Summer of Nations (1848 Victorious)

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Summer of Nations
Summer of Nations
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Great men of history: The validity of historical narratives in modern socioeconomic research (Lumos Syndicate, 2018)

When discussing the history of Europe and the world at large, you find that at certain points it all comes to revolve around a single man and his decisions which regardless of his knowledge will come to shape the world at large. The first one of these is Napoleon, who brought france from a nation in dissaray to an empire spanning across europe, doubtlessly inspiring Jaques Doriot, who would attempt to do the same more than a hundred years later. Between them stands Rugerro Settimo, a Sicilan petty noble who, knowingly or not, would transform the face of Europe and the world forever.

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Map of the world as of December 1848
Hello and welcome to the timeline Summer of Nations, which imagines a world in which the popular rebellions that wracked the core of Europe succeded instead of being put down and the subsequent history of the world.

While attempting to remain plausible (Aka a type I alternate history), the overall "theme" of national revolutions being more successful than OTL might influence and soften the course of historical events.
 
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You could call it 'The Turning Point'

Also what is the purple bit between the United States and California, Deseret?
 
The Turning point of the Century
The turning point of the century
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"Deutschland, Deutschland frei und eining
keine kaiser, keine Joch
von den blut auf deutsche mennscher
wir könnt' jetz zusammenhält
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!"

-Opening stanza of the German "Victory March" as composed by Hoffmann von Fallersleben​

When the first person on the island of Sicily placed the poster announcing revolution in three days time they could have scarcely realize the magnitude of their act and how it would come to shape history. Following the congress of Vienna, Europe had grown ever closer to a volatile powderkeg, with the dicates of monarchs and princes only serving as sparks to slowly but surely burn away at the fragile order, culminating on the 12th of January, 1848. Despite what some fringe scholars claim [1], the revolutions were indeed inevitable in their scope and sucess. No monarch could possibly have overwhelmed the masses of people taking to the streets all across Europe, erecting barricades and sometimes even convincing regiments of soldiers to take up their cause. As soon as it started, the fires of revolution spread up from the italian peninsula to the alps and the balkans. Books and films have since collected the unnumerable stories of people and the acts they comitted for a better, brighter world, some of wich me may explore throughout this series on the history of the world at large.

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Flag of the provisional government of Southern Italy

To summarize: Following the sucessful revolution in sicily, southern italy was set ablaze and countless revolutionaries gathered in Palermo to discuss the future of Italy. During what would become know as the conference of Palermo, three camps sprung up: The Unionists, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi who favoured one united Italy stretching from Sicily to Venice; The Confederationists, led by Vincenzo Fardella who desired Two Italies: One Northern and one southern. They believed that a united Italy would only lead to a new system werein the wealthy, comparatively industrialized north would come to dominate the south; And finally there were the Republicans, who wished to reorganize the city-states and other small parts of italy into Republics, but otherwise keeping the peninsula splintered. As they bickered they were nevertheless opposed to the old order and revolutionary forces soon had Naples firmly under control. However, the provisional government of Southern Italy (a suitably neutral name that pacified all three factions) ordered them to stop and entrech themselves and to simply support local revolutions rather than continue to claim territory. In the north however, aside from the separatist aspirations of Venice, there was not the same factionalism in the south and the forces of the Republic of Italy had soon seized Rome itself, entering the city upon the invitation of the Holy Father.

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Flag of the Northern Italian Republican movement

