A different 1860s

[eurofed]

Edit: I made a revised version of the TL, which incorporates a few new ideas as well as some of the points that were discussed about the previous version. It begins here.


I made this TL on cf.net. Given the imminent demise of that site, and since this is one of my most developed TLs, I was motivated to salvage it, revise it with a few tweaks to enhance its themes, and extend it by a decade. In its current form, it spans about 40 years from its multiple PoDs in the early 1860s to the eve of the Great War at the beginning of the 20th century. It creates a late 19th century that although broadly similar is significantly different in several important aspects, and lays the groundwork for a rather different 20th century. I welcome constructive comments and discussion.


A Different 1860s: Foundations of the Modern World

1861-65

Denmark’s attempt to integrate the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenburg in the Danish kingdom caused the Second Schleswig War when Austria and Prussia, on behalf of the German Confederation, declared war to Denmark for its violation of the London Protocol. Sweden intervened to support Denmark out of a sense of Nordic solidarity. Even with Swedish help, the Danish army proved to be no match for the Austro-Prussian forces, thanks to the high quality of the Prussian army after its recent reforms. The German allies crushed the Nordic defenses, overrun the Duchies, occupied all of Jutland, and threatened the Danish islands. Denmark had to beg for peace and cede Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenburg to Austria and Prussia.

The war represented a rare moment of cooperation between the rival powers of Austria and Prussia that were locked into a struggle for dominant position in Central Europe. Soon after the war, however, the tensions between the two powers heated again and grew worse because of disputes about the administration of the duchies. The root cause of the conflict was a contest between the two powers for leadership of the German people under the growing pressure of German nationalism. All attempts for compromise failed and both powers prepared for war. The Second Schleswig War was a serious setback for the Nordic states and cemented the notion in Scandinavia of the necessity of a conciliatory policy towards the rising German power on the continent. The wartime solidarity and cooperation between the Nordic states, however, gave a substantial boost to the Scandinavian national movement which grew ever more popular in the following decade.

During the peace negotiations King Christian IX went behind the back of the Danish government to contact the Prussians, offering that the whole of Denmark could join the German confederation, if Denmark could stay united with Schleswig and Holstein. This proposal was rejected by Prussian Chancellor Bismarck, who feared that the ethnic strife in Schleswig between Danes and Germans would then stay unresolved. The King’s diplomatic double-dealing got leaked to the press and the negative reaction of the Danish public, combined with the unpopularity caused by defeat, forced the King to abdicate. His son Frederick VIII took the throne.

Much like his German counterpart Bismarck, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Italy’s Prime Minister and leading statesman, continued to enjoy good health and hold office till old age. He implemented taxation schemes to foster public and private investments from northern Italian, British, and Prussian sources into Southern infrastructures, irrigation, industries, and tourism. The Italian army was reformed on the Prussian model. Faced with the necessity to fight Austria again to liberate Venetia, and growing estrangement from France owing to Napoleon III’s support for the Pope, Italy formed an alliance with Prussia.

In the USA, the election of Abraham Lincoln caused the American Civil War as eleven Southern states seceded from the Union to create a new Confederation dedicated to the preservation of slavery. The three-year conflict initially got locked into an apparent strategic stalemate; over time, however, the dead wood in the Northern officer corps got purged and a more talented crop of commanders emerged. This allowed the much superior demographic, economic, and technological potential of the North to display its full effects; the resulting pressure proved irresistible for the Confederacy.

The conflict came to an end in early 1864 with victory of the Union, military occupation of the defeated rebel states, and abolition of slavery. The end of the war in 1864 allowed the Union to spare a substantial amount of morale, energy, and resources that would have been spent with a longer conflict. It also allowed President Lincoln to win a second term effortlessly with a landslide victory, and the Republican Party to get a large majority in the Congress. Under Lincoln’s leadership, the Union focused its reconstruction efforts on rehabilitation and reintegration of the defeated rebel states, emancipation and relief of the freedmen, and reconciliation between the Northern and Southern sections.

While it lasted, however, the ACW provided a good opportunity for the imperialist ambitions of Napoleon III in Mexico. The French Emperor was ever eager to pursue ambitious schemes to expand the power of France and his own personal prestige. He exploited Mexico’s default on its debts with the European powers to invade the country. The French effectively turned Mexico into a client state and imposed a monarchical regime change. Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg took the throne of the Empire of Mexico with the support of France, the Catholic clergy, and Mexican conservatives. The invasion however caused a massive nationalist backlash in the Mexican people that greatly swelled the ranks of the Mexican republicans and liberals. Opposition took the form of a widespread uprising.

The resulting guerrilla war turned the French intervention into a quagmire that sucked in a sizable portion of the French army. The Union got strongly hostile towards this blatant violation of the Monroe Doctrine and provided what help it could to the Mexican republicans. However the necessities of the ACW limited this enough to keep the conflict a costly stalemate. The end of the ACW in 1864 allowed the Americans to turn their support to Mexican republicans into a flood of weapons, money, and volunteers that made the military situation ever more difficult for the French. The USA ultimately threatened an intervention, putting the French to a difficult choice between a humiliating withdrawal and a war with the North American republic.

The conferences to discuss a confederation of the British North American colonies bogged down in contrasts between the Maritime colonies and the two portions of the united Province of Canada. The stalemate prevented any real progress towards the establishment of a Canadian Confederation and fostered a general atmosphere of frustration and discontent in the BNA colonies. This drove a section of the settler population to develop pro-US sympathies, especially after the conclusion of the ACW and in the under-populated territories of Rupert’s Land and British Columbia.

The ambition of Paraguay’s dictator Francisco Lopez to gain control in the Platine Basin and his attempt to aid allies in Uruguay (previously defeated by Brazilians) triggered the Paraguayan War, the first phase of the Plate River Wars. The war involved Paraguay against an alliance of convenience between Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay and was the physical expression of struggle for power among neighboring nations over the strategic Río de la Plata region.
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[eurofed]

1866-67

Prussia and Italy declared war to Austria and its allies among the other German states. Both allies won decisive victories on land in the battles of Sadowa and Custoza respectively, effectively destroying the Austrian army. The Italian fleet decimated the Austrian one in the battle of Lissa. The magnitude of the success drove the Italian government and the Prussian King and generals to demand total victory and harsh peace terms. Bismarck’s wish for a lenient peace was overruled and he had to adjust his strategy accordingly. The Prussian forces occupied Bohemia-Moravia and German Austria while the Italian army and Garibaldi’s volunteers overrun Venetia, the Trent province, the Kustenland, and Carniola. The German states that had sided with Austria were crushed on the battlefield; Hanover and Saxony were occupied by the Prussians, and the South German states had to surrender. The Italian navy made landings in Istria and Dalmatia.

Austria was forced to beg for peace. The military catastrophe drove the Hungarians to renew their aspirations for independence and rise up in rebellion. Even the irregular and hastily-assembled Magyar militias proved impossible to defeat for the demoralized and disorganized remnants of the Austrian army. The other nationalities of the Austrian Empire tried to follow their example with varying results. In the areas conquered by the Prussians and Italians, the occupation forces easily suppressed the agitation of the nationalities whose aspirations they perceived as contrary to their own interests, such as the Czechs, Slovenes, and Dalmatian Croats. The Magyars’ unity of purpose for the objective of independence and territorial integrity of their kingdom allowed them to contain the unrest of most other nationalities in their lands. However the Croats were able to get the upper hand in Croatia-Slavonia.

Sensing the imminent collapse of the Austrian Empire and fearing the formation of an independent Galicia that would act as a haven for Polish nationalism, Russia sent its troops to occupy Galicia and Bukovina. After Austria had showed its ingratitude for Russian help in 1848-49 by being a hostile neutral in the Crimean War, the Tsar and his ministers had no wish to save the Habsburg again. They had developed a good relationship with Prussia out of past cooperation to contain Polish nationalism and their main interest in the crisis was to remove Austria as a troublesome obstacle for Russian expansion in the Balkans.

The Prussian and Italian decisive success surprised the world, even if the subsequent collapse of the Austrian Empire made most neutral observers prone to justify it as an effect of Austria’s terminal decline. It worried and disturbed France since the increase of Prussia’s strength and the potential formation of a united Germany threatened French aspirations to be the dominant European power. Napoleon III had supported Sardinia-Piedmont against Austria in 1859-60 as a way to weaken Austrian hegemony in Italy and replace it with France’s influence. However the success of the Italian unification movement had gone beyond his intentions and frustrated his plans. He had been forced to antagonize the Italians by backing Papal rule in Latium to keep the support of the French Catholics. France made pressure on Prussia and Italy to reduce their claims at the peace table, but this diplomatic action failed to sway them since it lacked military teeth. A sizable portion of the French army was still tied down in Mexico and this made an intervention against the Prussian-Italian alliance very difficult for France.

The French attempt to ‘steal’ the fruits of their victory however was noticed in Prussia and Italy, and heightened the tensions between these powers and France. The crisis in Central Europe and growing US hostility to the French intervention in Mexico drove Paris to withdraw its forces from Mexico. The French withdrawal and the trouble in Austria persuaded a reluctant Maximilian to abdicate the throne of Mexico and return to Europe, leading to a quick collapse of the Imperial forces in Mexico and the total victory of the Republicans.

Groups of irredentist Irish expatriates (the Fenians) launched raids into Canada, with the intent to conquer it and use it as a bargaining chip to force Britain to give Ireland independence. The Fenians had got a significant amount of covert training and support from US private groups and sectors of the American military that aimed to annex Canada. However they were not supported by the US government or the public at large that remained largely oblivious to their activities. They scored a substantial amount of success, throwing the Canadian militias into disarray and overrunning large areas of Canada along the US-Canadian border. They also got significant support from the Canadian settlers that were discontented with British colonial rule and had developed pro-US sympathies, especially in Western Canada.

The angered British government started deploying troops in Canada, allowing the British to recover many of the lost areas, although Fenian and rebel raids continued to harass them. Britain blamed the USA for the raids and general unrest in Canada and threatened war. London demanded Washington to suppress any support in the USA for the Fenians and Canadian rebels, to pay reparations, and to limit US military presence on the Canadian border. The USA was still resentful for the support the UK gave to Confederate raids on Union shipping during the ACW and suspicious of European powers’ encroachment in the Western Hemisphere due to the French intervention in Mexico. So it disallowed any support for the Fenians and Canadian rebels, but remained defiant on the other British requests. The Americans declared that the British only had to blame themselves and their colonialist practices if they faced unrest in Canada. Tensions escalated and Britain declared war to the USA.

The British declaration of war angered the US public into defiance and patriotic mobilization. They saw it as an unjustified act of aggression, overreaction, and Britain venting out its own well-deserved trouble on the USA. Despite lingering exhaustion from the civil war, the USA was moved into a last big effort to defeat the overbearing British Empire. The Americans quickly re-mobilized the vast army they had built to fight the civil war and staged an all-out pre-emptive invasion of Canada before Britain could deploy the main part of its own military power in North America. The British expected a quick and easy victory against the ‘colonials’ since they underestimated US power and neglected the military value of ACW experience. It was a very nasty surprise when the well-experienced and well-equipped US army overwhelmed the British troops already stationed in Canada and poor-quality Canadian militias with the help of Fenian irregulars and Canadian rebels. The US forces conquered Western Canada, Southern Ontario, New Brunswick, and the southern bank of the St. Lawrence River valley.

The Royal Navy enacted a blockade on the high seas and swept away American merchant shipping, causing significant economic damage to the USA. However the US Navy won enough engagements in its home waters to prevent a British blockade of coastal shipping. It avoided large-scale battles with the RN but geared up for defense of US coasts and raiding on British merchant shipping. The USA felt the economic punch from the overseas blockade; however it was not that traumatic a loss since US overseas trade had already been diminished substantially by Confederate raiding during the ACW. Land victories and survival of American coastal trade kept US morale up. The war in North America made Britain largely oblivious to the crisis in Central Europe. The British were largely disinterested about the contest for dominance in Germany between Austria and Prussia and neutral or sympathetic to the German and Italian unification movements. Their only serious concern about the crisis in Central Europe was the collapse of Austria might pave the way to runaway Russian expansionism in the Balkans.

The peace treaty allowed Italy to acquire Venetia, the Trent province, the Austrian Littoral, coastal Dalmatia, and many Adriatic islands. Prussia annexed Schleswig, Holstein, Saxe-Lauenburg, Hanover, Saxony, Nassau, Hesse-Kassel, and the northern portion of Hesse-Nassau. Bohemia-Moravia, Palatinate as the union of Bavarian Palatinate and the southern portion of Hesse-Nassau, and Franconia were set up as German states ruled by the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen or other German royal houses that had sided with Prussia in the conflict. The old German Confederation that had failed to achieve political unity for the German nation was dissolved. Prussia’s hegemony across Northern and Central Germany and Bohemia-Moravia was consolidated with the formation of the North German Confederation. It was a federal union (despite its name) that included all the German states except Austria, Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemberg, Luxemburg, Limburg, and Lichtenstein.

Austria had to recognize the independence of Hungary and Croatia and became a Kingdom. Russia annexed Galicia and Bukovina. Hungary kept most of its traditional territories except Croatia-Slavonia, which became independent with interior Dalmatia, and German-speaking Burgenland and Bratislava, which Austria retained. The common objective of independence had driven the ruling elites of Hungary and Croatia to coalesce in a temporary union of purpose. Once it was achieved, political instability manifested in both states due to power struggles between rival factions of their ruling elites. The Hungarians and the Croats picked members of their own nobility as Kings. They were compromise solutions that the victor powers supported but failed to quell their countries’ instability. Such infighting allowed the ethnic minorities of Hungary and Croatia to become restive again adding to the general levels of creeping disorder.

