For what could France do ? Its major ally in the Eastern Mediterranean, the lynchpin of its entire policy in the theatre, and a nation with which they were negotiating rights to build a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, was teetering on the brink. Could France have let her fall ? With investments, with loans, with manpower, materiele and time all invested so heavily ? No, King Ferdinand's government had no choice in their eyes to try and intervene, and overturn the setbacks that the reign, but most especially the death, of Abbas had brought to the Egyptian sultanate.
French support for Greek ambitions, political backing for King George's intervention in Epirus and Thessaly ensured that Austria, although seething at the bit, could not and did not intervene. The British protectorate of the Ionian Islands, under its Lord Commissioner, William Ewart Gladstone, had been instructed by London not to interfere but to protest if the Austrians or French violated their neutrality. Together, these twin pressures allowed the rebellion in Epirus to capture Janina, and a well-armed, competently-led rebel army to take the field against the Ottomans when they finally dispatched an army to put down the revolts in their rebellious Western provinces.
By this time, the great Battle of Rhodes had taken place. A French frigate fortuitously sighting the Russo-Ottoman fleet in the evening, and by dawn the Franco-Egyptian force being in a perfect position to engage. Attempts by the Ottoman portion to cut and run proved disastrous as the French outmanoevred them and cut them to ribbons. The Russians, staying and fighting to the end suffered even more heavily. By nghtfall, only a handful of major vessels survived to escape back to Smyrna. The victorious French proceeded to the Lebanon. leaving the Egyptians to return to Crete and keep an eye on what was left of their adversaries. During this time, a British squadron of ships of the line had been dispatched from Malta, and ordered to watch but not to get involved. This was a conflict in which the Radical government of William Lovett, in London, had no wish to become involved.
Secret memoranda later made public in London did, however, make clear that despite much reluctance Lovett had come to the conclusion that if an Ottoman counter-offensive threatened the very existence of Greece, Britain would have to ally with France to preserve the independence of that kingdom. As it was, no such action was necesarry.
Further East, the army that Said dispatched to his rebellious province of Syria was perhaps the best-equipped that Egypt had ever put into the field. Despite the difficulties of Abbas' reign, the armed forces had retained their position in the state, and the French-equipped army, trained according to the French system instituted by Mohammed Ali after the previous war with the Ottomans, proved more than a match for the few rebel forces it came up against.
But the war in Syria was not to be decided by the Syrians. The Ottoman Empire had dispatched an army to the theatre, and despite heroic efforts this army failed to dislodge Said's forces, or achieve more than to force a stalemate. Had this been the sum of the armed forces involved, it is likely that a repeat of the previous conflict would have resulted, and the Ottomans been forced to back down and see Egypt reoccupy its rebellious province. But this was not the sum of the armed forces involved.
A Russian army, acting under the terms of the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi had requested permission to traverse Eastern Anatolia and take the field in Syria. Despite misgivings, Sultan Abdulmecid was unwilling to provoke his sole reliable allies, and the Russian army duly marched South. It arrived in time to co-ordinate its offensive with the latter non-productive pushes of the Ottoman force, pushing against a solid defence from Said's army. But, the Egyptians could not hold out against two forces and soon were forced to abandon Damascus to jubilant Syrians, and pull back to the South, and West.
On the Lebanon littoral the French fleet had already landed several marine units to take and hold the coastal cities. Other French units, including veteran forces shipped directly from Algiers pushed inland to the mountains. As the Egyptians fell back, they succeeded in establishing a defensive line in Northern Palestine, and in joining with rapidly increasing French forces in the Lebanon.
Further West, the Greek rebels had won a spectacular victory against the Ottoman army sent against them, and revolution appeared to be about to spread throughout Macedonia. But this was not to be, the incipient movements were nipped in the bud by the Ottomans, but Greek control of Epirus and Thessaly seemed assured.
Prince Henri of Orleans, Duke of Aumale and younger brother to King Ferdinand of France visited Cairo to meet with Said. The exact details of the meeting are unknown, but Ferdinand's government afterwards put out peace feelers to the Ottomans and Russians, through the good offices of Prussia. In early 1855 a new treaty was signed.
