Subject: Engines of History 1: Engine Dreamscape Date: 3 Jul 2001 07:46:42 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION First Iteration: 1822-1830 Engine Dreamscape 1822 3 July 1822: Charles Babbage composes an open letter addressed to Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., the president of the Royal Society. Babbage describes his plans for calculating and printing mathematical tables by mechanical means. He has already constructed a model mechanical calculator with six-figure wheels, as opposed to the ten-figure wheels of his later devices. The Royal Society is very impressed with his ideas and recommends his idea to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a letter of recommendation. 1823 1 April 1823: Babbage's open letter has circulated widely in the past ten months, catching the eye of the Lords of the Treasury, who refer back to the Royal Society requesting "the opinion of the Royal Society on the merits and utility of this invention." 1 May 1823: The Royal Society responds to the Treasury's query, reporting that "Mr. Babbage has displayed great talent and ingenuity in the construction of his Machine for Computation, which the Committee thanks fully adequate to the attainment of the objects proposed by the inventory; and they consider Mr. Babbage as highly deserving of public encouragement, in the prosecution of his arduous undertaking." 27 June 1823: Babbage, who has been recently presented with the Gold Medal of the controversial Astronomical Society, meets with the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Robinson, later Lord Goderich and then the Earl of Ripon), who promises him £1,500. Babbage writes the same day to the astronomer John Herschel, about his success, noting "next session, if I want more to compete it he is willing that more should be granted." Minutes of the meeting are taken, recording the agreement [1]. On the advice of Marc Brunel, Babbage employs an engineer by the name of Joseph Clement, a former assistant to the noted Henry Maudsley. 1824 Babbage, at the request of the Marquis of Landsdown, Lord Abercromby and the directors of the Bank of England and the East India Company, helps organize The Protector Life Assurance Company. He later leaves the company, fearing it will compete for his time with the Difference Engine project. He writes an analysis of and consumer's guide to the life assurance offices called _A Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives_. 1826 Babbage and his wife, Georgiana, visit Paris, where he meets with the noted Frenchman Laplace and the Belgian statistician Quetelet. 1827 27 February 1827: Babbage's father, Benjamin, dies at Teigmouth, aged 74, leaving Charles and Georgiana with a legacy of £100,000, enough to support his family and scientific studies for life. June-August 1827: Georgiana Babbage falls ill after the death of her and Charles's son, young Charles. However, she recovers by early September [2]. October 1827: Though both Babbage and Georgiana had been planning a trip to Ireland, Babbage decides that a trip to Italy might be better for her health. They visit Lake Como, Turin, Venice and Florence, where he has an audience with Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany, a scientifically-minded ruler fascinated with Babbage's work. November-December 1827: Babbage is beginning to suspect Joseph Clement has been constructing special tools and equipment for his own use without obtaining his permission. Work, nonetheless continues on the Engine. 1828 Babbage writes On the Decline of Science and his monumental On the Economy of Machines and Manufactures. He is also appointed to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge. 10 September 1828: The £1,500 advanced to Babbage by the government has run out and he is financing the project with his own money. Babbage requests Wolryche Whitmore (his brother-in-law) to remind Lord Goderich of his financial difficulties. Goderich hesitates at first, but after a month, remembering the memorandum taken at Babbage's meeting with the Chancellor, plans to advance a further £ 1,500. 2 October 1828: After an argument between Babbage and Clement shortly before Goderich resumes funding, Babbage refuses to pay any more of Clement's bills until he can work out a proper system to verify their accuracy. Clement becomes angry and refuses to work until he is paid. 10 October 1828: Lord Goderich suspends payment until the difficulties are worked out. 21 October 1828: Babbage suggests that their differences may be settled by agreeing to the standard practice of appointing two engineers to jointly inspect the work and accounts. Babbage selects Bryan Donkin with treasury approval. Clement chooses Henry Maudsley, his old mentor. The accounts are duly inspected and approved. 27 October 1828: Babbage hands over a list of questions to Donkin for discussion with Clement concerning the ownership of tools and plans. 9 November 1828: Clement agrees to the compromise and discusses the questions with Donkin. The answers are satisfactory to Babbage. 17 November 1828: Lord Goderich, still unsatisfied, postpones payment for another month. A group of Babbage's friends, including Sir John Franklin, Lord Ashley, the Duke of Somerset, Wolryche Whitmore and John Herschel appeal to the Duke of Wellington. 31 November 1828: Herschel and Whitmore have a meeting with Wellington concerning the financial situation. The engine is nearing completion and the disagreement between Babbage and Clement has been dealt with for the time being. 5 December 1828: Wellington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Ashley then view the model of the engine Babbage had made in 1822. Wellington pressures Lord Goderich, who disburses the promised £ 1,500 in exchange for the nationalization of the project, which was Babbage's intention from the beginning. Further payments are scheduled for the following year. 1829 February 1829: Another disagreement between Clement and Babbage erupts when Babbage suggests moving the Engine to closer quarters near his house. Babbage suggests a site in Dorset Street, while Lord Goldburn suggests the Engine, as a practical matter, should be completed in the neighborhood of Clement's workshop at Newington Butts, which is too small to accommodate the construction of the Difference Engine. March 1829: Marc Isambard Brunel suggests a compromise location at the British Museum. Special fireproof, dust-free workshops are constructed on location, as well as space for the table-printing apparatus of the engine. April 1829: Clement, after threatening to quit on the project, is reimbursed by the Treasury for his move, though only after arbitration through Donkin drives his price down. 3 July 1829: William Cavendish is selected by the Cambridge Senate to run for the post of Member of Parliament for Cambridge University. Babbage is appointed chairman of the campaign. Cavendish narrowly wins after an exhaustive canvassing campaign, 520-449 [3]. 1830 Luddite rioting (led by the so-called "Swing Bands"after the legendary "Captain Swing") breaks out across England, with ricks being burnt and threshing machines being destroyed. June 1830: Publication of Babbage's _Decline of Science_. 26 July 1830: Death of King George IV. Late July-Early August: A general election for Parliament occurs. During the polling, news of the July Days in Paris arrives, causing the English middle classes to consider the possibility of peaceful reform. It is clear that the Whig (Opposition) Party has been greatly strengthened. Though Babbage's financial backers such as the Duke of Wellington are Tory in their sympathies, Babbage considers himself a "moderate radical" and he is greatly excited by the possibility of the passage of a Great Reform Bill then in discussion which would enfranchise the middle classes and reapportion representation by population. November 1830: The Duke of Wellington, after opposing the Reform Bill is defeated in an election and is replaced by the reformer Lord Grey who is to continue funding Babbage's project. Later in the month, the Presidency of the Royal Society vacant, Babbage directs John Herschel's campaign for the post. He wins with the assistance of Babbage and the other scientific radicals (the "Analyticals"). The Royal Society begins a long process of reform as a consequence [4]. To be continued in the Second Iteration, humbly entitled _Future Shock_. NOTES 1. Point of Divergence: No minutes were recorded for the meeting in our timeline. 2. Point of Divergence: In our time line, Georgiana Babbage died in late August, 1827. In this time line, she lives three more years to be killed (October 1830) in the rioting and unrest that paralyzed England in 1830-1. 3. In our time line, the actual vote was 609-432, but with Babbage preoccupied with both the Difference Engine (now much closer to completion than in OTL 1829) and his wife, it is likely that he would be able to devote somewhat less energy to Cavendish's campaign. 4. An effect of this is in ATL 1831, Babbage does not found the British Association for the Advancement of Science because the election of Herschel allows the reformists to work through the Royal Society. In our time line, the Duke of Sussex was elected to the post after a key error on Babbage's part (which is unlikely to happen under the changed circumstances in this alternative course of events). Another reason there is no British Association is part of the inspiration that led to its founding was the example of the Deutsche Naturforscher Versammlung, a meeting of which Babbage observed in his continental tour of OTL 1827-1828. Because Babbage is not in Germany in ATL 1828, the influence of this body in England is not as strong. Please feel free to comment. Alderman Subject: [EOH] 2: Future Shock Date: 3 Jul 2001 07:58:39 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Second Iteration: 1831-1835 Future Shock 1831 1 March 1831: Lord Russell introduces the Reform Bill into the House of Commons to the astonishment of the Tories and the delight of the middle class and the Whigs. 22 April 1831: King William IV dissolves Parliament after the Commons are deadlocked over the Bill. New elections are called for. Babbage frantically manages Cavendish's second campaign for Parliament and also assists with his brother-in-law Whitmore's campaign at Bridgnorth. 8 October 1831: The House of Lords rejects the Reform Bill. The King refuses to create enough peers to force the passage of the Bill. October 1831: Babbage, in Bristol, is caught up in rioting in which several public buildings are sacked and burned down. Amid the chaos, Georgiana is killed. 12 December 1831: Lord Russell introduces a revised Bill, which passes slowly through the Commons. November-December 1831: Babbage, who is crushed by his wife's death, attempts to forget his sorrow by throwing himself into politics hoping that "science and logic might triumph over corruption and ignorance." His work-habits, already hyperactive, verge on the self-destructive as he continues the construction of the Engine. Herschel begins to worry about Babbage's health. 1832 7 May 1832: The first clause of the Bill, dealing with the disenfranchisement of rotten boroughs, is postponed by the Lords. The Cabinet once again demands the King create enough new peers to pass the Bill through, threatening resignation. Amid paranoia and hysteria that Wellington was planning a military coup, the Lords drop their objections to the Bill and pass it. June 1832-March 1833: After the passage of the Reform Bill, Babbage is still crushed by the death of his wife. Herschel suggests he ought to travel to throw off his sorrow. Babbage sets out on a tour of Europe, starting in the newly-founded Kingdom of Belgium, touring the university at Louvain, the industrial town of Liege. He then travels through Germany, seeing Aachen, Frankfurt, Munich and then to Italy. He views there the factories of Venice, and the city of Florence, where he once again meets the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He then passed through Vienna and Salzburg, where he encounters Adam Burg, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Vienna Poly-Technical Institute, who he later corresponds with on his return to London in 1833. Babbage then passes through the Germanies once again, meeting his friend von Humboldt in Berlin. 1833 Babbage, returned from his European tour, continues the work on his Engine. His spirit rejuvenated, his Saturday evening soirees at his house in Dorset Street are becoming the talk of London, a great meeting-ground for liberal Europe and also grounds for exercising his sense of fun by displaying various automata he has restored. He also becomes part of a committee to reform the Royal Society, appointed by Herschel, with the aims of reducing the number of members to four hundred, all actively involved in science. It is on Babbage's suggestion that the membership is divided into two categories, one that has had two papers published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and one that has not. 5 June 1833: Babbage first encounters Augusta Ada Byron at a party, the beautiful and intellectual daughter of the deceased poet Byron. He makes a deep impression on her. 21 June 1833: Ada Byron attends one of Babbage's soirees with her mother, where he demonstrates his model of the Difference Engine, the concepts of which she grasps with unusual clarity. September 1833: Former Governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, a conservative xenophobe and sometime caudillo, is killed in battle while leading Buenos Aires troops against the Native Americans of southern Argentina [1]. Charles Darwin, exploring the pampas at the time describes the death of the ruthless ex-governor as "the loss of an enthusiastic, sensible and grave leader of his people." Buenos Aires politics, already disturbed by the absence of Rosas, who had refused reelection because of efforts to refuse him dictatorial powers, is thrown into an uproar. The ruling federalists, some of which have been relieved to be rid of Rosas, are divided between the "moderates" loyal to current governor Balearce and the die-hard rosistas, the self-named apostólicos. The apostólicos are dominated by Doña Encarnación, Rosas's formidable wife, who has kept an eye on the political goings-on via her spy network known as the mazorca and has organized the Sociedad Popular Restauradora, which aims to restore Rosas. However, on the arrival of the news of Rosas's death, she finds herself in a distinctly awkward position. 31 September 1833: Babbage unveils his Difference Engine at the British Museum to members of the Royal Society and also the Royal Astronomical Society, as well as Lady Byron. The completed engine is room-sized and is able to operate both on 6th-order differences with numbers of about 20 digits, and on 3rd-order differences with numbers of 30 digits. It also includes a printer. In a brief speech before he sets the Engine in motion, Babbage makes references to numerous errors in current astronomical tables, particularly in the emphemerises of the various planets, and shows that the Engine could be utilized in performing calculations for more accurate tables. He also points out that these inaccuracies have caused numerous delays in shipping, as well as a score of disasters at sea. October-December 1833: The reformed Royal Society and several representatives of the Admiralty are interested in the project, but the Reverend Richard Sheepshanks, the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, is disgusted with the idea, considering it to be worthless. He soon becomes greatly opposed to Babbage's attempts to continue his research. The duel of wits that ensues turns out to be more publicity than Babbage could have ever hoped for. The completed Engine is displayed in the British Museum. November 1833: The Royal Navy sets up a project to calculate navigational tables using the new Engine. The arrival of Rosas's body in Buenos Aires elicits an orgy of pro-federalist, pro-rosista propaganda and the funeral cortege, centered on a hearse drawn on red silk ribbons by two hundred men, is surrounded by his cheering followers bearing his portrait and the blood red ribbon of the federalists pinned to their coats. Doña Encarnación uses the fanatical bathos of the occasion to organize a coup d'etat and remove Balcarce from office and force the junta to accept a rosista candidate, possibly Estanislao López of the neighboring province of Santa Fé, a friend of the deceased. Balcarce stands his ground until the rioting becomes intolerable and flees, with Governor Viamonte elected in his place [2]. 1834 May-August 1834: Facundo Quiroga, the vicious "tigre de los llanos," caudillo of the province of La Rioja, one of Rosas's old rivals and sometime ally, sets his sights on Buenos Aires, hoping to seize control by favoring the moderates against the rosistas, who he now views as vulnerable rivals. He is currently organizing an anti-rosista league in the northwest to support him in an invasion of the littoral provinces of Buenos Aires. In the process of extending his power 1832-1835, he has seized control of Córdoba province and drives out the ruling Reinafé brothers, creating enemies who will figure in his future. July 1834: Babbage takes a trip to Wales with his friend John Herschel and his son Herschel Babbage, where he begins to explain some of the ideas that have been accruing in his mind since the completion of the Engine. Among these are the ideas of feeding the results of calculations back to the beginning of subsequent calculations. September 1834: Babbage converts his coach-house into a forge and foundry for his experiments concerning the Analytical Engine, as he dubs his latest project, which, until he can find a backer, he supports with his own funds. December 1834: Viamonte is replaced by Governor Maza in Buenos Aires. 1835 Ada Byron marries Lord King, formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge. 24 January 1835: Gold is discovered on the American River on land owned by Englishman William Richardson [4]. June 1835: Doña Encarnación's incessant brow-beating cowers the terrified junta of Buenos Aires into inviting López to take the governorship and assume dictatorial powers. However, López is no Rosas, and he seems disappointing to the screaming herds of Rosistas. Furthermore, Doña Encarnación's backroom dealings and attempts to circumvent his own orders are extremely irritating to him. September 1835: Quiroga advances on Buenos Aires. Rioting racks the city, pitting the moderate federalists, who see Quiroga as a possible way out against the die-hard rosistas. López flees the city, while Doña Encarnación stays put to the last moment. Quiroga's victory is assured at the battle of Monte Caseros but the citizens of Buenos Aires are sullen on his arrival, his reputation having preceded him. The junta, however, is relieved to have a strong leader to protect the city--a strong leader who is, most importantly, not Rosas. Quiroga selects a weak front-man to serve as his governor in Buenos Aires but remains behind for some time. November 1835: Babbage employs Jarvis, a skilled draughtsman, to assist him in the construction of his new Engine. Doña Encarnación is exiled by Quiroga, who is shortly afterward almost assassinated by agents of the Reinafé family, possibly goaded by extremist rosistas. This sets off a wave of reparatory persecutions against the rosista federalists, many of which flee the country. December 1835: The British East India Company contracts Joseph Clement to construct a Difference Engine to calculate accurate astronomical tables for use aboard Company ships. Babbage is livid, feeling that Clement is making off with his intellectual property, but as he has failed to patent it and had no assurance from Clement he would not copy the Engine, he is initially unable to do anything. To be continued in the Third Iteration, humbly entitled "Clockwork Wars." FOOTNOTES 1. Point of divergence. Rosas's 1832-1835 campaign was notable for its successes, killing 6,000 hostile Indians and freeing 2,000 captive Christians. Rosas in this ATL before his death is no doubt able to achieve somewhat more limited successes, but successes all the same. 2. Similar events occurred in October 1833, though not surrounding Rosas's funeral. I have assumed that the death of Rosas would require the rosistas at least a month to regroup, and further events have been delayed accordingly in this ATL. The funeral of Rosas is based on some of the slavish pageantry that surrounded his reinstatement in 1835. 3. In our time line, this gold was discovered in 1849 by Sutter at the same location. Richardson was a prominent British settler in Alta California, formerly a whaler who had lived there since 1822. In our timeline, he later went on to become Master of the Port of San Francisco. Comments are welcome. Alderman Subject: [EOH] 3: Clockwork Wars Date: 3 Jul 2001 08:11:35 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Third Iteration: 1836-1840 Clockwork Wars 1836 U.S. ELECTION OF 1836: MARTIN VAN BUREN (P)/RICHARD M. JOHNSON (VP) (DEMOCRATIC) January-April 1836: Babbage introduces into his plans provisions for punch-cards carrying instructions, derived from the system used in Jacquard looms. Most of the basic plans of the Analytical Engine has been drawn out, including the parts of mill, store, input-output system and control. He has also begun to consider the possibility of creating an Algebra Engine for more general problems. February 1836: A rebellion breaks out in Los Angeles led by American emigrant "thirty-fivers" to declare a pro-American California Republic and request annexation by the U.S. The rebellion is put down and the ringleaders executed by California Governor Juan Alvarado, though not after violent outbreaks of pro-American violence in Yerba Buena and San Diego. April 1836: The Republic of Texas secures its independence from Mexico after defeating General Antonio López de Santa Anna decisively at the Battle of San Jacinto. May 1836: Pressure from the Royal Society convinces the East India Company to take Babbage on as a consultant in the Difference Engine project. Babbage is delighted when Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Marc Brunel's son, commissions a third Engine to be used in calculating figures for the construction of the Great Western, an experimental transatlantic steamer. The construction, supervised by Donkin--as Babbage's proxy--and Clement, takes place in the workshops at the British Museum, now staffed by a large number of draughtsmen and engineers. 30 June 1836: Alvarado, fearing the possibility of American annexation, meets with prominent British émigrés in Los Angeles, planning to secede from Mexico with British assistance. 5 July 1836: The government forms the Royal Naval Engine Board to supervise the construction of Engines at the British Museum workshops. Engine-printed Astronomical Tables begin to be issued to RN warships. 4 August 1836: The Californian Republic (sometimes nicknamed the "Condor Flag Republic") declares independence from Mexico in a ceremony in Los Angeles led by Alvarado, now the provisional president of the Republic. The new state effectively encompasses Alta California, Baja California nominally remaining in Mexican hands. A constitution is drawn up in Yerba Buena modeled on the 1824 Mexican constitution. October 1836: Britain steps up naval presence in the region after an American warship, incorrectly informed that the British had attempted to establish a full-fledged protectorate there, visits Yerba Buena Harbor ostensibly to stop British aggression. December 1836: The United States increases the strength of their standing army from 7,958 men to 12,539 and provides for a second regiment of dragoons to address the Seminole problem in Florida. The Second Seminole War breaks out after a band of 180 Indians ambush Brevet Major Francis L. Dade in Florida. A centralist constitution known as the Seven Laws is adopted in Mexico and General Anastasio Bustamante is proclaimed president. Facundo Quiroga suppresses revolts against his rule in Córdoba province and returns to his home in La Rioja. His government in Buenos Aires is forced to perform more extreme measures to keep order, with rosista agents stirring up agitation and causing riots. Formation of the Bolivian-Peruvian Confederation by the self-proclaimed "Grand Marshal" and "Captain-General" of Bolivia, Andrés Santa Cruz, caudillo of the state since 1829. Peru has been added to his domain by a quick invasion, to which the Peruvians put up little resistance. Paternalistic, intelligent, quick-witted and competent, he sees himself as the heir of the Incas through his royal Indian mother, and he also seems to have a Napoleon complex. As a consequence, Chile declares war on the Confederation, setting off the Peruvian War. The Bolivian-Peruvian Confederation has gained quick recognition from Europe, but both Chile and Brazil are worried by the emergence of such a large power block in their vicinity. Quiroga, however, is in no condition to turn attention to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, welcoming the unitarios in the hopes of giving asylum to the enemies of his enemy, now is beginning to see an opportunity for himself in the current chaos of the La Plata region. Contacting the unitario leader General Juan Lavalle, a former war hero currently in exile in Uruguay and in the process of organizing a rebellion with French and Argentine exile assistance, Santa Cruz pledges his support for a Lavalle government in Buenos Aires. 1837 The Great Western, its construction partially financed by board members of the Great Western Railway (G.W.R.), Brunel's employer, is launched under his supervision. The Engine has proved to be useful to Brunel in his calculations, though others have criticized it as a needless expense. Rebellions break out in Upper Canada (Ontario) in October, led by reformists William Lyon Mackenzie, and in Lower Canada (Quebec), led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and the Patriotes. British troops and loyal militias crush the rebellions within the year. Papineau and Mackenzie flee to the United States. The U.S. Army is increased in size by a third regiment of Dragoons and a further 1,023 men. Recruits begin to appear, perhaps encouraged by the possibility of pay after the Panic of 1837 causes the suspension of specie payments by banks. Worried by Santa Cruz as a possible rival, Quiroga allies with the Chileans and joins them in fighting the Peruvian War. The Bolivian-Peruvian Confederation's Army, however, succeeds in invading the Argentine provinces of Jujuy and Salta. Quiroga attempts to rally his troops and head north to attack Santa Cruz's army, which has seized control of the northwest without much of a fight. Córdoba revolts in the meantime, as do rosistas in Buenos Aires. Quiroga's agents brutally suppress rebellions in both locations. However, stretched thin, Quiroga is unable to turn back the Bolivians. 