Prussia’s success made it the champion of national unification in the eyes of German nationalists and moderate liberals. This political shift allowed the pre-war power struggle within Prussia between liberals and conservatives to end in a compromise that backed the constitutional status quo. It also ensured the new territorial settlement of Germany was established with scarce opposition apart from a loyalist fringe that clung to the deposed dynasties. The Prussian ruling elites themselves got split between the ones that deemed the NGC solution optimal for Prussia’s interests and the ones that supported complete unification of Germany under Prussian leadership.

Emperor Franz Joseph abdicated and left the throne of Austria to his son Rudolph under the regency of his brother Maximilian. King Ludwig II of Bavaria, whose latent mental instability had been heightened by the defeat, also had to abdicate and was succeeded by his uncle Leopold, since his brother Otto was deemed unfit to reign for similar reasons. The war left Austria, Bavaria, and to a lesser degree the other South German states humiliated, economically weakened, and politically divided. The prestige of the Habsburg was shattered and the Wittelsbach were seriously humbled. German nationalists and liberals across the region largely switched to support complete national unification under Prussian leadership. The dynastic loyalists, anti-Prussian regionalists, and conservative Catholics opposed it and backed the establishment of a separate South German union as the opposite of the NGC. This division was present across southern Germany but as a rule pro-Prussian German nationalism was strongest in Baden and Wurttemberg while South German regionalism got more supporters in Austria and Bavaria.

Prussia kept an ambiguous stance on the issue of full unification. It neither overtly opposed nor gave public support to plans for complete national unification, both to placate France and because its own leaders were not of one mind on the issue. However it also quietly worked to cultivate its economic, political, and military ties with the South German states. In this it was fairly successful with Baden and Wurttemberg, a bit less so with Austria and Bavaria. Nonetheless, the South German union was established as a compromise solution in the form of a loose Confederation. It was a system far from being as stable and cohesive as the NGC; much of the reason for its creation was the French strongly pushed for it and Prussia preferred not to challenge them yet.

[eurofed]

1868-69 (part I)

The 1866 war left France in a bitter and tense mood. The French perceived Prussia’s and Italy’s growth of power and stature, the collapse of Austria as a great power, and the marginal role of Paris during the crisis as a threat to France’s position in Europe and a loss of prestige for Napoleon III. The failure of the intervention in Mexico only heightened this mood. The French government adopted a stance of intransigence about the Roman Question and German unification. It started searching a way to compensate for the increased power of its neighbors or better to take them down a notch.

The Prussian leaders were pleased with Italian performance and appalled by Austrian incompetence and instability. They came to see Italy as a valuable ally and Austria as a second Bavaria, another lesser German state to dominate. Victory greatly boosted morale in Italy and emboldened its government to pursue complete national unification. Domestic political constraints made more stringent by declining prestige bound Napoleon III to protect the Pope no matter what, so reconciliation between Italy and France proved impossible. Resentment in Italy for France’s hostile attitude about the Roman Question replaced friendly feelings for its help against Austria in 1859.

Prussia and Italy confirmed their alliance by mutual interest. The Italian government started to provide covert support to the expedition Garibaldi was preparing to liberate Rome from the Pope. Russia kept a friendly stance towards Prussia and Italy thanks to the secret pact the three powers had made during the partition of the Austrian Empire. It included an agreement to keep Hungary and Croatia neutral buffer states and support from Prussia and Italy for the removal of the military limitations Russia had suffered as a result of the Crimean War and its expansionist plans against the Ottoman Empire.

Dissolution of the German Confederation had left Luxemburg and Limburg in a geopolitical limbo. Hoping to recoup some prestige and fulfill an old expansionistic goal of France, Napoleon III made an offer to purchase Luxemburg from the debt-ridden King of Netherlands who ruled it as Grand-Duke in personal union. The move roused widespread nationalist hostility in German public opinion. Before the 1866 war, Bismarck had shown some ambiguous open-mindedness in secret talks with Napoleon III about French expansion in Belgium or Luxemburg. However, under the spur of nationalist outrage in German public opinion, the Iron Chancellor shifted to a harsher stance. Prussia, which had kept a garrison in Luxemburg since 1815, vetoed the deal and made a counteroffer to the Dutch King for the purchase of Luxemburg.

Austria proposed to make Luxemburg a neutral state, but due to its radical loss of status after the 1866 disaster the proposal was ignored. The French pressured for withdrawal of the Prussian garrison. The Prussian government ignored them and leaked news of French expansionistic plans about Belgium to the British press. This caused the UK to take a suspicious stance towards France. A diplomatic stalemate was reached, and the Luxemburg question festered.

Garibaldi, at the head of a well-armed volunteer corps covertly supplied by the Italian government, invaded Latium, easily crushed the Papal army, defeated the French garrison with some more effort, and conquered Rome. Garibaldi declared the annexation of Rome to Italy and the Italian government accepted it. The Pope fled to France where he took residence in Avignon as a pampered host of Napoleon III. He started to issue scathing condemnations of the Italian ‘usurpers’ and their supporters and to call for an intervention of the Catholic powers to crush them. He also hastened to fulfill his plans to summon an ecumenical council and affirm the contentious doctrine of papal infallibility.

Humiliated by the stalemate in the Luxemburg crisis and the Italian seizure of Rome, Napoleon III felt he could not afford to compromise. The Emperor and his ministers were confident the French army could deal a severe lesson to the Prussian and Italian upstarts. They expected a remake of the easy victories the French armies had reaped across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. So the French took an increasingly confrontational stance in both crises. Tensions rose till France declared war to Italy and Prussia. The other European powers remained neutral since they lacked interest in the conflict and largely regarded France as the aggressive troublemaker. Russia was sympathetic to Prussia and Italy; Britain was distracted by the war in North America and suspicious of Napoleon’s expansionist ambitions. In Spain, a coalition of liberals, republicans, and moderate conservatives disgusted by the misrule of Isabella II staged a coup and overthrew the Queen. The revolutionary instability that preceded and followed the regime change left Spain unable to intervene in the European crisis.

The militant attitude of the Pope polarized political climate in Europe. He showered condemnations and excommunications on the governments of Italy and Prussia, called on a crusade to unseat ‘ungodly’ rulers, and blessed the armies of France. Papal appeals spurred some serious sympathy for France’s cause in the conservative Catholic segment of European public opinion. They also helped stir up unrest in the Catholic nations that had religious and nationalist reasons to resent their rulers, such as Ireland and Poland. This resulted in uprisings in Ireland and Galicia. To a degree, unrest spread across the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However the Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians were still too exhausted by the recent failure of the January Uprising to stage another rebellion of the same scope. This allowed Russia to crush the Galician uprising without excessive difficulty. The Papal appeals also found a receptive audience among Iberian conservatives, but the state of revolutionary chaos in Spain limited their contribution to the crisis to a sizable amount of volunteers for France and an intensification of political polarization in Spain.

The ecumenical council soon split about the declaration of papal infallibility. The Pope forced it through despite the vehement opposition of the liberal bishops who condemned it as a tyrannical and heretical innovation to the traditional doctrine of the Church. These bishops set up a schismatic ‘Old Catholic’ church. The governments of the NGC and Italy reacted to hostility of Catholic clergy with a series of harsh measures, such as seizure of Church properties, limitations to use of the pulpit for political propaganda, state control of clergy education, and restriction to Catholic schools. The Old Catholic clergy was entirely exempt from these punitive measures and got state support, as well as the favor of liberal-nationalist public opinion.

The French declaration of war caused a surge of patriotic mobilization in German and Italian public opinion against domestic and foreign enemies. The conservative Catholics stood hostile but as a rule the nationalists and liberals were able to paint them as traitors and fifth-columnists with ease in the court of public opinion. Papal support for foreign enemies unleashed a wave of patriotic indignation in German and Italian public opinion that essentially nullified the Church’s influence on the Catholic masses. There was some Catholic agitation in Germany and Italy to support the Papal cause but the Prussian and Italian governments were able to suppress it without difficulty, thanks to the atmosphere of nationalist mobilization. A few diehard Catholics went to fight in the French armies as volunteers.

The war was a reason for the SGC to split when it failed to take a united stance on the conflict. The governments of Baden and Wurttemberg aligned with the pro-German stance of their public opinion and joined the NGC and Italy in the war. Certain elements in the Habsburg and Wittelsbach ruling elites showed sympathy for France out of their resentment against Prussia and Italy and their conservative Catholic feelings but Maximilian and Leopold favored caution. As a result Austria and Bavaria remained contentiously neutral. However their public opinion got involved in the atmosphere of patriotic mobilization and there was a sizable amount of Austrian and Bavarian volunteers who fought for the German cause.

The Pope’s militant activism and news of Fenian and US successes in Canada triggered a vast insurrection in Ireland, organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Well-armed and organized with the assistance of US agents and weapon-smugglers, IRB insurgents began to attack British government property, carry out raids for arms and funds, and target and kill prominent members of the British administration. Support by Catholic clergy and organizations made the rebellion popular with the Irish people and granted it a large amount of adherents and support. The IRB's main target in the first part of the conflict was the mainly Catholic Irish police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), which were the British government's eyes and ears in Ireland. Its members and barracks - especially the more isolated ones - were vulnerable, and they were a source of much-needed arms. IRB attacks and more so popular ostracism demoralized the force as the rebellion went on, as people turned their faces from a force increasingly compromised by association with British government repression. The rate of resignation went up, and recruitment in Ireland dropped off dramatically.

Attacks on isolated RIC stations in rural areas increased, causing them to be abandoned as the police retreated from the countryside to the larger towns, leaving it in the hands of the IRB. British administration collapsed across southern and western Ireland, assizes failed, and tax collection by British authorities stopped. The British government was forced to declare martial law and deploy the regular British Army in the country in large numbers. The British Parliament passed an act to extend the powers of military martial courts to cover the whole population of Ireland and to allow extensive use of internment without trial and the death penalty. Coroners' courts and local governments were suspended, and Ireland was to be ruled as a crown colony. The British forces, in trying to re-assert their control over the country, resorted to arbitrary reprisals against republican activists and the civilian population. An escalation between IRB guerrilla attacks and reprisals by British troops soon ensued, with a spiraling of the death toll in the conflict.

[eurofed]

1868-69 (part II)

Most neutral observers expected a French victory at the beginning of the Franco-German-Italian war due to France’s widespread reputation as Europe’s strongest military power. The victory of Prussia and Italy against Austria was acknowledged as an impressive feat but often justified as an effect of Austria’s decline and impending collapse. However the Prussian army again astonished the world with an impressive sequence of victories that allowed the Prussians to crush the French armies, overrun northern and eastern France, and besiege Paris. Despite the difficult terrain of the Alps front, the Italians exploited the growing disorganization of the French army after the Prussian successes to achieve a strategic breakthrough of their own. They broke out through the Alps, overrun southeastern France, and besieged Lyon and Marseilles.

The French military catastrophe triggered a revolution that overthrew the Second French Empire. A coalition of moderate and radical republicans emerged as the dominant faction and formed a provisional government. Other important factions included the radical left and the monarchist conservatives. The common imperative to fight the foreign invaders prevented too much infighting between these groups despite their fierce rivalry. The French showed some willingness in tentative peace feelings to accept a moderate amount of reparations and the cession of a few colonies. The attempt quickly collapsed when the French were asked for important territorial and economic concessions. The provisional government resolved for an all-out attempt to turn back the tide of defeat with mass mobilization and patriotic ‘élan’. They hoped to replicate the military ‘miracle’ of the French Revolutionary Wars.

But the world had changed since the French Revolution and the wars of the Industrial Age were a wholly new game. The newly assembled French armies were burdened by low morale, severe supply problems, and low troop quality; they were a very poor match for the well-trained and well–equipped Prussian and Italian forces. One by one, the new French armies were overwhelmed and crushed. The parallel French attempt to fight the invaders with ‘frenc-tireurs’ proved to be little more than a significant nuisance for the occupation forces. The Prussians and Italians executed captured guerrillas and suppressed their activities with harsh reprisals. After the declaration of war, Garibaldi organized and led a volunteer corps to fight for the Italian cause that distinguished itself in the conquest of Grenoble. Despite his republican sentiments, he continued to fight even after the fall of Napoleon III out of his wish to see Nice, his birth city, and Corsica united to Italy.

One French army caused an expansion of the war when it entered Switzerland in the attempt to avoid encirclement and destruction by a German-Italian pincer. The Swiss authorities proved unable to enforce the proper procedure of disarmament and internment for these troops, so the French army was left free to rearm, reorganize, and expand its ranks with new recruits and weapons slipping through the border. This violation of Swiss neutrality motivated Austria and Bavaria to intervene in the war on Prussia’s side, uniting the German states in a common struggle. It also gave the Germans and Italians a justification to send their troops into Switzerland to trap and destroy the French army. German-Italian bombardment combined with creeping exhaustion, starvation, and disorganization eventually forced Paris, Lyon, and Marseilles to surrender. The French provisional government had to acknowledge its hopeless military situation and beg for peace after a futile attempt to get help from Britain or Russia.

Surrender dissolved the fragile truce between the French factions and turned the final phase of the conflict into a French civil war. Radical left-wing insurrections seized Paris, Lyon, and Marseilles while the Legitimists attempted a remake of the War in the Vendee. The civil war was put to an end when the moderate republicans and the Orleanists formed an alliance of convenience to support a new provisional government. The Germans and Italians helped the French government crush the insurgents by releasing the prisoners of war. After a few clashes the Legitimists reluctantly accepted to lay down their weapons while the far-left revolutionaries fought to the bitter end. Order was painfully restored with bloody repression. The French elected a national assembly dominated by the monarchists who were seen as the best chance for peace and order and not tainted with defeat. The republican-monarchist division and the bitter legacy of the war were the heralds of serious trouble in the future. However the provisional government got sufficient authority to sign a peace treaty and start picking the pieces of war-torn France.