- Syria was to be returned to Ottoman control
- The Lebanon was to become a French protectorate under Egyptian sovereignty
- Epirus and Thessaly were to be ceded to the Kingdom of Greece
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Orleans Band of Brothers
King Ferdinand I of France
eldest son of King Louis Philippe of France
born 1810
died 1842 OTL, survived in the ATL and succeeded his father as king in 1848
King Louis of Belgium
second son of King Louis Philippe of France
younger brother of King Ferdinand I of France
born 1814
died 1896 OTL
King Francis of Ireland
third son of King Louis Philippe of France
younger brother of King Ferdinand I of France
born 1818
died 1900 OTL
Prince Charles Ferdinand of Orleans
Duke of Penthieve
fourth son of King Louis Philippe
Younger brother to all the above
born 1820 - died 1828
Unaffected by the ATL and thus dead
Prince Henri of Orleans
Duke of Aumale
fifth son of King Louis Philippe
younger brother to all the above
born 1922
died 1897 OTL
Prince Antoine of Orleans
Duke of Montpensier
sixth son of King Louis Philippe
younger brother to all the above
born 1824
died 1890 OTL
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The later 1850s saw warfare rage across China, and throughout Central America
Within Central America, William Walker's expedition to Nicaragua, overtly backed by several Yucatecan factions and covertly by the US forces within the Republic of the Yucatan, rapidly took possession of the country, first backing one side in Nicaragua's civil war, then usurping power from them once the opposition had fallen before them.
Walker's dream was the recreation of the United Provinces of Central America as an American protectorate, with himself as President but with overall power residing in Washington D.C.
To this end he made war against his neighbours. With France otherwise engaged, and Britain unwilling to act after Lovett's government had secured autonomy for the Miskit Indians in Nicaragua, Walker's forces carried the war across Central America. Peace in Europe brought little reprieve to the beleagured nations of the region, and eventually it was force of arms that won, arms supplied by US agents, backed up with Yucatecan logistics and faced by armies which had had to go down the hithertofore unthinkable road of appealing to Spain for aid.
Walker's success was to prove short-lived on a personal scale. Barely three months after assuming the Presidency of the United Provinces afer the defeat of the last enemy army left in the field, that of Costa Rica, Walker was himself dead, assassinated by one of his officers, a man he had trusted but begun to undermine when he felt that his powerbase was getting too large. It had proved itself better than his mentor's, and the United Provinces had a new leader.
It was at this moment that Great Britain reappeared the more fully on the scene. Certain factions within the Republic of Yucatan had been talking unguardedly about the annexation of British Honduras, and when these sentiments had been taken up in Managua, it had created a furore back in Britain.
Lovett''s government had been voted down on a motion of No Confidence, and King George V had dissolved parliament. In the resultant election there had been a sizeable vote for the Moderates, the conservative party under its new leader of Benjamin Disraeli, who had argued that Britain's position in the world depended upon not just the Rights of Man as the Radicals argued, nor solely upon trade and enterprise as the Reformists argued, but upon national pride and strength. This had hit a chord with a certain section of the electorate, and the government which took power in a Reformist-Moderate coalition had for the first time seen a decided conservative bent.
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New Reformist Prime Minister Henry Labourchere, 1st Baron Taunton, finds his policies increasingly determined by Disraeli's conservative faction in his coalition government. His first actions are to send a squadron of ships of the line to the Caribbean. With Moderate clamour to do more, he increases the garrison in British Honduras and sends additional forces to Jamaica.
As the new president of the United Provinces of Central America faces down a Costa Rican rebellion, Labouchere orders the British navy to the Miskito Coast. In a series of landings, Royal Marines secure the coastal cities, and are followed up by a landing of army regiments from Jamaica. By the time that the UPCA is able to turn from the suppression of rebellion to Miskitia, the British admiral has received King George Augustus Frederic II and signed a treaty of alliance, with the main clause being the eradication of UPCA rule from Miskitia.
The UPCA president protests that Labouchere's predecessor had signed a treaty recognising UPCA sovereignty over the Miskit. But Britain refuses to back down. As the UPCA appeals to the USA for political support in the impasse, Labouchere orders a second squadron of ships of the line to the Caribbean.
Foreign Secretary, Sir George Grey of Fallodon visits Paris and meets with his French counter-part. The outcome of the meeting is obvious when France orders a squadron of its own line ships to the Caribbean, ostensibly to pay a state visit to Mexico, but obviously to put additional pressure upon the UPCA.