1838 January 1838: Increasing English emigration to and investment in independent California leads the British government to sign a treaty giving Britain rights to a naval base in San Francisco Harbour in order to "protect the rights of Englishmen" after a number of U.S. emigrants incite riots in Yerba Buena over disputed claims to the goldfields. Britain has also been contributing "advisors" to watch over the new nation's government and train and drill the Republican Army and in the wake of the Yerba Buena riots, Britain has temporarily occupied the town. U.S. citizens and expatriates have also been emigrating in vast numbers to the region in search of gold. These "thirty-fivers" as they are called further inflame Californio fears of American aggression. President Alvarado of the Californian Republic welcomes Britain's presence in his nation to help stabilize his rule of the region, though the result is the Republic will remain virtually a British protectorate in all but name for years to come. 28 February 1838: U.S. President Martin van Buren protests Britain's "meddling" in a speech to Congress, citing the Monroe Doctrine and calling for an assurance that Britain will not interfere with the rights of resident American citizens after British Royal Marines arrest a number of disorderly prospectors out on the town, a number of whom are American. Van Buren fears that Britain's actions are a prelude to the outright seizure of California. March-September 1838: Viscount Melbourne, the British Prime Minister (already somewhat vexed by the expenditures of the Engine Board), uninterested in scientific research and largely ignorant of the purpose of Babbage's project's aims, delays discussion on funding for months at a time, and his influence on the Chancellor of the Exchequer prevents disbursement through the Treasury, despite pressure from the reformed Royal Society. April 1838: Viscount Melbourne responds to Van Buren's protest that any American citizens in California will be accorded "guarantees of rights and privileges that all resident aliens in the Californian Republic possess and that it is not the place of the British Crown to abridge such rights without due cause." Van Buren is nonetheless outraged. Numerous British and Americans have emigrated to California since the discovery of gold in 1835, among them John C. Frémont (1813-1890), a young American emigrant from Savanna, Georgia. British investments and settlement have also increased in Texas. July 1838: Yerba Buena in California is renamed San Francisco. Jean Jacques Vioget completes a survey of the town, laying out the first streets in a twelve-block area. 1 August 1838: Beginning of the final stage of the "Battle of the Gauges"; in which Babbage takes part. The G.W.R., undecided as to continue using its wide-gauge track or switch to the narrower gage of the northern railways. September 1838: Fearing that Britain will now be able to control the entire Pacific coast through her puppet regime in California, Martin van Buren secures from Congress the termination of the joint American-British occupation of Oregon and demands that negotiations on setting the border begin immediately. Van Buren declares that the United States has title to "the whole of the [British-held] Territory of Oregon," from forty-two degrees (established by the Adams-Onís Treaty, 1819) to fifty-four forty (the border of Russian Alaska)." An outbreak of "Oregon Fever" sweeps the nation, with the rallying cries of "the Whole or None!", "Fifty-four forty or fight!" and "We are all for Oregon and for all Oregon in the west!" October 1838: Babbage, as a shareholder in the G.W.R., intervenes in a meeting concerning the gauge debate on the side of wide-gauge rails (also the side of his friend Brunel and Babbage's son Herschel, one of Brunel's assistants). Quiroga is killed in battle on the banks of the Salado River. His forces, already exhausted from being pushed back deep into the llanos by the Bolivian troops, are completely demoralized and ask for the terms of surrender. The Treaty of Corrientes, cedes the provinces of Tucumán, Salta, and Jujuy to the Bolivian-Peruvian Confederation, to be administered as part of Bolivia. However, Santa Cruz must beat a hasty retreat northward upon hearing the news that the Chileans have been making major gains and the Confederation has been threatened by his ambitious invasion of Argentina. November 1838-March 1839: Babbage conducts his elaborate and extraordinarily detailed study of the two gauges using an apparatus designed to record the force of tractions and vertical, lateral and end shakes of the carriage on the two gauges. 1 December 1838: British authorities refuse to terminate their occupation after a militia composed of American settlers seizes control of the Hudson's Bay Company post at Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Country. British forces retake the fort a week later after a brief and largely bloodless battle. Two British soldiers and three Americans are wounded, while one American settler is killed. Historians now view the bullet that caused this single casualty might have been a stray, perhaps even a misdirected American bullet. 1839 9 January 1839: Babbage helps close the "Battle of the Gauges" by giving decisive evidence of the utility of the wide gauge over the narrow gage at a proprietors' meeting at the London Tavern. 10 February 1839: The news of the attack reaches van Buren in Washington. The pro-war faction in Congress dubs it the "Vancouver Massacre" and clamors for war, denouncing the British as "tyrants who would choke the life from liberty," recalling the suppression of the 1837 Revolts in Canada. February 1839: Other attacks led by American émigrés occur in the Republic of California. A riot breaks out at the President's residence in San Francisco, and British military advisors in Los Angeles are violently attacked. April 1839: American troops begin to mobilize and plans are made for Papineau and Robert Nelson, another Patriote, to, if war comes, establish a puppet Republic of Lower Canada with American support. May 1839: News of this reaches London, and the British foreign secretary, who had previously been against a war over "a few miles of pine swamp" speaks of it as "an affront to British sovereignty" now that the problem has come to encompass Britain's new cash cow, the Republic of California. June 1839: In Britain, a proposition put before the Board of Visitors of the Greenwich Royal Observatory to purchase a Difference Engine from the RN's British Museum Workshops to calculate astronomical tables fails amid opposition led by Sheepshanks. July-August 1839: The British demand monetary compensation and, their pride injured, emphatically insist on drawing the boundary line at the Columbia River rather than at 54º40'. Both sides threaten force largely as a bluff, causing diplomatic discussions in London to break down, worsened by news of skirmishing along the Aroostook in the disputed northern regions of Maine. A last-minute compromise to set the border at the 49º parallel is rejected by both the British, who view it as a shameless attempt to grab the only usable harbors in the region, and most of the Americans, who are now bent on preventing any British influence in the region. 21 August 1839: The Royal Navy dispatches a force of ships to the mouth of the Columbia, ostensibly to protect the rights of British subjects. Viscount Melbourne, the British Prime Minister, denounces the conduct of American settlers in the Oregon Country during a speech to Parliament, calling them "swaggering Nimrods" and warns of American designs on Canada. September 1839: War fever spreads across the U.S. Eager citizens intent on taking Canada and revenging the U.S. defeat in the War of 1812 volunteer for the army. Britain threatens a blockade of the East Coast. 30 September 1839: Van Buren declares war on Britain. The Oregon War has begun. In late August, British troops begin to mass on the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. U.S. Army officials order the withdrawal of 2,050 Federal troops from Florida engaged in fighting the Seminoles, where the war against the renegade Indians is beginning to turn for the U.S. 5 October 1839: Commander-in-Chief Major-General Alexander Macomb oversees a two-pronged U.S attack on Canada. Winfield Scott, commanding the Army of the Ontario launches the northern prong of the attack from Plattsburg. 10 October 1839: The Army of the Erie, the lower prong, presses northward and beats a combined British-militia force at the Second Battle of the Thames. By late November, Canadian territory south of the St. Lawrence is largely in American hands. 2 November 1839: U.S. ships later in the month raise the blockade on New England at the Battle of the Cape. 16 November 1839: Poorly defended Montreal falls to the Americans by November, who establish the Provisional Government of Lower Canada under Louis-Joseph Papineau. General Macomb is wounded in the fighting and dies three days later. General Winfield Scott is appointed Commander-in-Chief. 21 November 1839: Scott defeats the British at Sorel. Late December 1839: Guatemalan rebel Rafael Carrera (1814-1850) brokers a deal for arms shipments from the U.S. to aid his fight against Liberal leader Francisco Morazán to collaborate with an American plan to seize British Honduras. Morazán, despite his recapture of Guatemala City, is fairing poorly in his attempt to cling to power. Lavalle's exile army seizes control of Buenos Aires, where he is welcomed with open arms by the populace, who eagerly consign the red banners of federalism to the flames of celebratory bonfires, replacing them with the blue and white colors forbidden by the Rosas regime. The former Argentine provinces of Bolivia rise up in revolt against Santa Cruz, who is finally ejected by the Chileans at the battle of Yungara, which leads to the breakup of the Confederation. The provinces, in support of Lavalle in Buenos Aires, declare independence as the Tucumán Republic. In turn, the various provinces of Argentina, no longer trusting in Quiroga's successors to keep order, declare themselves to be independent nations, drawing up constitutions on unitario or federalist lines. For the next ten years, there are scattered border disputes among the republics. 1840 U.S. Election of 1840: HENRY CLAY (P)/JOHN TYLER (VP) (WHIG) January-March 1840: American agents ferment revolts in the British Caribbean island colonies of St. Lucia, Trinidad, Tobago and St. Vincent, which have been suffering economic depression since the abolition of slavery in 1833. Pro-American governments are formed and request annexation by the United States. 28 February 1840: British Honduras falls to Carrerra's troops. Morazán, who is trapped in Guatemala City, will be exiled by the end of the year. March 1840: Venezuela declares war on Britain after Van Buren brokers an agreement to divide the British island colony of Trinidad and Tobago between the two countries. Venezuelan and American ships seize control of the island. April 1840: The tide is starting to turn in the Canadian Theater as the Army of the Erie under Brigadier General Zachary Taylor becomes bogged-down in a series of stalemates against the British south of York. A rebellion in Quebec City led by Patriote sympathizers is put down late in the month. In Britain, Babbage runs for Parliament in the Cambridge seat, but, after a close election, he unfortunately loses. June 1840: Babbage leaves England to attend a meeting of Italian scientists, partially inspired by his suggestion to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1834. Held in Turin, he is joined by his friend Professor MacCullagh of Dublin and meets with a number of Italian engineers and mathematicians, including Plana, Menabrea, Mositti and Plantamour. He also encounters Adam Burg from Vienna. He demonstrates a model of his Differencel Engine and also displays the diagrams of his planned Analytical Engine. He meets Charles Albert, King of Sardinia and gets on very well with him. July 1840: Anti-American sentiment in occupied Canada leads to a Loyalist rebellion in Montreal, put down bloodily by American troops. August 1840: U.S. militia in Maine are defeated at Bangor. Britain seizes the town of Castine and presses southward. Maine is mostly in British hands by the end of the month. October 1840: The increasing instability of the Provisional Governent causes the occupying authorities in Montreal dispense with Mackenzie and declare Lower Canada to be a territory of the U.S. British troops defeat the Americans north of Montreal and re-take the city, forcing Winfield Scott to retreat southward in a disorganized rout. Boston is bombarded by British ships, adding insult to injury. Returning from his travels in Italy, Babbage is astonished and overjoyed to discover that, after his assistance in the gauge controversy, a group of British investors connected with the G.W.R. approach Babbage about funding for his proposed Analytical Engine. Babbage, with the assistance of Brunel, explains possible industrial applications for the Engine. November 1840: Taylor's forces are routed outside of York. The troops retreat southward, suffering a humiliating defeat at Chippewa. Taylor is taken prisoner. British troops press southward into New Hampshire and Vermont. December 1840: Adam Burg and Simon Stampfer, the professor of Practical Geometry at the Viennese Poly-Technical Institute founds the Österreichische Maschinengesellschaft (Austrian Engine Society, abbreviated Östmasch), partially funded by the Rothschilds. By the latter part of the decade, the society includes a prominent number of middle-class Viennese, such as bureaucrat Alexander Bach, as well as a number of students. Archduke Franz (the future Emperor Franz-Josef) eventually becomes an informal patron of the society. 31 December 1840: Britain has recaptured the strategic harbor at Tobago. Martin van Buren sues for peace from the British January 30, 1841. Amid heavy American losses towards the end of the year, Henry Clay of the Whig Party is elected President on an anti-war platform. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (a former Liberal, but now siding with the Conservatives) seizes power in Mexico, governing dictatorially and extravagantly emptying the treasury. Britain, who has been backing Mexico's liberal and moderado administrations in the hopes of gaining another market for British goods, watches him cautiously. Abolitionist David Turnbull is appointed British Consul at Havana. His insistence on the taking of a slave census to determine which slaves had arrived since 1820 (via the illegal slave trade, and thus legally-speaking emancipated) stirs up discontent among the Cubans. A British fleet is sent to Havana after Turnbull was arrested after being implicated in an abortive slave rebellion. He is set free, but his involvement in another anti-Spanish rebellion leads to his subsequent deportation from Cuba. To be continued in the Fourth Iteration, humbly entitled "David's Ladder, or, The Young Americans." Comments are welcome. Alderman Subject: [EOH] 4: David's Ladder, or, The Young Americans Date: 3 Jul 2001 08:31:16 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Fourth Iteration: 1841-1845 David's Ladder, or, The Young Americans 1841 June-August 1841: Babbage attends another meeting of Italian and other European philosophers and scientists in Florence. En route, he visits MM. Schneider and Co. at Le Creusot, who are also interested in his plans. In Florence, he encounters his friend Alexander von Humboldt, who becomes interested in the idea of constructing a Difference Engine in Prussia, as well as some of his ideas for the Analytical Engine. He also visits Turin where, by a chance encounter, he meets the liberal son of a Rhineland textile merchant on vacation there. Spending several days together, they discover a mutual love of fun and interest in science. They begin a correspondence upon his return to London. His name is Friderich Engels. May 1841: American and British diplomats negotiate the Treaty of Brussels ending the Oregon War. The United States will renounce title to the whole of the Oregon Country. The United States will recognize the independence of the Republic of California and all of Britain's treaty rights within the Republic. The dispute over the boundary of the State of Maine will resolved in Britain's favor and the city of Castine will be ceded to the United Kingdom in perpetuity. The U.S. will receive British Honduras, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Trinidad in exchange for a payment of $10,000. Tobago is kept by the British. The Venezuelan claim on the island resulting from the agreement to divide the colony is ignored by the signers of the treaty. June 1841: Britain undertakes a military mission to Texas to train and equip the Texian army. 4 July 1841: President Henry Clay signs the Free Banking Bill, providing for the formation of banks by any group as long as it met general requirements, which are to be defined by the states. Whigs hail it as the "Second Declaration of Independence." August 1841: The National Fiscal Agent Act is passed by Congress, providing for the formation of the new Bank of the United States, which would be a "fiscal agent" to regulate the national currency. In form, it is a private corporation chartered by Congress. October 1841: Babbage's "Letter to the Board of Visitors of the Greenwich Royal Observatory, in Reply to the Calumnies of the Rev. Sheepshanks" criticizes the provincial attitude taken by his enemy in sabotaging the Observatory's plans for his Engine. December 1841: After several demonstrations, as well as the assistance of prominent members of the Royal Society, Babbage receives a promise of funding for his new Engine project from the proprietors of the Great Western Railway. 1842 January-February 1842: Border negotiations with Guatemala over the former British Honduras conclude and are formalized in the Treaty of Guatemala City. The region is organized as the new territory of Belice. Trinidad, St. Lucia and St. Vincent are organized as separate territories after some debate over whether the islands should be organized as one administrative unit or separately. All four new territories permit slavery in their new constitutions. March 1842: Von Humboldt and Donking oversee the construction of an Engine in Berlin, which is completed in May 1844. May 1842: Agents of the British Crown meet with President Santa Anna in Mexico, and promise to give backing to his regime in exchange for recognition of Texian independence. Britain also promises that the repayment schedules British loans in Mexico's foreign debt will be re-structured. President Samuel Houston agrees to abolish slavery in exchange for Britain brokering a treaty with Mexico and a promise to establish a Tripartite Treaty between France, the U.S. and Mexico to preserve Texian independence. Britain establishes a formal protectorate over the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua. August 1842: Mexican, Texian and British diplomats, including abolitionist David Turnbull, conclude the Treaty of Kingston. Treaty provisions include: Mexico will recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas. The Texian-Mexican border will be set at the Rio Grande. The importation of slaves into Texas will be forbidden. Texas will abolish slavery through graduated manumission over a period of ten years, compensating slave-owners with monetary compensation. In exchange, Texas will abolish slavery over a period of four years, compensating slaveowners with monetary compensation. The compensation, approximately forty to sixty percent of the slaves' market value is deemed insulting to slaveowners, many of who begin to leave the territory for Kansas or Louisiana. A colonization plan is established to resettle freedmen on the Guinea coast of Africa, south of France's foothold in Gabon and north of the Congo River. Engels' and Babbage's working relationship becomes a peculiar sort of love-hate situation as both argue about the propriety of socialism and other various ideological and economic issues. Engels helps Babbage begin the first drafts of his masterwork _On Engines_, which also includes heavy contributions from Ada Lovelace, as well as learning the basics of the new Analytical Engine Babbage is constructing. Two Swedish engineers, Georg and Edward Scheutz, construct a 3rd-order difference engine with printer. 1843 April-May 1843: The U.S. economy begins to stabilize despite the depression that began with the Panic of 1837 and the Oregon War. Passage of the Revenue Tariff of 1843 by Congress, intended as a measure to give "incidental" protection to American industries but low enough to allow most foreign products into the United States. Vice President John Tyler, a former Democrat, has become increasing vocal and disruptive in protesting the tariff. The tariff's revenue would be distributed to the states for internal improvements, as well as the construction of new ships to protect the United States' fledgling Caribbean possessions in Belice and the Lesser Antilles, a program that is given form in the New Naval Act. Inspired by the British Navy's example, this includes funding for a Difference Engine to be set up at the Washington Naval Observatory for the calculation of astronomical tables, as well as the calculation of gunnery tables, an innovation which is adopted by the British in 1845. June 1843: Passage of the Revenue Tariff of 1843 by Congress, intended as a measure to give "incidental" protection to American industries but low enough to allow most foreign products into the United States. The tariff's revenue would be distributed to the states for internal improvements. The Senate proposes a program to "lease" slaves to the government for use constructing internal improvements, a program which finds favor amid the southern "Cotton" Whigs. July 1843: His service in the Prussian army complete, and his curiosity piqued by his correspondence with Babbage, Engels turns up on Babbage's doorstep asking for a job as his secretary. A series of slave revolts of surprising intensity sweeps Cuba, blamed as the "Ladder Conspiracy" (La Escalera), so-named after the instrument on which the recaptured slaves were tortured. In England, as part of a massive publicity campaign, Babbage's Difference Engine as well as models and diagrams of his Analytical Engine are displayed at various industrial expositions in Britain and on the continent. The Analytical Engine Company also funds the construction of a large workshop near Babbage's residence in Dorset Street on the site of his stable block. The Sardinian government grants funds to Menabrea for the construction of an Analytical Engine. French industrialists Adolphe and Eugène Schneider, the owners of the foundries at Le Creusot, invite the Scheutzes to Paris and offer to fund their researches into Enginery, including large-scale production of the Difference Engine. 1844 U.S. Election of 1844: WINFIELD SCOTT (P)/DANIEL WEBSTER (VP) (WHIG) March 1844: The U.S. government commissions a second Difference Engine from Babbage's Dorset Street Workshop, the hemisphere's third. The second Engine to be commissioned is from the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del Pais in Havana, on the suggestion of prominent Cuban philosopher and economist José de la Luz y Caballero, who has begun a lengthy correspondence with Babbage. 12 August 1844: Mormon leader Joseph Smith narrowly escapes being killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. His brother Hyrun is murdered, and Joseph is wounded in the shoulder, permanently crippling his left arm. Upon his return to Nauvoo, he declares that a "prophet is not welcome in his own country" and claims that he has been told by God to go westward and "make the desert bloom by our industry." In Cuba, the "Year of the Lash" begins with the continued torture and repression of slaves involved in the previous year's revolts. David Turnbull is implicated in an elaborate plot by the Spanish Governor-General, to establish Cuba as a Black republic or kingdom with himself as leader and convicted in absentia. In the United States, the Whigs select Winfield Scott as their presidential candidate for the 1844 Election. Solidifying their support with the Cotton Whigs, the recently-passed Labor Lease Act solidifies the Senate proposal to arrange ways to "lease" out slave labor for internal improvements. The major issue, however, becomes the proposed Tripartite Treaty between Britain, France and the United States. By the conditions of the treaty, Texian independence will be recognized by the United States in exchange for Texas ceding her lands above the Arkansas River, as well as giving all three nations commercial rights in the region. Whigs support it as a bulwark against expansionism and point out the economic possibilities of a reciprocal trade agreement with Texas. Vice President John Tyler, already a critic of Henry Clay's politics, does all he can to sabotage the bill. He is impeached by the Whig-dominated Congress, ejected from the Party and removed from office. Northern Democrats nominate expansionist Lewis Cass to try to secure Southern votes, but at the same time confusingly attempt to conciliate on the Texas issue, changing positions several times during the year. The powerlessness and apathy in the wake of the Oregon War leads Southern Democrats to split with the party. Disgusted with the increasing spread of what they deem the "Abolitionist Octopus," expansion-minded southern Democrats, as well as former Whig John Tyler, meet together in the Mobile Convention and draw up a low-tariff, pro-slavery, anti-treaty, pro-expansion platform for the "Young America" Party. Tyler, viewed as a hero to the expansionist south for his opposition, is nominated as the Party's candidate for President, with James K. Polk as Vice President. A New York journalist-turned-Young America pamphleteer, John L. O'Sullivan, declares southern expansion to be America's "Manifest Destiny." Other propagandists popularize annexing Cuba in the Deep South in order to prevent "another Haiti" at the hands of the British or through the incompetence of Spanish overseers. With William H. Seward's assistance, Winfield Scott presents himself as amenable towards Catholicism, gaining the Northern ethnic vote. The Young America Party is still in its infancy in the South, but gains the electoral votes of several Deep South states. The Democrats do marginally in the northeastern states and have limited support elsewhere. Winfield Scott wins the election, though causing discontent among the nativist, pro-temperance Protestant wing of the Whigs, who mutter about their suspicions about "Popery." British Parliament passes Act of Union that unifies Upper and Lower Canada. In Sardinia, Menabrea and Plana establish the Turin Analytical Institute of Mathematical Enginery, and begin to construct an analytical engine on Babbage's designs, nicknamed "la macchina di Torino" (the "Turin Machine"). David Turnbull is appointed by the Crown as British consul to the Republic of California, possibly in the hope of keeping him out of trouble in the wake of the increasing paranoia in the U.S. regarding his involvement in the Treaty of Kingston. There he meets the ambitious John C. Frémont, who has become involved in guiding a number of British and Californian topographical expeditions into the Interior as well as organizing the new national army. 1845 March 1845: Santa Anna's extravagant way of life leads to the treasury finally being empty. Britain is growing irritated with having to deal with Santa Anna's increasingly grandiose, anti-British tendencies (which he uses to offset his conciliation with the British over Texas), and a British-backed military coup puts moderado José Joaquín Herrera. British and Californian troops based in Los Angeles occupy Baja California, nominally in Mexican hands, as a "protective measure" against Conservative revolts. April 1845: Passage of the Public Works Act by Congress, creating a permanent Internal Improvements Bureau to oversee the construction of roads, canals and railroads. Provisions for funding the construction of telegraph lines and railroads is also included. May-June, 1845: Southern slaveowning emigrants from Texas form the Knights of the Golden Circle, aimed at creating a slave-owning confederacy that would form a "golden ring" around the Caribbean as a counterweight to British domination in the region and as a way of protecting the South's "peculiar institution." It finds a willing accomplice in the Young America Party, members of which hold high position in their secret society. 