Once Upon a December: A Different Decembrist Russia

[MarshalBraginsky]

This will be another two part update series.

(Part One)

The origins of the War of Prussian Succession lay in three nations’ competition to place their candidates inside the throne of Spain. Austria was eager to restore the Hapsburg legacy that was lost to the Bourbons through Hapsburg incompetence, while France wished to maintain the Bourbon dynasty in Spain for prestige reasons, and Prussia was eager to supplant both French and Austrian dynastic influences with Prussian influence and to acquire some colonies overseas. However, with the Franco-Austrian alliance still in firm shape and their sudden swing of support behind the Carlists, it was Prussia who backed the royalists and indeed, Leopold, Prince of the Hohenzollerns, was poised to become the next King of Spain had Carlos VII and his Carlists lost the Third Carlist Wars.

When Carlos VII met up with Napoleon III and Franz Josef I of Austria in another meeting in September of 1870, they drafted a treaty that would become the cornerstone of the so-called Three Kings’ Alliance, which will consist of France, Spain and Austria. As the proposed alliance was currently under negotiation for its official ideologies and how they would work together to deter any Pestelist influence from taking root, France had soon emerged as the de facto leader, albeit they didn’t have much colonies to boast. Austria, as the weakest link in the proposed Three Kings’ Alliance, was in dire need of colonies and expansion of territories, and none of her neighbors are willing to part with their lands to the Austrian Hapsburgs.

On November 18th, 1870, the Three Kings’ Alliance soon became an official alliance. Prussia was threatened with the prospect of a two-front war, and as leader of the North German Confederation, Prussia was committed to protecting the integrity of the other German states. Wilhelm I could easily turn to Russia for help but such a move would only invite trouble from the southern German states, which were primarily Catholic and a single request to Austria would only result in war. As a result, Wilhelm had to turn to other nations for a potential alliance. Ironically, one nation that would warm up to Prussia was a nation ruled by its bitter Hapsburg rival in the Second Mexican Empire.

Unlikely Alliances:

Maximillian I’s relationship with its French and Austrian masters turned sour after the Three Kings’ Alliance was formed with Mexico’s old enemy Spain as the third member and wasn’t consulted first. Moreover, Maximillian’s reforms which lifted half of Mexico’s population out of poverty had clearly alienated the conservative elements of the country, and the Mexican emperor’s relationship with Benito Juarez proved that the Hapsburg monarch had become softer and more willing to work with the liberals. On the downside, Maximillian’s mission to help the people of Mexico had alienated his own family members, who were threatened by his increasingly liberal stance. With the United and Confederate States on its northern borders, Mexico was forced to seek for friendly European allies. It was then that Prussia became a useful ally of Mexico.

Bismarck and the Mexican emperor first met each other on January 12th of 1871 in Veracruz, the site of his arrival back in 1864. Their first negotiation on a potential military alliance proved to be one of Maximillian’s finest achievements, as he offered the Prussians a military base after the unification of the German states was accomplished. Moreover as Maximillian had insisted, Prussia can help modernize the Mexican Army with Prussian training methods and tactics while the Mexicans could host a hypothetical German Navy base in the Yucatan Peninsula, or to conquer northern Colombia and establish a Prussian (later German) naval presence in the Carribean. Bismarck was unsure of Maximillian’s offers, but he promised to come back in six months after he consulted with the Kaiser.

Besides Prussia’s flirtation with Mexico, the Ottoman Empire was also seeking allies that can help her regain the prestige she lost during its wars against the Egyptians and the ensuing encroachment on Ottoman territory by Russia. With its traditional ally France cozying up to Spain and Austria, Great Britain seemed to be a rational choice. After all, the British have a presence in Croatia and they are eager to contain Russian or Prussian expansion elsewhere. Since 1866, Anglo-Prussian relations started to sour when Bismarck proposed to Wilhelm I that Prussia and her successor entity could cultivate a strong alliance with Qing China, possibly threatening Britain’s hold on India. Moreover, Prussia was the first nation to boycott British goods when news of Britain’s atrocities against Russian POWs in Samarqand occurred. Even worse, the Hungarians had shown their support for Russia during its war against Britain while supporting the United States by massing their army on their border with Croatia and inviting Serbia to attack if another Balkan War was to occur.

Anglo-Japanese Friendship:

Back in 1868 when Japan was in the midst of the Meiji Restoration, a British Navy warship commanded by Admiral David Price {1} visited Tokyo. Unlike Commodore Perry’s visit to Japan in 1853, the British visit was a pretext for an Anglo-Japanese diplomatic overture. The new Meiji Emperor, Mutsuhito, welcomed his British guests and assured that Japan was willing to modernize, as long as they can combine western ethics and technology with eastern values. Another visit by Price, this time accompanied by Prince Albert and Lord Palmerston in 1869, laid the foundation for Britain’s efforts to prop up its Japanese ally in response to a growing pro-Pestelist regime in Korea. As Britain and Japan had mutual interests in East Asia (Britain wanting to contain Russia and Japan wanting to conquer Korea), it was inevitable that Russia would be alarmed at such developments.

Like how the Korean military was reformed and upgraded on the Russian and to a lesser extent, the American model, Japan’s modernized military would be remodeled on the British military style. Samuel Browne, the commander of the Central Asia campaign, was sent to Japan to help supervise the foundation of the Imperial Military Academy. British ethics were introduced to the Japanese cadets, and chivalry was also taught as a virtue. Old class samurai were suspicious of the foreigners’ objectives in helping the new Meiji Emperor westernize. The British offer to modernize the Ottoman military in 1873 would result in another unlikely cultural exchange: that of Imperial Japan and Ottoman Turkey but it won’t occur until 1885.

Russo-Korean Friendship:

Since 1853, numerous Korean students studied all across Russia, largely thanks to the alliance Russia forged with the Korean Kingdom as a result of a coup which toppled the previous Korean king and the ascension of Gojong as the new King. The Korean Diaspora would eventually grow in Russian cities like Vladivostok (founded in 1861), Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Chita, Ulan-Ude, Okhotsk, Petropavlovsk and Krasnoyarsk by 1868. One of the Korean students who studied in St. Petersburg was a young, beautiful Korean princess named Myeongseong. She was often compared to Catherine the Great by her Russian peers, and combined with her elegant grace, she was indeed becoming the Korean version of Catherine the Great, though hopefully without the peasant rebellions.

Upon returning to Korea, she quickly married Gojong and would eventually have five kids, one of whom was named Sunjong. The reign of King Gojong since 1853 was marked by improvements in agriculture and industry, inspired by the Pestelist modernization of Russia’s economy. Alaska’s status as a financial black hole was also becoming clear as Milyutin negotiated with President McClellan on purchasing the enlarged Alaskan state, which the United States government was interested in doing in exchange for obtaining permission to allow railway companies to help finance the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Alaska Purchase – Seward’s Gamble:

In January 12th of 1871, Prime Minister Milyutin resigned from his post as Prime Minister. An election in Russia brought Sergei Witte to power, and one of his first acts as the new Prime Minister was to authorize the sale of Alaska (including the conquered portions of the Northwest Territories annexed by Russia from Britain) to the United States for a grand sum of 20 million US Dollars. The US authorities promised to protect the Russian settlers and to help them if they want to return to Russia. Seward also obtained not only Witte’s permission, but Vladimir III’s blessing in allowing US railway firms to establish their operations in Russia. Vladimir III also allowed US shipbuilding firms to export their shipbuilding technology and port maintenance tactics to Russia’s ports in the Pacific.

Upon completing the purchase, numerous American migrants from the United States (as well as the occupied territories in ex-British Columbia) settled in Russia’s Pacific cities, forming the first American expatriate community on Russian soil and the second largest foreign group in the Russian Far East, surpassed only by the Korean community there. Miners who grew tired of the gold rush in occupied ex-BC also moved to Russia in search of gold, though their expedition only resulted in disappointment as the winter climate made gold digging impossible to complete.

In what became known as the Yakut Gold Mine of 1872, one of the American miners had dug up gold while he was digging the ground to build a house from which he could establish a fur trading station. News of the gold rush in the Yakut land reached Vladivostok, with predictable results. Numerous American, Russian, Central Asian, Caucasian and Korean miners ventured north to dig up the gold, though the output was rather less than the output of gold dug up in the Cariboo region of the newly declared state of Sherman. Despite the rather disappointing results of the Yakut Gold Rush, it did spur the development of Yakutsk as a major city since the Trans-Siberian Railway planned to include the city in its stops.

The Trans-Siberian Railway also made plans to extend its stops through Mongol and Manchu territories in order to reach Korea, linking the Korean and Russian economies together. Naturally, the Qing Chinese were threatened by the sudden economical growth of their former vassal but couldn’t do anything in fear of Russian retaliation. Russo-Chinese rapprochement attempts also included extending the stops into the Chinese port of Qingdao but the Qing court rejected such attempts, stating that Russia should give back Mongolia and Manchuria first. Russia rejected the Chinese demands, a reason why the Qing court was eager to ally itself with Prussia and later on, Germany.

Road to War – The War of Prussian Succession:

There were several other origins which lay the foundations for the War of Prussian Succession other than the competition over who gets to rule Spain. Several German states which were nominally independent, rushed to form a so-called Westphalian Federated States, consisting of German states in the Rhineland. King Charles I of Wurttemberg became Westphalia’s unofficial leader in November 19th of 1870 and made plans to incorporate the Austrian lands, though he also planned on giving independence to Bohemia. Unfortunately, some of the Protestant lands within the Westphalian Federated States gravitated towards Prussia when Charles of Westphalia-Wurttemberg approached France with a possible alliance. Otto von Bismarck saw the potential Catholic German entry into the Three Kings’ Alliance as another security risk and in return, he authorized the formation of the North German Confederate States with Prussia as nominal leader. It was only a matter of time before the two rival German states would go to war with each other.

Denmark and Prussia had fought a short war over Schleswig in 1864, in which Denmark had lost parts of Schleswig to Prussia. However, it was not willing to side with the Three Kings’ Alliance, lest the Kaiser would have contemplated on having Prussia take over Denmark, but decided against it for a variety of reasons. Denmark was also not willing to antagonize Sweden-Norway over its alliance with the Three Kings’ Alliance unless they wanted their neighbors to the north to invade Denmark’s colonies of Iceland and Greenland. At the same time, Russia reaffirmed its Pestelist alliances with Hungary, the Balkan kingdoms of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Earlier in 1869, the Duke of Uppland had died from a typhoid fever. His son Dmitry succeeded him as King of Bulgaria, and the new king had remained loyal to the Pestelist bloc. Only with Wallachia did Russia have problems as she soon swung in favor of the Prussians. Hungary on the other hand, mourned the death of Miklos I (Grand Duke Mikhail Constantinovich) in July 19th, 1869 and his son Andras I of Hungary (born as Andrei Mikhailovich) succeeded him. Though relations among the Pestelist states were good, it was in Hungary that Andras I took notice of the Three Kings’ Alliance and approached Prussia on a potential alliance.

When Italy was approached with an offer to join the Three Kings’ Alliance in Novermber 28th, 1870, Croatia turned to Great Britain for protection. Once again, the British Royal Navy displayed a show of force just outside Trieste as they have done countless times if anything should happen to Croatia due to any Italian involvement. However, the British show of force had only galvanized anti-British activities within Croatia and actually looked to the Carlists in Spain and the Hapsburgs in Austria for help.

Firing the First Shot:

In what was soon to become known as the Ems Telegraph, Bismarck had engineered a false message sent to the Italian king with offers of French territories in France itself and Dutch offers of splitting Belgium with the Walloons joining France and the Flemish joining the Netherlands. Although the Ems Telegraph didn’t really result in French outrage at first, it was not until a meeting between the French ambassador and Wilhelm I that the Ems Dispatch proved to be a catalyst in goading France to declare war on Prussia. However, the Ems Dispatch also involved the Austrian ambassador as well, since he was sent by Franz Josef I to reaffirm to Wilhelm I that the Austrians would recognize the reign of the Carlists, and to withdraw their candidate from ever taking up the offer for the throne of Spain. In return, the Prussians would recognize the Carlist regime and not to shelter Spanish republicans in Prussian territory. Wilhelm I agreed on everything but the last clause, as he had already authorized the transfer of the exiled Spanish republicans to Poland. Now the Three Kings’ Alliance had declared war on Prussia, and the Netherlands joined the war on Prussia’s side.