In North America, the USA remained victorious on land, and its troops seized control of northern Ontario and Quebec. The British forces got holed up in Nova Scotia and their attempt to achieve a breakout was a bloody failure. US attempts to invade Nova Scotia equally failed and a strategic stalemate developed in the isthmus. The British landings in North Carolina and Alabama turned into more costly failures. The effects of British high-seas blockade on US economy got worse, but the efforts of the USN contained its overall impact. At a heavy price, it repelled most UK raids in American waters and kept a good amount of US coastal shipping into existence. American raiders proved rather effective against British overseas shipping, causing a substantial amount of damage to UK trade.

Being faced with an unexpectedly good US military performance, the UK sought to lure Mexico in the conflict. The British hoped to exhaust the Americans with a two-front war and stir up the Southern states into renewed rebellion with an invasion from Mexico. Mexican President Benito Juarez kept a pro-US stance and turned down British feelers, so British agents and bribes organized a pro-UK coup that deposed and assassinated him. The new Mexican government signed an alliance with Britain with a promise of British loans and support to regain the territories it had lost after the Mexican-American War. The Mexican army, supported by a British expeditionary corps, invaded California and Texas, overrunning the southern portions of both states. However the Americans again reacted quicker and more effectively to the new threat than their enemies expected; they organized and deployed new armies in the West Coast and the Trans-Mississippi that ensured a successful defense of northern California, Oregon, and Arkansas-Louisiana. Timely completion of the first transcontinental railroad greatly helped successful US defense of the West Coast. Subsequently, US counteroffensives regained control of southern California and southern Texas and drove into northern Mexico.

Against UK expectations and attempts to stir up trouble, the defeated Southern states remained mostly quiet. The Union was able to keep control of the region with a fraction of its military power. Most Southerners were simply too demoralized by defeat to rise up again or too compelled by their American identity to side with foreign enemies. As a matter of fact, a sizable number of Southerners, whites and freedmen alike, fought for the Union against the British and Mexican invaders. Both sides were feeling substantial hardship from the Anglo-American war. The Americans felt the painful economic effects of UK naval superiority; the British faced their costly inability to overcome US land power in the North American continent. The ongoing guerrilla war in Ireland created a serious distraction for the British and intensified the demoralizing effects of the stalemate. There also was a serious concern in Britain that the overall situation would leave Russia free to rampage in the Balkans and the Near-East and threaten India. Both governments sought a way out from the impasse and tentative peace feelers were exchanged.

After a fair amount of diplomatic struggling, the Treaty of Stockholm was signed. The basic principle of the compromise peace was Britain kept the British North American territories with a substantial (and presumed to be Loyalist) colonist population and the USA acquired the rest of BNA for its settlers. The USA annexed Northern Ontario, Rupert’s Land with the District of Ungava, British Columbia, the North-Western Territory, the British Arctic Territories, and Labrador. Britain kept Newfoundland, Southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward’s Island. Residents of the areas the USA annexed got three years to decide between keeping their British nationality and emigrating, or to remain in the region and become US citizens. Residents of Canadian colonies got a similar choice whether to stay and remain British subjects, or to immigrate to American territory and gain US citizenship. The USA accepted to pay a sizable sum for the land it acquired, to indemnify all residents that chose to leave, and to cease and suppress all support to Irish nationalist groups. The UK accepted to indemnify the Canadians that chose to immigrate to US territory.

The two sides also agreed to the US purchase of Alaska, which the Russian government had been willing to sell. Russia experienced financial difficulties and doubted its ability to defend the territory in a war against Britain or the USA. Both powers agreed to drop any request for war indemnities, including compensation for damages to merchant shipping, the Fenian raids, and the so-called “Alabama” claims. The treaty reaffirmed freedom of passage throughout the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River for both powers.

US public opinion and the Congress were angry with Mexico for its aggression and ingratitude after America had helped it fight the French invasion. Therefore they pressured the Administration into demanding an harsh peace from the treacherous Mexicans, despite the personal feelings of President Lincoln for a lenient deal. The Mexicans initially balked at US requests for a cession of all Mexican territories north of the Tropic of Cancer. However US armies overrun the northern Mexican states and after Britain withdrew from the conflict, leaving its allies out to dry, a US expeditionary corps was free to land in Veracruz and fight its way to Mexico City. The Mexicans were forced to beg for peace. The Second Mexican Cession gave the USA the territories of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Neuvo Leon, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas (except the southernmost Nochistlan region), and San Louis Potosi. Residents of the areas the USA annexed got two years to decide between keeping their Mexican nationality and emigrating, or to remain in the region and become US citizens.

The Franco-German-Italian War brought the German and Italian unifications to completion. Before the war talks had started between the NGC and the South German states for re-establishment of the Zollverein and its extension to Austria. Disruption of the Zollverein due to the 1866 conflict had harmed the economy of South German states considerably; loss of Bohemia-Moravia, Trieste, and Hungary had hit Austria even worse. The war and its outcome caused a massive surge of nationalist enthusiasm across the German and Italian lands and a parallel loss of support for the Catholic reactionaries that backed anti-unionism.

Therefore talks fairly soon shifted to discuss political union of the German lands. Even the Prussian, Habsburg, and Wittelsbach ruling elites came to recognize the inevitability of complete German unification under Prussian leadership despite their misgivings. The South German states accepted to join the NGC with the provision religious policy would remain the purview of the states. The federal government would have full authority on economy, defense, trade, civil and criminal law, citizenship, post and telegraphic services, and infrastructure. Baden, Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Austria, Lichtenstein, and Luxemburg joined the NGC and the union became the German Empire. William I of Prussia was crowned as its first Emperor in a lavish ceremony.

The victors imposed a harsh peace on France. Germany gained all of Alsace (including Belfort), part of Lorraine (all of the Moselle department, including Longwy and Briey, and portions of the Meurthe and Vosges departments), and Luxemburg. Italy got the County of Nice and eastern French Riviera (the Alpes-Maritimes department and a portion of the Var department), southern Savoy (the Savoie department), Corsica, and recognition of Tunisia and Libya in its sphere of influence. It also got a few border adjustments in the Alps region (portions of the Basses-Alpes and Hautes-Alpes departments). Switzerland annexed northern Savoy (the Haute Savoie department) as compensation for the French violation of its neutrality. Residents of the annexed areas got two years to decide between keeping their French nationality and emigrating, or to remain in their place of residence and become German, Italian, or Swiss citizens.

Germany and Italy did not deem the Swiss blameless for violation of their neutrality and were interested in the partition of Switzerland to complete their national unifications. However they did not act on those feelings in order to appease the British. The French had to pay a large war indemnity to Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. They also had to cede their shares of the Suez Canal Company, which Germany and Italy acquired in equal parts. The Netherlands got part of the reparations as compensation for the dissolution of its bond with Luxemburg. Limburg was recognized as an integral part of the Kingdom of Netherlands.

[eurofed]

1870-72 (part I)

The Old Catholic schism widened, deepened, and in a few years created a split of the Catholic community only comparable to the Eastern Schism or the Reformation. Liberal and nationalist outrage for the Pope’s blatant partisanship in political matters gave momentum to the Old Catholics. The movement soon claimed the allegiance of most Catholics in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Flanders, Switzerland, the United States, and Argentina. Although it claimed to represent authentic Catholic doctrine against Ultramontane deviations, the Old Catholic movement attracted pretty much all the liberal thinkers and leaders within the Church. As a consequence it soon developed an increasingly liberal and progressive outlook in political, social, and doctrinal matters. It effectively abolished the Papacy and the College of Cardinals and developed an Episcopal structure.

Its differences with the Anglican and Lutheran denominations gradually diminished considerably, pretty much up to nothing as it concerned the Anglican Communion. This won the Old Catholics more and more sympathies in Northern Europe, Britain, and North America and eventually allowed them to establish full communion with the Anglicans. Old Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox propaganda successfully labeled the Ultramontane denomination as the ‘Papal’ Catholics, or ‘Papists’ in a more derogatory sense. The label stuck in secular public opinion even if its targets bitterly opposed it and claimed to be the true Church beset by yet another heresy. As a rule, the Papal Catholic denomination remained dominant in France, Iberia, Ireland, Poland, and Brazil. Over time it became more and more reactionary in political matters and conservative in social and doctrinal ones. Other areas, such as Hungary, Croatia, and the rest of Latin America became ideological battlegrounds of the schism.

Due to the militant role of the Pope in the war and the uprisings in Ireland and Poland, the European powers (Germany, Italy, Britain, and Russia) were seriously concerned about his ability to threaten the stability of Europe. They agreed to deem him unfit to reside in any territory they controlled and there were doubts about the wisdom of letting him stay in Europe at all. There were concrete proposals to exile the troublesome high priest someplace in South America (Brazil, probably) since the USA was radically hostile to his presence in North America. Yet there were also concerns not to anger the countries that still gave him allegiance by such an extreme action. In the end France and Spain proposed a compromise solution that was accepted by the other powers. It gave him administration of the Principality of Andorra under nominal Franco-Spanish co-sovereignty. Although the Pope kept claiming the Papal States, in practice he accepted the deal. Concerns about the political effects of his presence however turned out to be justified; the Holy See in Andorra soon became a powerful source of support for reactionary forces in France and Iberia.

Russia suppressed nationalist and religious unrest in the former PLC lands. It exploited France’s powerlessness and the support of Germany and Italy to denounce the clauses of the 1856 Paris Peace Treaty that bound it to military limitations in the Black Sea. After the end of the war with France and restoration of order in Poland, Germany, Italy, and Russia were free to address the chaotic situation in Hungary and Croatia. All three powers wanted to keep influence in the region, yet given their good relationship they were not ready to fight for exclusive control. The Germans wanted to ensure the highest protection possible for their ethnic kinsmen in the region, since geography made annexation of their territories troublesome. The Russians wanted to uphold the rights of the Slavs and the Orthodox as a tool to advance their expansionist agenda in the Ottoman Balkans. However they were not too interested to pick sides for one nationality over another. All three powers wanted to prevent anything that would look like a bad example for their own subject nationalities.

Germany, Italy, and Russia eventually forged a compromise and imposed it by a joint declaration backed by the implied threat of military intervention. It affirmed the neutral status of Hungary and Croatia and their role as effective co-clients of Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg. It enacted a constitutional and political reform that substantially limited, but not entirely eliminated, political instability in Hungary and Croatia and the infighting of their ruling elites. Germany annexed Fiume, turning it into its main Mediterranean port. Italy got a few more Adriatic islands. A few border areas were ceded to Croatia, Serbia, and Romania. Such transfers were minor in scope and Budapest and Zagreb kept the main part of their lands. The Slovaks and the Hungarian Germans got an important degree of regional autonomy; the reform also made largely immune to Magyar cultural assimilation policies. Slovakia and an ethnic-German principality that included southeastern Transdanubia, northern-western Banat, and central Transylvania became autonomous entities. In comparison, the Serbs and Romanians that stayed under Hungarian or Croat rule got many less concessions; Germany and Italy opposed them for various reasons and the Russians did not care enough to object.

The success of their triple intervention motivated the Germans, Italians, and Russians to sign the Vienna Pact in order to co-ordinate their future actions in the Balkans, as well as other issues like common trade or infrastructure projects. Unlike the pact between Berlin and Rome, the treaty did not establish any sort of official military alliance, in order to lull the Ottomans and the British in a false sense of security. In fact, its public version did not say anything at all about the Ottoman territories. The secret clauses allowed Russia to attack Turkey and invade the Ottoman Balkans, with a few compensations for Germany and Italy.

The construction of the Suez Canal, which had been halted during the Franco-German-Italian War, was completed. Despite a few initial financial and technical difficulties, it soon became an enormous commercial success, thanks to its immediate and dramatic positive effect on world trade. Combined with the American transcontinental railroads that were built in the same period, it allowed the entire world to be circled in record time. Its success greatly heightened the interest in America and Europe for building a similar inter-oceanic canal in Central America. The British got somewhat annoyed by German and Italian control of the Suez Canal Company but not radically so, since its previous French owners had been no better friends of Britain. The British government asked Germany and Italy to share control of the Suez Canal. After some negotiation, the three powers agreed to divide their shares in equal parts, with the secret provision to do likewise if any of them were to gain control of the Egyptian share in the future.

[eurofed]

1870-72 (part II)

Both postwar France and Spain continued to be wracked by political instability and conflicts between monarchist reactionaries, centrist moderates, and republican radicals. The French far left had been driven underground or was still licking its wounds after its defeat in the civil war. The Bonapartists were discredited by defeat. Papal Catholic clergy and activists were politically mobilized to try and mold France and Iberia in the conservative stronghold of the “true Church” in Europe. Due to the political effects of the Old Catholic schism and out of balance-of-power concerns expressed by Britain, members of the Hohenzollern and Savoy royal families were briefly considered but soon turned down for the throne of Spain. Much like the parallel French situation, a fragile Spanish republic became the default solution but by no means an effective check to political instability. Problems for Spain only increased with the beginning of a pro-independence rebellion in Cuba that became a widespread uprising.