5 August 1845: Establishment of the freedmen colony of Freedonia by former Texian slaves with the founding of the coastal city of New Houston. A variant on the Texian naval ensign is used as the "national flag," bearing a broad white cross over the blue hoist panel instead of a star, just as Liberia replaces the American stars on her variant flag with a white equal-armed Greek cross. 12 December 1845: President Scott signs the Tripartite Treaty, which is passed only over heavy Democratic and Young America opposition in Congress. Assisted by Uruguayan troops, the soldiers of the separatist Republic of Piratini in Brazil (consisting of the former province of Rio Grande do Sul), turn back a renewed Brazilian effort to conquer their nation. In the fighting, noted Brazilian officer Baron Caixias is killed. Piratini later faces a series of sporadic border disputes with Paraguay over the Mesopotamia region between the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers. To be continued in the Fifth Iteration, humbly entitled _Wo weilest du, Friderich Engels?_ Comments are welcome. Alderman Subject: [EOH] 5: Wo Weilest Du, Friderich Engels? Date: 3 Jul 2001 08:47:56 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Fifth Iteration: 1846-1850 Wo Weilest Du, Friderich Engels? 1846 May-October 1846: Negotiation of reciprocal trade agreements with the Republic of Texas and British Canada by Scott. In the year's mid-term congressional elections, Young America stalwarts point this out as a sign of Whig industrial dominance and part of a plot to gain British help to abolitionize the Republic. The Young America Party's platform restates support for the annexation of Texas and Cuba, by whatever means necessary. John Tyler decries Whig "collaboration" at the Treaty of Brussels. Inspired by the Knights of the Golden Circle, a number of anti-British pro-slavery societies spring up in the south, including the so-called Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, while pamphlets begin to circulate condemning "Perfidious Albion" and the "Abolitionist Octopus," as well as proclaiming the existence of a "Southern Manifest Destiny," specifically sectional rather than national that holds an ominous (but oblique) rumble of secessionism. 17 September 1846: Mormons under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young settle in the unorganized Interior Territories of Mexico near the Great Salt Lake, nominally under British protection. Joseph Smith declares the land to be called Deseret, meaning "Honey Bee," with its capital at Salt Lake City, with himself as King [1]. Britain recognizes the Kingdom of Deseret and sends a military mission to train and equip the new Royal Nauvoo Legion of Deseret [2] on the latest lines. The United States protests strongly. The next year sees the beginning of a wave of British immigration to Deseret spurred by Mormon missionaries in Britain [3]. November 1846: Deseret adopts as a flag a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green and white stripes with a crowned beehive in the center. The colors represent purity, fecundity and wealth, as well as the white snow of the Rocky Mountains and the green oasis they plan to create in the middle of the desert, which is represented by the yellow stripe. The royal flag has an eastern crown on the central stripe. Construction of naval shipyards at Charleston and Mobile to help continue the reforms of the New Navy Act. Smith's assumption of power, and his subsequent selection of one of his sons as his successor as King of Deseret and Prophet of the Latter-Day Saints, causes some protest from Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigadier-General of the Royal Army and Royal Minister for Indian Affairs, who advocates a more democratic, distinctly American model for the Church government. This leads to a long series of political and theological maneuverings, as well as the gradual formation of two factions, the Josephites, who are in the majority, and the minority Brighamites. Britain, California and Deseret, noting the tenuous position of the Herrera government, agree to a three-way protectorate over the Interior in the Treaty of Great Salt Lake City. Babbage invents the opthalamaliscope. 1847 January-July 1847: Tennessee-born adventurer William Walker seizes control of Nicaragua, partially with the funding and assistance of the Golden Circle, re-instituting slavery and suggesting the possibility of annexation by the U.S. David Turnbull receives the news in San Francisco with incredible disgust, as does the anti-slavery Frémont, who, on the strength of his previous service in the U.S. Navy some years earlier (albeit as a midshipmen's mathematics professor), requests a commission from the Royal Navy to become involved in their attempts to stop the illegal slave trade in Africa and the Carribbean. He also will take British citizenship. April 1847: Skirmishes between Mexican settlers and Deseret troops threaten to boil into a border war, while the Conservative faction grumbling about the "heretics on the northern Border and their English allies." A conservative revolution overthrows Herrera and puts General Mariano Paredes in power who sends troops to the Interior to restore Mexican rule over the region, starting the First Deseret War. He invites Santa Anna to return to lead Mexico's armies against the "northern heathen." 12 April 1847: The Republics of Liberia and Freedonia are recognized by the British. Freedonia adopts a more distinctive flag, keeping the basic pattern of the Texian naval ensign but changing the colors and number of stripes. The new banner consists of nine black and white stripes representing the nine founders of the country, and a broad red stripe towards the hoist charged with a gold five-pointed star. 22 August 1847: Santa Anna's army, after winning several victories over scattered Mormon forces, meets the British at Alburquerque [4], where he is humiliatingly defeated and captured. He negotiates the Treaty of Alburquerque recognizing Deseret and setting the border at the Colorado River. Paredes is livid (and the Mexican government refuses to ratify the treaty), but conservative support fails, forcing him into exile, and moderado Herrera is brought into power again. Britain, California and Deseret agree to a joint occupation of New Mexico in response. 25 October 1847: Completion of the prototype Analytical Engine. The Babbage Analytical Engine's workings are complex: the program is in read-only memory, specifically in the form of punch cards. The machine operates on 40-digit numbers; the "mill" has 2 main accumulators and some auxiliary ones for specific purposes, while the "store" (memory) holds approximately 100 more numbers. There are several punch card readers, for both programs and data; the cards are chained and the motion of each chain is reversible. The machine can do an addition in 3 seconds and a multiplication or division in 2-4 minutes. The Royal Naval Engine Board relocates its workshops from the British Museum to the Naval Yard at Portsmouth. The Analytical Engine Company buys the old workshops for £6,000 from the British Government. 1848 U.S. Election of 1848 JAMES BUCHANAN (P)/ROBERT J. WALKER (VP) (YOUNG AMERICA) June 1848: Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace and Friderich Engels's _On Enginery_ is published, causing a stir. Engels shows Babbage the draft of a book he is working on, _Syndicalism_. Babbage is intrigued, but cautious towards the book's overt socialism. Engels's conception is a government run on corporate lines, composed of "syndicates" of various sectors of industry (essentially unions) who elect representatives for a Grand Council to oversee the planning of the economy, though on the whole, the government's function remains relatively small outside of economic sectors. Babbage's influence is felt in his idea of a "Scientific Council" composed of leading intellectuals that would help oversee and advise the Grand Congress of Syndicates, as well as having their research lavishly funded (rather an egalitarian recasting of Babbage's own idea of "merit-lordship"). Engines would be used to collect current and predict future social and economic data, an idea dear to Babbage, as well as plan the economy--socialism driven by a "scientific collective." Babbage's views are mixed: the two men had agreed to disagree about socialism, but Babbage's ire is now reawakened. He is both interested and horrified by the possibility of linking his ideas to the radicalism that is now laying waste to the Continent (now in its "Year of Revolutions"). Unsure as to how to confront Engels, he begins to become more and more withdrawn. July 1848: The Royal Observatory orders the construction of an Analytical Engine, to the delight of Babbage. August 1848: A revolution in Cuba led by Narciso López and a faction of pro-slavery landowners known as the "Order of the Lone Star" overthrows Spanish forces and declares a republic under Francisco de Frías. The Order and the government it establishes are supported by the landowners and on the whole unpopular among peasants and city-dwellers, largely being controlled by the Young America Party through a "supreme council" in New Orleans led by southern politician Robert J. Quitman. September 1848: Publication of _Syndicalism_, over Babbage's objections. Babbage, who has become increasingly anti-socialist, tries to distance himself from Engels, prefacing a chasm between the two men. He pens _Reflections on Radicalism_ later in the month, a reasoned refutation of Engel's book. Tensions increase between the two men. In the U.S. election of 1848, the southern expansionist Young America Party wins narrowly after the selection of Theodore Frelinghuysen by the Whigs as vice president to their candidate, Daniel Webster, presents the Northern immigrant vote to them on a platter. Frelinghuysen, selected by the northern Protestant wing of the Whig Party, alienates anti-Temperance Irish Catholics by his policies and religion. Buchanan manages to secure the northern immigrant vote as well as his home state of Pennsylvania. Northern Democrats attempt to salvage some support and nominate Franklin Pierce, who tries to appeal, unsuccessfully, to immigrants and southerners. Anti-Slavery Northern "Barnburner" Democrats desert, meeting in Albany, New York, to form the Liberty Party, nominating James G. Birney as Presidential candidate. Drawing some support from the Conscience Whigs, they help split the Whig vote and bring Buchanan the presidency. November 1848: Santa Anna returns to Mexico City, and pressures the Liberals to overthrow Herrera in favor of himself, intimating that Britain will now leave them in peace with him in power. The army declares in his favor, and he assumes dictatorial powers. Publication by Karl Marx of _The Communist Manifesto_ [5]. In the Argentine republics, the border disputes and fighting have largely died out and the former provinces have coalesced into several large states. Quiroga's former lands, the provinces of Mendoza, La Rioja, San Juan, San Luis and Catamarca have united into the federalist United Provinces of the Andes, while Buenos Aires is a unitario republic, as are the Republics of Entre Rios, Corrientes, and Santa Fe, which also controls the former province of Santiago. The central pampas are dominated by the gaucho Republic of Córdoba, allied with the United Provinces of the Andes. Buenos Aires, Corrientes, Entre Rios and Santa Fe are allied as members of the reconstructed Littoral League, though disputes between President Uruquiza of Entre Ríos and President Bartolome Mitré of Buenos Aires have reduced much of the power of the pact. 1849 March 1849: Buchanan dispatches U.S. naval vessels to protect the new Republic of Cuba from Spanish aggression, in exchange for acquiring the Isle of Pines, off Cuba's southeastern coast, as a naval base. With Young America in power, anti-Whig naval officer Robert Stockton arranges for a Swedish mechanic he "discovered" in London some years earlier named John Ericsson to oversee the construction of an experimental warship named the U.S.S. Princeton, a radically-different vessel designed around Ericsson's "sub-aquatic" screw-propeller propulsion system. Mounted on the ship is the "Orator" gun (cast in Britain, and later renamed the "Octavian" to downplay its British origins), a huge weapon powerful enough to fire a 225-pound projectile five miles with amazing accuracy. The Naval Observatory's Difference Engine is used extensively in the calculation for this project. Ericsson narrowly avoids tragedy when Stockton's poorly-made companion gun to the "Orator" explodes, killing eight sailors and Stockton. Ericsson, who had criticized the gun's construction, finds his star on the rise, and is asked to design a theoretical ironclad for the House Committee on Naval Affairs. The Washington Convention, consisting of agents of the British, U.S., Texian and Deseret governments adjusts the Deseret and Texian border in the U.S.'s favor: hearing of rumors of mineral strikes in the West, President Scott acquires the panhandle of Texas and portions of the unsettled eastern regions of Deseret, with the border being defined along the crest of the Rocky Mountains 1850 January 1850: Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria grants government funds to the Östmasch for the construction of an Engine to be used in military research. July 1850: Wisconsin enters the union as a free state, while Young America supporters lobby to grant statehood to Kansas as a territory and prospective slave-state, in contravention of the Compromise of 1820. A number of former Texian slaveholders had been illegally practicing slavery in the unorganized territory north of the Texian border. A number of Golden Circle "castles" spring up in Kansas almost overnight. August-September 1850: President Buchanan offers a bill for the annexation of Cuba after President Frías of Cuba makes a request to join the Union. The bill is defeated narrowly in Congress after a firestorm of rhetoric. William H. Seward gains the admiration of the Conscience Whigs, led by Charles Sumner, who are beginning to dominate the Party, by protesting the admission of Cuba as a slave state, declaring slavery was in contravention of a "higher law than the constitution." Daniel Webster, assisted by ex-President Clay (currently the senator from Kentucky) further discredits himself by attempting to formulate a compromise by which Kansas would enter as a free state, Cuba as a slave state and the slave trade would be forbidden in the District of Columbia. It succeeds in offending all the parties involved. At the last minute, Cotton Whigs throw their support behind Young America's plan for Kansas in the hopes that in exchange, Young America might drop the plan to annex Cuba. Kansas is organized as a slave territory (the Compromise of 1820's line being moved to the northern boundary of the state), while the Cuban annexation plan comes to nought. A pot-sweetener of funds for a railroad from Indiana to Texas, running through Kansas, is added to gain pro-internal improvements Cotton Whig support. Seizure of Guatemala by philibusters under Quitman, unseating Carrera—who flees the country for Cuba—after entering into an alliance with the Liberals, and establishing a slave "coffee republic." Opposition, growing anti-slavery rhetoric, and calls to enforce the Neutrality Acts by the Whigs attract the support in midterm elections of wayward "Conscience" Whigs, former Liberty Party "Barnburners," as well as northern immigrants. The three-way protectorate over the Interior between Britain, California and Deseret is terminated by the Treaty of San Diego. Britain transfers the Interior below the Colorado River to Deseret as the "Protectorate of Arizona," with its capital at Alburquerque; the southern border is drawn as to give an outlet at the Sea of Cortez. Britain organizes the western Interior as the Crown Colony of Colorado, also with an outlet on the sea. As compensation to the California Republic, Lower California is annexed by the Republic of California, with Britain leasing several key ports. The Arizona Protectorate's southern boundary is set at the thirty-second parallel, and then turning slightly southward, allowing access to the Sea of Cortez. Emperor Franz-Joseph, influenced by a number of his contacts in the Östmasch, appoints Baron Alexander Bach (1813-1893), former minister of Justice and currently minister of the Interior, Prime Minister over the protests of the returning Metternich, who feels that an absolutist state should not have a Prime Minister. Comments are welcome. To be continued in the Sixth Iteration, humbly entitled _Native to the Soil_ Alderman NOTES 1. In the early Mormon Church of OTL, there were hints that the leadership would become hereditary, a line of thought (unsurprisingly) supported by Smith's sons. Joseph Smith had at times called himself "King of the Kingdom of God" and "Prophet, Priest and King over Israel on Earth" so I can see him, if he does not die in Nauvoo, creating a quasi-monarchial theocracy in Deseret. It was largely Brigham Young that established Mormonism on a democratic model. 2. This was composed of two cohorts (one horse and one foot) of four regiments each, commanded by Brigadier-General Brigham Young, with an artillery train integrated into the cavalry cohort. 3. In our timeline, so many British subjects flocked to the banner of Mormonism that it was for a time denounced as an English conspiracy. In this timeline, the heavy English immigration to the Rocky Mountain and Cascade Regions resulted in a rather interesting dialect of English. Deseretian English largely follows the U.S. in spelling, but immigration from the British lower classes (passing through San Francisco), particularly from around Manchester, has melded with the pronunciations of the original U.S.-born Mormons to produce a nearly Australian twang. As of ATL 1980, California, however, is largely Spanish-speaking, however, because the Californian Republic of this analog was founded by hacendados fearing U.S. intervention in the wake of the 1835 Gold Rush. Their continued grip on political power resulted in the Anglo nouveau-riche gold-diggers acculturated to their ways, to some degree, rather like OTL's Argentina after the 1880s. Of course, the Anglo heritage of the prospectors has influenced Californian culture in many ways as well—the acculturation was not complete. Nonetheless, British English remains the most common second language in California. Texas is probably closest to U.S. English, but of course has Spanish influences. In addition, the importation of Chinese and Indian labor has of course added a variety of peculiar and unusual phraseology to the various forms of English, not unlike the colonial slang evident in many of Kipling's OTL stories. 4. Not a misspelling. In our timeline, this city in New Mexico was named after the Duke of Alburquerque, and yanqui orthographical errors over time have resulted in the loss of one "r." 5. On the whole, I think that Engels's absence from Marx's (early) life would not alter the general outline of his political "career." In this timeline, Engels's OTL friend and fellow communist, Moses Hess, becomes Marx's associate during this era, in effect "taking his place." Of course, much of the details of The Communist Manifesto are different, but the essential qualities are present in both OTL and this ATL. Though Moses Hess does not develop a friendship with Engels in this ATL, Engels's Syndicalism nonetheless rejects private property. Subject: [EOH] Corrections, 1837-1850 Date: 9 Jul 2001 06:56:25 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Corrections, 1837-1850 I really appreciate all the advice I've received in regard to my timeline. Right now, I'm doing some catchup work to make sure I have the details straight. Part 6 should be ready soon; in fact it's complete save for some research I need to do into the Middle East and the Crimean War. Expect one more catch-up instalment before Part 6, however. This deals with largely Mexican and Deseret history. The main changes deal with accomodating the "sovereignty declarations" and moving forward the Mormon trek to Deseret to 1844-1847 to conform to our timeline, as opposed to 1844-1846 as I had it in the previous version. Thank you. All of you, Messrs. Ferree, Maurer and McDonald (in no particular order!) have been of inestimable assistance to me in the formation of this timeline. Keep up the good work! 1837 Outbreak of the Sonora Revolt in northern Mexico, under General José Urrea, a federal military commander, who declares independence in protest against the centralist constitution. The government of California, still distracted by fears of an American invasion, is divided over whether to recognize the Republic or give aid to it. 1838 May 1838: The short-lived Sonora Rebellion is crushed by Mexican Centralist forces. Any question of recognition for the now-nonexistent Republic by California or Britain is now moot. 1840 The Austrian Engine Society should be abbreviated Ömasch or Oemasch instead of Östmasch. 1841 (not 1839) General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (a former Liberal, but now siding with the Conservatives) seizes power in Mexico, governing dictatorially and extravagantly emptying the treasury. Britain, who has been backing Mexico's liberal and moderado administrations in the hopes of gaining another market for British goods, watches him cautiously. In protest against Santa Anna's rule, the southern state of Yucatán declares independence with more success than Sonora had in 1838-1839. 1842 The Treaty of Guatemala City cedes portions of Belice to Guatemala; the U.S. keeps the lion's share. Mexican dictator Santa Anna, for unknown reasons, appoints the former insurrectionist General Urrea governor of Sonora, plunging the state into a four-year-long civil war between supporters of Urrea and his predecessor, the irate ex-Governor Manuel María Gándara. 1844 New Mexico issues a declaration of sovereignty against Santa Anna, stating that the region remains "intimately united with the Mexican Republic," but continues "to be independent" under "President" Mariano Chávez, who tells the Mexican dictator that he will recognize his rule if he leaves the region alone. 1845 March 1845: Santa Anna's extravagant way of life leads to the treasury finally being empty. Britain is growing irritated with having to deal with Santa Anna's increasingly grandiose, anti-British tendencies (which he uses to offset his conciliation with the British over Texas), and a British-backed military coup puts moderado José Joaquín Herrera. This triggers a pro-Herrera rebellion in Baja California, repulsing agents of the Santa Anna government. As a consequence, British and Californian troops based in Los Angeles occupy Baja California, nominally in Mexican hands, as a "protective measure" against revolts, whether conservative or moderado. Meanwhile, the citizens of New Mexico, insulated from British pressure by the Rocky Mountains, declare the establishment of the República Mexicana del Norte (North Mexican Republic) under President Manuel Armijo, drawing up a constitution and demarcating their borders from Chihuahua to Oregon and from the Arkansas River to the Colorado. (In the U.S., no "leasing" of slaves is ever proposed.) 1846 January 1846: The internecine strife in Sonora is brought to an end by a victory by the forces of Urrea, who recognizes the Herrera government in Mexico City, perhaps fearing an intervention by the californios as in Baja California. Babbage invents the ophthalmoscope (not "opthamaliscope" as before) 1847 (The dates concerning the Mormons are moved up to 1847 to loosely conform to OTL) 17 May 1847: Mormons under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young settle in the unorganized Interior Territories of Mexico near the Great Salt Lake, nominally under British protection. Joseph Smith declares the land to be called Deseret, meaning "Honey Bee," with its capital at Salt Lake City, with himself as King. November 1847: Deseret adopts as a flag a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green and white stripes with a crowned beehive in the center. The colors represent purity, fecundity and wealth, as well as the white snow of the Rocky Mountains and the green oasis they plan to create in the middle of the desert, which is represented by the yellow stripe. The royal flag has an eastern crown on the central stripe. Smith's assumption of power, and his subsequent selection of one of his sons as his successor as King of Deseret and Prophet of the Latter-Day Saints, causes some protest from Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigadier-General of the Royal Army and Royal Minister for Indian Affairs, who advocates a more democratic, distinctly American model for the Church government. This leads to a long series of political and theological maneuverings, as well as the gradual formation of two factions, the Josephites, who are in the majority, and the minority Brighamites. 