On the Three Kings’ Alliance side, Spain could only mobilize around 80,000 soldiers due to the need to recover from the devastating Third Carlist War, while Austria contributed around 120,000 soldiers and France can mobilize 400,000 soldiers. On the Prussian side, the Prussians could mobilize well over 1.2 million conscripts, but they could also rely on the 100,000 American Civil War veterans who fought for the Union side for additional support and experience. The Prussian veterans also brought back samples of the US Spencer repeating rifles to their homeland, but the General Staff declined to use the repeating rifles. Instead, they still relied on the 25 year old Dreyse needle gun, though Helmut von Moltke advocated the purchase of Winchester rifles. The Netherlands could only mobilize around 92,000 soldiers, but they could make use of their navy for blockading French and Spanish forts. Britain however, remained neutral and Russia wasn’t willing to intervene on the Prussian side because Wilhelm I declined Russian help in fear of sending Charles of Westphalia-Wurttemberg straight into Austria’s arms.

On December 25th, 1870, the TKA forces gathered in Metz and waited for the Prussians to approach the town, from which they could bog down the larger Prussian Army with defensive artillery in the forts. However, the Prussian mobilization went faster than normal, and by the time Moltke’s army reached Metz three days later, the defenses were still incomplete. The Prussians began to bombard Metz with their new Krupp artillery cannons on the morning of December 28th, while the French brought out another weapon introduced in the American Civil War: the Gatling gun. Purchased from the Confederate States (albeit captured from the US forces in the civil war), the French utilized the Gatling gun in the rear, only using it as the last resort. This proved to be a mistake as Prussian Krupp guns were able to take them out right away. Despite the initial Prussian successes, the fort of Metz held out a bit longer until January 30th of 1871 when Francois Bazaine surrendered with most of his army. However, the Prussians were in for a rude awakening when Austria launched an attack from Bohemia, into Silesia. Unlike the Prussian success against France, their battles against Austria would be more of a slugfest.

[Razgriz 2K9]

Interesting take, the Franco-Prussian War and the Austro-Prussian War in one...

But why the Dutch, they're looking to get curbstomped should France somehow regain the advantage.

[MarshalBraginsky]

(Part Two)

Prussia’s unexpected war against Austria while they fought the French to a standstill was exactly what Bismarck had correctly predicted. Despite his reputation as a guy who wasn’t willing to risk everything in an adventure that is certainly going to fail, Bismarck had faith in the Pestelist bloc, hoping for Hungary and Poland to intervene on Prussia’s side against France and Austria, despite the Poles’ Catholic stance. When the Austrian Army invaded Silesia in February 3rd, 1871, Wilhelm I was forced to divert some of the Prussian troops to the border with Bohemia, while news of a possible Polish involvement reached Paris and Vienna. Another siege at Breslau by the Austrians resulted in its occupation as the Prussian Army retreated from Silesia, although Wilhelm I and Wladyslaw V Romanov of Poland kept in touch with the current situation on the front lines. However, the death of Wladyslaw V Romanov in February 6th, 1871 plunged Poland into a succession crisis as he had no suitable heirs. Luckily, Andras I of Hungary had a brother who was willing to become King of Poland, aptly named Sergei Vladislavich (renamed Karol I of Poland). As Karol I became King of Poland, he immediately decided to declare war on France and Austria in support of his Prussian relatives, prompting Andras I of Hungary to follow suit.

Battle of Posen:

Two weeks after Silesia’s conquest by Austria in February 3 of 1871, they marched into the city of Posen and bombarded it. Franz Josef’s goal in this case was to cut off the rail link that enabled Prussia to obtain supplies from Poland, now that the Poles were on Prussia’s side. Marshal Josef Pilsudski (IOTL, he is the father of his namesake son, the Marshal Pilsudski who became the leader of the Second Polish Republic) led 79,000 Polish troops to relieve the Prussian defenders in Posen, though another Austrian force under Marshal Potiorek engaged the Poles just outside the Prusso-Polish border.

Marshal Pilsudski would acquire a reputation in the Battle of Posen as a fearless commander who also happened to be a bit controversial, mainly stemming from his penchant for taking unnecessary risky decisions which actually worked but proved too costly in battle. Apparently, Pilsudski the Elder noticed a larger Austrian Army marching in the direction of Breslau and ordered General Wladyslaw Jablonowski to advance with 97,000 soldiers, weakening his own defense force fighting off the Austrians. Though Jablonowski managed to stem the Austrian invasion, he lost 29% of his army. Pilsudski the Elder’s risky decision had attracted the anger of Jablonowski, as the latter requested for the former to be relieved of duty and court martialed. Instead, Pilsudski was merely demoted to General while Jablonowski was rewarded with a military post in Korea.

Battles of Jennersdorf and Eisenstadt:

Three days after the Polish Army faced off against the Austrians in Posen, the Hungarian Army launched its attack on the Austrian town of Jennersdorf in an attempt to force the Austrians into a multi-front war while Prussia handles France at the Rhine border. A Hungarian Army under Lajos Benedek crossed their border into Austria with 300 cannons and only 50 Gatling Guns on loan from the Prussian Army, as the Gatling Guns were in short supply. The Austrian Army under the command of General Alexander von Krobatin anticipated the Hungarian excursion and began to bombard the incoming Hungarian troops. Earlier in January of 1871, Franz Josef requested to the Croatian government for additional soldiers but because Croatia was still a British protectorate, Lord Palmerston forbade King Tomislav II from making deals with foreign governments without British approval, meaning that Franz Josef’s request would certainly be rejected. It also carried on into the reign of James of Croatia (under the name King Kresimir V Seaforth) in June of 1871 after King Tomislav II died of old age. Resentful of the British presence in what was viewed as Austria’s backyard, Franz Josef wrote to Italian King Victor Emmanuel II, pleading for Italian intervention in Austria’s behalf and in exchange, the Austrians could cede Venetia to them, and allow the Italians to replace the British as Croatia’s ‘protector’. However, even the Italian king declined to join in the war because of the British threat and the possible Hungarian incursion into Italy from Austria.

Six Hungarian divisions slowly advanced into Jennersdorf while the Hungarian artillery bombarded it from outside the town. Another two Hungarian divisions were already marching on their way into a border village called Eisenstadt, with the intention to capture the town to secure a defensive position from which they could encircle Slovenia. The siege went on for a long time, until March 28th of 1871 when Stefan Frohlich arrived from Vienna to help Krobatin’s army repel the Hungarian offensive in Jennersdorf. Although the Austrians managed to save Jennersdorf from the Hungarians, Eisenstadt wasn’t as lucky as it fell under Hungarian occupation.

The rest of Burgenland was occupied by Hungarian reinforcements on April 2nd, 1871 as the Austrian Army was forced to retreat from Burgenland and into Lower Austria. Krobatin’s army then trekked north in order to join Potiorek’s main forces in Silesia as Pilsudski the Elder continued to tie down his forces until the next day when news of the Austrian defeat in Burgenland forced Potiorek to retreat from Silesia. As for the civilians in Burgenland, the Austrian-German minority there were allowed to remain in their homes as long as they didn’t resist Hungarian authorities while Hungarian settlers arrived to populate Burgenland, which was now renamed Varvidek. This was one of Hungary’s only real gains during the entire war on Austrian soil as they were now free to help the Poles and Prussians fight off the Austrians and to a lesser extent, the French.

Franco-Austrian Invasion of Bavaria:

Napoleon III and Franz Josef had contingency plans in the event that either Prussia has become a bit stronger in the long run, or if Hungary had made some gains. In this case, it was the latter, meaning that the two monarchs were poised to launch a poorly named operation, codenamed Maria Theresa, which was a joint invasion of Bavaria and many other lands in southern Germany to open up a line of communication between the two countries while bypassing Italy at the same time due to its neutrality. The plan was hastily launched on May 8th, 1871 as Krobatin’s army marched from the east and a French force under Leon Gambetta was poised to retake Metz from the Prussians.

Gambetta’s army began to bombard Metz with only seventy five cannons, even as the Prussians fought back inside the fortress. French infantry advanced through Prussian artillery bombardment, even as Gambetta continued his attack. At the same time, Krobatin besieged Munich and surrounded it from the north and the east, leaving the Bavarians with little choice but to resist the Austrian invasion. The Bavarian resistance plus the arrival of a small, Prussian force under General von Falkenhayn also bogged down the Austrian advance, though by May 30th, 1871, the Austrians have taken Passau and more Austrian troops were pouring into the rest of Bavaria. Falkenhayn ordered his troops to dig trenches between the open Bavarian fields and Munich, hoping to slow the Austrian advance even deeper. Prussian veterans of the American Civil War displayed their experience to the surprised Austrians by firing from their rifle pits and advancing under enemy artillery bombardment. Their reckless actions however, had resulted in over 48% of Falkenhayn’s army that were killed, and the general himself had ordered the Bavarians to retreat while his own army was gradually annihilated. Thus the Austrians managed to score an early success on their part.

The French attempt to retake Metz dragged on into June as both sides suffered a 29% casualty rate. Indeed, Napoleon III was frustrated with Gambetta’s inability to take necessary risks resulted in his replacement by Patrice de MacMahon. De MacMahon took charge of the French Army in Metz and launched a different approach. Instead of attacking the fortress directly, he ordered the French cavalry to launch diversionary attacks on Forbach and Luneville in order to divert the Prussian forces. The strategy worked, although only for a short while as Erich Ludendorff began to analyze on the strategies de MacMahon applied. By the time the French forces had captured Forbach and Luneville, the Prussian garrison in Metz began to withdraw from the fortress before de MacMahon’s forces converged into Metz.

The French recovery of Metz and the Austrian conquest of Passau proved to be a minor but devastating setback for the Prussians, whose Bavarian ally was on the verge of surrendering. Wilhelm I decided to bring the Westphalian entity under his control, and he did so in June 25th by engineering a coup d’etat which forced Charles I of Wurttemberg to abdicate as King of Westphalia and Grand Duke Frederick I of Baden was crowned King of Westphalia. The Baden Grand Duke was a staunch ally of Prussia, and his contribution of only 39,000 soldiers was negligible, but valuable as Ludendorff sent the Badenian Army to relieve the Bavarians in Munich. Since May of 1871, the Austrian siege of Munich had dragged on long enough for the Badenian Army to arrive. Krobatin’s offensive in Munich started to falter after the Badenian forces took up positions within the city.

Westphalia’s sudden revival proved to be both a good and bad thing for Bismarck, who now viewed the Westphalian entity as a potential rival within the German Confederation. Indeed, Bavaria was slotted as the ‘middle power’ within the Confederation, balancing both Prussia and Westphalia. It would only work if Prussia was severely weakened. So despite Frederick I of Baden’s staunch pro-Prussian stance, he had a small ambition to weaken Prussian domination of the German Confederation. His ambition though, would alarm Wilhelm I as he needed Prussia to become the unifying factor in the creation of a united Germany. In a warning letter sent to Frederick I of Baden, Bismarck warned the king that his plans to challenge Prussian supremacy would run the risk of tearing German unity apart, and would only benefit the Three Kings’ Alliance. Frederick of Baden was forced to play second fiddle to the Prussians, and Westphalia soon became a minor entity as Bavaria itself.

War of the Prussian Succession – Naval Theater:

At the same time the land theater was underway in Europe, the French Navy faced a different set of challenges. Their only opponent was the Netherlands, whose navy was pitiful at first until they were reminded of how the Dutch managed to create the Dutch East Indies. After obtaining Indochina in the 1840s, the French were now in position to help the Dutch East Indies’ most vocal opponents, most notably the Acehnese whose conflict against the Dutch proved to be the most costly conflict in Dutch colonial history.

A French Navy fleet under Auguste Protet sailed from its Haiphong base towards Sumatra Island, hoping to distract the Dutch long enough to negotiate with the Aceh Sultanate. Indeed, the French fleet spotted the Dutch Navy anchored in eastern Sumatra and ambushed it. The ensuing Naval Battle of Lampung, which was fought on April 29th of 1871 (just before the Franco-Austrian incursions into southern Germany) proved to be decisive in Protet’s favor. The decline of Dutch naval presence in Sumatra emboldened the Acehnese to launch further offensives against Jan van Swieten’s Dutch forces in Banda Aceh by May 9th. Aceh Sultan Mahmoud Syah approached Protet for a potential military alliance. Protet obtained permission from Napoleon III by June 23rd, allowing him to proceed with the negotiations. At the same time the French started to negotiate with the Acehnese, the remaining Dutch fleet in their East Indies colony proceeded to raid Spanish settlements in the Philippines for the first time since 1648. The Dutch raid as far inland as Bohol, Bacolod and even in Manila itself prompted a group of Filipino colonial soldiers working for the Spanish colonial government to plot a major rebellion.

