaim his position.

After the first defeat of Napoleon, an attempted comeback was thwarted by the Spanish liberals, imbued with the republican spirit of France and spurred by the still outraged Catalans to not allow any kind of royal authority to regain a seat of power. In the aftermath of the wars, Spain was no more, and the Empire disintegrated. Prince Victor Emmanuel attempted all to oppose the secessions, but his lack of naval projection due to the loss of most of the navy to rebels or the French impeded him from acting beyond the Andes. His troops were held by a ragtag army at mountain ports all along the western edge of the riverlands, and even won some land. Eventually, a cease-fire was arranged.

Although no peace treaty was ever signed, most colonies became de facto independent from Buenos Aires, as efforts were led into establishing a decent naval power able to protect its trade, main source of income of the Principality. As of 1831, Prince Charles Philip rules La Plata, without relinquishing his claims on Spain or acknowledging the de iure independence of the former colonies, wrestling for control and influence over Paraguay with Brazil and his eyes set on again establishing a firm grip on Uruguay and the Pampa.
 
I also made a little something.

Ten players have submitted almost no information whatsoever on their nations, and a few more have submitted little enough information to promp me to not create their nation's pages.

Also, I did saw that we should put our althists in common as to develop a unified narrative of history that would explain everything, but since nobody listened I went ahead and wrote my detailed one.
 
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