1848 In the U.S. election of 1848, the southern expansionist Young America Party wins narrowly after the selection of Theodore Frelinghuysen by the Whigs as vice president to their candidate, Daniel Webster, presents the Presidency to them on a platter. Frelinghuysen, selected by the northern Protestant wing of the Whig Party, alienates anti-Temperance Irish Catholics by his policies and religion, splitting the immigrant vote between the Democrats and the Young America Party. Buchanan wins, taking the south, some of the northern immigrant vote as well as his home state of Pennsylvania. Northern Democrats attempt to salvage some support and nominate Franklin Pierce, who tries to appeal, with moderate success, to immigrants, and unsuccessfully to southerners. Anti-Slavery Northern "Barnburner" Democrats desert, meeting in Albany, New York, to form the Liberty Party, nominating James G. Birney as Presidential candidate. Drawing some support from the Conscience Whigs, they help split the Whig vote and bring Buchanan the presidency. [The slightly schizophrenic tone of Young America, being both somewhat nativist and Anglophobe both repulses and attracts elements of the Irish immigrant vote; nonetheless, the deciding factor in the election is the unsuccessful attempt by the Whigs to support nativism by nominating Frelinghuysen is a disaster, giving the failing Democrats a boost that weakens the Whig vote along with the formation of the Liberty Party. The moderately successful showing of Franklin Pierce in the 1848 election allows the Democrats to drag themselves, half-dead but still struggling nonetheless, into the 1850s]. Britain and California recognize the Kingdom of Deseret and sends a military mission to train and equip the new Royal Nauvoo Legion of Deseret on the latest lines. The United States protests strongly. The next few years see the beginning of a wave of British immigration to Deseret spurred by Mormon missionaries in Britain. Outbreak of the Yucatán Caste War between the Yucatecans and Mayan rebels. 1849 April 1849: Skirmishes between Mexican settlers and Deseret troops threaten to boil into a border war in the North Mexican Republic. President Armijo turns to the government in Mexico City for assistance, offering to reunite his new country with Mexico in assistance for support against the Deseret Army. Herrera, realizing his tenuous position and unready to sacrifice his British support, declines. The Conservative faction grumbling about the "heretics on the northern Border and their English allies. " A conservative revolution overthrows Herrera and puts General Mariano Paredes in power. Armijo, with his back to the wall, accedes to recognizing the Paredes government. Paredes sends troops to the Interior to restore Mexican rule over Deseret, starting the First Deseret War. He invites Santa Anna to return to lead Mexico's armies against the "northern heathen. " 22 August 1849: Santa Anna's army, after winning several victories over scattered Mormon forces, meets the British at Alburquerque, where he is humiliatingly defeated and captured. He negotiates the Treaty of Alburquerque recognizing Deseret and setting the border at the Colorado River. Paredes is livid (and the Mexican government refuses to ratify the treaty), but Conservative support fails, forcing him into exile, and moderado Herrera is brought into power again. The residents of New Mexico, hearing the news of the disgraceful Treaty of Alburquerque begin to feel that Mexico is incapable of Santa Fé, re-declare their independence from Mexico. As a result, in order to restore order in the region, Britain, California and Deseret agree to the establishment of a three-way protectorate over New Mexico in response to the tenuous state of the Herrera government in the Treaty of Great Salt Lake City. 1850 (Baron Bach is not made Prime Minister). The partition of New Mexico has been moved forward to 1851. Details concerning the ripple effects of the Oregon War on Britain's Middle Eastern foreign policy, particularly in regards to Khedive Mehmet Ali's Egyptian Crisis of 1839-1840 and its aftereffects to 1850 will be explained in the supplementary installment humbly entitled "Noch mehr—Er ist Mensch!" The title is taken from the libretto of Die Zauberflöte. The history of the Crimean War, the Mexican Civil War, the United States Civil War and the origins of the Nicaraguan Crisis shall be described in the next iteration, entitled "Native to the Soil," taking us up to 1854. Alderman Subject: [EOH] "Noch Mehr--Er ist Mensch!": Egypt 1839-1850 Date: 10 Jul 2001 08:40:03 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION "Noch Mehr--Er ist Mensch!" Egypt, 1839-1850 SPEAKER: What if, sunk in suffering, his spirit deserts him, and he is defeated in the difficult battle? He is a prince!-- SARASTRO: Even more, he is a human being! --Libretto to _Die Zauberflöte_ I hate Mehmet Ali. --Lord Palmerston It is now time to pull back the curtain of time and observe the ripples that the Oregon War, for all its stupidity, is having on Britain's hold on the Near East... 1839 April 1839: The conflict brewing in California and the Oregon Country has distracted Britain somewhat from disturbing rumblings in the Near East, a consequence of the earlier 1831 Egyptian Crisis [1]. The Albanian-born Viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, had endeavored to take advantage of the weakening grip of his master, the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud, over his Balkan holdings to expand his own control over the Near East. The absolute master of his holdings, he had been working to westernize his realm, establishing modern industry over the opposition of the British and with the assistance of the French. Sultan Mahmud, smarting over the loss of Syria to his subaltern Mehmet, responded to reports of discontent in Egyptian-held Syria by dispatching forces Syria to mete out his revenge. The expedition is also an attempt to bring the Viceroy to heel over the conditions of the 1839 Anglo-Turkish Treaty, fixing a small tariff of three per cent on the import of British goods. Mehmet Ali is not willing to agree to this, fearing the loss of commercial independence. 24 June 1839: Ibrahim Pasha, leading an Egyptian army, defeats the Turks, led by General von Moltke, a Prussian military advisor to the Sultan, at Nezib. Ibrahim, the Viceroy's son, leads an army of 90,000 men with an artillery train equal to the best in Europe. 1 July 1839: Since the 24th June, the entire Turkish Navy has defected to the Egyptians, either as a result of bribery or perhaps the sentiment that it be better to fall to fellow Moslems than infidel Russians, and the disease-ridden Mahmud has died, passing the throne to his inexperienced heir, the sixteen-year-old Abdul Mejid. Taking advantage of this collapse in the capital, Mehmet Ali demands that he be recognized as hereditary ruler of Egypt and Syria and that his bitter enemy, Grand Vizier Chosrew, be dismissed from his post. 27 July 1839: Mehmet Ali's demands, particularly regarding that of Chosrew, have shocked the powers of Europe, who send a note to the Ottomans requesting the suspension of negotiations with Mehmet Ali. Palmerston is in favor of ordering the Viceroy to surrender all his possessions save Egypt. France, in favor of Mehmet Ali and against such a drastic measure, nonetheless do not protest the suggestion, assuming that Palmerston would support a compromise with Mehmet Ali over Russian guns in the Bosphorus. The one difficulty for France's plans is that Russia took no actions pursuant to their agreement in the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, the Russo-Turkish alliance concluded in 1833. September 1839: The Czar's emissary, Brunnow, indicates to Palmerston that he is willing to let his alliance with Turkey lapse and that he is ready to support the British in the Turkish-Egyptian question in the hopes of isolating France from Britain. 1840 23 July 1840: To prevent a direct Turkish-Egyptian settlement which might strengthen France in the middle east, the four Allied Powers, Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria, as well as a representative of the Sultan, sign a "Convention for the Pacification of the Levant." Its provisions include the recognition of Mehmet Ali as hereditary ruler of Egypt and the possession of southern Syria for his lifetime in exchange for the surrender of Northern Syria, Mecca, Medina and Crete, as well as the return of the Turkish fleet. Mehmet Ali defiantly replies he would "rather perish than accept." July-September 1840: France sits patiently by, assuming that his defiance would entail a Russian land campaign, unacceptable to the British. Palmerston assumes that Mehmet Ali can be ousted without large land operations. September 1840: With the best British troops distracted by the Oregon War, which has already turned for the British, and the navy and marines occupied by U.S. meddling in the Lesser Antilles, the expeditionary force, though headed by a number of British ships and a few units of British Marines, the bulk of the small fleet--smaller than Palmerston had planned, by virtue of the circumstances--and forces are Austro-Turkish. Palmerston, rather than risk Russia's involvement, concedes to this. The distraction also means that much of the planning is left to the Austrian and Turkish leaders. October 1840: Sir Charles Napier is repulsed by an Egyptian force at Beirut, while the siege of the fortress of Acre remains a stalemate. Napier, acting on rumors that the Egyptians' morale is lowering and may not be able to hold on, submits the Convention terms a second time on 12 October and is once again turned down. In Paris, wild talk of fighting the Austrian and Prussians on land and the British at sea in order to clinch the Viceroy's victory leads to talk of revolution in the radical press. Louis Philippe, assuming that Mehmet Ali's forces will be able to stand their ground, is unwilling to risk war, especially after a 17 October assassination attempt on the King. Louis Philippe, willing to let the Viceroy pull his own weight and hoping to prevent any further denunciations of the King as a "do-nothing," refuses to let his head of the cabinet, Thiers, make a belligerent speech at the opening of the legislative chambers. Thiers resigns, and Louis Philippe indicates his willingness for a peaceful end to the crisis by appointing Guizot head of foreign affairs. 29 October 1840: The beleaguered Napier parlays once again with Mehmet Ali and the two of them are able to work out a compromise settlement. Both forces are exhausted by the stalemate, but Mehmet Ali still clearly has the upper hand in the situation. Conditions of the agreement include: Mehmet Ali will retrocede Crete to the Sultan. Mehmet Ali will be confirmed as hereditary governor of Egypt within the Ottoman Empire. Upon his death, the governorship will pass to the eldest male of his line. The eyalet of Akka and the southern regions of the eyalet of Damascus will be confirmed as hereditary possessions of the governor of Egypt. The eyalet of Beirut, the northern part of the eyalet of Damascus, and his possessions in Mecca and Medina will be granted to Mehmet for his lifetime but will revert to the control of the Sublime Porte upon his death. A limitation of 18,000 men will be placed on the Egyptian Army. Half of the Ottoman fleet surrendered to Mehmet will be returned to the Sublime Porte. 1841 13 July 1841: France is readmitted to the European concert by signing the Straits Convention between Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia, providing the closure of the Straights to warships in peacetime. France, unwilling to risk war with Britain, nonetheless continues to support Mehmet's industrialization and westernization campaign, though with perhaps more discretion and less eagerness than before. 30 October 1841: Signing of the Treaty of London, solemnizing the agreement between Napier and Mehmet with the assistance of Lord Palmerston. The Sultan shortly thereafter confirms Mehmet Ali's status as hereditary governor in a firman. The results of the crisis is a mixture of good and bad for all parties. The Ottoman Empire has been drastically weakened, but still has the friendship of Britain, and has avoided a--possibly disastrous--Russo-Turkish entente by Russia allowing the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi to lapse. Egypt, by being allowed to keep some of her conquests, has been able to resist the imposition of the three per cent tariff, thus maintaining her economic independence. The cap on the size of the army is also a mixed blessing, considering it frees many of the disgruntled veterans to return to their farms and increase the size and productivity of the workforce. Britain's desire to keep the overland routes to India through Mesopotamia and the Suez open has been challenged, but with the reversion of northern Syria and the Egyptian-held regions of the Hejaz to the Ottomans, should be satisfied within a few years. Palmerston, who once remarked that he hated the governor of Egypt, continues to hope that Mehmet Ali will die quickly, quietly and soon. He is disappointed, as Mehmet Ali will continue to live until his death at 85 in 1854 [2]. 1848 September-November 1848: The aging Mehmet Ali transfers the government of his possessions to his son, Ibrahim, who unfortunately dies shortly thereafter. Rather than allow his younger son, the cruel reactionary Abbas succeed, Mehmet takes the reigns again. The close of Mehmet's reign sees the continued rapid industrialization of Egypt, the improvement of the port at Alexandria--strengthening Egypt's commercial position--the construction and renovation of canals, and the organization by British Lieutenant Waghorn of an efficient overland mail route to India. With the overthrow of the unpopular, umbrella-wielding bourgeois King Louis-Philippe, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte puts himself forward for the presidency of the newly-declared French Republic. 1849 Royalist successes in the 1849 legislative elections leads President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte to begin to take steps towards securing his position--hindered by the constitutional limitation of a single five-year term--as leader of France. He has also courted the powerful Catholic party by supporting the restoration of Rome to the Papacy, and plans to further gain their trust by reinitiating the long-standing dispute over the custody of the Holy Places in the Ottoman-ruled eyalet of Jerusalem. As always, comments are welcome. The Sixth Iteration should be coming soon (this isn't it--this is me catching up). NOTES [1] Mehmet Ali had previously intervened--largely without success--in the Greek War of Independence, being defeated at Navarino but temporarily being able to hold the island of Crete for his trouble. Already the de facto ruler of large portions of the Sudan and Arabia, he had given only nominal aid to the Sultan while Turkey had fought off Russia in the late 1820s, instead choosing to improve his army and navy. The 1831 Crisis had transpired after an attempt by the governor to seize control of the rich pashalik of Syria. Foreign Minister Palmerston, hearing the urgent supplications of Mahmud, had favored forcing Mehmet to "forthwith retire to Egypt and rest contented with that fertile country," but the question of parliamentary reform, as well as that the Royal Navy was conducting operations elsewhere, led to Britain being unable to take advantage of the situation. Instead, Russia stepped into the breech, happy at the time to prop up the Sick Man of Europe rather than see him supplanted by an enfant-terrible heir. A Russian fleet entered the Bosphorus, landing 15,000 soldiers on the Asiatic side of the straights, and the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi, an Russo-Turkish alliance including a secret article effectively closing the straights to foreign warships in times of emergency, was signed. The treaty led to an outbreak of bitter Russophobia in Britain. The crisis finally came to an end in 1833, though the resulting settlement, leaving Mehmet in charge of Syria, left none of the parties satisfied and a feeling of mutual suspicion between the powers of Europe. [2]It can be argued that a successful campaign in Egypt and Syria might give Mehmet Ali--already extraordinarily long-lived in our own timeline, dying at 80 in OTL 1849--the impetus to live for another five years, thus being able to play a minor role in the origins of the Crimean War of this ATL. Subject: [EOH] 6: Native to the Soil Date: 11 Jul 2001 16:31:58 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Sixth Iteration: 1851-1855 Native to the Soil No man will ever be president of the United States who spells Negro with two g's. --President William H. Seward, 1858 [Note: some of the dates concerning the Mormons have been moved forward in accordance with my correction of the date of their arrival in Deseret to 1847]. 1851 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte secures his power in a coup-d'état, assuming dictatorial powers and extending his term of office to ten years. In his efforts to seek rapprochement with the British, Louis-Napoleon takes steps to hinder French commercial and military assistance to Mehmet Ali's government that had continued after the 1840 Egyptian Crisis. Both governments sign the Paris Convention providing a mechanism for Anglo-French agreement over Egypt. Frías's government has a falling-out with Cuban commander-in-chief Narciso López, who flees with embezzled funds to New Orleans. The three-way protectorate over the Interior between Britain, California and Deseret is terminated by the Treaty of San Diego. Britain transfers the eastern Interior below the Colorado River to Deseret as the "Protectorate of Arizona," with its capital at Alburquerque; the southern border is drawn as to give an outlet at the Sea of Cortez. The western Interior is organized as the Californian-held Colorado Protectorate. Lower California is annexed by the Republic of California, with Britain being ceded several key ports. The Arizona Protectorate's southern boundary is set at the thirty-second parallel, and then turning slightly southward, allowing access to the Sea of Cortez. Babbage serves as the head of the Great Exhibition of 1851's Industrial commission, and, along with Faraday, has been recently made a Privy Councilor on the suggestion of Lyon Playfair, a highly-placed scientific bureaucrat. Babbage, a great admirer of the Prince Consort, is of course delighted. Babbage's ideas add a revolutionary modernity to the Exhibition of 1851--at his suggestion, cloakrooms and soap and water, as well as a light railway, quieted by rubber wheel inserts, are included in the large glass-and-iron exhibition structures. Babbage's occulting light signaling system is also displayed in the British section, alongside the Analytical Engine. One of Babbage's other suggestions is the use of steam busses--in intermittent use on British roads since the 1840s--to bring dignitaries to the grounds from their residences [1]. Isambard Kingdom Brunel oversees the construction of a huge iron bridge over the entrance of San Francisco Bay in the Californian Republic. A feat of engineering, many of the weight ratios are calculated with Babbage’s new Analytical Engine [2]. The Washington Convention, consisting of agents of the British, U.S., Texian and Deseret governments adjusts the Deseret and Texian border in the U.S.'s favor: hearing of rumors of mineral strikes in the West, President Buchanan, hoping to offset the Cuba fiasco of the previous year, acquires the panhandle of Texas and portions of the unsettled eastern regions of Deseret, with the border being defined along the crest of the Rocky Mountains. 1852 U.S. Election of 1852 WILLIAM SEWARD (P)/CHARLES SUMNER (VP) (WHIG) The United States is more fragmented politically than ever before. The Cotton Whigs, increasingly disturbed by the power of radical anti-slavery advocates such as Seward, Sumner and Benjamin Wade, break away and form the Constitutional Union Party, nominating Archibald Yell of Arkansas for the presidency, with Montgomery Blair as vice-presidential nominee. The True Whigs---now sometimes being called the "Black Whigs" by hostile Southrons--pick the firebrand William Seward. The remnants of the Democratic Party nominate William H. Marcy of New York, with Lyman Trumbull of Illinois as vice-presidential pick. The Young America Party selects popular legislator Jefferson Davis as their candidate. Young America carries Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Arkansas (41 electoral votes). The Constitutional Union takes Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland (63 electoral votes), the Democrats capture New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine and Missouri (25 electoral votes), while the Whigs are successful in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Massachusetts (159 electoral votes). Seward's election sends shockwaves throughout the South. Largely-unfounded rumors of abolitionism, slave revolts and even an impending British invasion through Texas circulate among paranoid Young America supporters. To be fair, some Northern abolitionists are engaging in speculation about a plot by the Knights of the Golden Circle to assassinate Seward, though this perhaps is somewhat less far-fetched. Deep South expansionists gather at the Mobile Convention, advocating secession. An attempt by the elderly ex-President Clay to forge another compromise to preserve the Union falls apart with his death from exhaustion, a dire portent of the future. After President-Elect Seward declares he will sign no bills entering Cuba as a slave state into the Union, South Carolina secedes in protest on December 20. King Joseph I of Deseret upgrades himself to Emperor after the acquisition of the Arizona Protectorate. The new government of the Protectorate is overseen by Viceroy Jedediah M. Grant. On paper, the same system uniting the Mormon church with the state exists in the Viceroyalty, but in practice Viceroy Grant finds that the people of New Mexico do not take kindly to his rule, as several revolts attest. The most brutal of these occurred at Taos where the Indians rose up after Mormon troops requisition the local church as a stable. The Indians' subsequent defeat by the Royal Nauvoo Legion leads the Emperor to create, in honor of the Mormon victory, the Royal Order of the Knights of Taos. Other outbreaks of violence result from horrific attempts on the part of the Legion to flush out the various _Penitente_ orders. British authorities, which do not ask religious orthodoxy but desire order, attempt to broker a compromise allowing religious freedom in the Viceroyalty. The result is the Catholic Church is allowed to function side-by-side with Mormonism, though losing many of her privileges. Britain negotiates the Treaty of Windsor with Emperor Joseph, defining the Deseret-Oregon border and establishing a reciprocal trade relationship in exchange for an agreement not to encroach on British territory. British mining interests become increasingly dominant over the next decade in Joseph's government as British-built infastructure knits the nation together, while a gradual process of confiscation and subsequent sale of Indian lands to speculators leads to the growth of latifundism as well as a large percentage of the land lying fallow rather than being used. On Joseph's visit to England, Babbage meets the upstart emperor, and finds him both intriguing and a little strange. After heavy pressure on the Sultan, Louis-Napoleon wins concessions for the Latin monks in the Holy Land. About the same time, he also takes the title of Emperor as Napoleon III of France. With his crown secure, he has no reason to continue his negotiations concerning Palestine and dispatches an envoy directly to the Czar to negotiate an agreement concerning the shrines that might be mutually beneficial to both sovereigns, but Nicholas I's contempt for the upstart French emperor and anti-Catholic sentiment in Russia as a result of the surrender of the keys to the inner and outer churches of Bethlehem combine to produce a diplomatic stalemate. Furthermore, the Czar has begun direct negotiations with the sultan, in addition to conversations with British Ambassador Sir Hamilton Seymour who fears that once again the Russians are trying to drive France and Britain apart by bribing the British with the offer of Crete and Egypt. In fact, the Czar seems to be sincerely in favor of maintaining the status quo and assumed that Britain and France would be unwilling to cooperate. Maxwell and Babbage publish _The Social Dynamics of Economy_, a massive volume drawing both on Babbage's research on machines and manufacturing, as well as Maxwell's statistical research; among other things, it attempts to give a scientific basis to capitalism and also trumpets the benefits of using enginery to create a predictive social science. The precarious filibuster Republic of Cuba puts down several pro-Spanish rebellions, including one slave insurrection in Oriente generated by rumors (perhaps groundless) that Spain would grant freedom to slaves aiding in the return of Cuba to the Spanish crown. Disturbed by the violence and fearing for his life, minor bureaucrat Mariano Martí flees the Island with his pregnant wife, Leonor, for New York. There, on 28 January of the following year, their son José Martí (1852-1925) is born, a U.S. citizen by accident of birth. 1853 January 1853: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida join South Carolina in secession. Seward dispatches troops to Maryland and Virginia to safeguard against the secessionist minority. February 1853: North Carolina and Tennessee secede, though Unionist opposition remains in the western Mountain Counties of the state, along with portions of the eastern half of Tennessee. Violence, rioting and looting in New Orleans, an expansionist center, leads pro-Union leaders to flee the town to Baton Rouge. New Orleans is declared a Free City. Former Cuban military leader and philibuster Narciso López is offered command of the army. Militias under López manage to take control of the entire southern half of the state, battling local pro-union troops under the provisional command of William T. Sherman, a former soldier and Unionist New Orleans resident. López has several differences of opinion with his lieutenant, P.G.T. Beauregard, during this period that leads to a falling-out between the two. The U.S.S. _Princeton_, in drydock at the New Orleans Naval Yard (constructed, ironically enough, as a Whig internal improvement), is seized by New Orleans secessionists, but not before having it set on fire by Unionists. The hull, decks, artillery and engines remain intact, however. Friderich Engels, hearing the news of the coming conflict over slavery in London and dissatisfied with his life in England, boards a ship for New York. 28 February 1853: Prince Menshikov arrives in Constantinople to negotiate the question of the Holy Places, charged to obtain full and formal satisfaction in regard to the custody of the shrines. He is also authorized to offer northern Syria and the Hejaz to Mehmet Ali as a hereditary possession in exchange for his support in the dispute. An envoy reaches Cairo with such a suggestion on 7 April 1853. 