Kinda surprised it is only a 99 year lease and not one in perpetuity TBH.
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Seems like they got off a little light having invaded U.S. territory.
That was relatively in vogue at the time, to be fair, though point taken
Indeed
You'd think after going to war in large part because the Treaty of Havana sunseted after fifty years the US would do something to prevent such a possibility from biting them in the ass down the line.
Think Guantanamo, but with one tenth the number of people within 100 miles. Wonderful port, middle of the bleeping desert.
The base that they are getting from Mexico is a link in a chain that will have *much* larger links at San Diego and the Pacific exit from the Canal. A base at Magdalene bay is constrained by water to be relatively small (even with 21st Century knowledge of Aquifers). And if it eventually goes away, so be it.
Being able to ship through New Orleans matters every day to a million American Farmers. *Just* what the USA will do to the CSA to keep the Mississippi open will make *all* what Mexico agreed to for peace look nice.
Also, I'm trying to remember if there were *any* battles listed where Mexican Forces attacked US Civilians? (Maybe in Nicaragua) In fact trying to figure out war crime trials in the Central American theatre is going to be interesting. I could *honestly* see joint US-Mexican teams doing investigating. Still trying to figure out how much the US would react if Mexico annexed Guatemala...
The Peace treaty between the US and Mexico requires that the Mexicans retreat from Guatemala into Mexico, but I'm wondering how much the American Troops in Guatemala *really* want that to happen. Guatemala at that point would be a three way war between the Mexican Government, the US Government and General Huerta. If there is peace, then the Mexicans will still be of use as long as they are going after Huerta. I'm sure the Americans would like to get Huerta in custody, but I'm not sure they will be too upset if the Mexicans put him up against a wall and shoot him. I'm not sure who is more likely to sentence him to death, the Americans or the Mexicans.
Path of Darkness: Europe's Illiberal Hour
"...despite being one of the world's largest industrial economies, and with a per-capita income that nearly matched Britain, the average Belgian, particularly in Wallonia, experienced little of this, and that was before one took into account the severe ethnic and linguistic divide that separated Walloons from Flemings. The dramatic rise in the Belgian standard of living that had begun in the mid-1890s and continued through to the upheavals of 1912 had entirely stalled out and Belgian politics were polarized, angry and more than a little defeatist. The general strike of 1915 thus occurred in a context in which the Belgian working class splintered into multiple feuding factions, all holding the bourgeoisie in contempt but none quite capable of leaving their corners to compromise, a situation which of course suited the famously thuggish Leopold III just fine.
What separated 1915 from the violence of previous Belgian general uprisings such as 1883 or 1890 [1] was the thought and coordination put into it by union leaders, and that their syndicalist flavor showed for the first time. Like 1890, some observers became convinced that the country was about to tip into civil war, and that was in part thanks to the coordination between various bodies and the emergence of the Sindicat-Generale Belgique, or Belgian General Syndicate, a term of description that would become increasingly familiar to Europeans over the next quarter-century. The first of the feared "general syndicates," the SGB sought to unite all Belgian unions under one umbrella as a single industrial laborers lobby, that could take comprehensive and collective action together. This was the step beyond mere industrial unionism that morphed into syndicalism, and it was an idea that was met with some trepidation by the strike's otherwise leading light, Jules Destree. Destree was a social democrat of deep experience who had emerged from the 1890 upheavals with a passionate defense of the aggrieved laborer and was by 1915 the chief figure of the Belgian left, leading the small Social Democratic Labor Party in the Belgian Parliament and whose essays were begrudgingly read and admired by the King himself.