In the United States of America, President Stephen A Douglas had won the election of 1856, succeeding the outgoing Democrat President Lewis Cass as his chosen successor. Douglas was an ardent expansionist and had backed Walker, and his successor in the formation of the United Provinces of Central America, agreeing with Walker that the logical extension would be for the USA to assume the state as a protectorate on the same basis as the Yucatan.
President Douglas however is above all a realist. He has no wish to drag the USA into a war with both France and Britain, and possibly Spain as well, and he advises the UPCA to negotiate. Unwillingly, the United Provinces of Central America agrees to annull Lovett's treaty on the Miskit, and to retrocede the area back to British control.
Prime Minister Labouchere announces that henceforth Miskitia will be known as the independent Kingdom of Miskitia, with King George Augustus Frederic II a monarch in international law. Britain will continue to control the nation's armed forces for the foreseeable future, but the ruling sets Miskitia's independence existence in stone.
In 1860, the UPCA becomes formally a protectorate of the USA, as President Douglas accepts the president's request in the middle of his election campaign. This acceptance throws his opponent, the Whig Abraham Lincoln onto the defensive, and in the sweep of apparent victory, Douglas succeeds in winning re-election.
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1828-1864
US Presidents in the ATL
Andrew Jackson
1828-32
Democratic Republican (Democrat)
Andrew Jackson
1832-36
Democratic Republican (Democrat)
Martin Van Buren
1836-40
Democrat
Martin Van Buren
1840-44
Democrat
Henry Clay
1844-48
Whig
Lewis Cass
1848-52
Democrat
Lewis Cass
1852-56
Democrat
Stephen A Douglas
1856-60
Democrat
Stephen A Douglas
1860-64
Democrat
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The death of Carlos Antonio Lopez in 1862 unleashed a new fury of war upon South America. Buenos Aires, seething the last twenty years over their defeat by Britain and France, and most especially the loss of four frontier provinces to Paraguay, now saw its chance. Under strongman ruler, General Justo Jose de Urquiza, Argentina took advantage of the elder Lopez's death to invade its former frontier provinces of Chaco and Corrientes.
Paraguay's new ruler, Francisco Solano Lopez musters the army and calls upon Britain and France, protectors of the republic of Uruguay and traditional friends of Paraguay since the last war.
In London, Prime Minister Labouchere's government has won re-election in a mandate to press Britain's interests abroad. With Moderate leader, Benjamin Disraeli, holding the Foreign Office portfolio in the new coalition government, Britain responds swiftly to events in the Southern Atlantic. Not to be outdone, in Paris, King Ferdinand's government likewise despatches a naval force to the River Plate.
The British squadron calls into Rio de Janeiro enroute, and its commander, Vice Admiral Sir James Hope-Vere delivered a letter from the British king and government to the Emperor of Brazil and his government. Whilst its contents were not immediately made public, it was obvious to informed observers that the letter was a request (in formal language) or a warning (in effect) not to get involved in war against Paraguay. It was well-known that, since the 1840s war, Brazil had been concerned about Paraguayan dominance of the River Plate, and the Lopez's interests in the Brazilian province of Matto Grotto, once part of 'historic' Paraguay.
At the same time, Britain and France moved to recognise Oriele Antoine I as King of Araucania and Patagonia, the Mapuche indian lands South of Argentina.
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The Sino-Sikh War in the mid 1840s underlined the weakness of China to many, the inability to prevent the Sikh state from holding onto those parts of Tibet seized in the preceding years. Although the war itself was indecisive, the outcome favoured the Sikhs and represented a loss of face for the Chinese.
Followed as it shortly was by an Anglo-French campaign to open Chinese ports to European trade, the war marked the beginning of a period of Chinese weakness that was to culminate in the near collapse of the empire by the 1860s.
In 1851 a Christian convert, variously described as a visionary or a madman, by the name of Hung Hsiu-chuan proclaimed a rebellion in Eastern China, seizing Nanking in 1853 and declaring the foundation of the 'Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace', the Taiping Tienkuo, or Taiping for short. Proclaiming himself as the Heavenly King (Tien Wang), Hung's movement proceeded to sweep across the area. However, an attempt to march North to Peking in 1853 proved to be under-manned, and would eventually lead to the defeat of the expeditionary force's remnants in Shantung province in 1855.