5 April 1853: Stratford Canning, the recently-appointed Ambassador to the Porte, arrives at Constantinople and is able to arrange a settlement acceptable to all parties concerned. Menshikov fails in his mission and the Czar is not in the least bit pleased. 31 May 1853: Agents of the Czar order that the Ottomans accede to Menshikov's demands or face a Russian occupation of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, "by force, but without war." Turkey refuses and the Russians cross the Pruth by July. In Britain, newspapers clamor for action against Russia while the government is divided between pacific and belligerent policies. On the same day as the Russians threaten the Porte with occupation, the British cabinet orders the Royal Navy's forces in the Mediterranean to Besika Bay at the mouth of the Dardanelles. March 1853: Representatives of the rebellious states meet in Birmingham, Alabama, to draw up a constitution for a confederation between the states, now to be known as the Confederate States of America. A flag and seal, influenced by much of the symbolism of Young America and the Knights of the Golden Circle, are adopted. The flag consists of a blue-white-blue triband with a broad red stripe at the hoist. In the red panel is a golden crescent and cross, surrounded by a ring of seven white stars, the whole device rimmed by a golden ring. More stars are added as the Confederacy grows, though as the war continues, there is little overall consistency in their number. 1 March 1853: In Montgomery, Alabama, John J. Crittenden (formerly U.S. senator from South Carolina) is inaugurated as the first President of the Confederacy, with fellow expansionist Robert Toombs as Vice President. Jefferson Davis is appointed Secretary of War and John Breckenridge Secretary of State. April 1853: The territories of St. Lucia, Trinidad and St. Vincent declare independence and ask admission to the Confederacy. Guatemala's filibuster regime petitions to join as well, seizing Belice in the process. Confederates in the Caribbean seize U.S. naval bases and ships and blockade the U.S.-garrisoned Isle of Pines off Cuba, which surrenders on April 23. After Confederate troops bombard Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, the one remaining Union fortification in the South, Seward appeals for a force of seventy-five thousand militiamen to suppress the rebellion. The U.S. Civil War has begun. Volunteers rush to the colors in both the North and the South, forming scores of volunteer regiments. Some of these are short-lived, others, such as the Irish Brigade become famous for their heroism. Leading the red-shirted Italian Company of the immigrant Koskiuzo Legion is a young Italian-born revolutionary from the Republic of Piratini named Giuseppe Garibaldi. 21 April 1853: Union troops under General Irving McDowell, commander of the Army of the James, defeat Confederates outside Raleigh. However, McDowell is killed in battle and replaced by Virginian Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee who is made a Brevet Brigadier on the spot. 30 April 1853: Californian ships enter Nagasaki harbor, opening up previously-closed Japan to European trade. May 1853: William Walker's Nicaraguan government petitions for annexation, as does Frías's Cuba. Seward is in an extremely difficult position as the rebellious Confederacy, by annexing the Island, now holds the key to the Caribbean. Seward's advisors outline a plan to seize the Mississippi at New Orleans and push eastward across the Confederacy, as well as moving down the Atlantic Coast. The rebels will be smashed in between the two "jaws," giving the strategy the name of the "Crocodile Plan," devised by the army's commander-in-chief, Winfield Scott, who has returned from retirement to lead, at least from an armchair. The Confederate Navy (composed of ships seized at the various naval stations in Belice and the Gulf) is smaller than the Union Navy, but the Confederates have newer vessels, designed with the Caribbean in mind. The remaining Union ships are outdated and scattered around the world on courtesy missions. Lee moves westward, planning to use the foothills of the Appalachians as a funnel to pour into the Deep South. He clashes with Confederates under General Braxton Bragg at Dalton, Georgia, and, forcing them into a retreat southward, moves on Chatanooga. Bragg is relieved of command by President Crittenden and replaced with General Albert Sidney Johnston, a former Texian Secretary of War who had resigned in protest over the abolition of slavery in the Republic. 31 May 1853: In the western theater, General Don Carlos Buell, leading the Army of the Ohio, takes control of the key border posts of Fort Henry and Fort Donalson on the Tennessee but is pushed back at the bloody Battle of Corinth by the Confederates under General Narciso López, who had left P.G.T. Beauregard in command of New Orleans. June 1853: U.S. ships blockade the Confederacy’s Atlantic Coast, though they are unable to breach the Gulf due to Confederate-held Cuba. Satirized by the South as the "cheese-box blockade" it comprises of "every ship that can carry a gun" to help patch up the holes in the Union’s small navy. It is of limited effectiveness. Britain, disconcerted with the Confederacy’s expansionist notions, has remained aloof, but the French under Napoleon III are discretely (as discretely as the Emperor can be) conducting relations with the fledgling Confederacy by smuggling arms via Martinique and Guadaloupe. With a crisis brewing in the Near East, Britain is too distracted to complain. 13-14 June 1853: The French and British fleets reach the Dardanelles. Soon afterward, under pressure from Stratford Canning, the Turks accept a compromise statement, nicknamed, perhaps somewhat unfortunately, the Turkish Ultimatum and is sent to the Conference of Ambassadors in Vienna for transmission to St. Petersburg. The Ambassadors reject the ultimatum in favor of another proposal, the Vienna Note, which the Czar accepts on 5 August 1853, thus supposedly ending the crisis until the Grand Vizier rejects it in an unamended form. September 1853: Establishment of the (rather small) U.S. Military Railroad (USMRR) and the Army Telegraph and Signal Corps. Friderich Engels presents himself as a "volunteer in the struggle for liberty" and joins the Koskiuzo Legion. His skill as an artillerist is recognized and he is transferred as an advisor to the Army Corps of Engineers. He is commissioned as a Captain. Under his impetus, the Army Corps of Analytical Engineers, a small statistical unit based around the engines of the Naval Observatory, is founded and provides logistical data for the armed forces. Engels also suggests the implementation of Babbage's occulting signal lights in the Army Signal Corps, a system already beginning to be used by American lighthouses and also in the Russian army. 3 September 1853: Battle of Chattanooga. Lee defeats Johnston, who flees southward to Atlanta. Lee continues towards Montgomery and sends his subordinate, George B. McLellan, to pursue Johnston, but McLellan is defeated due to an overcautious strategy at Kennesaw Mountain on September 21, 1853. 29 September 1853: Union General Benjamin Butler and the Army of the Mississippi, takes the city of Memphis, Tennessee, and continues downriver. Buell moves eastward, menacing Montgomery, but is defeated by General Thraxton Bragg at Birmingham. 4-8 October 1853: The Turks order the occupation of the Principalities to cease, while Canning orders the fleet at Besika is ordered to Constantinople. Russia takes no action. 23 October 1853: Turkish troops cross the Danube, setting off the Crimean War. At the battle of Sinope in November, Russia's wooden vessels (armed with shell-guns) cut the Turkish wooden warships (only holding iron shot) to pieces, proving Ericsson's contention that wooden ships were powerless to resist shell guns. Most naval authorities note this with interest. General war at this point is inevitable. 30 November 1853: Seward replaces McLellan with General Thomas J. Jackson, who is dispatched with General Joseph Hooker and reinforcements to take Atlanta and move westward to the sea. Jackson (by birth, from western Virginia), a former professor at V.M.I., seizes Atlanta and moves eastward. December 1853: Dupuy du Lome, Napoleon III's naval advisor, begins to experiment with ironclad batteries in response to the battle of Sinope, while Ericsson is commissioned to design a "shot- and shell-proof man of war" which might be able to be used in the Gulf, where it in all likelihood will have to face the captured Princeton, now renamed the C.S.S. _Alabama_ and undergoing iron-plating under the supervision of the progressive Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory. 1854 13 January 1854: At Hampton Roads, Ericsson oversees the beginning of the construction of the U.S.S. _Monitor_. The warship is entirely of iron, low to the water, with a rotating hemisphere set in the center of the deck mounted with two innovative steam-powered cannons each. Wags nickname the craft, "the Commodore's breakfast," claiming that it resembles two a half orange on a plate. Ericsson's theoretical plans for "hydrostatic javelins" are postponed for the time being. 24 January 1853: Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria grants government funds to the Ömasch for the construction of an Engine to be used in military research. In Franz-Josef's government, the primary supporter of the use of engines is Baron Alexander Bach (1813-1893), former minister of Justice and current minister of the Interior. 21 February 1854: Generals Jackson and Hooker arrive in Savannah. They later head northward in pursuit of Johnston. 6 February 1854: Russia breaks off relations with France and Britain in the wake of Anglo-French protests demanding that the Russian fleet return to Sebastopol or face the combined fleets. 27 February 1854: An Anglo-French ultimatum to Russia demands the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Danubian Principalities. 1 March 1854: The Unionist counties of west North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are admitted to the Union as the state of Franklin. Later, several north Georgia counties are admitted. 9 March 1854: Lauching of the Monitor at Hampton Roads, shortly after which it is dispatched to the Gulf to reinforce Faragutt's flotilla. In St. Louis, following Ericcson's lead, inventor Thomas Eads is overseeing the construction of a river monitor fleet. Eads, an army engineer, also noticing the deaths to artillerymen by sharpshooters, suggests putting armored shields on cannon. His idea is taken up enthusiastically. 28 March 1854: France and Britain declare war on Russia. 15 April 1854: Egypt dispatches her fleet to the Aegean as a protest against the Anglo-French declaration of war. Rumors of an impending invasion of Crete are heard in Cairo and Beirut. 30 April 1854: Babbage's workshops in Dorset Street present the new "Engine-Assisted Printing Press," obviating the need for typesetting by printing via stippled dots, which lowers the price for cheaply-printed, mass-produced flyers, prints, playbills and newspapers, though for books and expensive printing jobs, type-set steam presses remain the norm in the future. 3 May 1854: Canning demands that the Egyptian fleet return to Alexandria or risk a declaration of war. April 1854: Seizure by the U.S. Navy of the Confederacy's territories in the Lesser Antilles. St. Lucia, Trinidad and St. Vincent are returned to the Union and placed under military governorship. Passage of the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the printing of $150 million in "bluebacks" or paper money as well as the sale of $500 million in war bonds. "Bluebacks" are to be considered legal tender. 13 April 1854: Jackson, having left Hooker as military governor of Savannah, seizes Columbia and proceeds north after Johnston. 21 April 1854: Butler takes Vicksburg shortly thereafter, clashing with the retreating López. A Union flotilla accompanies them downriver towards New Orleans. 10 May 1854: Admiral David Farragut defeats Confederate ships off Cuba in the Battle of the Tortugas and proceeds towards New Orleans, breaking the Confederate hold on the Gulf. 24 May 1854: In Mexico, Conservatives and moderados overthrow Santa Anna, citing his disastrous handling of the treasury and his cession of almost half the nation to British puppet states. Conservatives have been increasingly waving the flag of Mexican nationalism in the wake of the humiliation of the First Deseret War, claiming that the only way to save Mexico is to return to the traditional institutions of monarchy and church. Conservative General Felix Zuloga is made president. For the time, the Liberals are discredited by their connection with Britain. 1 June 1854: Death of Mehmet Ali in Cairo at the age of 85. He had not, unlike the bey of Tunis, offered to aid his overlord the Porte against the Russians. During the various frustrated attempts to draw up a compromise over the Holy Places, there had been rumors of Russian overtures towards the Viceroy, perhaps hoping that Mehmet might pressure his master to accede to Russian demands, perhaps in revenge for Napoleon III's temporary rebuff. His death, however, forces the fleet to return home, no matter what his intentions had been. 2 June-12 July 1854: Mehmet Ali is succeeded by his grandson, the cruel Abbas, an anti-western figure whose position vis-à-vis the situation brewing in the Straits is a closed book. British and French agents meet in Cairo and approach Abbas in an attempt to forestall an attempt by Abbas to declare war on the Ottomans to prevent the cession of his father's possessions in the Hejaz and northern Syria. Fortunately or unfortunately for the envoys, Abbas is shortly murdered by one of his bodyguards and succeeded by his brother, Said, a western-educated, slightly cruel but nonetheless very Francophone leader who is very happy to listen to their arguments. 31 June 1854: Gun-battle between the refitted ironclad _Alabama_ and Farragut's flotilla off New Orleans leaves two warships destroyed. Farragut is forced to disperse and regroup off the Texas coast. Butler is left to take New Orleans alone. Under the suggestion of Captain Thaddeus Lowe, Seward establishes the Union Balloon Corps with Lowe as a Brevet Colonel in charge of the unit. It proves to be very useful in providing information and reconnaissance during the war. Lowe experiments with, among other things, aerial photography. 14 July 1854: Signing of the Treaty of Alexandria, by Said, the French and British envoys and a representative of the Sultan, ceding Cyprus to Egypt in exchange for northern Syria and the Hejaz [3]. September-October 1854: Siege of New Orleans. The _Alabama_ slips out past New Orleans in late September and engages in an indecisive battle with the _Monitor_. New Orleans falls on 14 October 1854, when Narciso López surrenders his sword to Buell. November 1854: President Seward, swelled by the fall of New Orleans, issues two proclamations: He issues the Abolition Proclamation, proclaiming slavery in the rebellious territories to be forbidden and all slaves to be free. Seward also offers, in the Cuban Assistance Declaration, "whatever armaments and weaponry, treasury funds and advisors to assist in lawmaking and administration that are deemed necessary to the survival of a free Cuban government, if and when one is formed," hoping to spark an antislavery Cuban resistance. Seward does not want Cuba to return to Spain and hopes that this offer may allow for the formation of a free-soil Cuban Republic. Some Democrats and a number of Constitutional Unionists, opposed to expanding the war any further, grumble, belittling it as the "Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, and Get Us Out of This" Proclamation. Shortly thereafter, slave revolts break out; Cuba and Santo Domingo (western Haïti) fall to a Spanish intervention (actually invited by the residents of Santo Domingo), dashing Seward's hopes for an independent (and non-slave) Cuba. The National Banking Act sets out the parameters on how local banks could dispense "bluebacks," already being used by the Bank of the United States authorized by the Fiscal Agent Act in 1842. December 1854: Rebellions in Confederate Guatemala and Nicaragua are put down with great force. In the wake of the gun battle between the C.S.S. Alabama and the U.S.S. Monitor, Britain cancels the construction of wooden warships and orders new iron ships for the Royal Navy. The Yucatán Caste War ends in a defeat of the Mayan rebels. 1855 12 January 1855: Babbage unveils the first mass-produced Analytical Engine in London at the Dorset Street Workshop, which has become a major hub of young scientific talent working under Babbage's direction. Working from Babbage's ideas, the Workshop has also just put out the first practical typewriter--the caligraph, based on earlier devices such as the typographer (1829) and the Thurber Machine (1843). It lacks, however, a shift-key mechanism and no cylinder. Babbage’s workshop is also in the process of constructing a typewriter-style device for constructing programming cards for Engines. 18 April 1855: Johnston surrenders to Jackson's troops at Raleigh, North Carolina, trapped between Jackson's forces and reinforcements sent under Ambrose Burnside in Virginia. Unfortunately Jackson is wounded in battle and dies the next day. 1 May 1855: Montgomery, encircled by Buell's and Lee's armies, falls to the Union. Riots break out across the city as Union troops approach, and a fire breaks out, in which Vice-President Toombs perishes. President John J. Crittenden is found sitting calmly at his desk in the Capitol Building, where he is arrested by General Lee. One of the casualties in the battle is Union Brevet Brigadier General Giuseppe Garibaldi, formerly of the Koskiuzo Legion, and now in charge of a Brigade. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis flees for the coast and is smuggled aboard a blockade-runner bound for Havana. 2 June 1855: William Walker, Confederate Governor of Nicaragua, declares his state independent and names himself president of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as claiming Belice, which he is able to quickly occupy. Francisco Morazán, the former Liberal leader of the Guatemalan "coffee republic" and also a collaborator with the Guatemalan Confederate regime welcomes Walker's rule in the hopes of stabilizing his crumbling government. The remnants of the Confederate fleet, not captured by the Union or lost in the Spanish invasion of Cuba, crawl back to the ports of Central America. Over the next few years, some Confederate refugees travel south to Walker's Nicaragua, while the majority of exiles flee to Brazil--and Brazil welcomes them with open arms, offering land at extremely cheap rates and special long-term loans. July-October 1855: Walker establishes the "Central American Union" (of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belice) with himself as President and makes moves to conquer Honduras and El Salvador. Seward orders the return of Belice and all Confederate ships (being captured Union property) from the "Central American Union" and blockades the new nation. Walker's attempts to seize Honduras and El Salvador fail and he is forced to retreat to Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Rafael Carrera, backed by Spain, leaves Cuba on a (reverse) filibustering expedition and lands in Guatemala. Morazán, now reduced to being Walker's lieutenant in Guatemala, unpopular after his collaboration with the Confederates, is overthrown in a conservative coup and the resurgent Carrera is made President-for-Life. Jefferson Davis leaves Havana and disembarks in Dutch Guiana, where he attempts to pick up the pieces of his life, writing his memoirs. He later moves to Mexico in 1868. December 1855: Passage of the Abolition Act of 1855, which bans slavery in the former Confederacy and declares freedmen citizens. Britain offers £15,000,000 for Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexican President Zuloga, who is incensed by the suggestion. British representatives return to San Francisco rebuffed. Britain extends support to the moderados in the hope that compromise might bring a degree of peace to Mexico. In Mexico, Britain has three objectives as of 1855: First, stabilize the government to prevent border violence threatening California, Deseret and Texas. Britain initially supported the Liberals because they were in power, and then tried to come to détente with the Conservatives, who refused, but now they try to approach the moderados. Secondly, open up new markets and areas for investment--what few investors Mexico has, she is fast losing due to endemic violence. Third, gain access to natural resources. The annexation of Sonora proposed to Zuloga, thus, was an attempt to secure a buffer for California--and also to gain access to the state's mineral wealth. The violent secession of Campeche from the Yucatán Republic sets off the Yucatán Civil War. NOTES [1]. Most of Babbage's suggestions are based on his own ideas. He had, in OTL, been proposed for the head of the commission, but had been turned down, and turned down the Privy Councillorship on the grounds it was not a reward for his Engine-work. The suggestion of steam busses is my own, though such vehicles were in use on English roads at the time according to _The New York Public Library Book of Chronologies_. [2]. The Brunel Bridge, still being used today and famed for its distinctive quasi-Egyptian, plain stone pylons, is not to be confused with silver magnate Joshua Norton's pet project of a bridge over Goat Island, completed in 1897. [3]. Said's role in Egyptian history is somewhat different from our own. In OTL, he played the role of a Porfirio Díaz, deeding his nation over to foreign speculators, primarily due to the back-breaking loans he took out on the construction of the Suez Canal. In OTL, with Franco-British cooperation over Egypt re-established by the Paris Convention, some degree of foreign influence is established after the 1851-1856 cession of assistance by France (prolonged by the Crimean War), such as allowing the passage of British troops across the Suez to reach India in order to quell the 1858 Mutiny and the granting of the concession of the Cairo-Alexandria railway to France in 1864 by his brother, Ismail (In OTL, it had been granted by Abbas to the British). The canal is not constructed during his reign in this ATL for several reasons. The first is that the Viceroy met Ferdinand de Lesseps in Paris in 1854 during his exile by Abbas, which did not occur in this ATL due to Mehmet Ali's longer reign. This longer reign leads to Said being more reluctant to dispense with some of Mehmet Ali's commercial experiments, and thus his abolition of monopolies and so forth comes somewhat later than in our own timeline. The result is that the proposal to dig the Canal comes four years later in ATL 1858 and falls through due to Napoleon III's collapse in the year 18--aauughhh (The lights flicker off. A shot rings out. The sound of a body falling). Whoops. I'm afraid I can't tell you the rest until the Seventh Iteration, humbly entitled "Marching through Nicaragua," is posted... Comments are welcome, and greatly appreciated. Any thoughts on the logical outline of a Seward Reconstruction? How about emancipation, abolition? Babbage's inventions? Engels' traipsing all over the place? What the scramble for Africa might look like with an expansionist Egypt? Is my ACW probable? And how about the future of CAU President Wm. Walker? I have something fun planned...I'm just not going to tell you. A few glimpses of the future: An engine-stippled print of the coronation of Henri V of France at Rheims, 1863. A ballot for the 1872 election pitting Hooker/Colfax versus Sumner/Brown. The sepia photograph of an early cigar-shaped Lowe Planet Airship over the Great Plains, 1886. An article in the Chicago Examiner, by one Mr. J. Conrad, denouncing Belgian tyranny in the Congo, dated 12 July 1891. And a poised, well-dressed young woman speaking at a podium, a bespectacled, goat-beared gentleman in a sober black suit a little off to the side. Outside the lecture hall, a poster in screaming large letters beneath a patriotic eagle. "SOMETHING MUST BE DONE FOR CUBA! MISS KEZIA HUNT, DAUGHTER OF THE AMERICAN MARTYR TO SPANISH SLAVE POWER, TO SPEAK TO-NIGHT, SEVEN O'CLOCK, JUNE 3, 1871. ACCOUNTS OF HORRIFIC SPANISH ATROCITIES TO BE ILLUSTRATED BY A KINEMATOGRAPHIC MAGIC LANTERN SHOW AND NARRATION BY MR. HORACE GREELEY OF THE _NEW YORK TRIBUNE_." You just wait and see... :-) Alderman Subject: [Repost] [EOH] 6: Native to the Soil Date: 20 Jul 2001 15:43:17 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if [Changes: Seward's Reconstruction policies have been made more cautious according to that he has more border states to deal with and more in keeping with his character. Some of the campaign details of the *ACW have been changed as well.] ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Sixth Iteration: 1851-1855 Native to the Soil No man will ever be president of the United States who spells Negro with two g's. --President William H. Seward, 1853 1851 Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte secures his power in a coup-d'état, assuming dictatorial powers and extending his term of office to ten years. In his efforts to seek rapprochement with the British, Louis-Napoleon takes steps to hinder French commercial and military assistance to Mehmet Ali's government that had continued after the 1840 Egyptian Crisis. Both governments sign the Paris Convention providing a mechanism for Anglo-French agreement over Egypt. Frías's government has a falling-out with Cuban commander-in-chief Narciso López, who flees with embezzled funds to New Orleans. The three-way protectorate over the Interior between Britain, California and Deseret is terminated by the Treaty of San Diego. Britain transfers the eastern Interior below the Colorado River to Deseret as the "Protectorate of Arizona," with its capital at Alburquerque; the southern border is drawn as to give an outlet at the Sea of Cortez. The western Interior is organized as the Californian-held Colorado Protectorate. Lower California is annexed by the Republic of California, with Britain being ceded several key ports. The Arizona Protectorate's southern boundary is set at the thirty-second parallel, and then turning slightly southward, allowing access to the Sea of Cortez. Babbage serves as the head of the Great Exhibition of 1851's Industrial commission, and, along with Faraday, has been recently made a Privy Councilor on the suggestion of Lyon Playfair, a highly-placed scientific bureaucrat. Babbage, a great admirer of the Prince Consort, is of course delighted. Babbage's ideas add a revolutionary modernity to the Exhibition of 1851--at his suggestion, cloakrooms and soap and water, as well as a light railway, quieted by rubber wheel inserts, are included in the large glass-and-iron exhibition structures. Babbage's occulting light signaling system is also displayed in the British section, alongside the Analytical Engine. One of Babbage's other suggestions is the use of steam busses--in intermittent use on British roads since the 1840s--to bring dignitaries to the grounds from their residences [1]. Isambard Kingdom Brunel oversees the construction of a huge iron bridge over the entrance of San Francisco Bay in the Californian Republic. A feat of engineering, many of the weight ratios are calculated with Babbage's new Analytical Engine [1]. The Washington Convention, consisting of agents of the British, U.S., Texian and Deseret governments adjusts the Deseret and Texian border in the U.S.'s favor: hearing of rumors of mineral strikes in the West, President Buchanan, hoping to offset the Cuba fiasco of the previous year, acquires the panhandle of Texas and portions of the unsettled eastern regions of Deseret, with the border being defined along the crest of the Rocky Mountains. 