The unexpected arrival of the Spanish republican exiles in the Philippines would have a huge effect on the naval theater of the War of Prussian Succession as the Prussians had initially backed anti-Carlist factions within the Kingdom of Spain. Jose Ferrandiz y Nino led a small Spanish Republican Navy fleet into the Philippines, where they met up with the Dutch warships sailing from Sumatra and Sulawesi. Admiral Ferrandiz was appointed the temporary leader of a combined Spanish Republican-Dutch fleet raiding pro-Carlist positions within the Philippine Islands, and his defection to the Dutch Empire had earned him the wrath of Carlos VII’s order to strip Ferrandiz of his medals and other awards. In a secret agreement made between Ferrandiz and General van Swieten on July 11th, 1871, the Spanish Republicans would work together with the Dutch to ensure a possible change in administration of the Philippine Islands from Spain to the Netherlands, Great Britain or Prussia. Ferrandiz would receive a commission in the Dutch Government Navy, a makeshift navy tasked with defending the Dutch East Indies while van Swieten would keep an eye on French naval activities in SE Asia.

In what was to become known as the Ferrandiz Offensive, the combined Spanish Republican and Dutch fleets coordinated their offensives against the Acehnese army and the French Navy on the northern tip of Sumatra Island on July 17th, 1871. Protet ordered three French warships to take care of the remaining Dutch fleet while van Swieten’s army bombarded Banda Aceh from the south and Ferrandiz attacked from the north. Within five days of the attack, the Acehnese were forced to surrender to a triumphant van Swieten, who proceeded to annex the Aceh Sultanate while Ferrandiz would later help Ramon Blanco gain a foothold in the Philippines.

Formation of the German Empire:

Buoyed by the Prussian minor success in southern Germany, Bismarck felt uncertain as to whether or not now is the right time to declare the dissolution of the North German Confederation and to replace it with a united German Empire. He wanted to make sure that the unification could only be established after France or Austria is knocked out first. A second Hungarian incursion into Austria, followed by Poland’s invasion of Bohemia forced Krobatin to pull back from Passau and to split his army in the defense of Austria and Bohemia. Following the Dutch victory in Aceh, the Dutch Army in Europe began to formulate plans for the partition of Belgium, with the Flemish speaking population to be incorporated into the Netherlands proper. The threat of British intervention on the Three Kings’ Alliance’s side prevented the invasion from ever occurring, although the Dutch would later raid the French ports of Hanoi, Saigon and Haiphong in retaliation for the French victory in Lampung.

Wilhelm I however, was not as patient as Bismarck and preferred to complete the unification of the German states as soon as possible before he dies. He had to wait however, for the Prussians to launch a major attack on an important town of Sedan. On the morning of August 2nd, 1871, Prussian artillery bombarded the French position in northern Sedan, while another Prussian Army under the command of Herwald von Bittenfeld attacked Koniggratz three hours later. In Sedan, Moltke the Elder ordered the Prussian infantry to attack the French defensive position in the Meuse and Marne Rivers by1100 hrs, even as de MacMahon’s French army were aware of their predicament and requested to Napoleon III that they be allowed to withdraw, but the suggestion was rejected. Advised by reliable officers, Napoleon III opted not to take part in the front lines in case he was captured. He directed the defense of Sedan from a tiny chateau on the Seine River, from which he could give orders to de MacMahon. Prussian encirclement tactics were countered this time with French Mitrailleuse volley guns, which were used in front of French cannons to repel Prussian infantry advances. However, the great defects of the Mitrailleuse volley guns earned the contempt of the Prussian Army, which described it as nothing more than a pop gun, unworthy of being used as an infantry support weapon.

The destruction of the Mitrailleuse guns enabled the Prussian infantry advance to continue as the cavalry squadron encountered French Dragoon squadrons in the Meuse River. Prussian cavalry troops hacked the French infantry to pieces, allowing the Prussian infantry to reach Sedan and to link up with Moltke the Elder’s forces, who were coming from the south. As a result of Moltke the Elder’s linkup with Ludendorff’s forces inside Sedan, de MacMahon was forced to surrender with the remains of his army while Leon Gambetta’s remaining forces retreated from Sedan, across the Meuse and Seine Rivers and barricaded themselves in Paris. Napoleon III now decided to send a retreat order to all his forces in the Franco-Prussian border while the Austrians were being whipped at Koniggratz.

Wilhelm I organized a parade across the German states, starting in Konigsberg and finishing in Aachen on August 16th, 1871 in an anticipation of the German Empire’s foundation. Indeed, Bismarck and Wilhelm I led the parade that was to last until September of 1871 when Wilhelm I entered the ancient castle that had once hosted the Carolingian Empire’s German entity and proudly told his subjects that the German Empire is now a unified entity. The new Germany was now free to launch its campaigns against the Three Kings’ Alliance with the help of Poland and Hungary.

Conclusion:

The War of Prussian Succession was the first time that a dominant German state became the leader of a unified Germany while weakening itself at the same time. Prussia had lost its influences in the Rhineland based German states as they were weary of Prussian influence. This was where the Westphalian entity came into play, as the Rhineland German states could count on Frederick I of Baden for support, though the minor German kings who retained their lands were now in subordination to the new Kaiser Wilhelm I. Although Spain barely participated in the war, their economic situation allowed Germany to exploit it to its full potential. Bismarck now saw Germany as a potential powerhouse in Central Europe, free from British or Russian meddling as he would also become the mastermind of the plan to unseat the Romanovs from Poland and Hungary. The new Germany annexed Elsace-Lothringen from France, but they ordered all Three Kings’ Alliance members to pay a total of 35 million German marks to the new German government. Spain’s payment however, will be discussed later on.

In the Pacific, the Netherlands had barely managed to keep their Dutch East Indies colonies and the French naval activities forced the Dutch government to reassess their military and to issue military reforms to combat its deficiencies. In the Spanish East Indies however, the presence of the Republicans would tear the country apart as numerous factions would now fight for the right to dictate the fate of the Philippines.

[Razgriz 2K9]

Now that's just too grand a scheme to unite Germany now...haha

[MarshalBraginsky]

In Russia, Sergei Witte had resigned in December of 1871 as Ivan Goryemkin succeeded him as Prime Minister. When news of the German Empire’s foundation reached St. Petersburg, Vladimir III was quick to congratulate his Hohenzollern in-laws on such a victory, although Ivan Vladimirovich was poised to succeed his father. Russia was surprised however, when on the 46th anniversary of the Decembrist Revolt did Vladimir III announced his abdication, citing health reasons. Age had caught up to the old Russian tsar as he began to lose some of his memories in political affairs, leaving Ivan to take care of day-to-day affairs. Prince Ivan Vladimirovich was crowned as Tsar Ivan VII on Christmas Day, Julian calendar version in 1872, and his first act as the new Tsar was to reaffirm his alliances with Poland and Hungary. Those states which were ruled by Ivan’s uncles could end up lost should a coup happen.

The Balkans became more turbulent during the first few months of Ivan VII’s reign as Hungary and Serbia started to argue over the status of Vojvodina. Although Vojvodina was a part of Hungary since the time of St. Stephen, numerous Serb settlers migrated from time to time back when Serbia was a part of the Ottoman Empire. However, Ivan VII was not the only man who was actually active in the Balkans. The new German Empire under Wilhelm I as the first Kaiser actively courted Hungary’s nobility and promised to appoint the rejected Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern as King of Hungary through a planned coup. Despite Hungary’s status as an ally of the Russian Empire, the Hungarian people were torn apart between siding with Germany and maintaining an alliance with Russia. After all, Germany when it was still Prussia and a collection of minor German states helped her regain independence from the Austrian Empire and Russia opted to stay neutral during the Spring of Nations. Although Serbia was not ruled by a Romanov, Ivan VII’s sister Olga Vladimirovna was arranged to marry Djordje, the son of Aleksander Karadjordjevic for whom he was currently ruling the Kingdom of Serbia. Her marriage had also tied Serbia to Russia in yet another dynastic union, but the Pestelist brotherhood would begin to unravel.

Great Britain didn’t stop at her attempts to control the Balkans in order to deter both Germany and Russia from acquiring a warm water port in the Mediterrenean Sea, although Bulgaria had acquired all of Thrace and northwestern Anatolia. Moreover, she also wanted to expand her Croatian client’s territory at Hungary and Serbia’s expense. Queen Victoria understood well that control of the Balkans could provide the British Empire with another shot at prying off pro-Pestelist Egypt out of Russia’s orbit while the Ottoman Empire can be used to contain Russian power. Britain’s plans for Egypt forced Ivan VII to extend his modernization pledge to the Persian Shahdom, and a railway from Moscow to the Persian Gulf was proposed in Tehran. Moreover, Russia was one of the five major shareholders of the newly constructed Suez Canal, meaning that Britain and Russia might end up fighting each other once again, this time over the Middle East. It was at this time that Mehmet Ali Pasha’s successor Ismail Pasha began to look towards Germany as a possible protector. Ottoman-Egyptian relations had clearly gone downhill in the aftermath of their conflict. Since the Ottoman Empire was not willing to come to a rapprochement with Russia, it had to either find another ally to protect them, or become a regional power themselves. Their major outlet though, would be their campaign against the Wahhabis of the Arabian Peninsula.

Ottoman Reformation Efforts:

Since the Spring of Nations had concluded with the sharp decline of Ottoman power in the Balkans, numerous Ottoman sultans had struggled to enact reforms which could have saved their empire from partition among the regional powers of the Middle East. For instance, the Khedive of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty aimed to unite all Arab-speaking peoples of North Africa and the Middle East, while Persia under the House of Qajars was struggling to keep Russia and Britain off its borders. Secularization efforts were taken into account by 1858 in the face of Russian expansion into Central Asia and the Far East, though Persia and Egypt became wild cards in which the Turks would hopefully play to their advantage.

As early as 1845, several Ottoman military officers have gone to military schools in France, Prussia and to a lesser extent, Britain. However, there were a few Ottoman officers who participated in the Mexican-American War and applied their experiences to creating an efficient, modernized Ottoman military on the US Army’s model. Now that the military has been given a chance to modernize, they had to test out its strength and the conflict against the Wahhabis was the perfect opportunity to do it. In what became known as the Wahhabi Campaign from 1845 until 1875, the Ottoman Empire consolidated its control over the Arabian Peninsula in a 30 year conflict, with the purpose of eliminating the Wahhabis as a potential threat to the Middle East as a whole. Egypt had backed its former Ottoman foe against the Wahhabis until 1871 when Britain demanded to the Egyptians that they be allowed to base their naval fleet in the Suez Canal, which they of course, rejected since France, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire were also shareholders in the Suez Canal.

Egyptian Coup:

On the morning of March 9th, 1872, a group of anti-Muhammad Ali officers led by Tewfik against the pro-Pestelist faction led by Ahmed Orabi. In an ensuing gun battle in the streets of Cairo, Tewfik’s faction managed to seize the Egyptian royal palace and placed Ismail Pasha under house arrest. Tewfik then began to collaborate with the British on securing both Britain’s route to the Indian Raj and Egypt’s territorial integrity. However, a pro-Pestelist counter coup was under way, which Orabi led from Alexandria. Orabi wanted to transform Egypt into a multi-confessional Sultanate in which the Egyptians would regain their ancient glory while at the same time; he could play off Britain, Russia, Germany and Turkey against each other. Orabi and a few men of his entourage met up with the German ambassador to Egypt and discussed of a possible alliance. The Germans were interested in gaining some of Russia’s shares in the Suez Canal ownership, and at the same time they can also threaten Britain’s position in the world. However, Orabi himself was arrested by Egyptian gendarmes before he signed the treaty which would have saved Egypt from a British occupation.

Hungarian Plans for a Coup:

Bismarck met up with an anti-Russian faction within the Hungarian parliament three weeks after the Egyptian coup. Miklos Horthy, one of the proposed candidates as leader of the coup, hesitated to take part since they were still allied to Russia through the Andras I Romanov. To sweeten the deal, Germany promised to install Prince Leopold of the Hohenzollern royal family as Leopold I of Hungary. Moreover, Bismarck added on, Germany could also annex the Austrian lands and form a potential coalition with the Hungarian and later on, Polish kingdoms. The negotiations went on, until June 1st of 1872 when another Hungarian leader, the famous war hero Lajos Benedek who suddenly grew disillusioned at Russia’s sudden courtship with Serbia and Wallachia, volunteered to overthrow Hungary’s Romanov heir and to lead a caretaker government itself. Now that Bismarck agreed to Benedek’s participation, the coup planners regularly met up in Hungary’s border towns along their border with Serbia and Wallachia.



Kovess von Kovesshaza was among the loyalist Hungarian officers who would oppose Lajos Benedek's plans to overthrown Andras I of Hungary.