Destree's leftism was of a considerably more reformist school, and he had endeared himself to some moderate Flemings in 1912 when he had written the polemic On the Division of Belgium, in which he famously declared, "C'est nes pas Belgiques" - there are no Belgians. What he had meant, and with which a great many [2] on both sides of Belgium's ethnic divide agreed, was that there was no single Belgian identity and thus no way to create genuine Belgian patriotism. Destree had argued in favor of a federal solution to Belgium, with a relatively powerless central government in Brussels with powerful provincial legislatures in Wallonia and Flanders, and his acknowledgement of very real and tangible grievances of the northern half of the country had earned the attention even of Flemish nationalists like August Borms, the other major figure who emerged out of the 1915 general strike. Of course, Destree perhaps proved his point too effectively; his reform streak barely papered over his own considerable Walloon sympathies, and part of the concern expressed in his C'est nes pas Belgiques sentiment was that the larger, more populous Flanders would come in time to politically dominate the smaller, less densely populated but more industrialized and wealthier Wallonia and exercise its long-simmering grievances upon that population.
These grievances were by 1915 difficult to ignore, and the ruling Catholic Party - which managed to survive political gravity regardless of what occurred in the country - failed to address the issues head on, buttressed by an electoral system that despite enjoying near-universal suffrage had provinces alternate elections to the parliament every two years so that the entire kingdom did not go to the polls simultaneously. The sense in Belgium for both socialists and liberals that electoral politics produced little but frustration, particularly after 1912, meant that leaders like Destree or Paul Hymans, a progressive liberal, were forced to agitate from the outside, a lesson the SGB learned quite quickly.
Destree was, ironically enough for an episode that greatly burnished his credibility in Belgian politics, opposed to a full general strike and had advocated that major unions not join the SGB. Nonetheless, after railroad workers were refused a requested increase in pay that approximated to an average of about 2% per year for the next three years depending on role or profession, the rail union CCB voted to strike at the end of November, just as harvest was wrapping up and winter was approaching, and they were shortly thereafter joined by coal miners (the critical one, considering the reliance of Belgium on coal for heating, meaning that coal could not be mined or transported), textile workers, and steelmakers. The four largest unions in Belgium walked off the job at noon on November 28, 1915, plunging the country into crisis.
Leopold's reaction was, as always, quite poor, egged on by his sons - in particular Stephane Clement, a vain, vapid and cruel figure despised by the other courts of Europe who had just returned from an informal exile of a few years observing the Great American War on the Confederate lines - to crush the strikes with the army. The problem came when several soldiers, particularly Walloons, refused to open fire on strikers, and many instead crossed over to join them on their lines. Strikers suddenly had rifles and ammunition and were barricading themselves in scenes reminiscent of Paris in 1832 or 1848, and socialist leader Emile Vanderwelde called for a "Brussels Commune" as he returned from exile in Britain to Ghent on the eve of the strike. By December 2, the country looked ready to explode, with more soldiers called up from barracks, socialist paramilitaries patrolling much of Liege, Charleroi and Ghent, and the King nervously studying evacuation plans from Brussels with the path to his preferred destination, France, largely blocked by the uprisings.
Destree, in a fiery speech in Parliament, called on the government to "hear at last the people's voices!" to which Flemish parliamentarian Borms, who had up until then been an obscure if outspoken professor of art and language in Antwerp [3] responded with a shout "Which people? Whose voices? In which tongue?" Destree smiled and shrugged it off, but Flemish parliamentarians, many in the governing Catholic Party or the opposition Liberals, roared in approval, and Borms the next day, on the 4th, gave his own speech, largely off the cuff, in which he accused the socialist movement of being a "front for Walloon influence" and then pilloried his own Catholic Party for ignoring its Flemish voter base to instead act as a catspaw for "French influences in the Belgian state."
By the time the strike ended on December 10 with sixteen dead, multiple riots put down by force but also the strikers largely getting what they wanted - thus teaching both the government and the SGB that their approach had worked and that they would need to be even more violent and demanding next time - Belgium would never be the same. Vanderwelde went to prison, martyring him in the eyes of syndicalists but also opening the space for Destree to become even more the centrifugal figure of opposition to the tired and clientelist Catholic Party, and the voice of grievance of the Belgian worker had been breathed into existence and underpinned his political status. But simultaneously, Flemish nationalism for once had its own champion rather than just idle grumblings, and though the Flemish right would be divided for years to come - a great many nationalists were liberals uncomfortable with Borms' proto-integralist worldview - it had finally started to find its own voice..."