With the end of the war in North America, Britain was able to deploy the main part of its regular army in Ireland. Large-scale sweeps and internments of IRB personnel and suspected sympathizers took place, and allowed the British forces to disrupt the IRB network and score several successes in clashes with the insurgents. The end of US weapon-smuggling and increasingly-successful British counterinsurgency actions left most IRB units critically short of both weapons and ammunition, with a resulting reduction of guerrilla attacks. The Irish insurgency gradually died down and it was all but extinguished by the early 1870s. It left a huge pool of resentment in the Papal Catholic population of Ireland against British rule and its brutal methods of repression. On the British’s part, the insurrection enhanced previous anti-Catholic prejudice into widespread fear and distrust of Papists and Irish nationalists.

After the victory in the Franco-German-Italian War, the Italian government decided to change the army organization so that each battalion was made up with men from the same region, as in the Prussian model. Up to then, they had included a mix of recruits in every unit from all over the country, to combat regionalism. Italian elites felt confident that regionalism was no more a serious political concern thanks to the boost in national self-consciousness. They thought the regional model would further improve the already good efficiency of the army, completing its transition to the Prussian model. The government decided to set up a public school system modeled on the German system and make strong investments to boost literacy and spread knowledge of national language among the Italian citizens.

After the war, Germany and Italy experienced a prevalent atmosphere of self-confidence, optimism, and fulfilment. They largely turned into satisfied powers and focused most of their energies into post-unification nation-building and economic development. Decisive success of their alliance in the last two wars, compatible strategic interests, and persistent threat of a vengeful France drove Berlin and Rome to confirm their partnership. The German-Italian military alliance was renewed for 30 years. Economic integration was established between Germany, Italy, and Switzerland through a series of treaties that first created a Central European free-trade area, then gradually enhanced it with a customs and monetary union. The so-called ‘Berlin-Rome Pillar’ appeared headed to become a stable feature of European politics and diplomacy.

Like the pre-existing Latin monetary union, the Central European monetary union was based on a bimetallic (gold and silver) standard and required that all contracting states strike freely exchangeable gold coins and silver coins according to common specifications. The LMU had been established in the 1860s between France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain and lost a lot of its importance when Italy and Switzerland withdrew from it as a consequence of the FGIW. The two systems were based on similar features but for political reasons they remained separate and rival. Their example was a major reason the USA stuck to bimetallism in its postwar monetary policy and hence avoided some serious economic trouble that could have otherwise manifested. Other states later adopted one or the other standard, sometimes even though they did not formally accede to the LMU or CEMU treaties. In the CEMU’s case, informal adoption might often be justified by the wish to avoid joining its customs union.

The formation of a Central European trade bloc was another reason for the late 19th century economic boom in Germany and Italy. Germany was allowing its economic potential to bloom and quickly evolving into the industrial giant of Europe while Italy was becoming an industrialized great power. The Italians reaped the fruits of economic reforms and foreign investments with steady growth of industry in the northern regions and modern agriculture and tourism in the southern ones. Only the parallel ongoing transformation of the United States into an economic superpower surpassed the frantic pace of industrialization in the German-Italian bloc.

Military and economic achievements sustained a positive mood on both sides of the Alps. It didn’t mean Germany and Italy had no serious domestic issues. Besides the necessary nation-building effort, both countries faced the typical social and political tensions caused by industrialization. Italy was still burdened by a pre-unification legacy of social backwardness even if it seemed headed to cast it off. Reforms, economic growth, and foreign-policy successes however kept such tensions at a manageable level for the ruling elites. Conversion of most German and Italian Catholics to the Old Catholic denomination also helped foster political stability. It greatly eased a peaceful inclusion of Catholic masses into mainstream politics and toned down potential antagonism between northern and southern Germans.

German and Italian positive mood found a typical expression in the sumptuous celebrations the Italians staged for the official transfer of their capital to Rome. The Italian government had spent some serious effort to renovate the city and cancel signs of the Popes' obscurantist misrule. A social highlight of the event was the marriage of Italian crown prince Umberto with a princess of the house of Hohenzollern. The future queen won the sympathies of the Italian public with her sunny disposition and proved to be a positive moderating influence on her husband. Another iconic expression of the friendly and celebrative atmosphere in the Pillar countries was the twin set of giant statues the Germans and Italians built in Berlin and Rome to celebrate their victories. The statues, inspired by Overbeck's painting "Italia and Germania" with a more martial pose, represented Germany and Italy as shield-maidens with swords pointing to the ground, one holding the torch of truth and the other the scales of justice. The statues soon became a popular landmark in both capitals. They became the model for a colossal and even more famous version that Germany and Italy gifted to the USA in the 1880s to stand in New York Harbour. The Statue of Liberty was to become an iconic symbol of America.

Russia was eventually recovering from its defeat in the Crimean War and its financial troubles, also thanks to the reforms of Tsar Alexander II throughout the 1860s. He was the most important Russian reformer and one of the greatest Tsars since Peter the Great. His greatest achievement in the first phase of his reign was the emancipation of serfs in 1861. He was also responsible for numerous other reforms including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government through the ‘zemstvo’ system, imposing universal military service, ending some of the privileges of the nobility, and promoting the universities. The Tsar was not an overly belligerent leader and sought peaceful co-existence with Germany and Italy. However Alexander II acknowledged the terminal weakness of the Ottoman ‘sick man of Europe’ and deemed his duty to fulfil the long-standing aspiration of Russia to expansion in the Balkans and the Near East. Demise of Austria, eclipse of war-torn France, and friendly relations with Berlin and Rome made circumstances optimal for such an expansionist policy. Russian agents got busy in the Balkans stirring up anti-Ottoman unrest among the Christian nationalities of the region.

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1870-72 (part III)

After winning two wars, leading Reconstruction, and being elected to an unprecedented third term, President Lincoln was shot and killed by a fanatic white supremacist in the third year of his last term. By the end of his life, he was universally acknowledged as one of the greatest US Presidents, the man who preserved the Union, defeated Confederate rebellion and British-Mexican aggression, abolished slavery, doubled the country’s size, charted the path to national reconciliation, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. His assassination only enhanced his legend by adding the crown of martyrdom for his people. Both his Vice President, who succeeded him to complete his term, and Ulysses S. Grant, the best US general of two wars who was elected President the following year, vowed to continue the work of the late great leader.

The USA was war-weary but reinforced and made confident in its destiny by victory against Southern secessionists and British imperialists. Albeit at a terrible price, the American republic had affirmed its national unity, ended slavery, won a lot of valuable new land, and forced the British superpower to accept US dominance in North America. Failure to eradicate British imperial power from their continent frustrated and irritated many Americans. However they understood the USA had achieved more or less the best possible result in the light of British naval supremacy.

The American people remained wary of big standing armies, so the wartime land forces were demobilized. However the war, lingering hostility with Britain, and distrust of Mexico imprinted the need for strong armed forces in the US public. The Americans took care to learn the lessons of the last two wars and keep military equipment, the officer corps, the regular army, state militias, and the coastal defence system at a high level of quality and efficiency. The northeastern and southern borders remained much more militarized than they had been before the war. The goal of US military policy was to guarantee effective defence of the borders and coasts by peacetime forces and quickly mobilize a vast army of good quality to fight anywhere in North America. An ambitious naval building program aimed to ensure US naval supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and global naval parity with the Royal Navy. The Americans were determined not to suffer another serious threat to their continental security or freedom of trade ever again.

Suspicion and resentment for British imperial power and a wish to expel it from North America entirely by annexing the Canadian and Caribbean colonies lingered, but for the moment America focused on its own reconstruction and internal development. Soon after the peace US economic situation turned to the better and blossomed into a boom fuelled by fast-paced industrialization. The boom quickly remedied the damage of wartime British blockade and allowed America to digest the financial burden of the last two wars. In its relationship with the Southern states, the Union tried to balance a spirit of reconciliation with a need to preserve the outcome of the civil war. The former found expression in a generous program of economic relief and infrastructure development for the South as well as widespread re-enfranchisement of Confederate veterans. The latter was enshrined in the US Constitution with a set of amendments that banned slavery and guaranteed civil and voting rights of the freedmen.

The Reconstruction amendments extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States, guaranteed the Federal war debt would be paid (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid), stripped the right to hold office from former Confederate government officials that had previously sworn loyalty to the US Constitution by holding federal or state offices, and most importantly created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. The most far-ranging provision was the full extension of the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution to the states and the empowerment of Congress to legislate and protect those rights. They also decreed that the right to vote or hold office could not be denied because of race, color, ethnicity, creed, previous condition of servitude, or the failure to pay poll taxes.

Reconstruction policies also meant a military, judicial, and political effort to stop the Southern whites’ efforts to disenfranchise, discriminate, and abuse the freedmen. As time went on, a growing wish for reconciliation made the North increasingly sceptical about its attempt to force racial equality down the throat of the South. Lincoln’s assassination counteracted this mood by triggering a wave of fear and loathing for violent white supremacists. The Congress passed laws to suppress racist paramilitary groups and protect civil and voting rights of freedmen. It created a federal law enforcement agency to ensure effective application of the criminal laws of the United States, repression of domestic violence, and protection of the President.

The Anglo-American war showed the great importance of efficient and reliable connections with the Pacific since a timely completion of the first transcontinental railroad had helped avoid a British-Mexican occupation of the West Coast. That line followed the so-called ‘Central’ route to California. The war persuaded the Congress to finance the building of two other ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ routes across the Northwest and the Southwest respectively. The southern transcontinental railroad pleased the Southern states and was an infrastructure hallmark of national reconciliation. It also greatly eased settlement and Americanization of the Southwest and the newly-acquired northern Mexican territories.

The northern railroad was based on a strategic imperative to get the Northwest and Western Canada settled as soon as possible to consolidate US rule over the region. For this reason it got effectively duplicated into two parallel branches that mostly followed the old Oregon Trail and the Saskatchewan River system respectively. Because of similar strategic concerns they also decided to build a branch of the southern railroad that would run through the Gulf Coast region and connect New Orleans with Tampico. These five transcontinental railroads substantially accelerated the settlement and development of the US Frontier. This came at the price of more violent conflicts between Amerindian tribes, American settlers, and the US army. The American effort to keep the regular army and state militias at a good level of efficiency ensured the Indian Wars were a string of US victories. All native resistance to American colonization was ruthlessly suppressed, and so were all attempts of diehard Mexican nationalists to fight US rule in the northern Mexican territories.

Strong interest for an inter-oceanic canal in Central America was another expression of US strategic drive for efficient and secure continental travel. A number of surveys before and after the last two wars led to the conclusion the two most favorable routes were those across the Panama department of Colombia and across Nicaragua, with a route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico as a third option. The Nicaragua canal appeared easier to build than the Panama one and US diplomacy engaged the Nicaraguan government into talks for a deal. In this context the Americans came to regard their exclusive control over an inter-oceanic canal as a strategic imperative. For the same reason they got very interested in expanding their control across the Caribbean and Central America and limiting European influence in the region as much as possible.

This attitude drove the USA to ratify annexation of the Dominican Republic when its government offered it to get protection from a Haitian invasion. For similar reasons the Americans supported the anti-colonial rebellion in Cuba. A considerable amount of US weapons, supplies, and money got smuggled to the Cuban rebels. US support for the rebellion prolonged the conflict and kept it in a stalemate as Spanish weakness and rebel disorganization got balanced. Interest for the acquisition of Cuba did exist in the USA but the Americans were still too war-weary to accept an intervention in the conflict. American help however made many Cuban rebels develop a pro-US stance.

The outcome of the war in North America, the uprising in Ireland, and the 1860s changes in Europe left Britain in a wary and conflicted mood. On one hand, they had been able to suppress Irish separatism and force the upstart colonials to a compromise peace that returned the settled Canadian territories to British rule. On the other hand, the war confirmed the lesson of previous conflicts with the Americans. The US challenge for supremacy in North America appeared very difficult to defeat for the price the British people would be willing and able to pay in light of its various imperial commitments.

As a result the Canada project was effectively stillborn in the British collective mind. A mix of imperial pride, fear, greed, and stubbornness drove Britain to hold on its BNA rump and defy the rising US challenge for supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific that loomed on the horizon. The post-Napoleonic balance of power in Europe was experiencing dramatic changes with the demise of Austria, the lessening of France, the impetuous rise of Germany, the ascent of Italy, and the resurgence of Russia. Britain was still the top superpower but its people got the confused perception its power, influence, and authority were no more absolute and at the risk of decline. The future would hold serious challenges from many sides to Pax Britannica.

The pre-war unrest of the Canadian colonies and their failure to unite, the war with the USA, and the uprising in Ireland made the British elites suspicious of any project to grant substantial autonomy to any portion of their empire. All mainstream political talk of Home Rule for Ireland was suppressed as an encouragement to Irish nationalist and Papist subversion. The British also lost interest into projects for self-rule or federal union of their settler colonies. Britain mostly focused its colonial policy on maintenance of central control and imperial unity, economic development and exploitation of the colonies, and defense of strategic holdings. The settler colonies kept pre-existing levels of autonomy and responsible government but further developments got frozen. As a consequence, the British made an effort to improve the defense and infrastructure of the Canadian colonies, but otherwise kept their legal status mostly the same. The main change was the dissolution of the united Province of Canada that was divided back into the provinces of Ontario (OTL Southern Ontario) and Quebec (without Nord-du-Quebec).

The postwar status quo of the Canadian colonies as a small British fortress besieged by American continental expansion and their frozen political status pretty much wrecked the development of a Canadian national identity. Canadian society got essentially split between British Empire loyalists and supporters of North American continentalism. The former clung to their British identity or deemed their colonial status a better option for preservation of their way of life than American domination. The latter deemed a union with the USA inevitable in the long term or a way to get greater opportunities for peace, autonomy, and prosperity. Such a split was more or less present in a similar way among English-speaking colonists and liberal French-speakers. Conservative Quebecois mostly disliked both Britain and the USA as options, sympathized for a French Canadian identity, and looked to France as a potential patron.