Pro-Romanov Hungarian officers led by Kövess von Kövessháza reported to Andras I Romanov of Benedek’s meeting with Bismarck. Ever weary of coup attempts, the Romanov King of Hungary decided to relieve Benedek of his duties and forced him into retirement without any honors at all. His decision to get rid of Benedek would eventually come back to haunt him, but not before Kovesshaza pledged his loyalty to him. In an attempt to solve the issue with Transylvania, Andras I sent Kovesshaza to negotiate with Carol I of Wallachia in a potential counter coup and to threaten the coup leaders with Wallachian annexation of Transylvania. Religion would prove to become yet another thorn in Russian relations with its Catholic allies.

Western Rite Orthodoxy Rebooted:

Back in 1864, a former Old Catholic priest named Julius Overbeck who converted to the Orthodox faith and to request permission from Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow for an establishment of the Western Rite Orthodoxy. Overbeck’s request had recalled Pestel’s plans to create a similar congregation rang in the old Metropolitan’s mind and firmly declined but he did not rule out the possibility of allowing Overbeck to go ahead with the plan to launch his project. An additional petition from the Tractarians in 1869 to authorize the creation of the Western Rite Orthodox Church was sent to Moscow as well. The First Vatican Council occurred in the same year, and the main topic of discussion was on papal infallibility. A minority of the Catholic bishops resisted the dogma of papal infallibility on the grounds that it would risk alienation from other Roman (and Greek) Catholic congregations, with potential deadly consequences.

Overbeck submitted his proposed liturgy and protocol for the Western Rite Orthodox Church to Tsar Vladimir III in 1871 and gave his first approval, but his successor Ivan VII proved to be the main backer of the Western Rite Orthodoxy project. In the new tsar’s mind, the influence of Western Rite Orthodoxy could shift the balance of power in the world, and the legacy of the First Vatican Council resulting in the division between Old Catholics and regular Catholics would also help spur the development of the project as a whole. Overbeck then began to formulate a different strategy to court other Old Catholics, including some Catholic priests in the Philippines who opposed papal infallibility.

Advent of the Philippine Autonomous Territory (Part One):

On July of 1872, Ramon Blanco and a couple of other Spanish republicans arrived in the Philippines, in the midst of the Cavite Mutiny. Just a few days before the actually mutiny was about to begin, Blanco contacted anti-Carlist factions within the colonial government, especially Carlos Maria de la Torre, who was loved by most of the Filipino population. De la Torre and Blanco proposed a joint alliance in which the Spanish Republicans would overthrow the Carlist backed regime in the islands, and proclaim a Spanish Republic of the Philippines. However, the Spanish republicans were small in number and the Carlists were big in numbers. To solve the issue of the republican regime, Blanco and de la Torre approached three Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora, for help in making sure that the planned mutiny in Cavite was successful.

In relation to Overbeck’s Western Rite Orthodox project, the Gomburza trio along with another priest named Gregorio Aglipay joined Blanco’s entourage and Blanco himself had even declared his loyalty to the Old Catholic faith, marking him for potential assassination attempts by pro-Carlist Spanish colonial officers. After a month of negotiations between the Spanish republicans and disaffected colonial soldiers within the Spanish Army, Blanco was ready to seize power.

On the morning of August 12th, 1872, Ramon Blanco and General Hidalgo contacted sympathetic colonial officers for the coup plans. They waited until nightfall when a flare would be fired from the sky after the firework celebrations of Our Lady of Loreto was finished. Three thousand rebellious colonial soldiers led by Blanco himself waited until Governor Izquierdo appeared in the fortress of Intramuros, which he did by nightfall. On Blanco’s orders, Ferdinand la Madrid and his troops killed the loyalist sentries while more mutineers snuck at the back. After la Madrid opened the gates of Intramuros to Blanco’s forces, de la Torre was invited inside the fortress and he was proclaimed the new Governor.



Carlos Maria de la Torre was the first governor of the Philippine Autonomous Territories. Because he worked closely with Ramon Blanco, they were often referred as the Spanish Decembrists, with de la Torre as the Spanish Constantine to Blanco's Pavel Pestel.

The next morning, Izquierdo and the Jesuit priests were stunned when news of Blanco’s coup reached them. Although no one knew what was going on, it seems to the pro-Carlist regime that the republicans were too dangerous to be spared. Granted, they cannot exile them back to Spain as the republicans were exiled from Spain in the first place. With the death of Polavieja, there was no Spanish reactionary who would rally the old guard behind and Blanco became the real man in power. In effect, Blanco functioned as the Spanish Pavel Pestel to Carlos de la Torre’s Tsar Constantine I.

Civil War in Las Islas Filipinas:

Blanco’s advent in the Philippines however, provoked a violent reaction from Carlos VII’s government in Madrid. Since the Suez Canal was already opened, Carlos VII could send some of his loyalist troops to crush the rebellion. To counter Carlos VII’s strategy, Blanco and de la Torre approached the Dutch and British colonial governments and requested to their superiors in Amsterdam and London respectively to close the Suez Canal to Carlos VII’s reinforcements. In return, the Philippine Republic could be declared a protectorate of any aspiring power.

Because the request to close the Suez Canal took longer than usual, Carlos VII was able to sneak some of his forces through the canal and into the Red Sea. By the time the request arrived in London, it was too late. Carlos VII’s army of 90,000 men and cannons were on their way into the Philippines. Fearful of a resurgent Carlist presence in the Asia-Pacific region, the Dutch colonial regime of van Swieten ordered the former Spanish Navy Admiral Ferrandiz to lead the Government Navy into Manila Bay to deter the Carlist forces from coming back.

The first firing shot of the Philippine colonial civil war occurred on September 21st, 1872 when Admiral Montoja’s fleet opened fire on Ferrandiz’s ships in Manila Bay. General Quesana’s army landed in Manila itself and engaged Blanco’s defenders in fortress Intramuros. At the same time, Admiral Protet’s French Navy fleet was mobilized from Haiphong and sailed into Manila Bay, hoping to become the protector of the Philippine Republic, despite Napoleon III’s alliance with both Spain and Austria. The nicknamed Siege of Intramuros proved to be just as bloody as the Carlist battles in the Spanish homeland, with the Carlist casualties reaching as high as 59,218 men who died.

Revolts launched by sympathetic colonial soldiers broke out when news of Blanco’s capture of Cavite happened by September 28th. Despite the republican success, the Carlists bargained hard to eject the republicans out of the Philippines. Carlist victories in Cebu, Surigao and Leyte dented republican hopes of holding on to the islands, and the worsening conflict attracted British, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, American and Russian fleets into Manila Bay. It was not until Napoleon III’s death in October of 1872 did his successor, Napoleon IV offered to take the Philippines from Carlos VII. The Carlist king was offended by his Bonapartist counterpart’s offer, though news of Britain’s encroachment in Palawan Island had alarmed him. Recent reports of a German fleet moving towards Indochina and the Philippines reached Carlos VII, and this time he threatened the Germans and the French with war if they didn’t pull out of the Philippines. The French agreed, but the Germans refused to comply. However, Carlos VII’s war threat fell on deaf ears as Europe had just barely survived a major war to even consider igniting another conflict. Moreover, the European economy would tank under if they kept on expending their monetary resources on colonial ambitions.

The major European powers met up in St. Petersburg for a conference on the fate of the Philippines, with Admiral Montoja acting as the representative for Spain, Georges Boulanger represented France, Bismarck represented Germany, and Prime Minister Goryemkin being the host leader, Prince Albert represented Great Britain and de la Torre representing the colonial republican government in Manila. According to the terms of the Goryemkin Declaration, the Philippine Republic is still de jure a Spanish colony, but a de facto independent nation. Effectively, while Spain would still manage the islands, administration of the colonies would fall on the republican leaders themselves while maintaining autonomy. Moreover, freedom of religion and secularization were to be two founding pillars of the Philippine Autonomous Territory, which also included the Marianas, Palau and Guam. Carlos VII was forced to relent at allowing the republicans to administer the colonies as the only alternative was to send them into Cuba, and they would easily incite the Cubans to revolt and even worse, they’d be invited by Maximillian I to settle in Mexico.

Advent of the Philippine Autonomous Territory (Part Two):

No sooner was the Goryemkin Declaration signed did Blanco and de la Torre began to launch their modernization program on Maximillian’s model. Land reforms, religious freedom and the right to vote extended to all sectors of Philippine society was enacted, with the local elites felt threatened. Governor de la Torre authorized the industrialization efforts in the entire autonomous territories, with shipbuilding as the most important of them all. Religious freedom enabled Filipino Catholic priests to pursue secularization efforts, encouraged by the governor himself while Joseph Overbeck would arrive in the Philippines to build the first Western Rite Orthodox academy. Gregorio Aglipay played a vital role in the secularization efforts, though the Catholic congregations in the autonomous territories took on an Old Catholic tone, as papal infallibility was rejected by de la Torre’s order. Spanish liberals and republicans soon migrated into the Philippines to contribute their ideas so much, even Maximilian I of Mexico soon thought about taking the islands along with Cuba for his growing empire.



Gregorio Aglipay would eventually found his own indepenent church, the Aglipayan Apostolic Church, in which Old Catholic priests, Western Rite converts and former Uniate priests would join in his congregation. The Aglipayan Apostolic Church along with many other Old Catholic Churches would in effect, enter into a communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church operating from Constantinople, not Moscow.

The first foreign ambassador to the Philippines turned out to be a young, aspiring Japanese diplomat named Yamagata Aritomo, who took up his post on October 17th, 1872. Soon after, Porfirio Diaz of Mexico arrived in the Philippines by December 2nd and Enver Pasha of the Ottoman Empire became the third ambassador to take up his post by December 30th. Carlos VII was initially angered by the sudden success of the republican colonial regime in the islands, as their success had undermined his authority. However, he could not stop the reformation process as profits from the islands gradually helped the Spanish economy, though most of the profits went to rebuilding the Spanish homeland, leaving the Philippines as constantly reliant on Spain for help. This short term success would not last forever though, as Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan now had their eyes fixed on the Philippine Autonomous Territories and this time, it was winner take all.

[Razgriz 2K9]

Okay, so pro-Hohenzollern members are plotting to put Leopold on the throne, Serbia is plotting to annexed Vojvodna, Wallachia is plotting for Transylvania, Andreas is plotting to keep himself on the throne...

Ugh...I'm confused.

[MarshalBraginsky]

Originally Posted by Razgriz 2K9

Okay, so pro-Hohenzollern members are plotting to put Leopold on the throne, Serbia is plotting to annexed Vojvodna, Wallachia is plotting for Transylvania, Andreas is plotting to keep himself on the throne...

Ugh...I'm confused.

Do you know the phrase, 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'? Now change that to 'Something is peculiar in the state of Hungary'.

[MarshalBraginsky]

This is a special update with regards to Australia and perhaps more of the Philippine Autonomous Territory sweepstakes, as well as more Balkan adventure.

Since the Anglo-Russian-Yankee War had occurred back in 1865, Australia had been quiet and didn’t get into any conflicts with its imperial master. That was only because the Fenians from the United States later blended with the local Fenian population after the ambush ended in failure. Thomas Meagher himself eventually built his own home in the outskirts of Beveridge, where he was neighbors with a known family of convicts. While the former Union officer tried his hand at farming, he often played the role of a mentor to a troubled kid named Ned Kelly. As a young boy, Kelly often fought against the local Victorian gendarmerie. Red Kelly’s treatment by the police hardened Ned Kelly’s hatred of authority in particular, though Meagher also became Ned Kelly’s father figure after Red Kelly died. It was not until Meagher and many of his comrades, including a promising officer named Thomas Sweeney, later took Kelly under his wing. However, Australia was about to be flooded with notorious outlaws from all over the world.

In addition to the convict exiles’ presence in Australia, several outlaws from the United States immigrated to Australia under the pretext of going on a mining trip there. Among the outlaws who went to Australia were the notorious James brothers. The notorious James-Younger Gang later established themselves as expert bushwhackers, as they demonstrated in the ambush and murder of three Queensland police officers, who were stunned to encounter the American outlaws in the middle of Australia. In addition, train robberies were so bad that the British Army had to deploy ten soldiers to guard each compartment of the train to deter any robber from attacking it. What was really scary about the arrival of these outlaws was that they also helped their local bushrangers with improving their ambush tactics. Among these bushrangers in training was Ned Kelly, now fired up with a sense of revenge against the British authorities for contributing to his father’s death.

In 1869, Ned Kelly clashed with the British authorities when he was arrested for the assault and robbery of a Chinese immigrant. Though he was later cleared of all charges, the Victorian gendarmerie distrusted the Kelly family even more. Within a year, Ned would compile a ton of criminal charges, ranging from assault to robbery. Even through 1871, the litanies of criminal charges continued to pile up. It was not until 1878 that Ned Kelly eventually met up with the marauding James-Younger Gang that he later learned how to rob trains without getting caught, as well as learning to rob banks and make effective getaways. Ned Kelly would apply these skills in his first escapades against the British authorities.