This pattern continued across Europe: for whilst some simply meant replacing the monarch with an elected president [2], other revolutions meant seismic shifts in the european balance of power. A Republican Germany was created under the supervision of the liberal parliament of Frankfurt, incorporating the formerly habsburg Austria despite the protestations of some South German nationalists. Similarly to the Italian confederationists, these wished for two separate Germanies: One northern and protestant, the other southern and catholic. One revolt that took many Germans by surprise was the Bohemian Revolution, who quickly seized upon the rapidly destabilizing balkans to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into one nation and quickly setting up a Rhutenian buffer state against Russian intervention. Whilst Russia had in the beginning supported the revolutions, especially those in the balkans that drove the habsburgs from power and established slavic entities like the kingdom of Serbia-Illyria and Czechoslovakia, the appearance of a previously German Polish state suddenly threatened to sunder the Russian state in the same way it had done to the many nations of central europe, a notion that would be proven correct just a few months into the revolution, as the grand duchy of Finland would soon split away from the monarchy and join its old master Sweden, but this time as an equal in a Scandinaivan Republic rather than as a subservient part of the former. Other revolutions in Ukraine, Rhutenia and the Baltics fared worse however, as the Tsar's troops slaughtered the revolutionaries down to a man.

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Flag of the kingdom of Serbia-Illyria

The revolutionaries would even bring down the mighties empire in europe, as English Chartists and various Celtic nationalists spurred by Breton independence launched their own insurrections agains the British crown, forcing it into exile abroad. Their journey would first take them across the atlantic, were our series will resume next.


[1] Especially those pseudo-historical books like "The man in Neuschwanstein"
[2] Harold Miller, "The lesser revolutions of 1848" (1963)

(So yeah! Next time We'll take a look across the Atlantic, perhaps adress some more European states and hopefully make some friends along the way.)
 
Also, QUESTION TIME! I'll try to follow up every post with a quick one of these once all two of you who watch this timeline have had some time to ask questions, but let's start with some I've already gotten for now.

You could call it 'The Turning Point'

Also what is the purple bit between the United States and California, Deseret?

Is that a proto-Yugoslavia I see?!

Yes and Yes, my friends. I'm too much a fan of Gratuitous German to settle for the english name though :p
(Also, if you worry about Deseret, it gets smaller I promise).

Intriged by the switch of Suriname and French Guyana.
Whoops. Also fixed, so who looks like the fool now?
 
Across the Atlantic
Across the Atlantic
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As the revolutions consumed Europe, it forced many of the previously ascendant nobilty and aristocracy to flee abroad or renounce their titles to avoid losing their head in the traditional french fashion. The most prominent of these were the British house of Hanover. Once commanding one of the most wide-reaching empires in history, they were now trapped on a small loyalist fleet heading towards Canada. But they would find that they were not as safe in their arctic lands as they would have assumed. News of the revolutions spread to the continent via trade routes, word of mouth and the newly invented telegraph and had stimulated many minds in the Americas, especially those who still remembered something similar. Quebecois, English Canadians and Californians all had revolution fresh in their minds, from the 1837 rebellions to the bear flag revolt. Seeing the old powers reeling, the Canadians decided to seize the moment, declaring independence just a few weeks before the royal family were to arrive in Newfoundland. The independence movement quickly fractured into three however, as there were few interested in a bilingual confederacy. The first to go their own path was Quebec, hoisting the old flag of rebellion over their lands and claiming it as their national flag. With the revolutionaries now split between the atlantic faction that courted the mainly maritime culture and economy of atlantic Canada and the Ontarians, who favoured expansion into the prairies, the two delegations soon went their separate ways as well.

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The flag of the Atlantic Union, more commonly know as the "Atlantic Jack"

Internally, the atlantic provinces were equally split between different factions, all with their own goals. The separatists desired to make every province an independent nation, whilst the Americanists wanted their or all of the provinces to join the United States in a similar manner as Texas. It was the Confederationists that would win out in the end however, uniting the atlantic english colonies under one confederation. To that end, they chose for their flag a new Union Jack to symbolize both their heritage from the isles and the relationships between its constituent provinces, as several nations under one union.

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The flag of the Canadian Republic, the first tricolour to utilize a so-called "Canadian Pale"
As their two compatriots went their separate ways, Canada found itself in somewhat of the same conundrum as its english brother. Was it to petition for annexation by its southern brother, or would it go at it alone? After a heated debate in the Canadian assembly were events such as the war of 1812 were brought to the forefront as examples of Canadian identity, the consensus shifted in the direction of independence. To this end the new flag would fly three maple leaves as a symbol of Canadian uniqueness, whilst the blue stood for the pacific ocean, the white for the snow-covered arctic and the green for its vast forests.