The killing of Lopez in battle ended the Paraguayan War. Its outcome was the devastation and utter defeat of Paraguay with the death of the vast majority of its adult male population. Re-emerging tensions between Brazil and Argentina for division of the spoils and political conflicts within Argentina and Uruguay caused a second phase of the Plate River conflict, the Second Platine War. The war between Brazil and Argentina resulted in Argentina’s decisive victory. The outcome was annexation of Uruguay by Argentina; the latter’s consolidation as a federal union with the federalization of Buenos Aires and Montevideo; and partition of Paraguay at the Rio Paraguay line between Brazil and Argentina. The war affirmed Argentina’s dominance in the River Plate region.

[eurofed]

1873-74

After a few years of severe political instability, a France still reeling from the shock of defeat and civil war suffered another swing of the political pendulum. With the encouragement of the Papal Catholic clergy a compromise deal occurred to pave the way to a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. The Legitimist and Orleanist wings of the monarchist movement agreed to let the Count of Chambord, the senior Bourbon branch’s pretender, take the throne with the Count of Paris, the Orleanist pretender, as his heir. The Pope’s emissaries persuaded Chambord to make an insincere pledge to accept the tricolor as the flag of France. These compromises allowed the monarchist front sufficient strength to enact a regime change in France and restore the Bourbon monarchy.

The new King Henry V was the figurehead for a coalition of nationalist officers and politicians, reactionary Papal Catholic clergy and landowners, and conservative industrialists and financers. They wanted to reshape France into an authoritarian state that would do away with liberalism, socialism, secularism, and the legacy of the French Revolution but they knew they had to enact this program gradually. They desired revenge against the hated Germans and Italians, whom they reviled for ideological and nationalist reasons, but they were aware France was still too weak to challenge the German-Italian alliance again.

The Bourbon regime instead sought to bolster its strength in a different way. Spain was experiencing a situation rather similar to France’s one; there was a weak republican regime beset by severe political instability and an aggressive far right that sought to restore a reactionary monarchy with the support of Papal Catholic clergy. The French government poured support to a Spanish right-wing front that organized under the leadership of Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Carlist pretender to the throne. To expand their support base, the Carlists promised a restoration of the traditional regional autonomies of the Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, and Aragon. The Carlist forces staged an uprising that plunged Spain into civil war, the Third Carlist War. With abundant French support, backing of the Papal Catholic clergy, and support of the most conservative sections of Spanish society, the Carlist forces were able to seize vast areas of Spanish territory.

Unrest grew among the Balkan nationalities (Bulgarians, Serbs, and Greeks) that were still subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Various factors fuelled their malcontent including the examples of Germany and Italy, the collapse of the Habsburg Empire with independence of Hungary and Croatia, the growing influence and covert support of Russia, and their own long-standing grievances against Ottoman misrule. Various incidents in Bulgaria, Ottoman Serbia, Thessaly, and Crete occurred, escalated with the help of Russian agents, and were amplified by Russian propaganda until vast areas of the Balkans went into open revolt. The autonomous states of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania, still under Ottoman suzerainty, joined the conflict in order to gain independence and support their ethnic kinsmen. Croatia and Greece intervened as well to liberate Bosnia and the Greek areas still under Ottoman rule.

Better trained and equipped Ottoman forces soon pushed back the Balkan states’ armies and defeated the insurgents’ militias, advancing towards Belgrade, Bucharest, and Athens. In doing so they committed many atrocities against the Balkan peoples that got ample coverage in the European press. This turned European public opinion, which was already prone to sympathize with the rebels for cultural and religious reasons, wholly against Turkey. The British government wished to protect the status quo in order to prevent expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans and the Middle East. However pressure of public opinion tied its hands against too overt a support for the Ottoman cause. Russia exploited the pretext of protecting the Christian subjects of the Sultan from Turkish brutality to declare war to the Ottoman Empire. Germany and Italy remained ostensibly neutral but gave diplomatic support to Russia and made their own preparations for military intervention if necessary.

Russian troops entered Romania and pushed the Ottomans out of it while they opened a second front in the Caucasus. They steadily pushed the Ottomans out of northern Bulgaria and western Armenia albeit at a heavy price. With Russian help the Serbs and the Greeks were able to turn the tide and drive the Ottoman forces out of their territory. The Croats advanced to occupy Bosnia with German and Italian support.

Martial law in Ireland was gradually phased out, although the bulk of Papal Catholic Irish population remained strongly hostile to British rule. The British parliament repealed almost all the ‘Catholic Emancipation’ laws it had passed in the late 18th century and early 19th century and reinstated the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the Penal Laws. However, their application was strictly limited to Papal Catholics, and Old Catholics were entirely exempt from these restrictions. Most British had come to see the Old Catholics as not really different from the Anglicans. As a result, Papal Catholics were disenfranchised, forbidden to own property, hold arms, inherit land, join the army, and excluded from the learned professions, the civil service, and the judiciary. Papal Catholic clergy and schools were outlawed. In practice, Papal Catholic services generally were tacitly tolerated as long as they were conducted in private. Papal Catholic priests were also tolerated, but bishops were forced to operate clandestinely. Despite the many restrictions heaped on them, however, most Irish remained stubbornly loyal to Papal Catholicism which they identified as a core component of their national identity.

In order to improve its strategic standing against the USA, Britain showed interest in acquisition of more naval bases in the Atlantic and the Pacific. So the British exploited unrest in the Kingdom of Hawaii due to a succession and contested election dispute to land their troops and establish a protectorate on the archipelago. The British government also made an offer to Denmark to purchase Greenland and Iceland. The Danes turned down the request about Iceland since they were unwilling to cede an area with a significant Nordic population. However they reluctantly consented to sell under-populated Greenland in order to appease the British. British expansionism in areas the Americans deemed part of their own sphere of influence alarmed the US government and public. Their reaction was even more of a drive to acquire strategically-valuable territory in the Caribbean lest it may fall in British hands. A result was a US request to Denmark to purchase the Danish West Indies. The islands had limited economic value for Denmark and the Danes did not wish to take a side in the rivalry between America and Britain. So Denmark agreed to sell the Virgin Islands to the USA. This turn of events was another reason US attitude towards the ongoing conflict in Cuba grew more and more interventionist and American support for Cuban rebels increased. Other reasons were the fading of American war weariness and US awareness of Spanish weakness due to the Third Carlist War.

Threatened loss of Iceland gave further fuel to the Scandinavian national movement that had been steadily gaining political ground across the Nordic countries during the last decade. During the early ‘70s declining health of Swedish King Charles XV, lack of a surviving son, and death of his brothers left his daughter Louise, Queen of Denmark, potential heir apparent with a change of succession law. The Danish royal couple was popular across the Nordic countries as a living symbol of Scandinavian solidarity. They provided a way to settle the Swedish succession crisis and achieve dynastic union of Scandinavia. The parliaments of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden negotiated an agreement to change their succession laws and make Frederick VIII and his wife co-rulers of the three countries at Charles’ death. The project got fulfilled in 1874 when Louise’s father died and the dynastic union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden went into existence with strong popular support. The governments of the Nordic countries and the leaders of Iceland’s home rule movement started negotiations to transform the dynastic union into a real one with federalization of Scandinavia.

[eurofed]

1875-76 (part I)

The Russian forces pushed the Ottomans out of southern Bulgaria, Macedonia, and western Thrace with the help of their Balkan allies and pressed towards Constantinople. The Turks were gradually forced to pull back to eastern Thrace and the outskirts of their capital. In the Caucasus theater, the Russians gradually penetrated deep into eastern Anatolia, overrunning most of the region. Much like the Christian Balkan nationalities, the Armenians, Pontic Greek, and Assyrians welcomed the Russians as liberators and protectors from the atrocities Ottoman forces committed during the war.

The collapse of Ottoman rule in the Balkan caused an explosion of conflicting territorial claims and ethnic-religious clashes between the various communities of the region. In many cases they escalated into multi-sided armed conflicts between militias of opposite factions or the armed forces of rival Balkan states. This created a fairly chaotic situation that spread to Hungary and Croatia as the local Romanian and Serb minorities rose in revolt. The Russian forces therefore faced the additional burdensome task of trying to keep order in their Balkan rearguard as they advanced towards Constantinople. Germany and Italy decided to intervene in order to protect their own interests in the region. Their troops occupied the Albanian areas and helped the Hungarians and the Croats reassert their control in their own territories and Bosnia. Italian forces also landed to occupy Tunisia, Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica.

The Russian advance to the outskirts of Constantinople and their siege of the city made the British government greatly fearful of a general collapse of the Ottoman Empire and a Russian takeover of the Near East that would threaten the trade routes to India and the British Raj. To prevent this, the British deployed the Royal Navy into Constantinople and several other ports of Anatolia and the Levant. The British threatened war to keep the Russians out of the Turkish Straits, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. However Britain was in a difficult position since it was isolated among the great powers. Germany and Italy backed Russia; France was still recovering from defeat, busy with its own political issues and the conflict in Spain, and in a bad shape to sustain another European conflict; the USA remained potentially hostile even if focused on the Cuban conflict; the Ottomans were in disarray on all fronts and not very reliable as allies. The British military was ill-suited to fight a general war in Europe without the help of another great power. Therefore Britain reluctantly had to accept many of the facts on the ground that Ottoman military collapse had created.

Diplomatic exchanges between the great powers established the broad compromise of recognition of conquests of the Russians and their allies in exchange for continued Ottoman control of the Turkish Straits, western and central Anatolia, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. Russia reluctantly gave its consent because it felt the financial strain of the war, even if it was hesitant to give up the conquest of Constantinople. Turkey had to accept because it was on military dire straits. Germany, Italy, and Russia established a revision of their previous agreement to include Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria in the Russian sphere of influence and Hungary, Croatia, and Albania in the German-Italian bloc. The deal included a partition of Bosnia and a pledge to give the throne of Romania to a prince of Russia’s choice at King Carol’s death. Building on these basic principles, a peace conference met to work out the new territorial settlement of Southeastern Europe, the Near East, and the Mediterranean.

Russia annexed various Armenian and Georgian territories in the Caucasus, including Ardahan, Artvin, Batum, Kars, Olti, and Beyazit. The vilayets of Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Diyarbakir, Trebizond, the eastern portion of Mamuret-ul-Aziz, the eastern half of Sivas, the northeastern portion of Deyr Zor, and the northwestern portion of Mosul became an autonomous Armenian-Assyrian-Pontic principality under Russian administration. Romania became an independent state and traded the cession of Southern Bessarabia for annexation of Northern Dobruja with Russia. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, most of Vardar Macedonia, northern Kosovo, and Thrace west of the Enos-Midia line were merged into the South Slav Kingdom, also informally known as ‘Yugoslavia’, with Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov on the throne. The new South Slav state was a Serb-Bulgarian union with Orthodoxy as a common bond that the Russians created to organize their Balkan sphere of influence and keep the nationalist conflicts thereof under control. Greece got Thessaly, all of Epirus, Aegean Macedonia, Crete, and the Aegean islands. Bosnia was partitioned between Croatia and the SSK.

Albania with most of Kosovo and northwestern Vardar Macedonia, Tunisia, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan became Italian protectorates. Britain got administration of Cyprus and the other great powers recognized Egypt and Sudan within its sphere of influence. Previous accords to share control of the Suez Canal between Britain, Germany, and Italy were confirmed. Hungary and Croatia joined the Central European customs and monetary union with Germany, Italy, and Switzerland and were generally acknowledged as client states of the Pillar powers. The autonomy of the ethnic German principality in Transdanubia, the Banat, and Transylvania was confirmed and further expanded. Romania and Yugoslavia became clients of Russia; Greece was a buffer state where Britain, Russia, and the German-Italian bloc shared influence.

Despite their conflicting interests, the great powers shared severe doubts about the Ottoman Empire’s stability, viability, ability to reform in a modern state, and willingness to ensure a fair treatment of its Christian subjects. However they contentiously allowed it to keep control of many territories in the Near East, including a sizable Christian population, and a stripe of European territory east of the Enos-Midia line because they could not agree on an alternative solution. The great powers however agreed to intervene if the Ottomans were to mistreat their Christian subjects again. After the Balkan war a vast mass expulsion of Muslims from conquered territories in Europe and the Near East occurred that the great powers supported or tolerated out of their own anti-Islamic prejudice.

The vast majority of Muslim communities in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia (Turks, Kurds, Chechens, Circassians, and Abkhaz) was expelled and forced to immigrate to Ottoman territories. The mass expulsion also came to include most of the Muslims in the Caucasus region which the Russians had eventually managed to pacify in the 1860s after a savage decades-long struggle. They were mostly replaced by expansion of autochthonous Christian nationalities (Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, Georgians, Armenians, and Assyrians) or the resettlement of Russian, Belarusians, and Ukrainian immigrants in the Russian territories. There were a few exceptions to this mass-expulsion pattern that mostly involved those nationalities deemed sufficiently loyal, liable to conversion and cultural assimilation, or simply not worth the effort. These more fortunate cases included the Albanians, Azerbaijanis, and Muslim Bosnians. However in many cases even these surviving Muslim communities ended up converting to Christianity or picking a secular and lukewarm attitude towards Islam as a result of European rule and cultural influence.

[eurofed]

1875-76 (part II)

Negotiations for political union and constitutional reform of the Nordic countries bore fruit. They led to the unification of Scandinavia as the federal union of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland with the House of Glucksburg-Bernadotte (formed by the marriage and co-rule of Frederick VIII of Denmark and Louise I of Sweden) on the throne. The new state pursued a liberal course in domestic issues and a neutral foreign policy. Neutrality was the result of an effort to balance the different interests of various sections of the union, that were oriented towards Britain and the USA for Iceland and Norway, towards Germany and Russia for Sweden, and a mix of both for Denmark.