- Path of Darkness: Europe's Illiberal Hour
[1] Belgique Rouge was a while ago, and I did briefly consider using that for the update here, so I believe these were the years that Belgium last experienced major strife.
[2] Including IOTL King Albert of Belgium, though Albert disagreed with his conclusions in calling for a federal Belgian state
[3] Right-wing weirdo-intellectual professors and mass politics in early 20th century Europe, name a more iconic duo
What separated 1915 from the violence of previous Belgian general uprisings such as 1883 or 1890 [1] was the thought and coordination put into it by union leaders, and that their syndicalist flavor showed for the first time. Like 1890, some observers became convinced that the country was about to tip into civil war, and that was in part thanks to the coordination between various bodies and the emergence of the Sindicat-Generale Belgique, or Belgian General Syndicate, a term of description that would become increasingly familiar to Europeans over the next quarter-century. The first of the feared "general syndicates," the SGB sought to unite all Belgian unions under one umbrella as a single industrial laborers lobby, that could take comprehensive and collective action together. This was the step beyond mere industrial unionism that morphed into syndicalism, and it was an idea that was met with some trepidation by the strike's otherwise leading light, Jules Destree. Destree was a social democrat of deep experience who had emerged from the 1890 upheavals with a passionate defense of the aggrieved laborer and was by 1915 the chief figure of the Belgian left, leading the small Social Democratic Labor Party in the Belgian Parliament and whose essays were begrudgingly read and admired by the King himself.
Destree's leftism was of a considerably more reformist school, and he had endeared himself to some moderate Flemings in 1912 when he had written the polemic On the Division of Belgium, in which he famously declared, "C'est nes pas Belgiques" - there are no Belgians. What he had meant, and with which a great many [2] on both sides of Belgium's ethnic divide agreed, was that there was no single Belgian identity and thus no way to create genuine Belgian patriotism. Destree had argued in favor of a federal solution to Belgium, with a relatively powerless central government in Brussels with powerful provincial legislatures in Wallonia and Flanders, and his acknowledgement of very real and tangible grievances of the northern half of the country had earned the attention even of Flemish nationalists like August Borms, the other major figure who emerged out of the 1915 general strike. Of course, Destree perhaps proved his point too effectively; his reform streak barely papered over his own considerable Walloon sympathies, and part of the concern expressed in his C'est nes pas Belgiques sentiment was that the larger, more populous Flanders would come in time to politically dominate the smaller, less densely populated but more industrialized and wealthier Wallonia and exercise its long-simmering grievances upon that population.
These grievances were by 1915 difficult to ignore, and the ruling Catholic Party - which managed to survive political gravity regardless of what occurred in the country - failed to address the issues head on, buttressed by an electoral system that despite enjoying near-universal suffrage had provinces alternate elections to the parliament every two years so that the entire kingdom did not go to the polls simultaneously. The sense in Belgium for both socialists and liberals that electoral politics produced little but frustration, particularly after 1912, meant that leaders like Destree or Paul Hymans, a progressive liberal, were forced to agitate from the outside, a lesson the SGB learned quite quickly.
Destree was, ironically enough for an episode that greatly burnished his credibility in Belgian politics, opposed to a full general strike and had advocated that major unions not join the SGB. Nonetheless, after railroad workers were refused a requested increase in pay that approximated to an average of about 2% per year for the next three years depending on role or profession, the rail union CCB voted to strike at the end of November, just as harvest was wrapping up and winter was approaching, and they were shortly thereafter joined by coal miners (the critical one, considering the reliance of Belgium on coal for heating, meaning that coal could not be mined or transported), textile workers, and steelmakers. The four largest unions in Belgium walked off the job at noon on November 28, 1915, plunging the country into crisis.