But the Taiping rebellion had by this time had a galvanising effect on other minority, rebellious and disadvantaged groups.
In the South, initially in Kweichow province but spiiling over into all of its neighbours, a coalition of Miao tribesmen, Chuing-chia tribes and disaffected Chinese drove the imperialists from out of the area. By 1858 all of the fortified towns surrounding the Miao heartland were in rebel hands, and Kao He had emerged as the paramount leader after the fall of the provincial capital of Kweiyang in 1857.
In Anhwei province, North of the Taiping heartland, the Nien rebellion which had begun under local chief Chang Lo-hsing in 1852 gathered momentum and spread out across the region, by 1858 dominating the entire valley of the Huai River.
1856 had seen the Tung Wang, the Taiping's principle military commander, sweep aside one of the two main imperial forces besieging Nanking and proceed to declare himself the equal of the Heavenly King. Choosing his moment carefully, he launched a coup and placed himself in a theoretically equal position, but in reality relegating Hung Hsiu-chuan to a minor role.
1856 also saw the outbreak of the Panthay rebellion in the predominantly mountainous Yunnan province on the Southern borders. Centred amongst the Muslim population, it grew out of sectarian disputes and soon divided into two main theatres. In the East, Ma Hsien emerged as the main rebel leader, co-operating with others but in `1858 awarding himself the title of Great Marshal. In the West, the rebel leader Ma Yussa emerged from his hiding place in the Shan Hills in 1857 after a decade of hiding, and soon raised up his own rebellion.
By the early 1860s the situation had begun to coalesce into a recognisable pattern. The Taiping were established in Eastern China, occupying the provinces of Hunan, Hupeh, Kiangsi, Chekiang and Southern Anhwei, as well as the island of Formosa which had risen for the Taiping.
The Nien rebels, occupying Northern Anhwei, Honan and Southern Shantung effectively provided the Taiping with a borderland between itself and the Chinese imperial forces. The Nien leaders had acknowledged Taiping suzerainty but retained their local powers.
Kweichow, and areas of Yunnan, Hunan and Kwangsi were under the dominion of Kao He, and comprised loosely a confederation of Miao, Chung-chia and Chinese.
Yunnan, under its rival leaders was in a state of civil war, but shielded from the possibility of imperial intervention by Taiping campaigns in Szechwan province and by a series of new rebellions which broke out across 1862.
Unsettled by the Taiping rebellion, and especially by Taiping incursions into the province in the Spring of 1862, the Tungan (Chinese Muslims) of Shensi broke out in rebellion in 1862 under the leadership of Ma Hua-long of Chin-ch-pao, a leader of a militant Muslim reform movement known as the 'New Doctrine', and someone who by 1863 had adopted for himself the title of Grand Marshal. The revolt quickly spread into neighbouring Kansu province.
At the same time, the latest Khoja exile incursion into Kashgaria had at last borne fruit for these exiles, the former ruling dynasty of Kashgaria who had been living in exile in neighbouring Khokand for most of the century, occasionally returning in short-lived rebellions, the most recent in 1857 where a regime of unparallelled brutality had been put down by imperial forces after but a few months.
Nominally under Khoka exile Buzurg Khan, the Kashgarian uprising was largely controlled by Yakub Beg, appointed military commander to the former exile. They quickly subdued local rulers who had risen up and proclaimed their own state, and by 1865 were in control of all of Kashgaria after having driven out the last of the Chinese.
By this time, the Tungan rebels had not only seized control of all of Shensi and Kansu, but had also penetrated Kashgaria and formed an alliance with Yakub Beg under one T'o-Ming, who in 1864 had proclaimed himself to be 'King of All Muslims'. But religious tensions were high, the Tungan belonging to an unorthodox branch of Sunnism and the Kashgarians to a more orthodox form.
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The early 1860s thus saw European attention being pulled in several directions at once. No sooner had the Central American question been solved, then the government in London was faced with renewed warfare in South America and a whole new series of revolts across China which threatened to bring about the complete collapse of the tottering empire.
As Britain and France engaged Argentine forces in the South Atlantic, and as they looked on with increasing concern within China, Russia and the United States would take advantage of their distraction in various ways.