Over time, however, interest grew across Scandinavia for closer ties with the German-led Central European customs and monetary union, thanks to the evident beneficial effects it had on the economy of member states. However the Northern Schleswig issue to a degree acted as a stumbling block. Scandinavia kept a claim on the region due to its Danish character. A plebiscite had been repeatedly discussed during the 1860s peace negotiations but never implemented. Another irredentist issue many Nordics held dear was the wish to incorporate Finland in Scandinavia to complete its national unification. The Nordic national movement found strong sympathies in Finland due to the liberal and federal character of the Scandinavian union. However neither the Finns nor the Scandinavians dared to do anything that would provoke a violent response from Russia.

Tensions between the USA and Spain due to the Cuban uprising continued to grow until the Americans declared war. The casus belli occurred when the Spanish captured and executed the crew of an American ship hired by Cuban insurrectionists to land men and munitions in Cuba. It was captured by the Spanish, who wanted to try and execute the men on board as pirates; many of them were American and British citizens. Several members of the crew were tried by court-martial and put to death. When news of the executions reached the Americans, a wave of popular outrage supported the US declaration of war. The British government decided to stay neutral in the conflict due to its focus on the Balkan crisis and since the British public turned hostile to Spain because of the execution of British subjects.

The US army and navy had been kept in good condition since the last two wars; their Spanish counterparts, already burdened by the insurgencies in Spain and Cuba, were simply no match for the Americans. In a few months the US forces blockaded Cuba, dealt a decisive defeat to the Spanish navy, landed in Cuba and Puerto Rico, and seized control of both islands with the help of local insurgents. Spain had to ask for peace and cede Cuba and Puerto Rico to the USA. US aid to Cuban rebels before the Spanish-American War had made many of them sympathetic to union with the USA. Therefore American annexation was accomplished with little opposition in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Slavery was abolished in Cuba and Puerto Rico, making Brazil its last holdout in the Western Hemisphere. Much like the Anglo-American War, the Spanish-American War saw Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites fighting against a common foe, helping to ease the scars left from the civil war. The American people saw it as a “splendid little war” that helped affirm US supremacy in the Western Hemisphere, won valuable territory, required many less sacrifices than previous conflicts, and was another step on the path to national reconciliation.

For Spain this defeat was a massive humiliation that discredited the republican government and gave the Carlists the final push they needed to seize victory in the civil war. Much like France, Spain became a reactionary Bourbon monarchy with Carlos, Duke of Madrid on its throne. France and Spain became close allies with a bond cemented by ideological affinity, a yearning for lost glory, resentment against their former enemies, and Papal Catholicism. Assassination of Henry V by an anarchist gave the Bourbon ruling elites a golden opportunity to entrench their hold on power and make the Franco-Spanish bond even closer. They exploited the assassination as an excuse to pass a series of police laws and political reforms that definitely turned France into an authoritarian regime with brutal repression of political opponents. Their counterparts in Spain did the same in the aftermath of the civil war to ‘pacify’ the country.

By dynastic coincidence, Charles VII of Spain was also the senior Legitimist claimant to the throne of France if the renunciation of the French throne by Philip V of Spain, second grandson of Louis XIV, was deemed invalid. The French Legitimist government broke its previous deal with the Orleanists to give the throne to the Count of Paris after the death of childless Henry V. France and Spain agreed to declare the renunciation invalid and Carlos took the throne of France as Charles XI; the two countries were combined in a Bourbon personal union. A constitutional reform soon turned the personal union into a real one and established the dual monarchy of France-Spain. The French and Spanish regions of the state were governed by separate parliaments and prime ministers. Unity was maintained through rule of a single head of state and common monarchy-wide ministries of foreign affairs, defense, and finance under his direct authority. The armed forces were combined with the dual King as commander-in-chief. In practice the regime was an authoritarian oligarchy with a mix of conservative French and Spanish elites bound by the same ideology and a power-sharing agreement.

The Carlist government did restore a measure of regional autonomy to various Spanish communities such as Basque Country-Navarre, Catalonia-Valencia, and Aragon. Given the authoritarian character of the regime, such measures were of limited value in political terms. Cultural autonomy and a measure of administrative and economic prerogatives however did get enforced, and they played an important role in containing separatist sentiments in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Restoration of regional autonomy in Spain was also important to help the growth in popularity of Iberism since many took it as a template for a possible union of Spain and Portugal.

[eurofed]

These maps show Europe, North America, and the world in the middle 1870s. They are meant to show international borders, so internal borders may often be alt-historically inaccurate (especially in the North American map) or not shown (as for Europe). US Canadian and North Mexican territories and later states may certainly get different names and borders, even OTL Western ones may diverge somewhat, and in any case they are surely not going to have any names related to Britain.





The great powers are Britain, France-Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the USA. Their consensus defines international law; their power plays shape international politics, now and in the foreseeable future. Japan, Argentina, and Brazil are regional powers that might aspire to join the big guys in the future if they play their cards well. Turkey is a fallen power that teeters on the brink of extinction. China is another fallen great with severe trouble in the near future and great potential in the long term. India groans under the weight of British colonialism, but might do as well as China in the long term. Africa and Asia are the great powers' imperialist playground.

[eurofed]

1877-80 (part I)

the Franco-Spanish regime soon displayed its authoritarian, monarchist, nationalist, militarist, and religious character in full colors. It harassed and persecuted liberals, republicans, left-wingers, Jews, and all the other Christian denominations than the Papal-Catholic state religion. Despite its agrarian attitude, it made a definite effort to build up the industrial power and infrastructure of France and Spain as a way to increase the military power of the Bourbon Empire. For the same reason it engaged in an extensive land and naval rearmament program and attempted to boost the declining birth rate of the French people. Its foreign policy was based on ideological suspicion and revanchist resentment of the liberal powers, especially the German, Italian, and American former enemies, aggressive yearning to recapture the faded glory of France and Spain, and a wish for imperialist expansion. It based its identity on reactionary Papal Catholicism, a romanticized idealization of the Ancient Regime, and a composite of the French and Spanish monarchies’ heritages combined in the loose notion of an authoritarian ‘Gallic Empire’ of Western European peoples.

Despite their aggressive rhetoric, the Franco-Spanish leaders were not yet confident enough to risk a war of revenge against Germany and Italy. So they initially channeled their expansionist urges by other means, such as colonialism. France-Spain aggressively continued the colonization of Algeria and expanded it to Morocco and Western Sahara that were invaded and turned into a protectorate. Gallic colonization of North Africa was remarkably ruthless, with brutal suppression of Arab and Berber resistance despite frequent rebellions, persecution of Islam, and an effort to Europeanize the colonies. They strived to absorb their corner of North Africa through a mix of French and Spanish settler colonization, forced assimilation of collaborationist natives, and extermination or ethnic cleansing of rebel elements. The Franco-Spanish authorities encouraged European settlement by means of economic incentives and extensive land confiscation. Another major target of Franco-Spanish colonialism in this period was Southeast Asia with a steady expansion from pre-existing French colonies in Cochinchina and Cambodia to Annam and Tonkin. Franco-Spanish efforts to impose a protectorate on northern Vietnam caused increasing tensions with China, which regarded the region as part of its sphere of influence.

Besides its claims on German, Italian and Swiss territory, France-Spain also had serious expansionist ambitions on Belgium and Portugal, but it did not yet dare enact them by military means. So it attempted to pursue them and increase its influence across Europe and Latin America by supporting pro-Gallic forces. Political vehicles for this destabilization effort were Papal Catholicism, ethnic and cultural ties, and sympathetic far-right and nationalist movements. Besides its attempts to destabilize its neighbors the Bourbon Empire thus sent support to Polish and Irish radical nationalists and to anti-German and anti-Italian Hungarian and Croat right-wingers. This however seriously got in the way of parallel Franco-Spanish attempts to court Russia as an ally. The Bourbon Empire acknowledged Russia as ideologically affine and a potential ally despite religious differences. France-Spain and Britain more or less shared an ambivalent attitude that wavered between mutual ideological hostility, a potential interest in an alliance to counter the power of the German-Italian bloc and Russia, and resentment for the expansionist ambitions of the Gallic Empire.

In sharp contrast to the political course in France-Spain, the late 1870s and the 1880s were a period of liberal reforms and democratic political evolution in Germany and Italy. The assassination of Kaiser William I in 1878 by an anarchist gave the throne to his son Frederick I, a liberal-minded reformer that admired the British political system. During his two-decades reign, he supported the efforts of German liberals for a political reform of the German Empire into a parliamentary democratic monarchy to a remarkable degree of success. With these reforms declarations of war and peace treaties now required the assent of the Reichstag. Members of the government could now simultaneously be members of the Reichstag. The Reichskanzler and the Secretaries of State now required the confidence of the Reichstag. They were accountable for the conduct of their affairs to the Reichstag and to the Bundesrat. The Reichskanzler was now responsible for all political actions of the Emperor. The Emperor's rights to appoint, promote or reassign military officers were now limited by requiring the co-signature of the Reichskanzler or the Minister of War responsible for the contingent. The Ministers of War were now accountable to the Bundesrat and Reichstag for the management of their contingent.

However given their historical experience of Germany’s weakness and division even the German liberals disliked a wholesale adoption of the British model with its ceremonial figurehead monarch; they preferred the head of state to remain an influential figure with important executive powers. Therefore the Kaiser kept the power to nominate and dismiss the Chancellor and the ministers, the supreme command of the armed forces, and responsibility for foreign and security policy. Likewise the military kept a high degree of influence and autonomy in its own field. Other important political reforms established a periodic reapportionment of Reichstag districts and Bundesrat seats to account for population changes, merged the small German states into federations-within-federation (Verbande) for purposes of representation and common affairs, and enacted several minor adjustments of state borders to make them more functional. The new Verbande included Thuringia (federation of the Thuringian states), Mecklenburg (federation of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Neustrelitz), Lippe-Waldeck (federation of Lippe, Schaumburg-Lippe, and Waldeck), and Anhalt-Brunswick (federation of Brunswick and Alhalt). Since its annexation Alsace-Lorraine had been administered by the imperial government as a Reichsland with limited autonomy. Now it got statehood by being merged with other German states: most of Alsace was merged with Baden, Palatinate got northern Alsace and eastern Lorraine, and Luxemburg absorbed western Lorraine.

The only important measures the Emperor and the liberals were unable to get approved were a radical reform of the Prussian three-class franchise and a liberal reform of the Prussian constitution on the model of the federal one. Conservative resistance proved too strong, and only allowed for a few watered-down changes. Abolition of the three-class system and a liberal reform of the Prussian constitution were not to be accomplished until the end of the 19th century. Nonetheless, the liberal course of the German Empire was consolidated by another tragedy in the Imperial family. Erratic and egotist Crown Prince William died in a horse accident in 1880, leaving his level-headed and humble younger brother Henry to succeed their father and continue many of his policies. Bismarck tried to stifle the liberal course the Kaiser favored, but was eventually forced to step down as Chancellor. Despite their dislike of his domestic policies, however, Frederick and the liberals greatly admired Bismarck for his role as Germany’s unifier and wished to keep his advice, especially in foreign affairs. Therefore Bismarck was allowed to remain a powerful Minister of Foreign Affairs with an influence on the government that often rivaled the Chancellor himself. His continued presence, in turn, helped tone down the conservatives’ hostility to the new political course.

The foreign policy Frederick and Bismarck pursued continued to be based on a close alliance with Italy, preservation of Germany’s Central-European trade bloc and sphere of influence, and an effort to keep France-Spain diplomatically isolated. To the latter goal Germany tried hard to keep good relations with Russia, Britain, and the USA; it avoided taking too much of a side in the Anglo-American family feud and in the ‘Great Game’ rivalry between Britain and Russia. The balancing act between Britain and Russia also was the result of a compromise between the Kaiser’s and the liberals’ pro-British sympathies and Bismarck’s and the conservatives’ pro-Russian attitudes. Over time, political pressure within Germany for acquisition of a colonial empire kept growing, and the German government had to give way. However Bismarck was careful to orient German colonial expansion to avoid antagonizing the interests of friendly powers such as Italy, Britain, Russia, and the USA too much. For this reason Central Africa ended up being the main focus of German colonialism.

Another important political development was the formation of a Pan-Germanic movement that advocated the creation of a Greater Germanic Reich to unite most of the Germanic peoples of Europe within it under the leadership of Germany. The project would include peoples such as the Scandinavians, the German-speaking Swiss, the Dutch, and the Flemish within it, with the likely exception of the British. The Kaiser and Bismarck avoided giving the Pan-Germanics too much support since they acknowledged it would harm Germany’s good relations with its neighbors and Britain and there was not that much mainstream support for the idea in the other Germanic nations.

Nonetheless, the Pan-Germanic ideal did get some serious genuine popularity beyond Germany’s borders, especially in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the Flanders, thanks to economic and cultural ties with the Germans, the vast prestige of Germany, and the perceived threat of France-Spain. Pan-Germanicism met more resistance in Scandinavia, because the development of a Nordic national identity acted as an ideological barrier. Nonetheless, Germany did try to absorb Scandinavia and the Low Countries in its trade bloc and sphere of influence. Its diplomatic efforts were partially successful when the Netherlands and Scandinavia accepted to join the Central European customs and monetary union. However it happened at the onerous price of a plebiscite that returned Northern Schleswig to Scandinavia. The Dutch and the Nordics grew diplomatically closer to the Pillar bloc but ostensibly kept their neutral stance and avoided alliance commitments. German attempts to bring Belgium in its trade bloc were less successful, because of domestic resistance from pro-French Walloons and the opposition of Britain and France-Spain. Inclusion in the CEMU did spur the industrialization of the Netherlands and Scandinavia just like the rest of the trade bloc.