1852 U.S. Election of 1852 WILLIAM SEWARD (P)/CHARLES SUMNER (VP) (WHIG) The United States is more fragmented politically than ever before. The Cotton Whigs, increasingly disturbed by the power of radical anti-slavery advocates such as Seward, Sumner and Benjamin Wade, break away and form the Constitutional Union Party. The Constitutional Union nominates Archibald Yell of Arkansas for the presidency, with Montgomery Blair as his running mate. The True Whigs--to hostile Southrons, the "Black Whigs"--pick the firebrand orator William Seward, with Charles Sumner as vice-presidential pick. Seward's reputation for radicalism is not entirely deserved, though Young America stalwarts are convinced otherwise. The dying Democratic Party nominate William H. Marcy of New York, with Lyman Trumbull of Illinois as vice-presidential pick. The Young America Party selects rising star Jefferson Davis as their candidate. Young America carries Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Arkansas (41 electoral votes). The Constitutional Union takes the border states—Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland (63 electoral votes), the Democrats capture New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine and Missouri (25 electoral votes), while the Whigs are successful in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Massachusetts (159 electoral votes). Seward's election sends shockwaves throughout the South. Deep South expansionists gather at the Mobile Convention, advocating secession. President-Elect Seward declares in a fit of rhetorical anger that he will sign no bills entering Cuba as a slave state into the Union in the wake of the collapse of a long drawn-out series of negotiations resulting from a plan put forward by John J. Crittenden with the assistance of elderly ex-President Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas, which would effectively abrogate the already moth-eaten Compromise of 1820, South Carolina secedes in protest on December 21, shortly after Henry Clay dies of exhaustion sustained in his attempt to keep the Union together, a dire portent of the future. The precarious filibuster Republic of Cuba puts down several pro-Spanish rebellions, including one slave insurrection in Oriente generated by rumors--perhaps groundless--that Spain would grant freedom to slaves aiding in the return of Cuba to the Spanish crown. Disturbed by the violence and fearing for his life, minor bureaucrat Mariano Martí flees the Island with his pregnant wife, Leonor, for New York. There, on 28 January of the following year, their son José Martí is born, a U.S. citizen by accident of birth. King Joseph I of Deseret upgrades himself to Emperor after the acquisition of the Arizona Protectorate. The new government of the Protectorate is overseen by Viceroy Jedediah M. Grant. On paper, the same system uniting the Mormon church with the state exists in the Viceroyalty, but in practice Viceroy Grant finds that the people of New Mexico do not take kindly to his rule, as several revolts attest. The most brutal of these occurred at Taos where the Indians rose up after Mormon troops requisition the local church as a stable. The Indians' subsequent defeat by the Royal Nauvoo Legion leads the Emperor to create, in honor of the Mormon victory, the Royal Order of the Knights of Taos. Other outbreaks of violence result from horrific attempts on the part of the Legion to flush out the various Penitente sects. British authorities, which do not ask religious orthodoxy but desire order, attempt to broker a compromise allowing religious freedom in the Viceroyalty. The result is the Catholic Church is allowed to function side-by-side with Mormonism, though losing many of her privileges. Britain negotiates the Treaty of Windsor with Emperor Joseph, defining the Deseret-Oregon border and establishing a reciprocal trade relationship in exchange for an agreement not to encroach on British territory. British mining interests become increasingly dominant over the next decade in Joseph's government as British-built infastructure knits the nation together, while a gradual process of confiscation and subsequent sale of Indian lands to speculators leads to the growth of latifundism as well as a large percentage of the land lying fallow rather than being used. On Joseph's visit to England, Babbage meets the upstart emperor, and finds him both intriguing and a little strange. After heavy pressure on the Sultan, Louis-Napoleon wins concessions for the Latin monks in the Holy Land. About the same time, he also takes the title of Emperor as Napoleon III of France. With his crown secure, he has no reason to continue his negotiations concerning Palestine and dispatches an envoy directly to the Czar to negotiate an agreement concerning the shrines that might be mutually beneficial to both sovereigns, but Nicholas I's contempt for the upstart French emperor and anti-Catholic sentiment in Russia as a result of the surrender of the keys to the inner and outer churches of Bethlehem combine to produce a diplomatic stalemate. Furthermore, the Czar has begun direct negotiations with the sultan, in addition to conversations with British Ambassador Sir Hamilton Seymour who fears that once again the Russians are trying to drive France and Britain apart by bribing the British with the offer of Crete and Egypt. In fact, the Czar seems to be sincerely in favor of maintaining the status quo and assumed that Britain and France would be unwilling to cooperate. Maxwell and Babbage publish _The Social Dynamics of Economy_, a massive volume drawing both on Babbage's research on machines and manufacturing, as well as Maxwell's statistical research; among other things, it attempts to give a scientific basis to capitalism and also trumpets the benefits of using enginery to create a predictive social science. 1853 January 1853: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida join South Carolina in secession. February 1853: North Carolina and Tennessee secede, though Unionist opposition remains in the western Mountain Counties of North Carolina, along with portions of the eastern half of Tennessee. Violence, rioting and looting in New Orleans, an expansionist center, leads pro-Union leaders to flee the town to Baton Rouge. New Orleans is declared a Free City. Former Cuban military leader and filibuster Narciso López is offered command of the army. Militias under López manage to take control of the entire southern half of the state, battling local pro-union troops under the provisional command of William T. Sherman, a former soldier and Unionist New Orleans resident. López has several differences of opinion with his lieutenant, P.G.T. Beauregard, during this period that leads to a falling-out between the two. The U.S.S. Princeton, in drydock at the New Orleans Naval Yard (constructed, ironically enough, as a Whig internal improvement), is seized by New Orleans secessionists, but not before having it set on fire by Unionist dockyard personnel. The hull, decks, artillery and engines remain intact, however. Friderich Engels, hearing the news of the coming conflict over slavery in London and dissatisfied with his life in England, boards a ship for New York. 28 February 1853: Prince Menshikov arrives in Constantinople to negotiate the question of the Holy Places, charged to obtain full and formal satisfaction in regard to the custody of the shrines. He is also authorized to offer northern Syria and the Hejaz to Mehmet Ali as a hereditary possession in exchange for his support in the dispute. An envoy reaches Cairo with such a suggestion on 7 April 1853. 5 April 1853: Stratford Canning, the recently appointed British Ambassador to the Porte, arrives at Constantinople and is able to arrange a settlement acceptable to all parties concerned. Menshikov fails in his mission and the Czar is not in the least bit pleased. 31 May 1853: Agents of the Czar order that the Ottomans accede to Menshikov’s demands or face a Russian occupation of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, "by force, but without war." Turkey refuses and the Russians cross the Pruth by July. In Britain, newspapers clamor for action against Russia while the government is divided between pacific and belligerent policies. On the same day as the Russians threaten the Porte with occupation, the British cabinet orders the Royal Navy's forces in the Mediterranean to Besika Bay at the mouth of the Dardanelles. March 1853: Representatives of the rebellious states meet in Birmingham, Alabama, to draw up a constitution for a confederation between the states, now to be known as the Confederate States of America. A flag and seal, influenced by much of the symbolism of Young America and the Knights of the Golden Circle, are adopted. The flag consists of a blue-white-blue triband with a broad red stripe at the hoist. In the red panel is a golden crescent and cross, surrounded by a ring of seven white stars, the whole device rimmed by a golden ring. More stars are added as the Confederacy grows, though as the war continues, there is little overall consistency in their number. 2 March 1853: In Montgomery, Alabama, John J. Crittenden--formerly U.S. senator from South Carolina--is inaugurated as the first President of the Confederacy, with fellow expansionist Robert Toombs as Vice President. Jefferson Davis is appointed Secretary of War and John Breckenridge Secretary of State. Seward, finally taking action, dispatches troops to secure the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas and rump Louisiana. April 1853: The territories of St. Lucia, Trinidad and St. Vincent declare independence and ask admission to the Confederacy. Guatemala's filibuster regime petitions to join as well, seizing Belice in the process. Confederates in the Caribbean seize U.S. naval bases and ships and blockade the U.S.-garrisoned Isle of Pines off Cuba, which surrenders on April 23. 13 April 1853: Confederate troops bombard the reinforced Fort Pickens in Florida, the one remaining Union fortification in the South. Seward, already shaken by the Confederacy's seizure of Belice, appeals for a force of fifty-five thousand militiamen to suppress the rebellion along the regular army of 10,000 men. The U.S. Civil War has begun. Volunteers rush to the colors in both the North and the South, forming scores of volunteer regiments. Some of these are short-lived, others, such as the Irish Brigade become famous for their heroism. Leading the red-shirted Italian Company of the immigrant Koskiuzo Legion is a young Italian-born revolutionary from Uruguay named Giuseppe Garibaldi. 17 April 1853: Commander-in-Chief Winfield Scott, re-commissioned after his presidential retirement, returns to lead the Union army, at least from a Washington armchair. Outlining his "Crocodile Plan" to smash the rebels, he postulates a way to split the Confederacy on a two-way offense. Union troops would seize control of the lower Mississippi by taking control of the key towns of Memphis and Vicksburg, and then proceed to New Orleans, which would be attacked from the south by a naval force. Two salients, on either side of the Appalachians would be formed by using the Unionist portions of eastern Tennessee as a fulcrum to cut the Confederacy in two, seizing the railheads of Chattanooga and Atlanta and press on to Montgomery. 30 April 1853: Californian ships enter Nagasaki harbor, opening up previously-closed Japan to European trade. May 1853: The new army of 65,000 men (55,000 militia and 10,000 regulars) is massed at several key points along the Union-Confederate border. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott holds Washington with the Army of the Potomac, a force of 10,000 men. Major-General Irving McDowell's 20,000-man Army of the Roanoke, at Danville, is poised to move southward along the Yadkin and Catawaba Rivers of the western Carolinas. Brigadier-General Don Carlos Buell of the Army of the Cumberland, comprising of 15,000 men, is at Paduca in Kentucky, while the Army of the Arkansas, a further 10,000 soldiers under Brigadier-General Benjamin Butler, is posted along the Union side of the Mississippi. The 10,000 soldiers of the Army of the Missouri remain in St. Louis under General Stephen Kearney. 10-14 May 1853: The Army of the Roanoke moves on the Confederacy but is defeated at Greensboro. The Army retreats westward in confusion to Unionist-held Asheville. Seward replaces McDowell, who dies of his wounds in battle, with Colonel Robert E. Lee, the Oregon War's "Hero of Montreal," promoted to Brevet Brigadier-General for his actions in battle. Congress authorizes the raising of 40,000 more soldiers to strengthen the Union in the field. 15-29 May 1853: William Walker's Nicaraguan government petitions for annexation, as does Frías's Cuba. The Confederate Congress accepts both as new links in the Golden Circle, leaving President Seward in a difficult position. A blockade is ordered by Seward to attempt to prevent any further aggrandizement by the Confederates in the Caribbean and an expeditionary force of 10,000 men under General George B. McClellan to wrest Cuba from the Confederates by a proposed landing at Santiago. Seward is in an extremely difficult position as the rebellious Confederacy, by taking the Island, now holds the key to the Caribbean. The Confederate Navy--composed of ships seized at the various naval stations in Belice and the Gulf--is smaller than the Union Navy, but the Confederates have newer vessels. The remaining Union ships are outdated and scattered around the world on courtesy missions. Lee moves eastward towards Charlotte. He clashes with Confederates under General Braxton Bragg at Spartanburg, Georgia, and, forcing them into a retreat southward, moves on Charlotte. Bragg heads towards Atlanta in retreat and is relieved of command by President Crittenden and replaced with General Albert Sidney Johnston, a former Texian Secretary of War who had resigned in protest over the abolition of slavery in the Republic. 31 May-15 June 1853: In the western theater, General Don Carlos Buell, leading the Army of the Ohio, takes control of the key border posts of Fort Henry and Fort Donalson on the Tennessee but is pushed back at the bloody Battle of Corinth by the Confederates under Major-General Narciso López of the Army of Mississippi, who had left P.G.T. Beauregard in command of New Orleans. General Butler has clashed with Confederates at Island, Tennessee, and Plum Run Bend, before moving southward towards his objective of Memphis, where he will meet up with reinforcements from Kearney in St. Louis, moving through the interior of Arkansas. June 1853: The U.S, blockade of the Atlantic Coast has begun, with limited results. Britain, disconcerted with the Confederacy's expansionist notions, has remained aloof. The French under Napoleon III are discretely--as discretely as the Emperor can be--conducting relations with the fledgling Confederacy by smuggling arms via Martinique and Guadaloupe. With a crisis brewing in the Near East, Britain is too distracted to complain. The flotilla carrying McClellan's Expeditionary Force is repulsed off the Cuban coast and forced to return northward. 13-14 June 1853: The French and British fleets reach the Dardanelles. Soon afterward, under pressure from Stratford Canning, the Turks accept a compromise statement, nicknamed, perhaps somewhat unfortunately, the Turkish Ultimatum and is sent to the Conference of Ambassadors in Vienna for transmission to St. Petersburg. The Ambassadors reject the ultimatum in favor of another proposal, the Vienna Note, which the Czar accepts on 5 August 1853, thus supposedly ending the crisis until the Grand Vizier rejects it in an unamended form. 3 July 1853: Fall of Charlotte, a rail junction, to Lee. Johnston retreats beyond the Yadkin River. Lee divides his force in two, sending forces towards Columbia and Savannah, placed under the command of Thomas J. Jackson, a fellow Virginian, and subordinate Joseph Hooker. 17 July 1853: Don Carlos Buell takes Nashville. 12 August 1853: Lee clashes with Johnston outside of Rome, Georgia. Johnston's evasive tactics result in a stalemate. September 1853: Establishment of the (rather small) U.S. Military Railroad (USMRR) and the Army Telegraph and Signal Corps. Friderich Engels presents himself as a "volunteer in the struggle for liberty" and joins the Koskiuzo Legion. His skill as an artillerist is recognized and he is transferred as an advisor to the Army Corps of Engineers. He is commissioned as a Captain. Under his impetus, the Army Corps of Analytical Engineers, a small statistical unit based around the engines of the Naval Observatory, is founded and provides logistical data for the armed forces. Engels also suggests the implementation of Babbage's occulting signal lights in the Army Signal Corps, a system already beginning to be used by American lighthouses and also in the Russian army. 3 September 1853: Fall of Atlanta to Lee, who receives his fourth brevet promotion in his career, gaining the rank of Major-General. Passage of the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the printing of $100 million in "bluebacks," or paper money, as well as the sale of $300 million in war bonds. "Bluebacks" are to be considered legal tender. 17-29 September 1853: Fall of Columbia to General Jackson and General Hooker. Johnston retreats towards Millegeville. John Bell Hood, another expatriate Texian, is dispatched to defend Chattanooga, now in between the vice of Lee in Atlanta and Buell, who has just seized Murfreesboro in Tennessee. 31 September-17 October 1853: McClellan is reassigned to take control of key coastal enclaves near Charleston. He establishes a bridgehead at Battery Wagner on the South Carolina coast, but remains dug in and takes little action. Other forces seize control of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, taking New Bern and the mouth of the Roanoke. 4-8 October 1853: The Turks order the occupation of the Principalities to cease, while Canning orders the fleet at Besika is ordered to Constantinople. Russia takes no action. 16 October 1853: Union General Benjamin Butler and the Army of the Mississippi take the city of Memphis, Tennessee, and continue downriver. 23 October 1853: Turkish troops cross the Danube, setting off the Crimean War. At the battle of Sinope in November, Russia's wooden vessels--armed with shell-guns--cut the Turkish wooden warships--only holding iron shot--to pieces, proving Ericsson's contention that wooden ships were powerless to resist shell guns. Most naval authorities note this with interest. 30 October 1853: A second proposal to seize New Orleans is put on the table. Admiral David Farragut with attempt to cut off Cuba from the Confederacy rather than taking it by an amphibious force. November 1853: Dupuy du Lome, Napoleon III's naval advisor, begins to experiment with ironclad batteries in response to the battle of Sinope, while Ericsson is commissioned to design a "shot- and shell-proof man of war" which might be able to be used in the Gulf, where it in all likelihood will have to face the captured Princeton, now renamed the C.S.S. Alabama and undergoing iron-plating under the supervision of the progressive Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory. 12-14 November 1853: Battle of Chattanooga between John Bell Hood leading the Confederates and Lee and Buell, leading the Union forces. Chattanooga falls to the Union. December 1853: At Hampton Roads, Ericsson oversees the beginning of the construction of the U.S.S. Monitor. The warship is entirely of iron, low to the water, a rotating hemisphere set in the center of the deck, mounted with an steam-powered cannon. Ericsson's theoretical plans for "hydrostatic javelins" are postponed for the time being. Seward establishes military governors in Union-held Tennessee and North Carolina, issuing a "Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction," by which former Confederates might receive pardons--excepting certain high-ranking officials--in exchange for swearing an oath to "the Constitution of the United States and the union of the States thereunder." When in any state one-tenth of the number who had voted in 1852 took this own, they might establish a government without slavery, which would be recognized as the true government of the state--the Ten Per-Cent Plan. 1854 24 January 1853: Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria grants government funds to the Ömasch for the construction of an Engine to be used in military research. In Franz-Josef's government, the primary supporter of the use of engines is Baron Alexander Bach (1813-1893), former minister of Justice and current minister of the Interior. 1 February 1854: The Unionist counties of west North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are admitted to the Union as the state of Franklin. Later, several north Georgia counties are admitted. 6 February 1854: Russia breaks off relations with France and Britain in the wake of Anglo-French protests demanding that the Russian fleet return to Sebastopol or face the combined fleets. 15 February 1854: In St. Louis, following Ericcson's lead, inventor Thomas Eads is overseeing the construction of a river monitor fleet. Eads, an army engineer, also noticing the deaths to artillerymen by sharpshooters, suggests putting armored shields on cannon. His idea is taken up enthusiastically. 21 February 1854: Taking of Charleston from the landward side by Jackson; unfortunately, in battle, Jackson, the "Rock of Columbia," is killed. Hooker proceeds southward to Savannah. 22 February 1854: An Anglo-French ultimatum to Russia demands the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Danubian Principalities. 3 March 1854: France and Britain declare war on Russia. 12 March 1854: Egypt dispatches her fleet to the Aegean as a protest against the Anglo-French declaration of war. Rumors of an impending invasion of Crete are heard in Cairo and Beirut. 8 April 1854: Fall of Savannah to General Hooker. 21 April 1854: Butler takes Vicksburg shortly thereafter, clashing with the retreating López. A Union flotilla accompanies them downriver towards New Orleans. 30 April 1854: Babbage's workshops in Dorset Street present the new "Engine-Assisted Printing Press," obviating the need for typesetting by printing via stippled dots, which lowers the price for cheaply-printed, mass-produced flyers, prints, playbills and newspapers, though for books and expensive printing jobs, type-set steam presses remain the norm in the future. May 1854: Farragut is defeated off the coast of Cuba and forced to turn back, regrouping in Savannah harbor. 24 May 1854: In Mexico, Conservatives and moderados overthrow Santa Anna, citing his disastrous handling of the treasury and his cession of almost half the nation to British puppet states [3]. Conservatives have been increasingly waving the flag of Mexican nationalism in the wake of the humiliation of the First Deseret War, claiming that the only way to save Mexico is to return to the traditional institutions of monarchy and church. Conservative General Felix Zuloga is made president. For the time, the Liberals are discredited by their connection with Britain. 3 May 1854: Canning demands that the Egyptian fleet return to Alexandria or risk a declaration of war. 12 May 1854: Lauching of the Monitor at Hampton Roads, shortly after which it is dispatched to the Gulf to reinforce Farragut's flotilla. 1 June 1854: Death of Mehmet Ali in Cairo at the age of 85. He had not, unlike the bey of Tunis, offered to aid his overlord the Porte against the Russians. During the various frustrated attempts to draw up a compromise over the Holy Places, there had been rumors of Russian overtures towards the Viceroy, perhaps hoping that Mehmet might pressure his master to accede to Russian demands, perhaps in revenge for Napoleon III's temporary rebuff. His death, however, forces the fleet to return home, no matter what his intentions had been. 2 June-12 July 1854: Mehmet Ali is succeeded by his grandson, the cruel Abbas, an anti-western figure whose position vis-à-vis the situation brewing in the Straits is a closed book. British and French agents meet in Cairo and approach Abbas in an attempt to forestall an attempt by Abbas to declare war on the Ottomans to prevent the cession of his father's possessions in the Hejaz and northern Syria. Fortunately or unfortunately for the envoys, Abbas is shortly murdered by one of his bodyguards and succeeded by his brother, Said. Said is western-educated and slightly cruel but nonetheless very Francophone, and is very happy to listen to their arguments. He is also willing to drive a hard bargan. July 1854: Seizure by the U.S. Navy of the Confederacy's territories in the Lesser Antilles. St. Lucia, Trinidad and St. Vincent are returned to the Union and placed under military governorship. July-September 1854: Siege of New Orleans. 10 July 1854: Admiral David Farragut defeats Confederate ships off Cuba in the Battle of the Tortugas and proceeds towards New Orleans, breaking the Confederate hold on the Gulf. 14 July 1854: Signing of the Treaty of Alexandria, by Said, the French and British envoys and a representative of the Sultan, ceding to Egypt the island of Cyprus and the port of Suakin on the Red Sea in exchange for northern Syria and the Hejaz [4]. 31 August 1854: Gun-battle between the refitted ironclad Alabama and Farragut's flotilla off New Orleans leaves two warships destroyed. Farragut is forced to disperse and regroup off the Texas coast. Butler is left to take New Orleans alone. September 1854: Under the suggestion of Captain Thaddeus Lowe, Seward establishes the Union Balloon Corps with Lowe as a Brevet Colonel in charge of the unit. It proves to be very useful in providing information and reconnaissance during the war. Lowe experiments with, among other things, aerial photography. 12 September 1854: The Monitor arrives in the Gulf, allowing Farragutt to renew his bombardment of New Orleans. The Alabama slips out past New Orleans in late September and engages in an indecisive battle with the Monitor. 