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The banner of the 1837 rebellions, now the national flag of Quebec

The British royals would therefore not receive the warm welcome they had expected, but were instead only allowed to take refuge in the ports of the Atlantic Union for a few weeks to refill supplies and take aboard those americans still loyal to the crown before setting sail once more to the warm waters of Australasia.

On the american frontier, the war between the United States and Mexico was still raging when the news of revolution spread to their inhabitants. Invigorated by the spirit of independece seemingly soaring across the world, an increasing number of Californians began petitioning for independence, much to the chagrin of many slave-owning americans in both nations. After all, the Californians had heard of the complex balance between the slave and free states of the US and therefore risked getting drawn into politics from across the other side of the continet that might even in the end cost them the rights they revolted to maintain. When put in this context, the Californian independence movement quickly gained even more steam and began organizing itself into a proper nation, petitioning the US for annexation of the Baja California in addition to full independence. Recogizing a situation similar to that of the Texan only a few years prior, the US administration decided on a more "hands off" approach and to grant the Californians their wish, in part influenced by the desires of congress to keep the balance of states in check. Thusly, a new version of the bear flag was hoisted in San Francisco february 5th, 1848 and California was recongized as a free and sovereign nation by both the US and Mexico under the condition that California make no northen claims towards the US's route to the pacific.
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The famous "Bear flag" of the Californian Republic

The year so famously titled the "Springtime of nations" would see yet one more nation spring up on american soil, though this one was not as nationalistic in nature as the others. Hearing the news of the revolutions in europe and the independence of California, Brigham Young realized that statehood would not be enough to protect the trations and faith of his promised people and thus chose to himself declare independence, bringing him and his followers protection under the banner of Deseret. However, seeing as the nation was sparsely populated and located far away from any other american capital, no foreign government was aware of the nations existence for several months before news reached Washington and California. In California, the government figured Deseret must have been set up in a similar vein as their own nation and embraced them with open arms, but Washington was less amused. The prospect of fighting a religiously motivated militia for what at this point amounted to sparsely populated rocky desert was not appealing and as such the nation was tentatively recognized with the borders to be fixed at a later date. And after all, if they caused any trouble, they could not be harder to subdue than Mexico.

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The flag of Deseret, symbolizing the holy trinity, Zion and the twelve mormon principles.

Aaand that's it for this update! You may notice the flags are bigger this time. This is because I don't have the patience to struggle with formatting and I'm sorry if this will make the post hard to read. Anyhow, next time I promise we'll finally finish up in Europe and be done with 1848 and actually getting some momentum going.
 
As much as I enjoy 1848 TL's, more then a few things are...unlikely to say the least.

First off: Canada. Most rejected the idea of republicanism pretty much outright, seeing it as treason to the Crown, King and Country, and to Canada. And again, it is fill with Royalists from the former 13 Colonies. Most Canadians simply won't accept the idea of Canadian republicanism. They would still be loyal to the United Kingdom. (Really, try to get support for a Republic while the War of 1812 and the American Invasion was still very fresh in Canadian minds.)

Next the Mormons, again, there never been a history of supporting secessionist groups. The LDS don't want to leave the United States, and they would ruined any hope of a Utah Territory. Heck, a ' religiously motivated militia in sparsely populated rocky desert' did not stop the OTL Utah War and the Union putting the Mormons in their place. (Which to be fair, the whole war was a bit of a misunderstanding.) Worst comes to worst, the Californian Republic and USA cut up Deseret without much trouble. They just don't have the numbers, or the supplies to fight.

Also...Celtic nationalists? REALLY? At this point?
 
Echoing @Historyman 14, I must say that I love the idea of a successful 1848. But there are a few questions. Since I'm no expert on America, I'll ask about Europe.
Why and how did the revolution in Germany win? I'm sure it could have, but a few more details would have been lovely...
On the Eastern European countries: revolutions there were often mutually destructive / exclusive, so all that happening so peacefully is not exactly plausible to me.
Also, what happened to the German-Danish war of 1848?
 