Italy followed a political course much similar to its German ally and model. Since the adoption of the Albertine Statute, the Italian political system had gradually developed the customs and practices of a parliamentary monarchy. A series of constitutional reforms similar to the German ones codified them into law. Suffrage was substantially widened to include anyone who was literate or could pay a moderate tax. This fell short of enfranchising the illiterate lower classes and universal suffrage was not to be adopted until the end of the 19th century. However the good quality of the public education system and the effects of industrialization were steadily improving the Italian literacy rate, indirectly widening the suffrage more and more in the long term. Regional and local devolution was enacted by granting a measure of political autonomy to Italy’s regions, provinces, and municipalities. Italy changed its official name into the Italian Empire and King Umberto I took the title of Emperor. Reasons for the name change included an affirmation of Italy’s growth into great-power stature, celebration of imperial expansion in the Mediterranean, cherished ties with the Roman past, and imitation of Germany and Russia.

Italy kept pursuing a foreign policy in its own sphere that was essentially aligned with, and similar to, the one of Germany. Eager pursuit of colonial expansion in North and East Africa was the main difference. Italy’s fervent wish to absorb its ‘Fourth Shore’ was one of the main reasons its colonial policy in North Africa ended up being very similar to the one of France-Spain. Despite the political differences between the two regimes, the Italians applied more or less the same ruthless mix of settler colonization, forced assimilation of collaborationist natives, and extermination or ethnic cleansing of rebel elements to accomplish Europeanization of their North African colonies. Tunisia and Libya became the target of extensive Italian settlement the colonial authorities encouraged with economic incentives and infrastructure development. Despite desperate Arab and Berber resistance it looked like Northwest Africa was bound to become an extension of Europe in a few decades, much in the same way Islam had been mostly expelled from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and eastern Anatolia.

[eurofed]

1877-80 (part II)

By all means, the late 19th century looked like a dark period for the Muslim world. The Ottoman Empire had been humiliated and seriously weakened with drastic losses in size, military power, and wealth that left it liable to domestic unrest and vulnerable to attack. The efforts to modernize the Ottoman Empire that had started in the ‘Tanzimat’ period appeared unable to invert the decline of the ‘sick man of Europe’. The reformist period peaked with a constitutional experiment immediately after the Balkan war. It was short-lived since after a few years the Sultan suspended the constitution and parliament and restored absolute power. Conservative stagnation and despotic rule, however, could do little to ameliorate the growing weakness, social unrest, and backwardness of the Ottoman state.

Nominally an Ottoman territory state, Egypt became an autonomous vassal state (khedivate) under the Muhammad Ali dynasty in 1867 and was de facto independent. Throughout the 19th century, the ruling dynasty of Egypt had spent vast sums of money on infrastructural development of Egypt – most notably the building of the Suez Canal – and wars with the Ottoman Empire to affirm its autonomy. However, in keeping with its own military and foreign origin, the dynasty's economic development was almost wholly oriented toward military dual use goals. Consequently, despite vast sums of European and other foreign capital, actual economic production and resulting revenues was insufficient toward repaying the loans. Consequently, the country teetered toward economic dissolution and implosion by the mid-late 1870s. In turn, the European powers took control of the treasury of Egypt, forgave debt in return for taking control of the Suez Canal, and reoriented economic development toward capital gain. The Egyptian shares of the Suez Canal Company were divided in equal amounts between Britain, Germany, and Italy.

However, Islamic and Arabic Nationalist opposition to European influence and settlement in the Muslim world led to growing tension amongst the natives, especially in Egypt. The most dangerous opposition came from the Egyptian army which saw the reorientation of economic development away from their control as a threat to their privileges. A large military demonstration forced the Khedive to dismiss his Prime Minister and rule by decree. Many of the Europeans retreated to specially designed quarters suited for defense or heavily European settled cities such as Alexandria. Consequently, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy sent warships to Alexandria to bolster the Khedive amidst a turbulent climate and protect European lives and property. In turn, Egyptian nationalists spread fear of invasion throughout the country to bolster Islamic and Arabian revolutionary action.

The Khedive moved to Alexandria for fear of his own safety as nationalist army officers began to take control of the government. Egypt soon was in the hands of nationalists opposed to European domination of the country and the new revolutionary government began nationalizing all assets in Egypt. Anti-European violence broke out in Alexandria, prompting an Anglo-German-Italian naval bombardment of the city. Fearing the intervention of outside powers or the seizure of the canal by the Egyptians, London, Berlin, and Rome decided to crush the nationalist revolution by force. In a parallel development, a religious leader proclaimed himself the Mahdi ("guided one") and began a war to unify the tribes in western and central Sudan. Taking advantage of conditions resulting from Ottoman-Egyptian exploitation and maladministration, the Mahdi led a nationalist revolt culminating in the fall of Khartoum. Many of the city’s inhabitants were massacred.

The British led an Anglo-Indian expeditionary force at both ends of the Suez Canal. Simultaneously, German and Italian forces landed in Alexandria and the northern end of the canal. Both joined together and maneuvered to meet the Egyptian army. The combined Anglo-Indian and German-Italian forces easily defeated the Egyptian army and took control of the country putting the Khedive back in control. Following his victories in Sudan, the Mahdi sent an army to invade Egypt, where it was defeated by the European expeditionary force. The British become aware of the Mahdist threat from Sudan and decided to crush it. An Anglo-Indian army invaded Sudan, easily defeated the Mahdist forces, and killed the Mahdi in fighting. Sudan was restored to Egyptian rule. The Khedivate itself, however, became a Sultanate and a British protectorate as political ties with the Ottoman Empire were severed. Britain rewarded the Germans and Italians for their help in the Egyptian campaign by ceding Heligoland to Germany and Kufra to Italy. Moreover it pledged to support German and Italian colonial claims in Africa that did not interfere with British strategic interests.

In the USA, the Reconstruction Era came to an end during the late 1870s as military rule in the South was phased out and Southern whites mostly reasserted their political dominance. White supremacists strived to use violence and intimidation to keep the freedmen away from the ballot box and gain control of state governments across the South. The North had supported use of military force to contrast this for a good while, but eventually got tired of the effort since the South apparently accepted national unity and end of slavery. The Southern supremacists tried to exploit their political dominance to impose a system of racial discrimination and segregation on the freedmen.

They were partially successful since racism in the South remained rampant and supported a pattern of individual but systematic discrimination of blacks in housing, employment, and education. Most freedmen became a discriminated and exploited lower class with de facto limited rights. Effectiveness of their votes was often diluted by such devices as gerrymandered redistricting plans and at-large/multimember elections and their participation to elections got somewhat restricted by felony disenfranchisement and selective application of literacy or comprehension tests, moral-character tests, and record-keeping requirements. However Northern economic investment and vigorous action of the federal government to oppose segregationist activities allowed a sizable middle class of freedmen and ‘poor whites’ to form in the South and act as a partial political and social counterbalance to the white supremacists. Although politically and socially dominant, the racists were unable to exclude their opponents from politics altogether or enact a system of legal segregation, also thanks to the influence of the federal government. Military occupation was terminated, but federal courts and law enforcement acted to suppress and punish blatant acts of supremacist violence and activities of violent groups. Enforcement however often proved difficult due to Southern non-cooperation, especially in lynching cases.

Federal legislation guaranteed blacks equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. It also prohibited discrimination in voter registration on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, creed, previous condition of servitude, or failure to pay any poll tax, outlawed interferences with a person’s right to vote, and gave federal courts and law enforcement the power to enforce the act. The Supreme Court banned voting-rights restrictions based on property qualifications or extensive residency requirements. It ruled the Reconstruction Amendments gave the Congress the power to protect the federal and state rights of citizenship and outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals and organizations when they acted as “a sort of public servants”. It also declared anti-miscegenation statutes and state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities were unconstitutional. This effectively frustrated the intent of state officials in the South to embody individual practices of racial segregation into laws that legalized the treatment of blacks as second-class citizens. Individual adherence to the practice of racial segregation however remained widespread in schools, housing, employment, and at the workplace.

As it concerned restoration of political unity and entrenchment of national identity, Reconstruction was an unqualified success; for the civil rights of the Blacks its record was more questionable. One positive socio-economic feature was a remarkable amount of infrastructure development that repaired the damage of the civil war and allowed a substantial degree of industrialization. Economic development of the ‘New South’ narrowed the gap with the industrial North and allowed the growth of a Black and ‘poor White’ middle class, even if the divide remained significant and the rural component strong.

A shared national narrative about the Civil War that was acceptable to the northern and southern sections gradually developed. It held slavery was a wicked, outdated system, antebellum Southern society was based on wrong and unsustainable foundations, and a group of power-hungry extremist politicians and slaveholder planters that refused to accept the verdict of history and democracy staged a coup and misled a naive South to fight for the wrong cause of rebellion and slavery’s preservation by means of misguided regional patriotism, lies, and coercion. The Union cause was righteous and the North won on its own merits but the valor, suffering, and tragic heroism of the Southern soldiers and officers that followed the laws of war and behaved chivalrously had to be acknowledged and honored. The Confederate political leaders were despicable traitors and no apology for their cause or nostalgia of antebellum South was tolerated or could be used as an indirect show of support for segregation. However the South had redeemed itself by accepting the outcome of the war and fighting for America in the wars against Britain, Mexico, and Spain. In this narrative, Lincoln and Grant were the heroes, Lee and Johnston were the tragic heroes, and Davis and Stephens were the villains.

In the rest of the USA, the North continued its massive industrial growth and the Western territories were gradually settled. The Canadian territories and later states became in pretty much all regards extensions of the Midwest, Great Plains, and Pacific Coast regions respectively. The Caribbean territories and later states of Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico were gradually assimilated in American society with integration of their elites in the US political system. In the process they became a Spanish-speaking portion of the South in most aspects. US rule brought remarkable political stability and economic development for the region’s standards and this secured a success of the assimilation process.

Their presence in the Union unfortunately meant their Black population became subject to the same discrimination system that prevailed in the Southern states. On the other hand, their example and the legal constraints Southern racism worked under influenced US notions of race to make the Southern whites more tolerant of Spanish-speakers and racially-mixed persons. A social attitude towards racial classification gradually developed in the USA that was similar to the one prevalent in Latin America. A person of racially-mixed origins could be identified as White, Black, Amerindian, or multi-racial depending on appearance, ancestry, financial status, class, education, and self-identification.

Pretty much the same way, the northern Mexican territories were gradually assimilated in the American nation. The region’s population was relatively scarce, especially in the northwestern portion, and much like the US Greater Antilles, most Mexican inhabitants came to appreciate the political stability and economic development brought by US rule, so they accepted integration in American society. Most Spanish-speakers in US territories also converted to Old Catholicism. The ones that remained hostile to American rule, either out of nationalism or loyalty to Papal Catholicism, typically emigrated to Latin America. Most northern Mexican territories and later states became an extension of the Southwest region; the Rio Grande area (Coahuila, Neuvo Leon, and Tamaulipas) became a broad copy of Texas in most regards except the effects of slavery.

In South America, a border dispute between Bolivia and Chile about the ownership of the resource-rich region of Antofagasta caused the War of the Pacific. Peru honored its alliance treaty with Bolivia. Argentina regarded Chile’s actions with suspicion due to its rivalry with the Chileans for Patagonia. However it was happy to exploit the situation to engage in the undisturbed conquest of Patagonia from the Mapuche natives. The Chilean army invaded the disputed territory. Bad luck made Chile lose both of its ironclads and this allowed Peru to seize the upper hand in the naval war. The Peruvians destroyed the rest of the Chilean navy and severed the supplies to the Chilean army. Desert conditions made both sides critically reliant on sea routes to supply their forces. The Peruvian and Bolivian armies were thus able to push the Chilean forces out of the disputed area with ease.

[whiteshore]

Maybe France-Spain becomes a *Fascist regime in the future, eurofed?

[eurofed]

Apr 23, 2016 13:24:11 GMT whiteshore said:

Maybe France-Spain becomes a *Fascist regime in the future, eurofed?

Very much so, and it is already developing pretty much all the typical features of fascism in this regard, except the presence of an all-powerful charismatic dictator and a totalitarian single party since it is ruled by an oligarchic clique (like Showa Japan), it has a figurehead monarch as head of state (like Fascist Italy and Showa Japan), and it keeps the empty trappings of parliament and constitutional monarchy as a figleaf (like Axis Hungary and Romania). In OTL terms, its features are going to resemble a mix of Vichy France (except the German military occupation, of course), Franco's Spain, Fascist Italy (see above), Axis Hungary and Romania, and 1930s Japan rather than Nazi Germany. It has the police state, the authoritarian political system with bloody persecution of political opponents, the extreme nationalism and militarism, the revisionist expansionist and imperialist urges, the atmosphere of permanent national mobilization with an effort to channel domestic tensions into revanchist hatred of foreign enemies as scapegoats, the drive to build up the nation's strength for military dual uses, the tapping into an idealized reinvented past and a promise of future imperial greatness as a model and ideal. Much like its OTL counterparts, it is born from military defeat, severe political instability, and nationalist frustration, and it has good chances to overreach and drive the peoples it rules into catastrophe. Given the circumstances of its 19th-century birth, it definitely dislikes certain minorities such as the Jews, but it seems unlikely to do much worse than discriminate and harass them - large-scale pogroms are definitely possible and even likely, though. However I wouldn't bet on its troops behaving much better than the Wehrmacht in occupied territory during an European conflict. It is going to have a lot of non-White blood on its hands, but admittedly such genocidal brutality is a burden it is going to share with all the other Western great powers, including such champions of liberal democracy as Britain, the USA, TTL Germany, and TTL Italy. This is the age of rampant Western imperialism, and non-European peoples are in for a lot of abuse.  