31 September 1854: New Orleans falls when Narciso López surrenders his sword to General Butler. November 1854: President Seward, swelled by the fall of New Orleans, issues two proclamations: He issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in territory still rebellious to the Union. Seward also offers, in the Cuban Assistance Declaration, "whatever armaments and weaponry, treasury funds and advisors to assist in lawmaking and administration that are deemed necessary to the survival of a free Cuban government, if and when one is formed," hoping to spark an antislavery Cuban resistance. Seward does not want Cuba to return to Spain and hopes that this offer may allow for the formation of a free-soil Cuban Republic. Some Democrats and Constitutional Unionists, opposed to expanding the war any further, grumble, belittling it as the "Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, and Get Us Out of This" Proclamation. Shortly thereafter, slave revolts break out; Cuba and Santo Domingo--western Haïti--fall to a Spanish intervention--actually invited by the residents of Santo Domingo--dashing Seward's hopes for an independent Cuba. 13 November 1854: The National Banking Act sets out the parameters on how local banks could dispense "bluebacks," already being used by the Bank of the United States authorized by the Fiscal Agent Act in 1842. 21-30 November 1854: John Bell Hood, in retreat, stands off against Buell at Decatur, in northern Alabama. Union forces have separated once again for an attack on Montgomery, with Buell leading an assault from the west and Lee from the east. December 1854: Rebellions in Confederate Guatemala and Nicaragua are put down with great force. In the wake of the gun battle between the C.S.S. Alabama and the U.S.S. Monitor, Britain cancels the construction of wooden warships and orders new iron ships for the Royal Navy. 21-30 December 1854: Readmission of Tennessee and North Carolina under Seward's Ten Per-Cent Plan. The Yucatán Caste War ends in a defeat of the Mayan rebels. 1855 18 February 1855: Johnston fights Lee to a draw at Macon, then withdrawing to Columbus, Georgia. 12 March 1855: Buell reaches Meridian, Mississippi, a rail crossroads leading straight to Montgomery. 19 March 1855: Lee unseats Johnston at Columbus. Farragut's flotilla has seized control of Pensacola and Mobile, while another small force has taken St. Marks in Florida and proceeded to Tallahassee, where they seize control of the capital. 1 May 1855: Montgomery, encircled by Buell's and Lee's armies, falls to the Union. Riots break out across the city as Union troops approach, and a fire breaks out, in which Vice-President Toombs perishes. President John J. Crittenden is found sitting calmly at his desk in the Capitol Building, where he is arrested by General Lee. One of the casualties in the battle is Union Brevet Brigadier General Giuseppe Garibaldi, formerly of the Koskiuzo Legion, and now in charge of a Brigade. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis flees for the coast and is smuggled aboard a blockade-runner bound for Havana. June-August 1855: Reconstruction of the former Confederate States begins under President Seward. Seward, with the border states to consider in next year's election, advocates a moderate program of reconstruction. The passage of the XIII Amendment, abolishing slavery, reins in the embryonic Radical faction of the Whigs for the time being, despite being castigated for being too weak by pocket-vetoing the Davis Bill, a Radical Reconstruction plan and continuing with the Ten Per-Cent Plan, which is criticized by his own vice-president, Charles Sumner. During this year, Mississippi is readmitted to the Union. Seward has managed to draw away, with his eloquence, the moderate Whigs from the small Radical faction, winning them over to leniency. 2 June 1855: William Walker, Confederate Governor of Nicaragua, declares his state independent and names himself president of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as claiming Belice, which he is able to quickly occupy. Francisco Morazán, the former Liberal leader of the Guatemalan "coffee republic" and also a collaborator with the Guatemalan Confederate regime welcomes Walker's rule in the hopes of stabilizing his crumbling government. The remnants of the Confederate fleet, not captured by the Union or lost in the Spanish invasion of Cuba, crawl back to the ports of Central America. Over the next few years, some Confederate refugees travel south to Walker's Nicaragua, while the majority of exiles flee to Brazil--and Brazil welcomes them with open arms, offering land at extremely cheap rates and special long-term loans. July-October 1855: Walker establishes the "United Provinces of Central America" (of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belice) with himself as President and makes moves to conquer Honduras and El Salvador. Seward orders the return of Belice and all Confederate ships (being captured Union property) from "Central America" and blockades the new nation. Walker's attempts to seize Honduras and El Salvador fail and he is forced to retreat to Nicaragua. Meanwhile, Rafael Carrera, backed by Spain, leaves Cuba on a filibustering expedition and lands in Guatemala. Morazán, now reduced to being Walker's lieutenant in Guatemala, unpopular after his collaboration with the Confederates, is overthrown in a conservative coup and the resurgent Carrera is made President-for-Life. Jefferson Davis leaves Havana and disembarks in Dutch Guiana, where he attempts to pick up the pieces of his life, writing his memoirs. He later moves to Mexico in 1868. December 1855: Seward begins negotiations with Walker for the return of Belice, as well as sending out a proposal to Rafael Carrera to aid him in exchange for Belice. Seward is rebuffed by both, Carrera being on the whole lukewarm to American expansion after his abandonment by the United States in the wake of Morazán's filibuster victory. Britain offers £15,000,000 for Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexican President Zuloga, who is incensed by the suggestion. British representatives return to San Francisco rebuffed. Britain extends support to the moderados in the hope that compromise might bring a degree of peace to Mexico. The violent secession of Campeche from the Yucatán Republic sets off the Yucatán Civil War. Britain offers £15,000,000 for Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexican President Zuloga, who is incensed by the suggestion. British representatives return to San Francisco rebuffed. Britain extends support to the moderados in the hope that compromise might bring a degree of peace to Mexico. In Mexico, Britain has three objectives as of 1855: First, stabilize the government to prevent border violence threatening California, Deseret and Texas. Britain initially supported the Liberals because they were in power, and then tried to come to détente with the Conservatives, who refused, but now they try to approach the moderados. Secondly, open up new markets and areas for investment--what few investors Mexico has, she is fast losing due to endemic violence. Third, gain access to natural resources. The annexation of Sonora proposed to Zuloga, thus, was an attempt to secure a buffer for California--and also to gain access to the state's mineral wealth. The violent secession of Campeche from the Yucatán Republic sets off the Yucatán Civil War. Lieutenant-Commander John Charles Frémont, R.N., is discharged honorably from Crown service after being wounded in the knee. He heads once again to California where he is given the post of British Consul in Sacramento. NOTES [1]. Most of Babbage's suggestions are based on his own ideas. He had, in OTL, been proposed for the head of the commission, but had been turned down, and turned down the Privy Councillorship on the grounds it was not a reward for his Engine-work. The suggestion of steam busses is my own, though such vehicles were in use on English roads at the time according to The New York Public Library Book of Chronologies. [2]. The Brunel Bridge, still being used today and famed for its distinctive quasi-Egyptian, plain stone pylons, is not to be confused with silver magnate Joshua Norton's pet project of a bridge over Goat Island, completed in 1897. [This will make sense--well, almost--if you read Part 7.] [3]. One officer siding with the moderado-Conservative coalition is a minor but distinguished officer of the Mexican army by the name of Porfirio Díaz. [THIS IS IMPORTANT!] [4]. Said's role in ATL Egyptian history is somewhat different from our own. In OTL, he played the role of a Porfirio Díaz, deeding his nation over to foreign speculators, primarily due to the back-breaking loans he took out on the construction of the Suez Canal. With Mehmet Ali's reign prolonged by five years, Said has become more influenced by his ideas, being less willing to enact western-style reforms which would destroy Mehmet's commercial and industrialization experiments, or, for that matter, capitulate to the tariff. At the same time, he is nonetheless willing to allow the passage of British troops across the Suez to reach India in order to quell the 1858. The canal is not constructed during his reign in this ATL because the Viceroy met first Ferdinand de Lesseps in Paris in 1854 during his exile by Abbas, which did not occur in this ATL due to Mehmet Ali's longer reign. Without de Lesseps to convince him to build the canal, it does not happen. Furthermore, his halfway attitude in this ATL towards European-favoring reforms, the Powers are not as interested in investing in Egypt. So, what do you think? *Please* comment. Thank you. To be continued in the seventh iteration, humbly entitled "Marching Through Nicaragua." Alderman Subject: [EOH] 7: Marching through Nicaragua Date: 20 Jul 2001 16:25:46 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if ENGINES OF HISTORY: THE EPOCH OF INFORMATION Seventh Iteration: 1856-1860 Marching through Nicaragua Ein geographisches Begriff. --Klemens von Metternich, 1849, describing Italy [strangely relevant here, actually.] 1856 U.S. Election of 1856 WILLIAM SEWARD (P)/MONTGOMERY BLAIR (VP) (WHIG) 30 March 1856: The Crimean War comes to an official end with a Franco-British victory over the Russians solemnized by the Treaty of Paris. The treaty guarantees the Ottoman empire's independence and territorial integrity, the neutralization of the Black Sea, the opening of the Danube to the ships of all nations and the formation of an international commission to regulate its navigation, the restoration of Sebastopol to Russia and Kars to the Turks, the cession of southern Bessarabia to Moldavia, the guarantee of the liberties of the autonomous Ottoman principalities of Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as the renunciation of Russian protection over the Danubian principalities. 15 April 1856: Britain, France and Austria sign a treaty agreeing to regard any infringement of Ottoman independence or integrity as a causus belli. May 1856: With the assistance of his friends in the Royal Society, Babbage establishes the British Statistical Society, partially inspired by the International Statistical Society founded by the Belgian Quetelet in 1853. August 1856: Silver strike in the H.B.C.-administered Oregon Country by South African emigrant Joshua Norton [1]. Retired naval officer Frémont is also one of the early ones to stake a claim, gaining a great deal of wealth in the process. The resulting flood of immigration results in the organization of Britain's Pacific territories into the Crown Colonies of Oregon and New Hanover (the name being selected by Queen Victoria) [2]. Walker's expedition against Carrera fails, leaving him in an increasingly precarious position politically. Several slave rebellions are suppressed after much fighting. In need of a political victory, Walker turns towards the Yucatán, currently embroiled in the Yucatecan Civil War against the separatist state of Campeche. In exchange for assistance, the Yucatecans will reintroduce slavery and become a state within his new Central American nation. Seward, in the U.S., is outraged and orders that action be taken against Walker's filibustering, gaining the support of some of the Radicals to further his own expansionist ambitions. In view of the brewing conflict in the Caribbean between Walker's "Confederate colony" and the U.S., Seward runs for re-election, breaking the Whig tradition of one term. Seward, during the course of the war, has become increasingly pragmatic. Hoping to attract the support of the Border States, he drops Sumner as his vice-presidential candidate in exchange for former Cotton Whig Montgomery Blair. Seward is able to gain the unenthusiastic support of the Radical Whigs in the 1856 election with his imposition of a blockade on Walker's United Provinces of Central America and the sponsorship of the Civil Rights Act of 1856, despite the fact it falls far short of much of their demands. Seward's Reconstruction plan continues, with the reunification of Louisiana, and the readmission of Florida and the continued expansion of Whig internal improvements across the country, in particular the South. Seward faces off against opposition from the Democrats, who nominate Stephen Douglas for president and William R. King as his running-mate, and the Constitutional Union--now dominated by reconstructed southerners--who put forward Andrew Johnson as presidential nominee, with the nonentity Francis P. Blair as vice-presidential candidate. There are rumbles of the possibility of an emerging new party in the core of the radical Whigs, discontented by Seward's moderate reconstruction, splitting away to form the Radical Party, nominating Edwin Stanton for the presidency alongside Wendell Phillips, though their challenge remains comparatively weak. Seward’s war has brought an economic boom to Northern industry and caused an increase in farm prices, guaranteeing his hold on the Midwest, while the border states also are largely for Seward. Seward is able to retain his hold on the White House. A rebellion breaks out at Ayutla in Mexico led by British-backed moderados and Liberals; the most prominent being Ignacio Comonfort and mestizo landowner Juan Álvarez. Their goals are economically liberal in the eighteenth-century sense, including reforms aimed to lessen the power of the Church and break up ejidos to integrate the Indians into society and form a cohesive, European-style bourgeoisie. 1857 June 1857: To deal with what Seward has denounced as "Confederate piracy" in the Caribbean, several new ironclads, designed by Ericsson for activities in the Gulf, are launched at Hampton Roads. July 1857: Readmission of Alabama and Georgia to the Union. President Zuloga flees Mexico. Álvarez is made President, followed by Ignacio Comonfort, who hopes to achieve a compromise with the Conservatives. September 1857: Seward intervenes in Central America to displace "the Confederate brigands." Belice is quickly reoccupied under General Hooker, who is made military governor. Another flotilla lands in Nicaragua. Britain initially protests, claiming that U.S. troops have trespassed across the ill-defined southern border of the Mosquito Coast Protectorate, takes no action after talks in Kingstown with U.S. officials. Britain looks forward to seeing Walker taken down a peg. As Marines under Lee march towards Managua, escaped slaves begin to flock to the Union standard. Thaddeus Lowe, now a full Major, oversees the operations of the U.S. Army Balloon Corps during the Nicaragua War. Based on reports from the Crimean War, some experimentation is made with towing the armor-shielded guns using lightly-armored traction engines with footed wheels in addition to mules. 1858 March 1858: Launching of the H.M.S. Warrior, Britain's first seagoing ironclad. April 1858: A provisional military government under Benjamin Butler [3](branded "Don Bárbaro" by the inhabitants, and with good reason) is established at Granada on Lake Nicaragua. Walker's government at Managua flees to Léon, to the north. Butler forms a number of black regiments from the escaped slaves, confiscated as "contraband." Slave rebellions flare up across the nation. July 1858: Count Cavour, Prime Minister of Sardinia, is summoned to Napoleon III's retreat at Plombières and devise a plan to draw Austria into a conflict with a Franco-Sardinian alliance. Nice and Savoy would be ceded to France in exchange for the Austrian provinces of Lombardy and Venice. La Reforma is begun with the Ley Juárez, passed by Comonfort's Minister of Justice Benito Juárez, which abolishes the special jurisdiction of the military and ecclesiastical courts. This is followed by the Ley Lerdo, which breaks up the large church lands for sale to speculators. Britain sees to it that the Ley Lerdo gives the greatest benefit to foreign speculators buying the old dismembered church estates. Incensed by Britain's meddling in Mexican affairs and involvement in boorish border democracies such as Texas and Protestant theocracies such as Deseret, the Marquis de Radepont, an agent of the French Legation in Mexico City, resigns his post and leaves for Europe. August 1858: Rumors that the U.S. will take on the Yucatecans next are rife in Mérida. To prevent this outcome--after a brief discussion of proposing to request annexation to forestall military rule--the Yucatecan government declares independence from the Central American Union again and renounces slavery--the few slave-owners who had emigrated since 1856 are expelled. Unwilling to ask for aid from the U.S. after hearing of Don Bárbaro's rule in Granada, the Republic's officials recognize the independence of Campeche. September 1858: William Walker is overthrown in Léon by a junta, and throws himself on the mercy of the U.S. Marines [4]. Robert E. Lee, now a Major-General, who negotiates with the impoverished provisional Nicaraguan government the controversial (and rather irregular) Treaty of Granada. Conditions include: · Belice is returned to the United States. · The provisional Nicaraguan government will petition for entry into the Union as a state. · Slavery is abolished in Nicaragua. Some Whigs criticize the wording of the treaty, noting that slavery would have been forbidden automatically upon the acquisition of Nicaragua. Others are disconcerted by the idea of keeping the provisional government in power (which, though not in the treaty, was promised by Lee), but many members of this government are actually anti-Walker partisans. Seward gives support to the expansion policy in the hopes it might prevent any more "Confederate colonies" forming, and also would offset Spain's new regime in Cuba, which has, to the discomfort of many Americans, re-instituted slavery and pardoned--by the Declaration of Zanjón--many of the planters of the Frías government and a number of former Confederate officials--as well as refusing to return a number of captured Union vessels. The treaty, which is finalized by negotiations between civilian U.S. officials and the provisional government in the Nicaraguan capital as the Treaty of Managua, passes in May 1859 by one vote in the Senate. Nicaragua becomes a state of the Union on June 2, 1859. Britain is greatly disturbed by America's sudden flurry of annexation, particularly the seizure of Nicaragua, the often-discussed site for a trans-isthmian canal, an idea in increasing discussion in London in order to connect British Oregon and British-allied California with the Caribbean. She makes moves to solidify her alliances with Salvador and Costa Rica (as well as making overtures towards Rafael Carrera) against the U.S.'s new possessions. October 1858: Passage of the Homestead Act, parceling out the west between settlers and railroad corporations. 160 acres will be granted to settlers after 5 years of residence on the land. Passage also of the Negro Colonization Act, advocating voluntary colonization of freedmen in Liberia. As a result of the relative success of both Liberia and Freedonia, the idea of colonization is more popular among Black freedmen, though northern free Blacks remain somewhat skeptical, a good number, including Frederick Douglass vehemently denouncing the measure. Tensions between arriving Mormon settlers and the Nuevomexicano inhabitants of the Viceroyalty of Arizona leads the local Mormon elite to form a revival of the extralegal Sons of Dan society (under the occasional leadership of Orrin Porter Rockwell, the infamous "Destroying Angel") which engages in vigilantism and violence (whether this new organization had roots in a violent cadre of the same name formed by Smith in Nauvoo is somewhat questionable and may have more to do with anti-Mormon rhetoric than anything else). Brigham Young condemns their actions, but the Sons of Dan, who adopt increasingly complicated quasi-Masonic rituals as they grow in stature, make efforts to consolidate their political power. [5] President Seward establishes the National Detective Police, based in Washington. The now-wealthy Lt. Commander Sir John C. Frémont, R.N. (ret.) settles in London, where he is sought out as a lecturer on his exotic adventures. He has gained a knighthood as well for his services in the Navy and his activities in California. Frémont is at all the best parties--his way partially paved by his growing silver mine in New Hanover--including a number of Babbage's soirees, where he meets and marries a young wealthy socialite [can anyone think of a name for her?], which causes something of a scandal in Victorian-era London inasmuch he is still something of a rough-and-tumble nouveau-riche American social climber, despite his money and his British passport. He and the new Mrs. Frémont later move to Montreal, Canada, as a consequence. He later is elected to the Canadian Parliament. An enterprising entrepreneur reads an editorial by James Maxwell in the Times of London touting Babbage's steam carriages used in the 1851 Exhibition and imitated at the 1855 Paris Exhibition as a solution to the "unhygienic stench of equine refuse" polluting the streets of London. This, of course, being the year of the Great Stink, he takes the idea to heart and approaches Babbage and Maxwell about starting an intra-city steam autobus service. "Road locomotives," having been popular in the 1840s, had proven less efficient than water or rail, but in cities, the idea has potential. Babbage is able to smooth over difficulties with the railways by suggesting that they sponsor the construction of steam omnibuses, buy stock in the company or set up competing companies themselves. In fact, the Great Western Railway becomes the principal shareholder of the newly incorporated London Steam Transport Co. However, the influence of the railways prevents, for some time, the extension of service beyond metropolitan areas, where it would be impractical in the first place. Soon, steam transport companies are springing up in Manchester (1860), Glasgow (1861), Edinburgh (1863), Paris (1867), Vienna (1869) and even in New York and Chicago (1870), where the radial lines of busses going out to the suburbs foster urban expansion and renewal. Railroad companies not involved or shut out of the business set up rival city streetcar lines in the 1870s, resulting in a period of fierce competition between wheels and rails. The extravagant Viceroy Said has begun a program of limited western-style reforms, such as taking taxes in money rather than kind and also restoring limited property rights. He has established a number of state-run companies for the extensive construction of internal improvements and taken advantage of the U.S.'s abolition to promote the sale of Egyptian cotton and cotton goods produced in Egyptian factories, often directed by European advisors he has brought in. [6] 1859 26 April 1859: Outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War. Austrian troops under Ferencz, Count Gyulai enter Piedmont. Gyulai delays too long and the French arrive before he can defeat the Sardinians. He withdraws into Lombardy in June. May 1859: Egypt purchases its first Analytical Engine, constructed by Le Creusot, which is set up in Alexandria. 4 June 1859: The battle of Magenta sees the Austrians pushed back. The Franco-Sardinian force enters Milan in triumph four days later. Gyulai is relieved of command and Franz-Josef I appoints Archduke Albrecht, who had been slated to go to Berlin to seek Prussian aid, but had fallen ill and had now recovered [7]. 24 June 1859: The combined Franco-Sardinian army is defeated by the Austrians at Sulferino, and pinned against the shores of Lake Como, Napoleon III is forced to surrender to the Austrian Archduke Albrecht. 8 July 1859: Napoleon III, Victor Emmanuel II and Franz-Josef I conclude an armistice at Villafranca. 21 July 1859: Cavour resigns amid rioting in Turin. In Paris, a mob attempts to set fire to the Tuileries but fails. Paris threatens to boil over into chaos. 10 November 1859: The Treaty of Zürich ends the war, solidifying the agreement reached at Villafranca: · Austria will be ceded Nice and Savoy, which she will sell to France. · The Austrian-Sardinian border north of the Po will be redefined to the west as far as Aosta in Austria's favor. · Parma and Modena will be ceded the Sardinian coastline up to Genoa. 31 November 1859: Victor Emmanuel II abdicates in favor of his son, Umberto I, aged 15. Promulgation of the Constitution of 1859 in Mexico, which strengthens the central government and includes anticlerical legislation among its clauses. Comonfort attempts to work out a compromise, but instead, is forced to go into exile after civil war breaks out between the Conservatives and the Liberals. Juárez takes power in Mexico City and passes a series of drastic, largely anti-clerical measures, including the suppression of monastic orders, the confiscation of ecclesiastical properties not used exclusively for worship and the institution of civil marriage. British troops occupy Sonora "as a protective measure," though they do not intervene in the Mexican Civil War, simply hoping that in time, "Mexico will do something sensible" in the end. Britain's meddling in Sonora, as well as the subsequent recognition of Juárez's regime by Emperor Joseph of Deseret causes many to flock to the banner of the Conservatives, who are led by a resurgent Zuloga and the handsome General Miguel de Miramón. Emperor Joseph mediates his support, however, after Britain cautions him not to involve Deseret in Mexican internal affairs, not wishing to further tarnish Juárez's fading position. Britain does, however, strengthen her presence in California after the events in Mexico stir a Conservative revolt in San Diego. Major Thaddeus Lowe, commander of the U.S. Army Balloon Corps, makes the first transatlantic balloon crossing in the _Great Western_ (formerly _The City of New York_). In the Argentine states, the War of the Littoral League breaks out between Buenos Aires and Entre Ríos after Uruquiza attempts to pressure Buenos Aires into unto uniting with Entre Ríos under his leadership as the Argentine Federation. Uruquiza is defeated by Mitré at Cepeda. 