1858: The new Decade
1858: The New Decade
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Map of the world in 1858

Ten years of change
The 1848 revolutions are one of the most influential events in modern history, surpassed perhaps only by the later global wars they would help foster. The revolutions revitalized republican ideals and ended the majority of European monarchies, with the notable exceptions of Russia and Scandinavia. Scandinavist sentiment had united the Danish and Swedish royal houses following the revolutions, but had also forced them to cede a majority of their legislative power due to the threat a potential republican rebellion posed. One of the first orders of business for this new nation was the question of Schleswig-Holstein: Before 1848 Schleswig and Holstein had been ruled by the Danish King as loosely connected parts of Denmark although most of the area was majority german. This was further complicated when the new republican frankfurt parliament cause massive administrative changes to modernize the system and essentially abolish the nobility, leaving the status of the area even more unclear.

This was the impetus for the Stockholm conference of 1849, wich would establish a longstanding bond between the two germanic nations. It was agreed that Schleswig-Holstein would be ruled as a condominium, with a local council elected to manage daily affairs, with the tax income distributed equally between the council, Germany and Scandinavia. More importantly however, this conference also concluded in a military agreement between the two nations to support rebels in the Russian Empire. Many Scandinavians felt Russia was the greatest threat to Scandinavian sovereignty and the Swedes in particular desired to retake the Finnish lands lost 1808. Germany on the other hand wished to minimize the threat of a reactionary retaliation to the revolutions with the support of Imperial Russia and also wished to enlarge the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth as a buffer between the two.

The third northern war
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Painting depicting German soldiers leaving for the war, 1851
The third northern war would prove to be the first great challenge faced by the German Republic and its allies following the revolution. The German army at this time was a mix of former professional soldiers, revolutionary milita veterans and newly drafted conscripts. Realizing this, the german parliament appointed a council of the most experienced of the revolutionaries to lead this new army into the field, supported by foreign volounteers from countries like Switzerland and Italy. Having already established a firm foothold in eastern europe in the form of the commonwealth, it would be the forest of Scandinavia that would see the heaviest fighting. The initial advance into Russian territory was greeted well by the Polish and Belarussian peasantry, often rising up in small groups that waged a guerilla war and distrupted Russian supply lines.

At the same time, Russia was busy trying to enforce its rule in the caucasus, which had now risen up in revolt, partially thanks to Iranian encouragement. After a decisive defeat in the baltic at the hands of the Swedish and German navies and the Scandinavian conquest of Finland the Russians finally relented, now fearing the additional threat of a Persian-Ottoman alliance. Scandinavia was granted nearly the entire Finnish peninsula with the promise of permanent access through the danish straits, while the Germans gained control over the duchies of Estonia and Latvia. The commowealth was granted a large swathe of territory that belonged to its older predecessor and at the end of 1855, it rebranded itself as the triple commonwealth: an alliance between the Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian Peoples long in the making.

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Banner of the Triple Commonwealth

Tumult in the Balkans
The Balkans have been a source of instability since seemingly time immemorial and with the changes brough on by 1848, the expected followed. Though a great rebellion had freed a majority of the northern Balkan slavs and unified them under one banner, the Ottoman vilayet of Bosnia would remain under muslim control, despite a considerable number of Serbs and Ilyrians living in the area. This was the result of the primarily muslim aristocracy enlisting Ottoman help to put down the rebellion, wich they managed successfully despite the attempted intervention of Serbia-Illyria. The sultanate was not too keen to advance into the european periphery to try and reclaim its former slavic subjects however, as the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I was wary of republican and secessionist sentiments "spilling into" the Empire and instead forced Serbia-Illyria to renounce all claims to Bosnia and sever many ties with Russia and Greece in thr treaty of Sarajevo 1852. Despite this, the kingdom continued to fund Montenegrin and Romanian separatists in the Ottoman periphery, much to their annoyance. In addition, Greece, Romania and Serbia-Illyria entered into a secret military alliance together to possibly aquire much of their claimed territory in addition to serving as protection against the now rump state of the Hungarian Republic, wich was still in the grips of nationalistic fervor and clamored to regain much of the territory it had in its posession under the habsburgs. For the moment however, the balkans held its breath.