By all means, the Franco-Spanish regime is the first and likely main expression of *fascism ITTL. Of course, its OTL name would mean nothing to TTL public and I'm not sure how they are going to call it, but TTL people are likely to recognize to some degree it is a new and distinct political phenomenon from the Ancient Regime. If anything, TTL political debate about the nature of Franco-Spanish *fascism might involve the complex question of if and how it is different from Russian-style authoritarianism in practice. The special nature of Franco-Spanisn *fascism may also get somewhat more apparent ITTL because of what it gets compared with. Germany and Italy successfully evolve into stable liberal democracies and Britain and America aren't much different from OTL (if anything, the British Empire gets more centralized and oppressive with Ireland and the colonies, and America less racist and more progressive, but more 'Manifest Destiny' expansionist). 19th century Russia and Japan do not turn out radically different from OTL, but may be slightly better in certain regards (e.g. Russia shall evolve into a more conservative and less developed version of OTL Kaiserreich, Korea shall be successfully assimilated into the Japanese Empire as an equal). Latin America is still going to be Latin America, but parts of it seem headed to a better outcome than OTL, e.g. the portions of the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America that are (going to be) absorbed by the USA or the successful evolution of Greater Argentina into a liberal middle power. I suppose it would not be a great surprise if I tell most likely the Franco-Spanish *fascist experiment is going to meet a dramatic end in military catastrophe rather like OTL Axis regimes. It remains to be seen if its model gets adopted by other powers before that.

Because of France-Spain's role as the birthplace and main haven of *fascism, and the effective absence of the Third Republic, France loses pretty much all of its OTL reputation as a champion of liberal democracy, and develops a negative one of tyranny and aggressiveness interrupted by violent political convulsions not unlike the one of OTL Germany and Russia, if in a less extreme way since for all its faults Franco-Spanish *fascism is nowhere so brutal as Nazism or Communism. Even the French Revolution is reinterpreted in a more negative way as a mostly failed experiment that brought more violence and despotism. The American Revolution instead gets to be seen as the true birth and template of modern liberalism and democracy, except by those who have reason to dislike either the USA or radical democracy. Those ones instead tend to look to the gradual development of liberal democracy in Britain, Germany, and Italy and their more conservative version as the model. TTL Britain, Germany, and Italy share a rather similar reputation in this regard, broadly similar to the one of OTL Britain and France, except the British Empire is seen rather more negatively by America and its allies and sympathizers. In this context the 1848 Revolutions are reinterpreted in a manner not unlike the 1789 Revolution IOTL, a seminal, precursor event that perhaps went too radical and divisive and failed in the brief term, but laid the groundwork and inspiration for liberalism and democracy to triumph later in a more moderate and stable form. It is no coincidence that ITTL Germany and Italy gift the equivalent of the Statue of Liberty to America. Tsarist Russia is not seen as much different from its OTL self, if perhaps a bit less negatively because of its more successful reforms. Of course, this essentially concerns the effects of 19th century events. A lot in this regard also gets to be shaped by the World Wars and other major 20th century events and the roles the great powers get to play in it.

[whiteshore]

Maybe the *Fascists are called the Classicalists or something like that?

[eurofed]

Apr 24, 2016 2:33:55 GMT whiteshore said:

Maybe the *Fascists are called the Classicalists or something like that?

Perhaps. I'm badly creatively challenged with devising names for novel phenomena in fiction, so I often not bother. Something like Classicalism may or may not be appropriate for TTL *fascism, or at least need some qualifications, since TTL Franco-Spanish *fascists likely tap into an idealized, reinvented amalgam of the accomplishments of Ancient Regime French and Spanish monarchies (they may or may not even use Napoleon I and his military accomplishments to some degree, they are certainly appealing, but in any case he would need some qualifications, because of the taint from his revolutionary background, the abuse he did to Spain, and the failures of his nephew) and the Celtic, pre-Roman past as a model. They probably avoid tapping into Classical Greco-Roman heritage too much, because that's what their Italian enemies use as inspiration.

Another aspect TTL *fascism is going to differ from its OTL version, and gets described in a future update about ethnic issues: although ITTL European racist sense of superiority on non-White peoples is as strong as ever, even if America itself is a bit less racist about its own minorities, there is no one seriously arguing any European ethnic group is superior or inferior to any other. Since ITTL great powers from every major European ethnic group have been scoring a badass reputation, no one dares argue Northern Europeans or WASP are racially superior to Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans (or the reverse, of course). The notion Europeans are superior to Africans and Asians is seen as mainstream common sense (more enlightened souls think it's a matter of culture and education, diehard bigots think it's a matter of biology) but anyone arguing for the racial inferiority of Italians or Russians would be ridiculed or dragged to the nearest asylum. Franco-Spanish *fascists can certainly and do claim their German, Italian, and American enemies are wicked and dangerous, but they cannot seriously advocate they are inferior. Prejudice against Jews exists, but it is based on religious and cultural issues rather than biological pseudo-science. Arabs, on the other hand, are generally classified as non-Whites, and Turks slide ever closer to that level as the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire decline.

[whiteshore]

Will the Congo Free State analogue in this world be the Gallic Empire's most infamous colonial atrocity?

[eurofed]

Apr 25, 2016 13:44:13 GMT whiteshore said:

Will the Congo Free State analogue in this world be the Gallic Empire's most infamous colonial atrocity?

Quite possibly, although it would have to take place in a different area since TTL division of Africa in spheres of influence leaves the Congo basin essentially off-limits to the Franco-Spanish, and moreso the insignificant Belgian underdogs, as described in the next updates about the Scramble for Africa. There is no doubt France-Spain is going to have the most brutal and rapacious form of colonialism ever among the great powers, and broadly resemble the CFS at its worst. I had not really bothered going into such fine detail as to discriminate between the differences of the various powers' colonial policies when I wrote about the colonization of Africa and Asia. However I can add a remark about Franco-Iberian colonial policies reaching an exceptional level of violence and ruthless exploitation even for the standards of European colonialism and causing serious international criticism, much like the CFS. However this is unlikely to make the Franco-Iberian empire budge since they are a great power and much more able to withstand such backlash than tiny Belgium, and because they are a dictatorship and can easily control the flow of information to their domestic public by censorship and propaganda. I can also add a casual remark about how Franco-Iberian troops distinguished themselves in ferocity and bloodthirsty 'crusading' zeal during the ruthless foreign repression of the Boxers insurrection's equivalent.  

[eurofed]

1881-90 (part I)

Franco-Spanish drive to seize control of Annam and Tonkin caused increasing tension with China that regarded northern Vietnam as part of its sphere of influence. Last-ditch diplomatic attempts to negotiate a compromise failed because of ambiguities in the agreement and the belligerent attitude of local commanders on both sides that caused armed clashes. A state of war between France-Spain and China ensued. The Franco-Spanish navy easily destroyed the Chinese southern fleets, bombed several South Chinese ports and imposed a blockade of the Yangtze River. With some more difficulty, the F-S army defeated the Chinese and their Vietnamese allies in Tonkin and landed in Hainan.

To add to China’s troubles, a group of pro-Japanese reformers briefly overthrew the pro-Chinese conservative Korean government in a bloody coup. However, the pro-Chinese faction, with assistance from Chinese troops, succeeded in regaining control in an equally bloody counter-coup. These coups resulted not only in the deaths of a number of reformers, but also in the burning of the Japanese legation and the deaths of several legation guards and citizens. China had long held Korea as tributary state. Japan had engaged a very successful program of modernization and industrialization during the last two decades. It wished to increase its influence in Korea, both to use its mineral and agricultural resources for its own growing economy and population and to eliminate the threat a Korean Peninsula in the hands of a hostile foreign power created to Japan’s security.

The war with China dramatically showed the positive effects of the modernization process in Japan. The Japanese navy crushed the Chinese northern fleet, while Japanese armies landed in the Korean Peninsula, pushed Chinese forces out of it, overrun Korea, and imposed a pro-Japanese government. China’s troubles further increased when Russia, joined the conflict to fulfill its own expansionist ambitions on the northern border lands of the Chinese Empire. The Russian government picked the excuse of border clashes in Xinjiang to declare war. Mid-19th century ethnic and religious rebellions and conflicts with European powers had seriously weakened China’s ability to keep control of distant Xinjiang, leaving the region in a chaotic state. Russia had exploited the situation to occupy part of the province, and Qing attempts to restore their control led to armed clashes.

The Russian intervention fostered an agreement between Russia and Japan to define their respective strategic interests in Northeast Asia. The Russians recognized Korea, Sakhalin, and the Kuril islands in the Japanese sphere of influence, and the Japanese acknowledged Manchuria and Mongolia as a Russian interest. Russian armies penetrated deep into northern Manchuria and western Xinjiang, defeating Chinese forces. In the meanwhile, the Franco-Spanish consolidated their hold of Tonkin and expanded their occupied area in Hainan. The Japanese advanced in southern Manchuria and northern China, and a Japanese landing seized control of the Pescadores islands.

Being encircled by powerful enemies and on the run on multiple fronts, the Qing dynasty decided to beg for peace after an unsuccessful attempt to get help from other European powers. China recognized the Franco-Spanish protectorate on Annam and Tonkin and ceded Hainan to the Bourbon Empire. The Franco-Spanish had to spend several years to entrench their control on northern Vietnam and Hainan in a pacification campaign, but were ultimately successful. Russia annexed Manchuria, Xinjiang, and western Mongolia and engaged in a successful multi-year attempt to pacify the conquered regions. China recognized Japanese control of Korea and ceded Formosa to Japan. An attempt by pro-Chinese Formosan notables to create an independent republic was swiftly crushed by Japanese forces.

Japan quickly moved to make Korea a protectorate and in a few years turned it into formal annexation. Formosa and Sakhalin (renamed Karafuto by the Japanese) were annexed as well. The Japanese strived to integrate Korea in the Japanese Empire and to enact the same modernization and industrialization program that had been so successful in their homeland. Japanese rule faced the opposition of nationalist scholars and the Confucian conservative elites that had thrived under the Joseon dynasty. Its modernizing reforms and the social progress and economic development they brought won it the support of progressive members of the upper and middle classes and many commoners.

The Japanese government strived to completely integrate the Korean economy and society with Japan, and thus introduced many modern economic and social institutions, invested heavily in infrastructure, including schools, railroads and utilities, and pursued parallel industrialization of Japan and Korea. It promoted mediatization and intermarriage of the Korean royal household and Yangban elite in the Japanese royal family and the Japanese peerage. Cultural assimilation efforts, such as support for adoption of Japanese-style names during transition to a modern family registry system, were balanced with respect for Korean cultural heritage. The Japanese administration introduced a public education system modeled after the Japanese school system. The public curriculum focused on western knowledge, patriotic moral and political instruction, and a hybrid system of Korean and Japanese history and language studies.

Official Japanese policy promoted equality between ethnic Koreans and ethnic Japanese and the notion of racial and imperial unity of Korea and Japan. Many Koreans could sympathize since they came to associate the Korean kingdom, which had utterly failed to modernize on its own, with backwardness, the Confucian caste system, and poverty, while the Japanese Empire meant modernity, social progress, and economic development. As a result they gradually focused their political aspirations on equality with the Japanese rather than independence or otherwise aligned with the ideological agendas of like-minded Japanese.

By the early 1880s, Russia effectively completed its conquest of Central Asia north of Persia and Afghanistan. This expansion and Russian successes in the Balkan war enhanced the ‘Great Game’ imperial competition between Britain and Russia in Asia. The arrival of an uninvited Russian diplomatic mission to Kabul, which the Afghan Amir unsuccessfully tried to keep out, and his refusal to accept a British mission too prompted the British to invade Afghanistan. The Anglo-Indian forces occupied most of the country. The Amir was forced to sign an agreement that relinquished control of Afghan foreign affairs to Britain. British representatives were installed in Kabul and other locations. Soon afterwards, however, an uprising in Kabul led to the slaughter of the British representative, along with his guards and staff. This prompted the second phase of the Anglo-Afghan war. Anglo-Indian forces invaded Afghanistan again, defeated its army, deposed the Amir, and crushed the uprisings of various Afghan governors and warlords.

Britain decided to make Afghanistan a protectorate and partition it between multiple rulers. Afghanistan thus became part of the British Raj as various princely states, although it was one of the most lawless areas of the British Indian Empire, unrest was frequent, and British control on the region was always much looser than in the Indian subcontinent. In a parallel move, the British also consolidated their control on Baluchistan by imposing their suzerainty on the princely states and tribal areas of the region. Parallel British and Russian expansionism in Central Asia caused a series of border incidents that brought the two great powers on the brink of war. German mediation allowed defusing the crisis with an agreement to establish the Oxus River as the main border between Russian Central Asia and the British Raj. The agreement also allowed the formal Russian annexation of Armenia-Assyria and recognized northwestern Persia in the Russian sphere of influence. Russia then demanded cession of Iranian Azerbaijan to Persia and when the Persians refused, conquered and annexed the territory with a brief victorious war. With the partition of Central Asia between the two empires, the Great Game now shifted its focus westward, to the Ottoman Empire and Persia, and eastward, to China, Mongolia, and Tibet. To affirm British imperial rule on the Indian subcontinent, the British Parliament officially recognized Queen Victoria as Empress of India.