1860 U.S. Election of 1856 ROBERT E. LEE (P)/ABRAHAM LINCOLN (VP) (WHIG) 10 January 1860: Napoleon III issues a decree increasing the powers of the French legislature, to quell the rioting. The secret police can no longer keep a lid on dissent, and Bourbon, Orleanist and republican pamphlets litter the streets. Rumors that the Emperor had planned to seize Rome spread among the Catholics, ending ecclesiastical support for Napoleon III. 30-31 January 1860: Napoleon III issues an amnesty for selected political prisoners, as well as inviting the head of the Liberal opposition in Parliament to form a responsible government. Under pressure from the left, he inaugurates a plan to establish a constitutional monarchy, "the Liberal Empire." Despite this, leftists denounce him as a dictator and the right fears that "the Red menace" is once again on the upsurge. 12 February 1860: Napoleon III abdicates in favor of his son, who is proclaimed Emperor Eugene I under a regency of his mother the Empress Eugenie. Émile Ollivier, head of the Liberal opposition, is appointed provisional Premier and calls for new elections. 28 February 1860: Napoleon III, Eugenie and Eugene flee the country. The Fourth Republic is declared with Ollivier as provisional president. February-June 1860: Leftist rioting paralyzes the capital and leaves hundreds dead. The serpentine street plan of Paris makes it impossible to flush the rebels out, and even by the end of June, some students are still holed up in the Left Bank. July 1860: Reconstruction is complete by the readmission of South Carolina to the Union. 31 July 1860: Henri, Comte de Chambord, revives his claims to the Bourbon French throne in a proclamation entitled _Pour la France_, declaring his willingness to compromise and touting his support of the tricolor in the hopes of conciliating the Orleanists. He begins to be nicknamed "the Legitimate King of the Revolution" (no matter how much the name sets his teeth on edge privately) as he strides around the debris-filled streets of Paris. August 1860: Unfavorable legislative elections force Ollivier to step as president. The French legislative chambers appoint moderate Orleanist Adolphe Thiers to replace him and call for elections to be held for a seven-year presidential term in September of 1861. September 1860: Signing of the Washburne-Bulwer Treaty, establishing that any trans-isthmian canals in Central America would be jointly owned and operated by the British and the U.S.; as well as defining the Nicaragua Territory's border with the Mosquitos. The joint canal proposition leads to a number of disputes between the two nations in the future. November 1860: Orelie-Antoine de Tounens, a former lawyer and French adventurer, has been living in the Araucania region inhabited by the Mapuche tribe and adapted himself to their ways, to the point of gaining their confidence such that they declare him king. A visiting Patagonian cacique brokers an arrangement by which he might protect the tribes of Patagonia, and Orelie-Antoine is declared King Orlie-Antoine I (sic) of Araucania and Patagonia. Publishing his degrees in a Chilean newspaper, he elicits no response from the Chilean authorities. Horace Greeley's The New York Tribune and The New York Herald switch to engine-operated printing machinery using the "stippling process" to print both the body of the paper and cheap, garishly-colored supplements. When the Spanish consul at New York writes a letter to Greeley's rival The New York Herald threatening charges of slander in reference to the Tribune's war-mongering attitude towards the Spanish administration in Cuba (including references to horrible mistreatments of slaves, a bizarre "Hispano-Confederate" Conspiracy to seize the Caribbean and Mexico, etc.), calling it "black journalism" in reference to la leyenda negra, Greeley counters in a widely-quoted (and probably apocryphal) remark, "A slave-driving foreigner who muzzles his press would not understand my business. It's the greatest thing in America, gentlemen--not black journalism, but red-white-and-blue journalism! Look, you can see the colors right here!" [8] In Mexico, the Civil War grows worse. The British aloofness leads to increased discontent on the part of the Liberals, who, now saddled with the image of being backed by foreign interlopers, have no actual support from them. British silver is seized by both groups, but Britain's patience with the Liberals is completely lost after the theft of $1,000,000 worth of silver held by British bondholders in the British Legation. Samuel F.B. Morse, upon observing one of the first engine-assisted presses in 1857, has begun experimenting on a new process to send simple images, similarly broken down into dots and dashes, through telegraph wires. The result is unveiled this year, the telediagraph, which is demonstrated in Washington sending images through an eight-mile circuit of telegraph wire [7]. Invention of the pneumatic tire for use on intra-city London steam buses in Babbage's Dorset Street Workshop, based on an 1840 idea by Robert William Thompson, and of course, Babbage's rubber-quieted railway from 1851. It becomes widely used by steam transport companies. The election of 1860 is nicknamed by wags "the Army-Navy Boxing Tournament" as the Constitutional Union puts southern sailor David G. Farragut up for the candidacy alongside Stephen Douglas, while Robert E. Lee runs as a centrist Whig with semi-radical westerner Abraham Lincoln to balance the ticket against the still-small Radical Party. Farragut's candidacy is endorsed by the crumbling Democratic Party. Lee wins, as the Whigs trumpet his triumph in Nicaragua while reminding the public of Farragut's disastrous battle with the C.S.S. Alabama, though Farragut picks up much of the remnants of the Democratic vote after being endorsed by that crumbling party. The 1860 election marks the end of the Democrats as a force in U.S. politics. Paradoxically, the Radical Party has both grown and decreased over Seward's actions in the Caribbean--some members have returned to the Whigs, pleased over his action in stamping out slavery, while others, offended by the clemency offered to the Nicaraguan government, have joined it. The Radicals nominate Edwin Stanton a second time, with Joseph Hooker as vice-presidential nominee. Hooker had been aiming for the presidential or vice-presidential nomination in 1860 on the Whig ticket, only to be greatly disappointed, and had consoled himself by politicking with the Radicals, who became attracted by his bombastic oratory and military bluster. The Radicals' main issue, fueled partially by Greeley's editorials about Spain's plans for her colonies, concerns Cuba. However, the issue is only a fledgling one, and much of the Radicals' constituency is swayed by the appearance of Lincoln on the ticket, though there is some grumbling that he has sold out to the Whigs. NOTES [1]. "Emperor" Joshua Norton (1819-1880) went mad in 1859 of our own timeline after losing $40,000 in real estate and proceeded to issue proclamations declaring himself Emperor of the United States [Doh!]. Without this trauma and having struck silver, in this timeline, he developed into a charmingly eccentric millionaire in his old age, writing a book entitled _The World of the Future_, outlining a tolerant community of states under the arbitration of a League of Nations. He also funded a number of World Bible Conferences in Vancouver City in 1872, 1875 and 1883 and gave vast sums of money to worthy causes. His wealth and beneficence earned him the nickname of "Emperor" in this analog as well as in our timeline. [2]. The Crown Colony of Oregon is equivalent to our timeline's Oregon State, while New Hanover (an analog of British Columbia) includes our timeline's Washington State, though the less urgent need to avoid American aggression results in the new colony only reaching as far north as 54 degrees 40'. [3]. A chamber-pot later became popular in [ATL] Nicaragua with his image in the bottom. [4]. The U.S. Marines in the OTL mid-1800s were not particularly impressive, though I imagine the naval-oriented United States of this analog will be inclined to strengthen their numbers more so than in our timeline. [5]. Both in our timeline and in this analog, it is unclear exactly what the relation of the Sons of Dan or Danites was to the Mormon Church. Brigham Young denied their existence to Horace Greeley and others claim it was an anti-Mormon hoax. The most reliable sources report they were founded in 1838 by Dr. Samson Avard in Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith discovered their existence and had them immediately dissolved after excommunicating Avard. If this is true, which I am inclined to believe, the Sons of Dan founded here was an entirely new organization, spawned of the paranoia and generally unpleasant situation in Arizona that seems ripe for vigilanteism. Considering that Emperor Joseph is now farther away in Great Salt Lake City and also after surviving his 1844 attack, he probably would have been quite happy to turn a blind eye to their activities, and if he did not, the British mining corporations that they later kept order for like the Rurales in Porfiriato Mexico (both in ATL and OTL) would pressure him to do so. The resurrected Sons of Dan soon spread its influence from within Arizona to having a network of associates all over the Empire, including in Deseret proper. It eventually took on a life of its own, seeing itself as apolitical and the restorer of unity amid the chaos of the 1870s. [6]. Greeley had increased his fame during the U.S. Civil War reporting the wildly-exaggerated exploits of one Colonel Giuseppe Mazzini, Garibaldi's aide-de-camp, who, upon being asked about the veracity of these stories, had replied in irritation that Greeley was a "gonzo," or a drunk, producing a more critical sobriquet for Greeley's reckless "red-white-blue" journalism, [ATL] today's "gonzo journalism." [7]. Obviously another point of divergence-cum-butterfly. [8]. Such an idea was conceived in OTL 1895, and demonstrated with success in OTL 1898, though there is nothing in the workings of the OTL telediagraph that would have prevented its invention forty or so years earlier (See C.E. Cook, "Pictures by Telegraph" in Pearson's Magazine, April 1900). Tune in Next Week for Episode 8, The Eighth Iteration, "The Love Song of Benito P. Juarez," in which we hear of... The continuing adventurs of GENERAL JOSÉ DE LA CRUZ PORFIRIO DÍAZ... The GONZO JOURNALISM of HORACE GREELEY... DESERET'S brutal SUBJUGATION of the valiant defenders of SAN XAVIER DEL BAC... PRESIDENT LEE'S first term in office... THE VIRGIN ISLANDS PURCHASE OF 1867... ...and Engels' and Sylvis' National Labor Union... and in future installments, details on... King Salvador I Iturbide of Ecuador... The Reed/Marti "White Rose" Party ticket during the election of 1888 The Greeley/Custer Ticket of 1872... ...and a few thoughts on Egyptian nationalism... *Please* comment, nitpick, gripe, ecstatically praise, make strange animal noises at the computer, whatever. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Alderman Subject: [EOH] Retractions Date: 30 Jul 2001 06:54:05 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if I am currently engaged in beginning to revise EOH's alternate ACW, which I realize now needs some major overhauls, beginning with removing Albert Sidney Johnston, who's likely to remain in Texas. In the Fourth Iteration of EOH, I mentioned Texas instituting graduated manumission in exchange for a favorable treaty settlement brokered by Britain with Mexico. This was a very weak point in the TL to begin with (I am quite surprised nobody raised cain over it), and so I have chosen to remove it. Britain now helps negotiate the treaty because they are, in the wake of the Oregon War, more involved in the west, wish to stabilize Texas as a buffer state to the U.S. Thus, no abolition. Texas, however, graviatates closer to Britain due to British financing of various projects, particularly due to the Tripartite Treaty recognizing her independence and because Henry Clay and Winfield Scott have no desire to annex Texas and push her away. British monetary influence in Texas, even if there isn't a chance of abolitinizing the place, is enough to worry the Young Americans and the Knights of the Golden Circle (which is founded by American southerners rather than displaced Texians). Because of this, Texas annexation remains more of a viable issue, but before Buchanan can propose it in the 1848 Election, Cuba manages to wrest its independence from Spain under Frias and Lopez, and thus it becomes a more pleasing apple for the Young Americans to pick. Furthermore, I imagine that the Tripartite Treaty would forbid annexation rather definitively. Or should Texas propose annexation in 1849 or so under Buchanan, then have it fail in the US Congress (it passed only by 1 vote IOTL)? I have also chosen to remove the Reciprocal Trade Agreements I had Pres. Scott negotiating with Canada and Texas because of Whig protectionist tendencies. These are moved forward to 1849 under President Buchanan. I think this is plausible. Despite southern Anglophobia in the 1850s--the old let's save Cuba before the Brits take it over--President Pierce, a southern-influenced "doughface," negotiated a similar treaty with Canada. Does this make sense? Is it in keeping with this ATL's southern-influenced Young America? The Republic of Freedonia shall have to wait until the 1880s, when I imagine Texas will finally be ready to abolish slavery. Or not. Any thoughts? I know little of Texian internal politics, but I do know a bit about the Tripartite Treaty and this all seems plausible to me. M.G. Alderman Subject: [EOH] Interlude: Steam on the Highway, 1833-1880 Date: 30 Jul 2001 08:59:29 -0700 From: m_s_alderman@email.msn.com (Alderman) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Further research into steam transport prompted by Kenney's advice concerning the work of inventors Gurney, Hancock and Maccerone has led me to posit another ripple of Babbage's inventions. Considering Babbage has his Difference Engine completed in 1833, he has some free time on his hands to devote to other projects before moving on to the Analytical Engine. Not one to rest on his laurels, in EOH, he decides to look into Mr. Walter Hancock's steam carriages then at the height of their short-lived popularity in suburban London. And then, history is made. I shall be posting a set of "Corrections" which transforms the salient points of this excerpt into timeline form. But until then... Excerpted from Richard Pennycuick, _Dudgeon's Steamers: A History_. Preface. Holt, Reinhardt and Co., Boston: 1988. The owners of the all-numerous steamers and electrics that roar through today's streets owe a substantial debt of gratitude to the genius of Richard Trevithick. On Christmas Eve, 1801, this young Cornish mining engineer tested a passenger vehicle he had constructed for road transport. Much to his satisfaction, the machine performed well, perhaps too well--as three evenings later, Trevithick and his cronies forgot to refill the boiler while drinking their success in a nearby tavern. The vehicle's boiler ran dry and promptly, the steam carriage burst into flames. By 1803, Trevithick had weathered this setback and had constructed a new steamcoach for testing, making a run from Holborn to Paddington. However, the uneven roads of the era proved too difficult for the carriage to negotiate, and so Trevithick turned his mind towards steam locomotives, constructing a steam engine at Pen-y-darran, Wales, to make a ten-mile haul from the ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil to a nearby canal-head. ...A commercial railway was constructed by John Bleckinsop near Leads around 1812 and William Hedley's Puffing Billy of the following year created a sizable stir...[Info on Trevithick is intended as background. It is not part of the PoD]. ...The implementation of the Macadamized System on roadways in Britain and the United States, as well as the triumph of rail and steam, led several other British inventors to reconsider steam road carriages. ...A fellow Cornishman, Goldsworthy Gurney, began working on his in 1823, producing an eighteen-seat steam stagecoach in 1827 that ran in suburban London for about two years until mechanical failures, Luddite agitation and resistance from toll companies forced him to sell out the Gurney Steam Carriage Co. to Sir Charles Dance, who ran a Glouster-Cheltenham line with the carriages, though protests from local innkeepers and the stagecoach lines forced him to close up shop soon thereafter. …Walter Hancock, however, proved to be more successful. His first coach, a three-wheeled vehicle, debuted in 1829, and was followed up with a popular four-wheel model in February, 1831, when he opened the first regularly-scheduled steam bus service. The Infant could make 15 mph on its run from Essex to the capital with all fourteen seats filled. In March of that year, the engineer Charles Babbage, then entangled in the Reform Bill politics that had engulfed England for more than a year, observed the bus on its run and was deeply impressed by what he saw. [I do not know if he did IOTL, but it seems entirely plausible. Given Babbage's life has now been completely butterflied into divergence by his wife living a few years longer, I think he could easily be in the right place at the right time]. With his Difference Engine completed in 1833, the following year he turned his mind to Hancock's work, presenting a paper _On The Workings of Mr. Hancock’s Steam-Carriages_ to the newly-reformed Royal Society on 13 March. Distracted by his growing involvement in promoting his next project, the Analytical Engine, he did not return to the subject of steam carriages until late in 1836, when he met again with Hancock. The inventor had begun the maintenance of an ambitious passenger service with three coaches, the _Autopsy_, _Erin_ and _Automaton_, around the suburbs of London. Babbage, who had close links with his nation's fledgling railroad business and was to play a major role in the "Battle of the Gauges," had heard grumbling amongst the shareholders of the Great Western Railway concerning the construction of uneconomical branch lines, particularly with a large dispute brewing over the size of the track gauges used. ...Babbage, using the charm for which he had become famous for at his soirees, helped convince them to fund Hancock's invention, which might serve as a more practical alternative to the branch lines. With 13,000 passengers served, Hancock's triumph suitably impressed Babbage and the other G.W.R. shareholders to help finance the financially-shaky inventor, the London and Paddington Steam Carriage Company metamorphosing into the Great Western Steam Transport Company. Backed by their money, Hancock's continued improvements on his steam carriages--partially aided by the machine-tools that had been created by Babbage's workshop for the construction of the Difference Engine and the monumental Analytical Engine finally completed in 1847--allowed him to construct the Autonomous in 1841, though he faced further pressure from horse carriage owners and the toll road business. There were other difficulties--the novelty of the carriages had also worn off somewhat by the late 1830s... Nonetheless, improvements in construction managed to quiet the complaints concerning poorly-sprung coaches by the mid-1840s, and a further coup for Hancock came in 1843 when pressure from the railroads were able to pressure Parliament to pass the Road Toll Act, banning the high, biased tolls that had impeded much of his progress. Babbage's partnership with James Clerk Maxwell that had begun with _The Social Dynamics of Economy_ in 1852 led to Maxwell's thermodynamics equations in the next decade. Maxwell's research would have serious ramifications on the road and in the air. The equations, published in _Steam and Thermodynamics_ in 1873, led to substantial strides in steam engine development, boosted by Lenoir's researches in France. Lenoir, originally a supporter of internal combustion, turned to steam to produce the stage-in-series turbine in 1869, paving the way for de Laval's impulse turbine in 1875. Primitive steam turbines would help Ferdinand von Zeppelin's luftschiffe ascend on Lake Konstanz in 1877 [1] and Thaddeus Lowe's Planet Airship take to the skies of New England in 1880. Hancock's innovation was copied by other entrepreneurs in England and on the continent, though until the 1850s, the steam carriage remained a primarily rural and suburban phenomenon. This changed, once again due to Babbage's intervention. By 1851, Babbage was a widely respected scientist, a privy councilor to Prince Albert and head of that year's Great Exhibition Industrial Commission. Babbage had designed a light railway, quieted by rubber wheel inserts to transport visitors from building to building. He was also instrumental in getting the Exhibition authorities to use Hancock steamcoaches to shuttle dignitaries from their residences to the Exhibition grounds, the ride smoothed slightly by the solid rubber tyres invented in 1845. With ten years of design to improve their workings since they had last come in contact with them, the Londoners were quite taken with the carriages. During the Great Stink of 1858, a scathing article by Babbage in _The Times_ denounced the continuing pileup of equine ordure in the streets, suggesting steam busses as an alternative to horse busses and cabs. The Great Western Railway, eager to expand its grasp and stirred by the possibility of mechanized city transport in the wake of the ground-breaking for the London Underground in 1854, introduced a London steambus run in 1860, causing a great deal of unrest among cab owners. The horse transport lobby attempted to force the London Red Flag Act through Parliament, which would have all-but-forbidden mechanical transport from the London area, but the railways had greater influence and were able to crush the bill. Horse transport companies soon began a slow mechanization to compete with the London Steam Transport Co., though hansom cab owners remained largely unscathed until the advent of steamer automotives in the mid-1870s. Steam Transport companies sprung up across the British Isles, first in Manchester in 1860, then Edinburgh and Dublin in 1862 until by 1881, steam transport was a fact of everyday life, competing alongside hansom cabs and horse omnibuses. London steam carriages were later imitated at the 1855 Paris Exhibition, with much success. Production of steamcoaches by Le Creusot had lagged behind British production in the previous decade, but the carriages were soon seen steaming through the countryside by the late 1850s. Mechanized transport spread to Berlin in 1862, to Milan in 1866, Vienna in 1867 and even Florence, seat of one of the more enlightened branches of the Hapsburg family, in 1869. All Europe was aboard for a ride, and the radial lines of busses going out to the suburbs soon fostered an era of rapid urban expansion and renewal. Railroad companies not involved or shut out of the business set up rival city streetcar lines in the 1870s, resulting in a period of fierce competition between wheels and rails. The United States, always a nation of mechanical enthusiasts, took to steamcoaches quickly, though with a individualistic American touch. The Whig-dominated politics of the 1840s led to an era of rail- and road-building and improvements throughout the country, paving the way for mechanical transport on the roads. The U.S. had seen her share of strange steam vehicles in the past, such as the _Oruktor Amphibolos_, a disconcerting amphibious dredger of the late 18th century, though it took until Richard Dudgeon's work in the late 1850s to establish a permanent niche for steam carriages in the American psyche. The U.S. railroads had taken up the British steamcoach system on a limited basis. Steam carriages played a minor role in the American Civil War. With the Union seizure of railheads such as Chattanooga and Atlanta, requisitioned steamcoaches helped speed the advance of Federal troops southward. In the western theater, steam traction engines were used to haul artillery, a use that was expanded in the 1858-1859 Nicaragua War against filibuster William Walker. These traction engines, similar to models that also saw use in the Crimea by the British, would eventually become the inspiration for the primitive Ericsson land ironclads that would make their famous, if fleeting, appearance on the Turkish side during the Balkan War of the late 1870s. Richard Dudgeon constructed a ten-passenger Steam Wagon in 1851. Three years later, he constructed a four-seater "personal" steamer that was unfortunately lost when New York's Crystal Palace burned down. Continued improvements on steam engines allowed him to construct another, more successful, four-seater, which later served as a prototype for the first mass-produced steamer automobiles that Dudgeon Automotive began producing in 1872. They were quickly joined by a competitor, George B. Seldon's Seldon Steamer automotive. These lighter steamcoaches were improved by the use of pneumatic tyres, invented--or perhaps reinvented--in 1869 by Babbage's Dorset Street workshop for use by bicyclists. This invention would lead, in 1874, to the invention of the first successful safety-bicycle that would triumph over the awkward penny-farthings of the early 1870s, leading to a craze for the speedy vehicle that would peak in the middle of the next decade [2]. Individual automotives also made their appearance on the continent, with Austrian Sigfried Marcus beginning his experiments in 1864. Initially beginning with an internal-combustion engine, he turned to steam after hearing of Lenoir's conversion and subsequent success with steam turbines. Marcus began producing cars in 1876 with a contract from the Skoda works in Bohemia. …The Germanies also produced other steam enthusiasts, such as Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, whose steamers became popular in the early 1880s, the first to finally lose the appearance of the horseless carriage... The advent of steamcoaches and automobiles sped road improvements, with the invention of the tar-macadam system in 1871, and the gradual consolidation of Great Britain's nearly 15,000 road authorities... By 1880, the personal steamcar had become firmly established in the world as a wonder of modern science and engineering. NOTES [1]. Ferdinand von Zeppelin retires in 1866 in this TL for reasons which shall be explained later on, beginning a correspondence with Thaddeus Lowe, who he had met while observing the U.S. Army in Nicaragua. [2]. Improved machine-tools created for use in the Analytical Engine product help move metallurgy forward somewhat in this ATL, resulting in an earlier practicable safety bicycle. Well, what do you think? Don't worry, excepting a proposed third rewrite of the ACW based on your critisms, this is my last bit of backtracking. I hope this isn't too confusing. Alderman