One Italy
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Giuseppi Garibaldi, first president of Italy

In Italy, the birthplace of the revolution, the most important event of the decade was the unification of the peninsula. As the twin delegations finally met, it quickly emerged that there was a large wish for a total reunification of Italy on both sides and soon almost the entirety of the two governments met in Rome to draft a unified constitution. The green-white-red tricolour of a unified Italy was hoisted in Rome on the 12th of January 1852, from then on the national day of Italy. As the first Italian assembly convened, the need for a democratically elected goverment soon became apparent. Whilst the assembly had the support of large parts of the populace, the assembly itself was merely a merging of the two provincial governments consisting mostly of educated nationalists and rebel leaders. The first Italian election was a chaotic affair, as was attested to in the journal of one Mario Giovanni, a shoemaker in Palermo:

"March 4th, 1853. A courier arrived in the village a few days ago, announcing that the first Italian election is to be held in november this year. We though little of it, save for the fact that this might mean our mayor will be finding himself in an elected position as well soon. Just today however, a man dressed in a sharp suit and travelling by carriage arrived today and promptly set up shop in the town square. He began talking about the coming election and the reforms he would promote, focusing particularly on the plight of the peasants. However, he had with him a barrel of wine and whenever he needed to calm his throat he took a hearty glass from said barrel and by the evening he had begun issuing odd proclamations, among wich were that he would call for a crusade against the slavs, that he was the god Dionysis returned to human form and that every town in Italy would get their own fountain full of wine installed upon his election.

Mamma Mia, if the rest of this election is like this I miss the king already."

Despite the doubts of a few, the election itself went surprisingly smoothly, with little to no ruckus reported during the days it took to collect and count the votes. In the end, hero of the revolution Giuseppi Garibaldi beat his chief opponent Rugerro Settimo by around five percent of the votes and thus became the first elected president of Italy.
 
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Finally we're moving forward in time. On an unrelated note, I'm gonna show just how familiar I am with the website by asking this: Are you supposed to get notifications when someone comments on your thread? Because I don't think I have gotten any and it just counfounds me a tad.
 
Finally we're moving forward in time. On an unrelated note, I'm gonna show just how familiar I am with the website by asking this: Are you supposed to get notifications when someone comments on your thread? Because I don't think I have gotten any and it just counfounds me a tad.

I think you just need to click "Watch Thread" up near the top right corner of the page. Or, when posting a new post, tick the box next to the option "Watch this thread..."
 
"The Eureka years"
The Eureka Years
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Painting depiciting the famous "Eureka Rebellion" of 1854
The history of Oceania following the 1848 revolutions would come to be known, at least in the anglophone part of the area, as the period of "the two Eurekas". The first Eureka was the discovery of gold in Australia which directly contributed to the second Eureka, the rebellion of the same name. Elsewhere the Dutch would encroach upon Portugese colonial holdings, only stopping due to the threat posed by the nearby Australasian presecence that now saw its colonial interests increasingly threatened, culminating in the 1852 treaty of Amsterdam werein the twin colonial powers would ally against any potential British attempt to seize their colonies by force in exchange for the full recognition of each others colonial claims and a promise not to interfere with the sovereignty of the other.