In Central Asia, the Russian Empire in the last few decades had annexed the Southern shore of the Caspian Sea and added Southern Azerbaijan to the Northern part, defeating Persia in a series of wars, and also taking Herat within Afghanistan. In addition, the Central Asian states of Khokand, Bokhara and Khiva were all suffering depradations and the loss of frontier positions to the Russians.
In 1853, Russian Foreign Minister Nesselrode had informed the Chinese Emperor that Russia recognised and would abide by the borders of their previous agreements with China. A decade later, with the Eastern Mediterranean War over, and Russian attention once more turning to Asian affairs, Russia pressed for the land North of the Amur, a province whose exact boundaries had never been agreed by previous treaties and which was becoming increasingly important in Russian plans for expansion in the Far East. Under pressure from renewed rebellions, and fearful of Russian intentions if no agreement was reached, China agreed to the cession of the province in 1863.
Russia would press additional claims in the following few years, and intervene forcefully to enforce these within the Ili Valley, taking Kuldja in 1865 and holding onto it. There was little that China could do, having been driven from Kashgaria by the combined forces of Yakub Beg and the Tungan rebels, and seeing its holdings in Dzungaria fall to local leaders who were soon to pledge vague allegiance to Yakub Beg whilst still retaining their effective independence.
Meanwhile, the United States had been watching events in California with increasing interest. The Gold Rush really taking off in 1861 had seen an influx of American citizens from the North, and soon the Mexican authorities were fearful of a population imbalance, the immigrants coming to outnumber the Mexicans in all but a few major cities.
It was, however, clashes with Mormon missions which were to provide the United States with a cause to intervene. Established as missionary outposts from their theocratic state of Deseret, these Mormon outposts enjoyed the full protection of Mexican law, as Deseret was a fully acknowledged autonomous zone within the republic. American workers, coming up against Mormons for the first time, vented their disgust and hatred against numerous missions. Attempts by the Mexican authorities to play down these clashes met with anger in Deseret, and new instructions from Mexico City ordered the governor in Monterey to bring those responsible to justice. The arrest of a dozen ringleaders in the area around San Francisco caused outrage in the United States, where popular propaganda had for years portrayed the Mormons as akin to Devil-worshippers.
President Stephen A Douglas acted forcibly to demand that rather than try the men, Mexico hand them over to US jurisdiction. At the same time, American agitators began to campaign for democratic rights for the worker populations in the gold fields. Mexican law required citizenship or a minimum period of residence, but the USA began to press for Mexico to make an exception within California. Demonstrations by US warships off the coast caused consternation in Monterey and it was not long before the governor was instructed to convene a second chamber to the California legislature consisting of immigrants with reduced voting powers. Even this was not enough for the United States, and in late 1863 a landing party was put ashore to forcibly rescue a group of men who were to stand trial for the murder of a Mormon missionary.
By this time, British and French warships were bloickading the entire Argentine coast, and naval divisions operating in the River Plate and up the Parana. Marines had been landed in Patagonia and effected an alliance with King Oriele Antoine's Mapuche, whilst Paraguayan forces held their own against the Argentinians and threatened an advance on Buenos Aires. Both powers were too deeply caught up in affairs in this theatre to offer anything more than diplomatic support to the Mexican Republic.
Grey Wolf
This seems a bit odd but let's see what people think?
President Stephen A Douglas is running for re-election in 1864, going for a third term, attempting to be the first president to achieve this.
His government is agitating over California, but Mexico is not proving to be the push-over the USA had imagined it to be. The US has forced the Californian legislature to give the immigrant workers representation, and has also intervened forcibly to remove some US citizens incarcerated on charges of murdering a Mormon missionary.
But Douglas' campaign is running into a strong showing from the labour coalition that has united several factions, including dissident Whigs, behind Charles F Adams as the Radical Party
Adams' campaign is not directly anti-imperialistic, but his strong showing on the campaign trail makes great work of the fact that although the concessions in California have borne great results for the USA, the lot of the common man has hardly been improved.
Adams is also able to make good play on the conditions of workers across the USA, the Indian attacks on settler caravans, the insecurity in the Mid West, and continued rebellion in the United Provinces of Central America where lots of US workers have been lured by promises that turned out to be false.
In November 1864 Charles F Adams stuns the political world by getting elected president, on a narrow majority in the electoral college.
Grey Wolf
He may never see it.