By the later stages of 1879 and into 1880, Ned Kelly wrote a letter, detailing his activities and his reasons for clashing with the authorities. In what became known as the Jerilderie Letter, the letter itself not only revealed Ned’s frustrations at the persecution of his entire family, but of how the Anglo-Australian Protestant establishment treated the Irish Catholics who were sent into Australia as convicts. Thomas Meagher read the Jerilderie Letter and recommended to Ned that he distribute it to the Victorian public. The circulation of the Jerilderie letter resulted in a letter written by an unnamed bushranger, stating his sympathies with Ned Kelly’s plight and protested to the British authorities at how even a simple; misdemeanor would have resulted in their exile to Australia.

In the events leading to what historians later described as the cause of another Anglo-American conflict (mainly because of the James-Younger Gang’s presence in Australia), it all started with Ned’s bushrangers arriving at a small farm owned by a young man named Aaron Sherritt, who was a police informer working for the authorities. To lure Sherritt into the open, Dan Kelly and Joe Byrne captured a German farm owner and used him as bait. Joe Byrne fired the shot which killed the vain, arrogant informer just before he met his mother-in-law, apologizing for what he did but said that Sherritt deserved to die.

Ned Kelly and his expanded bushrangers, which included the James-Younger Gang and Meagher, began to journey into Glenrowan to blow up the police trains which came after them. Along the way, forty seven captives were herded along by Jesse James while Byrne kept an eye for any possible police movements. A schoolteacher named Thomas Curnow begged for Ned to let him go, but Frank James advised against releasing him. The captured railway workers were forced to plant dynamite on the rails after taking out the sleepers. When a police train soon arrived in a junction where the dynamite was planted, Byrne lit up the fuse and shouted for all the bushrangers to run away from the rails or they would be killed in the blast. The dynamite exploded, blowing up the rails and one section of the police car in the process. Thirteen police officers were seriously injured, but only three of them had died of their injuries.

On July 1st, 1880, a squad of British horseback police officers was sent into the countryside to search for Ned Kelly’s bushrangers. However, they were later ambushed by another group of bushrangers, led by Dan Kelly. These other bushrangers were aware of the police’s arrival in their homes after the Jerilderie Letter was distributed, and decided to go into the hills to prepare for the inevitable battle. Among Dan Kelly’s group was Meagher and three Fenians who participated in the ambush. One of Dan Kelly’s men fired on a police officer, shooting him dead in the chest as the police were forced to fire back. Just after Meagher shot another officer’s horse in the chest, his own horse was shot dead as the former Union officer stumbled into the ground, along with Steve Hart. They were arrested and interrogated by the Glenrowan police after they arrived in town. When news of the Glenrowan saboteurs’ capture reached George Phipps in Adelaide, he responded by increasing the number of police officers conducting search and destroy missions from ninety to over one hundred and fifty. However, these reinforcements lacked formal training as they recently graduated from local police academies across Australia. Phipps then responded by September of 1880 to instead capture one of the Kelly family members. On September 29th, Phipps was visited by Augustus Luftus and the Confederate States ambassador to Australia in Adelaide to see the captured Fenian, Thomas Meagher. Andrew Johnson, the Confederate ambassador to Australia, promptly told Phipps and Luftus who Meagher really was: a former Union officer who later joined the Fenians in their failed attempt to capture Canada and to take it as a hostage in return for giving Ireland its independence. Moreover, there might be more Fenian stragglers in the Australian countryside.

Just as when Phipps thought the Fenian connection to the bushrangers were only coincidental with Meagher’s capture, Dan Kelly was tortured by the British authorities and revealed another bombshell: the presence of the James-Younger Gang in the Australian countryside and the presence of illegal American runaway settlers who had somehow ended up in Australia. Just before Dan Kelly was beaten and executed, he dropped the final bombshell: it was the James-Younger Gang who taught the Kelly Gang how to sabotage the railways and to rob trains without getting caught. Now that the Anglo-Australian establishment has a caucus belli in which they could issue an ultimatum to the United States government: either the US extradite the Fenians to the British authorities or to face another war. Within that time, George McClellan’s term had finished in 1872, paving the way for Rutherford Hayes to become the next president. Hayes’s foreign policy with the British Empire was that of negotiation, though he balked at having to extradite the Fenians when in fact they were already in Australia, and within reach by the British authorities. In less than twelve years, Britain and the US were at war.

Bulgaria – The Neglected Theater:

Back in the same year as Grand Duke Mikhail’s appointment as King of Hungary, Vasily Constantinovich married Princess Eugenie of Sweden and in 1853, she gave birth to Sophia Vasiliyevna (1853-1920). Sophia Vasiliyevna was originally slated to marry the Duke of Uppland, but because he declined to take up the post as King of Bulgaria, Sophia instead married her younger husband Alexander of Battenberg. In 1854, Alexander was crowned as Tsar Alexander I of Bulgaria and Sophia was crowned as Tsarina of Bulgaria. Alexander I Battenberg’s reign began in almost the same way as Miklos/Mikhail I Romanov of Hungary except Alexander I Battenberg began to reorganize the Bulgarian government on the Russian model. Although Bulgaria only held the northern portion, Alexander I Battenberg was determined to seize more territories for the sake of strengthening the Bulgarian state. In 1856, the Tsardom of Bulgaria declared war on the Ottoman Empire over the debate on the status of Rumelia. As the Pomaks began to worry about their fate in an independent Bulgaria, some of them began to migrate into Anatolia and Albania while the rest of them simply waited.

However, the Bulgarian Army was in a terrible shape when Alexander I Battenberg led his country into war and indeed, the Ottoman forces actually managed to occupy Plovdiv, Varna and Sofia. As if the Ottomans were really going to reincorporate their former Bulgarian territory back into the Empire itself, the Khedive of Egypt began to launch its raids into Ottoman territory. On May of 1856, the Egyptian forces launched the invasion of Palestine and the Hejaz in order to divert the Ottoman army from having to occupy the rest of Bulgaria. In the Balkans, the news of the Ottoman incursion into Bulgaria raised fears that the sultan would recapture his lost Balkan territories with a vengeance. So in July 9th, 1856, the Kingdom of Serbia joined the Bulgarians in fighting their ancient enemies once again, with Greece following suit. Back when Pestel was still alive, he sent Aleksandr Baryatinsky to Bulgaria to help modernize the Bulgarian Army on the Imperial Russian model. As in Korea three years back, a Bulgarian Cossack Brigade was created with the Bulgarian Tsar as the nominal commander in chief of said brigade. Unlike in Korea where the Russian trained Korean forces played a role in the ouster of the previous Korean king, the Russian trained Bulgarian Army still racked up a string of defeats. However, Baryatinsky noticed Bulgaria’s geography as a great place to conduct guerrilla warfare. He then advised Alexander I Battenberg to switch his army’s role from open combat to irregular combat in an attempt to draw the Ottoman Turks into a war of attrition while the Russian Army would continue to train the Bulgarian recruits. The guerrilla war would eventually drag on until 1864, with the conclusion of the American Civil War in favor of the Confederate victory.

Bulgarian volunteers who served with the St. Mikhail Arkhangelsk Regiment in North America returned to their home country, armed with their battlefield experience gained from fighting against Confederate troops. These volunteers later formed the nucleus of a new Bulgarian force, with Georgi Rakovski as the newly designated General of the Army. As with the Prussians a few years later on, the Bulgarian soldiers returned with their newly acquired Spencer repeating rifles, and used it with deadly precision against the Ottoman forces. Not much was mentioned about the Bulgarian battles against the Ottoman army since they were practically ordered to disrupt all Ottoman lines of communication, and sabotaging all key infrastructures which helped the Ottoman war effort. However, the first major battle fought between the Bulgarian Legion and the Ottoman Empire was on November 14th, 1865, in the fortress of Pleven, which was captured by the Turks back on January of 1865.

Bulgarian experience with capturing strongholds came into handy when Pleven was besieged by the Bulgarian Legion. Rakovski’s knowledge of handling an attack against a well fortified position originated in his participation in the failed attempt to open up the Cracker Line during the American Civil War, in which he later wrote down in his diary on how the Confederate Army was able to turn the Union’s strengths into weaknesses. He ordered the Bulgarian soldiers to capture the Ottoman supply depots in lightly guarded areas to weaken their fighting strength while carrying on with guerrilla warfare. Rifle pits were often targeted by Ottoman defenders for special bombardment with canister barrages, often resulting in gruesome casualties. On November 17th, 1865, news of the Egyptian advance into Lebanon and Syria forced Osman Nuri Pasha to send 30,000 newly arrived soldiers back into the Ottoman territories to deal with the Egyptian threat. Just as the Ottomans had managed to hold their ground in Pleven, Wallachian troops surged across the Danube in order to help their Bulgarian comrades eject the Ottomans out of northern Bulgaria and into Rumelia. By November 22nd, more Wallachian and Greek troops entered Bulgarian territory to expel the Turks from the Balkans as Muslim refugees began to journey back into Constantinople, which was also being targeted as the ultimate prize for any Balkan power, Greece or Bulgaria.

It was also worth noting that while Greece had claims to Constantinople and Thrace by virtue of the Megali Idea and the desire to regain territories formerly held by the Byzantine Empire, Bulgaria staked its claim to Rumelia, Thrace and Constantinople by virtue of distance. Southeastern Bulgaria was only a few hundred kilometers from the Ottoman capital, and the Bulgarians themselves are in a great position to either enlarge their territory at the Ottomans’ expense and guaranteeing Russia’s position in the Mediterrenean Sea, or to form a great dynastic union with either Serbia or Greece. Such potential plans already carried a special dynastic twist since both of those countries whose kings were married to Romanov princesses.

As Tsar Vladimir III looked at the Balkans with a worried expression, he couldn’t help but feel that he might alienate his Greek and Bulgarian allies on the fate of Constantinople, despite the fact that it still remained as the Ottoman capital city. Though the Russians wanted to get into the Mediterrenean right away, they still had to worry about British responses to their actions in the Aegean Sea. That was before the Anglo-Russo-Yankee War broke out in 1866, by which time the Ottoman-Bulgarian War had began to enter its final phase: the Ottoman defensive into the capital city. Rakovski’s Bulgarian Legions with their Wallachian, Greek and Serbian allies began to march into Rumelia as the Bulgarian commander proclaimed Bulgaria’s annexation of Rumelia, and expelling 50,000 Turkish Muslims as well. Constantinople was only a week away from where the combined Balkan forces were in Thrace, though the British Royal Navy was still scrambling to stop them before the Ottoman Empire would go in an even bigger downward spiral. Because of the Central Asian and Alaskan Theaters, the British Empire had no way to stop the Bulgarians from marching into Constantinople, although the Greeks also wanted to control the city as well. Even worse, both Greece and Bulgaria were Russian allies. Finally, Vladimir did the unthinkable: he sent an ultimatum to the Greek and Bulgarian governments, threatening to withdraw her support if they went all the way to Constantinople. His sudden half degree turn may have had some negative results in which Greece and Bulgaria felt resentful to Russia’s interference, but it did provide the Russians with a clear reason: if they cannot get Constantinople right now, they could do so at a later time. Plus the Ottoman Empire would get a clear respite from its unpredictable northern neighbor.

On January of 1866, the Ottoman Empire entered into negotiations for an armistice with Greece and Bulgaria, mediated by the Russians in the port of Sevastopol. The terms of the Treaty of Sevastopol (1866) were plain simple: the Ottoman Empire must recognize the territorial gains of the Kingdom of Bulgaria in exchange for keeping Constantinople. Though Russo-Bulgarian relations from 1866 until 1871 would remain in negative terms, their rapprochement won’t come until much later.

Advent of the Philippine Autonomous Territory (Part Three):

Since 1872, the Philippine Autonomous Territory suddenly became a role model in which other nations would reform their colonies, in particular to the British plans for Australia in the event that a rebellion would break out. Although there were no major conflicts from 1872 to 1880, the Spanish Empire remained under encirclement from hostile neighbors everywhere. In Japan, the Satsuma Rebellion was suppressed, with the rebellious subjects of the former Satsuma domains immigrating to the Philippine Autonomous Territory within two years. Buoyed by the increasing number of Japanese settlers in Luzon, Palau and Palawan, de la Torre passed the Exclusion Act, imposing a quota on East Asian immigrants settling in the Philippine Autonomous territory. However, the Exclusion Act was hopelessly compromised when dealing with Chinese settlers.