Leopold's reaction was, as always, quite poor, egged on by his sons - in particular Stephane Clement, a vain, vapid and cruel figure despised by the other courts of Europe who had just returned from an informal exile of a few years observing the Great American War on the Confederate lines - to crush the strikes with the army. The problem came when several soldiers, particularly Walloons, refused to open fire on strikers, and many instead crossed over to join them on their lines. Strikers suddenly had rifles and ammunition and were barricading themselves in scenes reminiscent of Paris in 1832 or 1848, and socialist leader Emile Vanderwelde called for a "Brussels Commune" as he returned from exile in Britain to Ghent on the eve of the strike. By December 2, the country looked ready to explode, with more soldiers called up from barracks, socialist paramilitaries patrolling much of Liege, Charleroi and Ghent, and the King nervously studying evacuation plans from Brussels with the path to his preferred destination, France, largely blocked by the uprisings.
Destree, in a fiery speech in Parliament, called on the government to "hear at last the people's voices!" to which Flemish parliamentarian Borms, who had up until then been an obscure if outspoken professor of art and language in Antwerp [3] responded with a shout "Which people? Whose voices? In which tongue?" Destree smiled and shrugged it off, but Flemish parliamentarians, many in the governing Catholic Party or the opposition Liberals, roared in approval, and Borms the next day, on the 4th, gave his own speech, largely off the cuff, in which he accused the socialist movement of being a "front for Walloon influence" and then pilloried his own Catholic Party for ignoring its Flemish voter base to instead act as a catspaw for "French influences in the Belgian state."
By the time the strike ended on December 10 with sixteen dead, multiple riots put down by force but also the strikers largely getting what they wanted - thus teaching both the government and the SGB that their approach had worked and that they would need to be even more violent and demanding next time - Belgium would never be the same. Vanderwelde went to prison, martyring him in the eyes of syndicalists but also opening the space for Destree to become even more the centrifugal figure of opposition to the tired and clientelist Catholic Party, and the voice of grievance of the Belgian worker had been breathed into existence and underpinned his political status. But simultaneously, Flemish nationalism for once had its own champion rather than just idle grumblings, and though the Flemish right would be divided for years to come - a great many nationalists were liberals uncomfortable with Borms' proto-integralist worldview - it had finally started to find its own voice..."
- Path of Darkness: Europe's Illiberal Hour
[1] Belgique Rouge was a while ago, and I did briefly consider using that for the update here, so I believe these were the years that Belgium last experienced major strife.
[2] Including IOTL King Albert of Belgium, though Albert disagreed with his conclusions in calling for a federal Belgian state
[3] Right-wing weirdo-intellectual professors and mass politics in early 20th century Europe, name a more iconic duo
Belgium's royal family reaping: HAHA, yeah! Let's be assholes to our subjects and shoot everyone with the PoS prince even the courts of Europe can't stand who just returned from looking at the GAW from the Confederate perspective, what could go wrong.
Belgium's not-royal-anymore family sowing after they're overthrown: Well this fucking sucks. What the fucking fuck.
I wonder if the Belgian royal family will be an inspiration for a future Frank Herbert - because they make the Harkonnen look good and compitent by comparison 
In regards to Belgium, I've found a few things in the pages about Phillipe (who is the *third* son of LIII, Stephane is *second*)that both give hope and despair... (yes, I'm jumping around in time.
"...precisely what happened at Bad Ischl will probably forever remain unclear, but it nonetheless would dramatically reshape the lives of the entire Belgian royal family. The allegation that Stephane Clement had attempted to assault the Archduchess Hedwig, who was only 14, at Philippe's wedding to Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska spread rapidly throughout not just Austria but the whole continent. Making matters worse was that the rumor was brought first to an exasperated King Leopold by Philippe himself; the third son of the "Belgian Boys" had always been seen as the most sensible and capable, with many a European court and foreign ministry lamenting he had not been born first, and for him to levy such a charge against his own blood was no small matter. He had apparently been encouraged into it by his new bride, and immediately acting on this information endeared him to her for the rest of her short life (the marriage was, despite the dynastic dynamic, one of love rather than pure politics)."