Australasia and Exile

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Portrait of Queen Victoria, the last British royal to ever rule over the eponymous isles.
As the small fleet containing the royal family and a large number of loyalists finally arrived in Australasia, they received a warm welcome from the small colonial elite that made up the aristocracy in this far corner of the kingdom. The well-timed discovery of gold proved an immense blessing for the crown: it required a large amount of manpower and was potentially immensely profitable, thus giving the loyalist population an immediate way to make a living. Most of the loyalist lower class set off almost immediately to start small mining towns in the province bearing the name of the Queen herself. The upper class was not so eager, relying more on "indentured servants" from southeast asia (primarily the Indian subcontinent and to some extent Indochina) to run vast mining camps and amassing unimaginable wealth for themselves and to some extent other loyalists, but almost none of the profit from these mines never reached the Australian miners, let alone the native aboriginal population. This immensely boosted the Australasian economy, causing a stream of European and even American immigrants to arrive in Australia. This arragement would be neatly symbolized in a 1853 ceremony were Queen Victoria was crowned "Queen of Great Britain and Australasia". Especially prominent was the coronet used during the ceremony, entirely made out of Australian gold and decorated with gems and other such things from across the empire, but notably nothing from the home isles.

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First flag of Great Britain, Ireland and Australasia. Note the replacing of the Union Jack with the royal banner of arms
This was taken less well by some elements of the population, particularly lower-class miners that felt exploited and trod upon by the royals and wealthy slave elite in equal measure. In addition, some of the British loyalist boarding the ships were actually Republican agitators hoping to spread Republicanism across the empire. This in addition to increasing Australian alienation in the face of the increased British prescence (many Brits saw Australians as little more than criminals due to their status as primarily a prison colony) would lay the groundwork for the so called "second Eureka". What actually transpired during the rebellion (and what to name it) has been a matter of controversy ever since, but what is certain is this: On the 3rd of December 1854, miners and workers in East Ballarad erected a stockade and swore fealty to a "souther cross" Australian flag, now commonly reffered to as "The Eureka flag". The British response was quick and furious. In what has become known as "the Eureka massacre" in Australasian Republican circles, British troops assaulted the stockade and killed or captured all members of the resistance before lowering the Eureka flag. The survivors were then transported to Melbourne were they were publicly beheaded in front of the royal palace. This exceptionally harsh treatment of the rebellion was a declaration that though the Empire was in exile, it was in Australasia to stay, particularly as there was a widespread fear of revolution in aristocratic circles. Loyalist decried the rebels as supporters of "The second Cromwell" (a common nickname for the first English President William Lovett), wilst they were hailed as heroes and martyrs in Republican circles. Regardless, the treatement of this rebellion seems to have had the desired effect as this rump state would continue to uphold its claim to Britain and Ireland until 1919.

Shattering of the Imperial Jewel

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Painting depiciting an indian retinue during the Great Rebellion (G.F. Atkinson, 1859)
Whilst Australasia remained firmly in royal hands, the loss of the arguably more important Indian subcontinent would be the most devastating event up until 1915 for the empire. Called "The Jewel of the British Empire", this vast country produced an innumerable amount of goods for the consumption of their Anglo-Saxon overlords, perhaps most important of all was the much-coveted beverage tea. Whilst Britain could always be reclaimed in due time, the threat of losing their tea supply spurred the entirety of Australasia in action, quickly sending a large taskforce to reinforce the fragmenting rule of the East India Company in the area. Despite a bloody campaign and support from various loyalists, in the end the only thing the British managed to keep was a coastal strip of India in the east. Most of the the rest of the territory was taken over by either the Maratha Empire (In European circles confusingly nicknamed "the Sepoy State") or quickly fragmented into various small princely states similar to before the British arrival.

One of the most important consequences of the expulsion of British rule was the realization by many in India that reform, especially that of the miltiary kind was needed if the subcontinent was to avoid seizure by another imperial power. The Maratha in particular took this to heart, creating many trappings of an 19th century nation-state: The sepoy troops were incorporated into the state and reorganized into a national army (conveniently letting the various rulers in the confederacy retain their own personal troops with little change), a constitution outlining the nature of the confederacy and even a common national flag. Whilst this was a step in the right direction, it would take until the early 20th century for the area to reach European standards, but unlike africa there was no need to throw off an imperial yoke to fully realize their ideas of modern nationhood.

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A picture depicting two officers and a private in the newly created Marathan army. They would retain their former uniforms for around a decade until proper standardized uniforms were issued in 1862.

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The Marathan flag as outlined in the constitution; arguably the first example of a national flag on the Indian subcontinent.
 
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