In 1880, the Glenrowan Incident in Australia and the subsequent hostile response by the United States to the Phipps-Luftus Ultimatum resulted in yet another war between the British Empire and the United States. Spain was unsure of whom should it side with since Britain, Japan, Germany and France coveted her Asian colonies. Despite Ramon Blanco and Carlos de la Torre’s best efforts to appease the increasingly resentful Filipino population, more disgruntled farmers and workers formed guerrilla bands to attack Spanish colonial establishments. Mestizos and Mestizo de Sangleys were often distrusted by these guerrilla bands since they controlled the economy of the Philippine Autonomous Territory, though their suspicion of the Mestizo de Sangleys later relaxed when they incorporated resentful Japanese settlers who were discriminated by the Spanish authorities despite its republican outlook.

[brokenman]

I will be following this.

[MarshalBraginsky]

Well, expect more to come, though the Australian saga will continue.

[Razgriz 2K9]

The Ottomans are lucky to have made it out with Constantinople, but that won't last long...

[MarshalBraginsky]

Possibly, although exect the unexpected with the Turks. On the other hand, how does a Russo-Scandinavian neutral bloc sound? Russia may have to pay an arm and leg for this alliance, and the said arm and leg being Finland's independence.

[MarshalBraginsky]

From 1866 onwards, Russian domestic life had dramatically changed with the emancipation of the serfs by Pestel back in 1825. As it was discussed earlier, the Trans-Siberian Railway project was launched with the intention to connect all territories of the Russian Empire together. With the United States’ purchase of Alaska, Russo-US relations became warm as US railroad tycoons invested in the Trans-Siberian Railway project. As more jobs were created within the Trans-Siberian Railway’s construction, peasants from the European side of the Russian Empire began to migrate into such cities like Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk and Ulan-Ude to work on the railway. Though the project itself had its hazards, it was not without any benefits since the new migrants who finished their tenure on the railway often ended up settling in those cities mentioned above. By 1873, the population of Siberia had risen up to 600,000 people, enough to sustain a military garrison to deter a potential British or Chinese invasion.

Central Asia was given special attention for the Trans-Siberian Railway’s expansion since the Anglo-Russian conflict there demonstrated the Russian Empire’s vulnerability in a soft underbelly of Eurasia. Important cities like Tashkent, Dushanbe, Samarqand, Astana, Almaty and Bischkek were connected by an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Trans-Central Asian Railway, which began its route in Orenburg and through Novosibirsk. Pestelist teachers and administrators were sent to Central Asia to educate the local peoples and to civilize them, though the Pestelists who worked there were encouraged to learn the local language first before teaching the Central Asian natives the Russian language, law and culture though their real goal was to win the hearts and minds of the Turkic speaking Central Asians. By 1874, much of Central Asia’s population was lifted out of poverty as modern innovations were introduced, from improved farming techniques to literacy. However, the real problem with administering Central Asia was that most of the inhabitants living there were Sunni Muslim. Sending thousands of European settlers to Central Asia would pose special problems, so under Ivan VII’s direction; US industrialists were encouraged to set up factories in every Central Asian and later on, Caucasian cities where everyone can work.

Mongolia was a special case to the Russian Empire; because one line of the Trans-Siberian Railway extended into the Mongol homeland, much of Mongolia was transformed into an pseudo-industrialized society, in a similar manner to the Confederate States of America after the civil war. Though agriculture remained the dominant industry in Mongolia, US investment in Russia’s industries was later extended to Mongolia, China and Korea as an effort to boost US economical presence in Asia while bypassing hostile territories. In 1878, Russia and China began their so-called Rapprochement Phase, in which they would restore relations. Manchuria was given back to China by March of 1878, while the Dowager Empress Cixi’s ever present conservatism prevented Qing China from becoming modernized. Pestelists who wished to work in China were disappointed to hear that they’ve been barred by the Dowager Empress. Luckily, Ivan VII and Prime Minister Witte were willing to work with the new emperor, Guangxu. His desire to reform China after two successive defeats by Britain in both Opium Wars was soon met with opposition from Cixi. Frustrated by the interference of the conservative Dowager Empress, the Russians soon began to formulate a plan to bring China into a civil war, with the Russian military supporting the reformers.

Siberia’s non-Russian populations (mainly Koreans, a few Japanese, Chinese and Americans) contributed to the economical development of the Russian Far East as Vladivostok soon became the largest city in all of Northeast Asia, surpassing even Seoul, Tokyo and Pusan. Resources found in Russia’s extreme north were extracted and exported to neighboring European nations like Sweden and Denmark in exchange for manufactured goods. Under Witte’s direction, Russia signed trade deals with the Scandinavian countries, Mongolia and Korea. However, their real break was their plans for a formal economical and military bloc with the same Scandinavian countries.

The Rise of the Hanseatic Pact:

In 1877, Sergei Witte had already been replaced by Ivan Goryemkin. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by Russia’s decision to establish closer relations with the Scandinavian countries. On April 9th, 1877, Vladimir Kokovtsov led a Russian entourage into the Kingdom of Sweden-Norway in order to settle the long dispute with regards to the Grand Duchy of Finland. Swedish Prime Minister Louis Gerhard de Geer began the negotiations with the request for the independence of Finland before Russia can sign a formal pact with Sweden-Norway, though Kokovtsov balked at having to comply. Modern day historians quoted, “Russia had to pay an arm and leg for an alliance with Sweden-Norway, and the arm and leg was Finland”. The Russian entourage opposed giving Finland its independence, because of the repercussions on its Baltic territories. At this point, the Danish entourage arrived in Stockholm on April 12th and mediated in the discussions. Since Finland is doing well under Russian rule, why not grant autonomy to the Finns while allowing them to remain a part of Russia? Kokovtsov wrote a letter back to Ivan VII with regards to the Finnish problem, and the Tsar responded back by agreeing to the independence of Finland on the Polish model. If the Finns could be persuaded to ally with Russia should they become free, then Ivan VII and Goryemkin would agree to the Swedish proposal.

Ivan VII himself arrived in Stockholm on April 21st with his children Mikhail Ivanovich (1867-1942) and Nikita Ivanovich (1872-1934) for the tour of the city. He met up with Oscar II inside the Stockholm Palace and formally signed the Treaty of Stockholm, recognizing the independence of the new Kingdom of Finland with Andrei Vladimirovich (1848-1902) as Finland’s first and only ruler before it became a republic. The independence of Finland came as a surprise to the Finns, who were used to autonomy under Russian guidance. With Russia’s recognition of Finland accomplished, they were now free to pursue an alliance with Sweden-Norway, though later on in 1905 the dynastic union of Sweden and Norway would end. In what became known as the Hanseatic Pact, the member states of Sweden-Norway (later Sweden and Norway), Russia and Finland would establish an economical customs union, with Denmark and Iceland joining in 1886. Pestelist neutrality was now the focal ideology that would tie the neutral nations together, and pledged not to enter into any conflict with other nations.

Italy – Another Neglected Theater:

Italian unification went on a different course than the German wars of unification in which the House of Savoy would rule a unified Italian state. Because Hungary broke away from the Austrian Empire during the Spring of Nations, the Italian states had an easier time fighting the Austrians to eject them from northern Italy. It was not until 1861 that Italy was formally unified under Victor Emmanuel II that it began to consolidate itself in the Mediterranean Sea. Italy remained neutral during the War of the Prussian Succession mainly due to two reasons: one, the British presence in Croatia prevented the Italians from seizing Dalmatia in fear of the Royal Navy’s bombardment of Venice and Trieste, and two, the Italian military was not in any good shape to fight the Prussians. However, in 1871 when the German Empire was founded in Aachen, Victor Emmanuel II openly aligned himself with Germany against Italy’s old enemy, Austria. Italian reformation and modernization had begun with Bismarck offering the Italians to modernize their military and to build a railway that will connect the two halves of the Italian peninsula. German military instructors were sent to Italy to train its modern army. Surprisingly, Russia offered to help modernize the Italian Navy, something unthinkable even amongst the Pestelists. Italy’s modernization was probably the only thing that brought Germany and Russia together in a common, mutual interest against British supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea before the advent of the Hanseatic Pact.

The completion of the Italian military’s modernization program happened in 1872 as they felt ready to challenge any weaker power for overseas territories. They had their sights on Dalmatia in across the Adriatic, North Africa and Egypt. The British coup which toppled the pro-Russian regime in Egypt was a perfect opportunity for Germany to lure Egypt to its side. Italy on the other hand, was ready to conquer parts of North Africa. After another eight years of preparations on countering the might of the British Royal Navy, the Italians were ready to carve out their own influence in the world.

On May 8th, 1880, the Italians attacked Tripolitania and Algeria, nominally under the control of both the Ottoman and French Empires in a daring attempt to eject the two states out of North Africa and to create an Italian lake in the Mediterranean. Italy’s German trained army quickly devastated the Turks in Tripoli and Benghazi by June of 1880, while Algeria proved to be harder to conquer. To punish the French for their attempted acquisition of the Philippine Autonomous Territories, Spain joined the Mediterranean conflict on Italy’s side by launching an invasion of France from across the Pyrenees. However, the French Army under a rising star named Boulanger repulsed the Spanish Army and forced them back into Spain, with the French Army in pursuit. The Spanish Betrayal as the French public dubbed the debacle, had effectively destroyed the Three Kings’ Alliance, with Austria later conquered by Germany on June 19th as they took this opportunity to take revenge on Austria for their role in the War of Prussian Succession.

France however, managed to take revenge on Spain in August of 1880 by invading the Catalan and Basque regions to liberate them from Carlist control, though like his great-grandfather, Napoleon IV was now bogged in a war of attrition in Spain’s two most volatile regions. As a result of French military offensives in Spain, the garrison close to the Italian border was annihilated by an Italian army under the command of Luigi Cadorna. Most of southeastern France would later be occupied by Italy after Septemer 2nd, 1880 in a series of unusual events that would forever plague Franco-Italian relations. As Italian success soon grew on land, their naval counterparts would have a lot of difficulties dislodging the British from the Adriatic. Indeed, the Italian Navy suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Zadar on September 16th.

The sudden surprising success of Italy in its campaigns against France and the Ottoman Empire had been nullified by its naval defeat in the Adriatic, forcing Victor Emmanuel II to turn elsewhere for help. Germany however, wasn’t willing to jeopardize its already strained relations with Britain over the Adriatic, and none of the Hanseatic Pact nations are willing to jump into a tense conflict with Britain. Therefore, Italy had to turn to the United States for help.

Second Round between Britain and the United States:

The United States and the British Empire declared war on each other back in January over the presence of both the US Fenians and outlaws like the James-Younger Gang and their role in encouraging the Kelly gang to challenge British authority. Britain wanted to deport the Fenians and the James-Younger Gang back to the United States from Australia, but thought that by executing them instead, they would incite the Yankees to fight back. Of course, the British had plenty of reasons to pick a fight with the United States other than to punish them for sending the Fenians into Australia. The US occupation of southern British Columbia was a sore point in their relations as American miners from the north had already settled in towns like Langley, Abbotsford, New Westminster and even Fort Kelowna.

In addition, the Alaska Purchase made by the United States from Russia had also included the Yukon Territory, formerly a part of the Northwest Territories. The city of Turchinsk was also a source of hostile tensions between the American, British and Russian populations. Moreover, Turchinsk was the new name for the former city of Whitehorse. Lastly, the British hoped to acquire all of the Alaska Panhandle in hopes of regaining their lost advantage to the United States from the Cariboo Gold Rush.

Unlike the Anglo-Russo-Yankee War from 1866, the Second Anglo-American War was primarily fought in North America, with the Confederate States joining on the British side and the Mexicans are fighting on the side of the United States. Confederate and Mexican troops clashed at the Rio Grande, starting on March of 1880, with light casualties on both sides. Within fifteen years, the US border defenses were built with massive gun emplacements and minefields. By May of 1880, the first British offensive into US occupied southern British Columbia started with General Sam Steele leading 59,000 British and Canadian troops upon 41,000 US troops in the Battle of Yale. Unfortunately, George Custer could not make it back to the US because he decided to stay in Australia to lead a guerrilla war on the British.

Confederate forces led by Robert E. Lee launched a cross-border raid into the US heartland, while attempting to overcome the deadly US border defenses. At the same time, the US military leadership hoped to lure both the British and the Confederates into a war of attrition while the Mexican Army would launch an invasion of southern Texas in order to force the Confederates to defend their Texan territory. The plan was launched into action, with the bulk of the Mexican forces allowed to attack the CSA from New Mexico in the US. The Confederate war effort was only focused on military production and agricultural investments as CS Army soldiers faced issues of a lack of rations whenever they were fighting on the front lines.