"to say nothing of Stephane Clement's sadism and Philippe's enthusiasm for drink, cigars and morphine at the ripe young age of 19." (someone who is into drink, cigars and morphine at age 19) is the most sensible and capable!
"Augusta Victoria's younger twin brothers commented on how they were "deliriously ill" at the gaudy displays in Brussels and the aggressive behavior towards them from Steffie's brother, the future Philippe I [4], and upon returning to England King George sternly told his elder two sons they were never to associate with the Belgian princes socially in London again"
So at one point, Philippe, the *younger* brother of Stephane will be King. So Stephane will *not* be the last King of Belgium. or at least his younger brother will have a crown, somewhere, I guess both Flanders and Wallonia are still significant enough even apart that it will be a kingdom, but not sure what the least powerful nation in Europe with a King is at this point, (some of this depends on whether Montenegro or Albania have histories anything like ours in being raised to Kingdoms.
"...precisely what happened at Bad Ischl will probably forever remain unclear, but it nonetheless would dramatically reshape the lives of the entire Belgian royal family. The allegation that Stephane Clement had attempted to assault the Archduchess Hedwig, who was only 14, at Philippe's wedding to Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska spread rapidly throughout not just Austria but the whole continent. Making matters worse was that the rumor was brought first to an exasperated King Leopold by Philippe himself; the third son of the "Belgian Boys" had always been seen as the most sensible and capable, with many a European court and foreign ministry lamenting he had not been born first, and for him to levy such a charge against his own blood was no small matter. He had apparently been encouraged into it by his new bride, and immediately acting on this information endeared him to her for the rest of her short life (the marriage was, despite the dynastic dynamic, one of love rather than pure politics)."
"to say nothing of Stephane Clement's sadism and Philippe's enthusiasm for drink, cigars and morphine at the ripe young age of 19." (someone who is into drink, cigars and morphine at age 19) is the most sensible and capable!
"Augusta Victoria's younger twin brothers commented on how they were "deliriously ill" at the gaudy displays in Brussels and the aggressive behavior towards them from Steffie's brother, the future Philippe I [4], and upon returning to England King George sternly told his elder two sons they were never to associate with the Belgian princes socially in London again"
So at one point, Philippe, the *younger* brother of Stephane will be King. So Stephane will *not* be the last King of Belgium. or at least his younger brother will have a crown, somewhere, I guess both Flanders and Wallonia are still significant enough even apart that it will be a kingdom, but not sure what the least powerful nation in Europe with a King is at this point, (some of this depends on whether Montenegro or Albania have histories anything like ours in being raised to Kingdoms.
Happy to see the breadcrumbs were noticed
And yes, I do believe that Montenegro became a kingdom in 1878
You're forgetting the rioting after assasination of Leopold 1888 and rioting in mid 1900. Also the rioting was in 1893 not 1890.
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So it seems Wallonia will go Syndicalist in 1940 at the latest.
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As another thought. There are seven nations that border the North Sea, at some point post-war we'll have Norway (controlled by), a conservative Sweden, a Victorious Germany, and broken (for lack of a better term) France and Belgium. This leaves only the Netherlands and Denmark as access points for direct British Influence in Europe.
It'd be translated as "Il n'y a pas de Belges" or "Il n'est pas de Belge" (the latter one is more stylish, like I would imagine Belle Epoque French to sound like, but the former is a closer translation).
"Syndicat Général Belge". I'm a bit surprised though by the national adjective since I envisioned syndicalists being more internationalists and rather avoiding of any national particularism, that if 'Belgian' is the term, but "of Belgium"/ "de Belgique" has another spin to it if you look for one. For reference, I have in mind the former name of the French Socialists, SFIO, which was French Section of the Workers' Internationale.