Invasion of Washington, DC:

On July 9th, 1880, three Confederate divisions led by Joseph Wheeler launched an attack on Chesapeake Bay in order to gain a foothold on the US capital. Three months ago, US president Hayes ordered the relocation of the US capital city from Washington, DC to Chicago to be on the front lines in the event of a war between the British Empire and the United States. The Union resistance at Chesapeake Bay crumbled within eight days as fierce fighting for Washington, DC began. At the same time, four US army divisions under Nelson Miles crossed the US-CS border in their attempt to attack the Confederate state of Virginia. Although the US Army had an advantage in materiel and number of soldiers, the Confederate Army dug a network of trenches around Virginia while launching artillery barrages against Union troops approaching from the north.

By July 19th, Wheeler’s forces had taken control of Maryland and were poised to besiege Washington, DC. It took the Confederates three extra days to advance into the de jure US capital’s interior as Union Gatling gun emplacements dealt a huge casualty rate on the unsuspecting Confederate forces. Moreover, President Hayes now authorized the US military to enter into a war of attrition against the militarily disadvantaged Confederate forces while the bulk of the US forces would deal with the British. A plan was needed to soften the British in Canada, and they got it in the form of Louis Riel.

Louis Riel – The Father of the Assiniboine Métis State:

Since the Red River Rebellion in 1869, Louis Riel worked tirelessly to provide a homeland for the Metis peoples, who are descended from European fur trappers who married with First Nations wives. The Canadian Pacific Railway’s construction played a vital role in a faster, more fluid British response to the US incursions into Canada. By July 25th, General Sam Steele’s Anglo-Canadian forces had liberated southern British Columbia from US occupation, though the American miners who opted to retreat from BC had destroyed the railways leading from Washington State and into BC.

In Chicago, President Hayes looked at the Metis affair as an opportunity to not only help the Metis peoples gain a homeland, but he could also allow them to settle in Alaska, which was also being heavily depopulated by British policy of expelling non-British subjects from the newly regained Yukon. In August 8th of 1880, Frederick Middleton led another Anglo-Canadian force into the Yukon to pacify the territory. Russian Cossacks who stayed behind volunteered to fight alongside the US forces defending Turchinsk while the rest of the Americans and Russians would fall back into Alaska. Unfortunately, a Cossack detachment suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Middleton’s forces just outside Turchinsk in an attempt to stem the British tide. The remaining Cossack detachment decided to follow their compatriots back to Alaska where they would rendezvous with the Russian forces waiting from the other side of the Bering Sea.

As for Louis Riel and his followers, they created a Provisional Metis Government in Saskatchewan on August 18th, 1880; just ten days after Middleton’s offensive into the Yukon began. The Hayes administration recognized not only the Provisional Metis Government, but also offered the newly formed Metis, Cree and Sioux militias that could stall the Anglo-Canadian troops until they would be too tired to continue fighting. In the event that Louis Riel’s provisional government may collapse, Hayes also planned to ship his government along with the rest of the Metis population into Australia, though that plan would come into fruition if Ned Kelly changed his career to a political activist.

Rebellion in Australia – A Grievance Turns into Violence:

On the same day the Italian Army had occupied southeastern France, Ned Kelly and his gang eagerly led three hundred convict sympathizers in Adelaide, to protest their treatment against the British authorities. Ranging from unjustified, targeted persecutions of the convicts’ families to discrimination meted against them by the Anglo-Australian established elites, Ned Kelly would begin to see himself as more than just a Robin Hood figure. He began to think of himself as a possible savior of an independent Australian state, free from British meddling. Members of Ned Kelly’s family gave speeches in front of the governor’s office while the rest of the convict sympathizers cheered on. When a British constable ordered one of the Kellys to stop with the speech, she ignored him and continued until he shot her in the head to silence her. Anger swelled up within the ranks of the convict sympathizers as they chanted political slogans like ‘no discrimination without justification’ and ‘Remember Eureka!’ in reference to the Eureka revolt. In response, three hundred extra British troops fired on the crowd in order to expel them from the town square. Over two hundred convict sympathizers were ruthlessly executed, and there was no turning back now.

Ned Kelly’s next plan was to rescue Thomas Meagher from British custody, and by drawing inspiration from the James-Younger Gang’s stories of daring prison escapes, he recruited around one hundred and twenty seven bushrangers to help him free the Fenian general. On September 21st, 1880, Ned Kelly and his bushrangers launched an attack on a Victoria federal prison where Meagher was kept in custody. Accompanying the Kelly-led bushrangers were seventy Fenian soldiers who wished to fight alongside their fellow countryman. The raid on the federal prison began when Joe Byrne shot a prison guard, signaling the start of the ambush. Fifty other prison guards started a gunfight with the bushrangers while Ned Kelly searched for Meagher’s cell. After searching through three floors, they found Meagher inside the last cell, beaten and bloodied up. Three Fenian accomplices carried their beaten leader while Ned Kelly provided the covering fire. After the last bushrangers blew up the boiler room on an adjacent location in the Victoria federal prison, they fled with Meagher in tow.

George Phipps responded by arranging for a meeting with various Australian political groups and proposed that Australia and New Zealand should form the Australasian Autonomous Territory on the Philippine Autonomous Territory model. He hoped to take away the support that Ned Kelly received from convict sympathizers and relatively minor politicians who knew which direction the wind was blowing. However, the radical nature of the Australian rebellion forced Phipps to resort to stern measures in order to deter the convict sympathizers from openly rebelling against British authority by imposing a curfew. The problem with this solution was that more convict sympathizers were fleeing into the countryside where they formed bushranger squads, charged with forming their own minor mini states to escape from British control. It was at the Australian Outback that Ned Kelly’s reputation would grow to a new level. Far from being a mere outlaw who stirred up instability in Australia, he would eventually lead his followers, who were in the same boat as he was, to freedom from British rule. Ned Kelly had effectively taken up the mantle as the Australian version of Louis Riel.

British (Mis)-Fortunes:

Right at the start of November of 1880, the British had achieved their objectives: the liberation of southern British Columbia, preventing Italy from dominating the Adriatic and keeping the flames of revolution in Australia at bay. However, when Middleton was ordered by John A. MacDonald to attack Alaska, President Hayes’s political fortunes suddenly changed. Unfortunately, he lost the re-election to his eventual successor, James Blaine, who proceeded to issue a general call for conscription around the United States. He sent US officers to convince the locals that their former masters in the north are trying to steal the territory that the United States acquired from its Russian ally, and that they have to join in the fight to keep it. Anti-British sentiment ran high in the United States, particularly in the Irish community, who joined up in huge numbers. A second Fenian branch was opened up in Boston after the original Fenian members left for Australia.

US General Charles Doolittle received additional reinforcements on November 19th as he ordered the railroad workers to repair the lines so he could launch an attack on British Columbia once again, this time he intended to take all of BC and the Yukon before the United States would be confident enough to challenge the Confederate States once again for dominance in the New World. On November 22nd, Doolittle ordered an artillery barrage on Fort Langley and Abbotsford once again as six US infantry divisions crossed the border into Canada. This time, General John Stoughton Dennis was prepared to counter Doolittle’s offensive. Six additional Anglo-Canadian divisions bolstered Dennis’s two remaining British divisions around southern British Columbia, allowing him to inflict a huge defeat on Doolittle’s forces while Doolittle himself was killed in an attempt to capture New Westminster. Overall, the US plans to recapture lost ground in BC only resulted in regaining a fraction of what they have lost. However, they would later make this up by the re-conquest of the Yukon. This time, the US Navy provided materiel support for John Chivington and five of his infantry division to secure Alaska before attacking Yukon. On December 7th, 1880, the 55th anniversary of the Decembrist Revolt, the United States forces besieged British occupied Whitehorse/Turchinsk. At the same time, a British incident in the North Sea occurred as a Russian civilian ship ran afoul of the Royal Navy while attempting to enter the Norwegian port of Narvik.

The Yermak Incident:

A Russian civilian ship called the Yermak sailed from St. Petersburg. Its intended destination was New York, where a Russian delegate hoped to invite the United States into the Hanseatic Pact, much to the Scandinavian nations’ shock. Along the way, the Yermak had to stop in Norway to resupply and to pick up the Norwegian delegates on the port of Narvik. Just three weeks after leaving Narvik, the Yermak had run into three Royal Navy warships, which patrolled the North Sea. Just as the Yermak was about to be surrounded by the British warships, its captain ordered the Yermak to set sail for Oslo and to wait for further instructions. When the British naval authorities in Scotland realized that the Yermak would not comply with British instructions, they began to pursue the Yermak for four additional days until it reached the port of Oslo. Just a few seconds before the Yermak arrived in Oslo, a shell fired from the HMS Keelhaul landed at the Yermak’s stern, killing around ten civilian sailors. By the time the Norwegian port authorities retrieved the bodies, the HMS Keelhaul fired its last shot at the Yermak before departing.

Public outrage at the British response to the Yermak’s u-turn from the North Sea boiled up as the Hanseatic Pact took on a hostile tone towards Britain. Morever, King Oscar II of Norway-Sweden demanded to Queen Victoria that she turn the entire crew of the HMS Keelhaul to the Norwegian authorities to be charged for the murder of ten Norwegian sailors and a violation of Norwegian sovereignty. Tsar Ivan VII gave a speech in Sweden’s Riksdag on the Yermak Incident.

“As we have witnessed firsthand, the British Royal Navy would not hesitate to attack a ship that belonged to a neutral state during their times of war against the United States. Countless times, we have seen how they conducted themselves on the world affairs, and how small nations who aspired for regional dominance would be crushed by the British Empire. I say this satirically, ‘All Hail Britannia’, because this is what terrified nations living under British tyranny were experiencing. Moreover, because the Hanseatic Pact member state of Sweden-Norway was attacked unjustly by the British, we therefore issue an ultimatum: either Great Britain ceases its military actions in the American continent and to get out of the Balkans, or we will expel you from your territories by force. We are not bluffing.”

Needless to say, the British scrambled to find suitable allies that would back her up. So far, the Confederate States and the Ottoman Empire were the only candidates that could support the British if they went to war against Russia. However, the Russians have Persia and Afghanistan to protect while they could easily ask Guangxu if they feel like challenging the British once again.

[Unknown]

This is a good TL so far.

Can't wait for more!!!

[MarshalBraginsky]

There will be more updates, but I have a couple of planned timelines so far.

[Strategos' Risk]

Sorry for this; I've been busy lately. Will try to comment sometime this weekend.

[MarshalBraginsky]

That's fine. I've been busy myself.

[MarshalBraginsky]

The Ned Kelly Saga Continues:

By October of 1880, events continued to unfold in Australia as Ned Kelly found himself transformed into a political icon overnight. His defiance against the British authorities attracted like-minded fellow Irish Australians who also suffered from Anglo-Australian Protestant discrimination. From November onwards, Ned Kelly’s bushrangers would number no more than five hundred men. Because Australia had trouble attracting immigrants due to its inhospitable climate, the British authorities had an advantage in possibly denying Ned Kelly any additional manpower needed to fight against them. However, the Yermak Incident in the North Sea had aroused the wrath of the entire Hanseatic Pact against the British Empire, meaning that Queen Victoria and Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Palmerston had died back in 1865) would be forced to expend their resources if they are going to fight against the entire Hanseatic Pact, which by then had members like Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark.

In response to the Yermak Incident, Ned Kelly gathered ten of his fellow bushrangers, including Steve Hart and formed a Free Australia Committee that would form the nucleus of an independent Australian government. However, George Phipps took the first initiative and launched his first attack against the bushrangers. In what became known as the Battle of Alice Springs, it was the first real battle that would set the Australian Rebellion in motion.

Battle of Alice Springs:

On November 18th, 1880, an Anglo-Australian force commanded by William Jervois attacked Alice Springs, a major stronghold of the Free Australia Committee in their goal of crushing the movement before they got too strong. Inside Alice Springs, Dan Kelly was left in charge of the town’s defense. Initially, the defenders had several weaknesses, ranging from a lack of heavy weaponry to lack of military experience. They were compensated however, when Thomas Meagher arrived with three hundred Fenian soldiers into Alice Springs. Together with only a hundred bushrangers, the garrison inside Alice Springs had a slightly better chance of survive a British siege. Thus General Jervois launched an artillery barrage against the town for three days, thinking that it would break the morale of the defending garrison. By November 22nd however, the resistance from the town increased as the British infantry advanced closer to the town. Meagher responded by ordering ten bushrangers to take control of the nearest tall building and to use it as the sharpshooters’ nest.

Once the British Army entered the town however, they were lured into urban warfare as the bushrangers ambushed them wherever they entered. As the artillery barrage continued, Meagher witnessed the sudden loss of his troops as he hastily called for a general retreat from the town and to melt into the countryside, from which they could launch guerrilla warfare against the British. Further British pursuit of the bushrangers resulted in an additional ambush by Dan Kelly’s men just outside Alice Springs. It looked as if the British were about to become bogged down in a possible rebellion not seen since the Indian Mutiny.

Confederate Troubles in the North:

While the British Army hunted for bushrangers in the Australian countryside, the Confederate forces arrived in Washington, DC while the Union soldiers retreated further north, hoping to lure the Confederate Army into a trap which would destroy most of their fighting strength. For eleven hours, the Confederate forces laid siege to the former US capital while the defenders fought to the bitter end. Casualties ran high in both sides, though the Union forces who defended the White House were soon killed as a squad of Confederate soldiers hoisted the Dixie flag on top of the White House by November 24th, 1880. Numerous Confederate attempts to capture Baltimore soon followed, though with even greater resistance against the advancing enemy. It would take an additional three weeks for the Confederate Army to capture Baltimore, by which they can control both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. However, Wesley Merritt had used the Confederate attack on Washington, DC and Baltimore to pull back the bulk of the US forces into Philadelphia, where he expected the main thrust of Confederate General Wheeler’s forces to arrive. Ranald MacKenzie’s US 4th Cavalry division and three US infantry division were also sent to Pittsburg to deter James Longstreet’s army from linking up with Wheeler’s.

The real troubles for the Confederate States however, began on December 4th, 1880 when a Confederate reconnaissance platoon was ambushed in Missouri by Union irregulars near the US-CS border defenses. A Confederate scout who was later captured by the irregulars was tortured by US intelligence officers and upon further beatings; he revealed the plan by Longstreet to divert Merritt’s troops from Philadelphia by attacking Pittsburg so Wheeler’s forces could surround Philadelphia and capture it. The unlucky captured Confederate was then executed in cold blood, signifying that the relations between the USA and the CSA was about to get real worse.

Armed with such information, the irregulars had to travel all the way into Philadelphia to report to Merritt on the new information received from the captured Confederate scout. When they arrived in Philadelphia, Merritt gave orders to shore up the city’s defenses. The bulk of Wheeler’s forces stood in front of Philadelphia on December 10th, 1880, ready to pound into the city’s defenses. Although Confederate artillery was not as superior as their US counterparts, Union artillery were being deployed elsewhere, primarily in their war of attrition against the British Army in eastern Canada. Additionally, just as the Confederate siege of Philadelphia was about to begin, news of San Antonio’s capture by the Mexican Army shocked the Confederate Congress.

The sudden Mexican blitzkrieg into the plains of Texas left the Confederate forces vulnerable so much that the Confederate High Command authorized the formation of the Confederate Home Guard to deter the Mexican forces from advancing further into the heart of the Confederacy. The Rio Grande was soon dominated by trenches and artillery pieces, and the same was said about the Union trenches that were later built just north of Philadelphia. On December 25th, Mexican Emperor Maximillian I and Union President Hayes met up in St. Louis and decided to collaborate on the war effort against the Confederacy. They realized that the Confederate States was the weak link in the British side, so they had to destroy the weaker CSA first. Thus, on January of 1881, Union General Merritt’s troops just barely repulsed Wheeler’s forces in Philadelphia by luring them into the city, leading to an urban warfare which was no different from the Battle of Alice Springs in Australia. The only major difference though, was that Union Gatling Guns (albeit in few numbers) played a vital role in defending Philadelphia’s new Liberty House (the seat of the US government after the White House in Washington was abandoned).

Korea since the Pestelist Coup:

Korea has changed a lot since the Pestelist coup which brought King Gojong into power. The Trans-Siberian Railway’s expansion into Korean territory allowed consumer goods to reach cities like Kaesong, Wonsan, Nampho, Pyongyang, Kyeongseong, Busan and Daegu, as well as to facilitate emigration of Korean migrants into the Russian Far East, Manchuria (until its handover to China in 1878) and other parts of Siberia. Korea’s economy later grew, largely thanks to Russian trade with the Joseon dynasty, as well as Qing China. However, the threat from a pro-British Japanese state compelled King Gojong and later on, Queen Myeongseong to implement military reforms for the purpose of modernizing the Korean military. Despite the Confucian stance on trade and even defense, both Korean monarchs were pragmatists who saw the external threat of their ancient foe, Japan, as real.

A rebellion launched by conservative Confucian elements broke out in 1865 after Kong Gojong passed an edict, introducing conscription to most of the Korean population. Most of these conservatives lacked a unified leader, though their grievances ranged from breaking Confucian traditions to going a bit too fast with political reforms. It was not until 1867 when a loyalist Joseon army under Park Gyu-su’s command decisively defeated the conservatives in the Battle of the Taedong River. In what became known in Korea as the ‘Union of the Righteous Men’s Uprising’, King Gojong began to accelerate his reforms to the extent that Korean society would be changed forever.

Between 1866 and 1881, Gojong and Myeongseong continued with their so-called Joseon Restoration reforms, which soon began to take effect on modern Korean agriculture. As cash crops increased, profits were being given to Korean farmers, which gave them even more incentives to produce enough crops to make a surplus. Although Korea didn’t get involved in any wars since then, most of Korea’s economic growth was dominated by the shipbuilding industry. Merchant ships constructed in Korean shipyards were mostly used by Russian merchants in transporting their goods into the rest of Asia. These same Korean ships would later be used to transport guns into Ned Kelly’s faction in Australia.

Russo-German Rapprochement (1881 Onwards):

Since the Spring of Nations and into the new Wilhelmine era in the German Empire, Wilhelm I has passed away sometime in the 1860s, leaving the throne to Frederick III. Due to the German Empire’s close relations with Russia, Frederick III had married Maria Vladimirovna and together, they had three children, one of whom would become Frederick III’s successor, Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm V of Germany (1860-1938). In this time period, Russia and Germany began their own rapprochement phase, similar to Ivan VII’s phase with the Qing Empire. Moreover, because the Hanseatic Pact was formed with Russia and the Scandinavian states, Frederick III hoped to enter the Hanseatic Pact, and at the same time the Russians hoped to invite the United States into the alliance. Bismarck’s stance on Russia gradually lessened when Finland was recognized as an independent state, and the Hanseatic Pact not only admitted the Finns, but the Icelandic state as well.

One of the main points of the Russo-German Rapprochement Period was their stance on Asia. While Russia had Korea as an ally, Germany was more eager to keep China as its ally, and both nations were alarmed by the increasing presence of the Royal Navy on Japanese waters. Furthermore, both Russia and Germany were also alarmed at the developments in the Philippine Autonomous Territory, which was still de jure part of Spain, but de facto independent. So in 1881, the German Empire began to negotiate with Spain on the purchase of the Philippine Autonomous Territory to prevent Japan from purchasing it, but Japan saw this as an attempt to rob her of the territories she needed to settle most of the Japanese settlers, who were contributing to the overpopulation crisis in the Home Islands. However, an incident in Philippine waters would change everything overnight.

The German passenger ship Kolberg left Manila Harbor on July of 1881 after it dropped off a couple of German businessmen. Its intended destination was Brunei, where the newly founded Deutschekolonial Bund (or German Colonial Union) hoped to persuade the Bruneian sultan to open his country to German investment and colonization, as well as in the Sabah territory. However, when three British Royal Navy warships stopped the Kolberg just before it reached Bruneian territory and didn’t take chances in finding out whether or not the ship contained German military officers who could persuade the Bruneians to revolt against British rule. So on July 21st, the Kolberg was destroyed by the Royal Navy, and at the same time, the Korean built Russian merchant ship Pozharsky was also sunk by the Royal Navy. However, the merchant ship Pozharsky was actually carrying munitions to Australia, via the Dutch East Indies.

As if British troubles in Australia and North America were not just troublesome, the Yermak Incident and now the West Philippine (or South China) Sea Incident would later prove to be the events which now labeled the British Empire as a dreadful villain, intending to dominate the world. Within five months of those incidents, the Russian and German military began to mobilize and threatened Britain with a war against the German and Russian Empires if she didn’t compensate them for the incidents in SE Asia. Queen Victoria of course, refused to comply, leading to Russia and Germany’s intervention in Britain’s conflicts against the United States and her Australian colony on the side of the Union and Ned Kelly’s faction. To add insult to injury, Ivan VII formally ‘recognized’ the ‘independence’ of Australia under the Ned Kelly faction-dominated Free Australia Committee. Since Japan was an ally of Great Britain, Russia and Korea would now declare war against Japan while Germany and China would mobilize against the British. Spain, which had been struggling to keep the Philippine Autonomous Territory under its control, began to negotiate with Britain and Japan on who gets to keep them before the German Army in Indochina, led by Helmut von Moltke the Elder, invaded the Philippine Autonomous Territory.

French Diplomacy Works Once Again:

French Emperor Napoleon IV offered to mediate on the conflicts involving the British Empire and the United States plus its erstwhile allies. Although both sides were negotiating from their position of strength, it was the British who lost the moral high ground because of the Yermak and West Philippine Sea Incidents. However, Napoleon IV was determined to make sure that neither side would grow stronger, which would have a devastating effect on French national security as a whole. Amidst the Italian occupation of southern France, the British offered to grant Australia and New Zealand (or to merge them together) Dominion status plus they offered to grant most of the convict population amnesty, including the Kelly family. At the same time, Spain offered to cede the Philippine Autonomous Territory to Germany in exchange for giving Indochina back to France, but Britain and Japan threatened to pull a trade embargo on the German Empire if they received the Philippines. The fate of the Philippine Autonomous Territory remained undecided, but now it was being eyed by Japan and Germany.

In the end, Napoleon IV’s role in preventing the British Empire from collapsing and stopping the United States from becoming too powerful would lead to an interesting series of events. In Europe, the fact that Germany failed to get the Philippines but were allowed to keep Indochina saved the honor of the German Empire. Although the Hanseatic Pact was mildly affected by the British actions in the North and West Philippine/South China Sea, they increased their efforts in acquiring new member states, so by 1885 the Hanseatic Pact was ready to accept Germany as a new member. Germany’s ascension into the Hanseatic Pact also meant that any plan made by Bismarck to support the coup against Andras I Romanov was now officially dead.

Hungary’s Reaction to the Russo-German Rapprochement:

Andras I Romanov received the news of the Russo-German Rapprochement era with excitement since this effectively neutralized his opponents’ plan of unseating him from Hungary’s throne. Immediately, he purged the country of his opponents and declared martial law until the conspirators were tried and imprisoned. Most of the anti-Romanov Hungarian leaders like Lajos Benedek were already dead, but plenty more of these activists later immigrated to Australia, where the British authorities found them a new role in creating a stable, autonomous government.

The Ned Kelly Saga Ends:

As for Ned Kelly himself, the French diplomatic intervention in the conflict involving the British Empire had robbed him of a chance to become Australia’s savior from the Anglo-Australian Protestant establishment and would never play any role in Australian history as Queen Victoria later overturned the amnesty status to the Kelly family and decided that they were too dangerous to live. However, because the rest of the convict population sympathized with Ned Kelly more than the British authorities, it was clear that any move to overturn their amnesty status would result in continuing the conflict. So while Australia never became a fully fledged republic, the Free Australia Committee was included alongside the Australian Republican Association and the Australian Federation Convention. After Ned Kelly received his amnesty, he was later allowed to run for the position of an MP and won a seat, representing Kelly County. Moreover, all three sectors of the new Australian coalition government wanted to have control of their immigration policy, or the White Australia policy, though this was opposed by Britain. Luckily, Pestelist Russia was willing to take in immigrants from East Asia, though they were restricted to living in the Russian Far East.

Although the struggle for an independent Australia would carry into the Parliament, Edmund Barton would replace Ned Kelly as the key figure in the movement for the establishment of the so-called Australian National Republic. His views that Australia should attract immigrants from Europe were clearly echoed within the Australian population, although in this case the immigrants coming to Australia hailed from Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States, Ireland, the United States (most of the Union Americans were becoming war weary and they didn’t want to move into Canada), Great Britain, and the Ukrainian autonomous territory within the Russian Empire. The fact that most of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic population were gradually emigrating out of Russia had exposed Pestelism’s Achilles’ heel: while Pestelist Russia was becoming more modern, it still harbored strong anti-Catholic sentiments. Something that will have to be fixed as the Pestelis Revolution would enter its final phase.

[Razgriz 2K9]

Ah the eventual Republican phase of the Petelist movement draws near...

[DarkAvenger]

Not wanting to bother you, but do you have any plans to post a map of the world?