Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...the spurt of violence that engulfed Black communities in the early 1890s after the assassination of George Custer and the economic frailty of the times came after a decade of general peace, but nevertheless Black families continued to thrive in the Union compared to the ugly immediate postwar years. With most states banning outright public discrimination by law and with men enjoying voting rights, the troubles were of the quieter sort - harassment from neighbors, warnings not to remain in small towns after sundown, aggressive policing. Black laborers in cities were generally drummed out of major labor unions, so where they found the most success was on the homestead or in the West, with many freedmen or escaped slaves from the Confederacy putting their skill in agricultural work to use, or in more entrepreneurial, small-scale skilled craft labor in cities and towns, as barbers, launderers, cobblers, tailors or cooks, jobs which many already had skills in but did not require them entering the ethnic enclaves dominated by Irish or, increasingly, Eastern European immigrants. They were also on the precipice, as the corrupt and chaotic term of David B. Hill in the White House was drawing to an end, of a great boom of Black recruits into the civil service and military, further building a unique, and decidedly liberal, Black middle class isolated socially, economically and in many ways geographically from that of their white neighbors..."

- Beyond Bondage

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Caprivi's alarm at the degeneration of the German military by the end of the decade had caused a number of reforms, ones that were initially resisted by a military establishment that still was full of awkward feelings over the Waldersee Putsch even half a decade later. Based on reports from military attaches in European capitals, Germany had spent the last twenty years resting comfortably on its laurels while industrialized warfare changed; France and Austria, in particular, had made crucial reforms in kit, doctrine, organization and logistics, with commensurate spending hikes, since their defeats in the 1860s. Hindenburg, in a remarkably candid (and likely unrealistic) observation after drilling with Italian counterparts in an Alpine war game, suggested that the Prussian Army would lose a head-to-head fight against Rome and possibly even Spain without serious reforms.

Caprivi aggressively pursued new logistical reforms, including consolidating the command of the various royal armies of Germany under one ministry in Berlin; millions of marks were invested into partnering with arms manufacturers to develop new, more modern weaponry. Caprivi's obsession was with efficiency; he was well-versed, of course, in the Prussian tradition of frequent attack and initiative, especially at the corps or battalion commander level, and worried that modern technology would soon supplant the "honorable war" camp. In this case, he ran up against Hindenburg, who though much younger was convinced that only his daring had saved Germany in November of 1883. For Caprivi, the future doctrine of the "industrial battlefield" would require finessing German traditions with the realities of machine guns and improved artillery, particularly the fearsome weaponry produced by Austria's Skoda; with hostile Bonapartes in the West and Habsburgs in the East, and separated from their ally Italy by the Austrian Alps, Germany was inevitably consigned to a future conflict of two fronts, which would deny it initiative and the ability to attack aggressively. Caprivi also involved himself in foreign policy, aggressively lobbying Frederick - who detested Russia - to renew a watered down version of the Reinsurance Treaty, promising mutual non-aggression with Russia and that both countries would be fully neutral in any conflict either power had with a future enemy; for Russia, this meant any combination of Austria, Turkey or Britain, whereas for Germany it was an insurance policy against Russia jumping in to a conflict with the so-called "Iron Triangle" of France, Austria and Denmark in what would be an extinction-level event for the Reich.

The Caprivi Reforms, then, marked a chance for the German military to reevaluate for the first time a consolidated national military program in the event of a hot war, which Frederick appreciated as the reforms took root in the summer of 1892, when a geopolitical crisis suddenly reared its head and the German Army's mobilization speed became of critical importance..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany

 

[Curtain Jerker]

Paul Brown once said "You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat." He was talking about football but the lesson was proven right by the CSA pre-Cuba and by Germany here.

Difference between the two is that Germany is rich and organized enough to pivot on the fly and modernize while the CSA is certainly not.

 

[KingSweden24]

Paul Brown once said "You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat." He was talking about football but the lesson was proven right by the CSA pre-Cuba and by Germany here.

Difference between the two is that Germany is rich and organized enough to pivot on the fly and modernize while the CSA is certainly not.

I like that quote a lot! Rings true, too. See also: American victory disease post-WW2 only being corrected after Vietnam and to a lesser extent Grenada

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Taedong Valley was perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the surge of foreign missionaries, but not just due to it emerging as the cradle of both French Catholicism and Anglo-American Protestantism; Pyongyang's proximity to China and the mouth of the Taedong made it a flourishing hub for overland trade from Russia as well, and Orthodox missions popped up across northeastern Korea by the early 1890s as the Bear made efforts to attach itself to the Orient. The yangban class declined in influence north of the Han as a result; light and medium industry flourished in Pyongyang, Nampo and Kaesong as a belt of commerce stretched south towards Seoul, while further beyond Korea was a land of feudal agricultural peasantry and foreign concessions.

Those same concession-based foreign intrigues that had typified Korea only accelerated; coming off their grand victory over the Chinese, the French legation in Busan emerged as the prime influencer, spearheaded by the Oriental Trading Company (Société de commerce oriental), a firm that enjoyed seed money from major French banks and envisioned itself as one of the next great companies of the colonial world, headquartered in Shanghai and Marseille. The SCO became Busan's leading bank, insurer and merchant house; by the mid-1890s, it so dominated the city's institutions that its employees acted as agents throughout the rest of Korea. Japan's emerging zaibatsu concerns, still in their infancy, grumpily satisfied themselves with their concession at Wonsan, encouraged by a government still angry it had to accepted Western influence in the "dagger pointed at our heart" that Korea represented. As for the American, British and German firms trading out of Inchon, the intrigues to south and east had little interest to them; America, for its part, was merely grateful for its harbor at Port Hamilton from which it could defend its booming Pacific trade via San Francisco..."

- Queen Min

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Redmond [1] found that the IPP rump he led in Parliament had other issues as well; dismissed by McCarthy's League as being too cozy with Westminster, he could only watch as Chamberlain defanged Home Rule with the broad Local Government Act, which applied not only to England and Wales but Scotland and Ireland as well in equal measure. Indeed, one of the subtle but brilliant coups of the Chamberlain government in its early years was applying its Acts equally to all four nations of the United Kingdom; in what Chamberlain would later describe as the "Irish dumbbell," the strategy was to empower local government in Ireland at the county level (which was done on Great Britain as well, to particularly great effect in Scotland) while ceding more powers over Britain as a whole to London. This had the direct effect of diminishing the power and influence of Dublin Castle and Chief Secretary of Ireland, fading distinctions between Ireland and the rest of Britain in its governance. Such a move could easily have backfired, were it not for the tremendous advantage the Prime Minister enjoyed upon initially reaching Downing Street in a reeling Conservative Party which had seen both Smith and Salisbury die but a year earlier and Irish nationalists already split by Parnell's indiscretions [2] followed by the escalating rivalry between Redmond's more conciliatory faction and the clergy-aligned McCarthy, threatening to badly divide the IPP before the next election, whenever that might be. The future of Irish nationalism lay in question as the Plan of Campaign splintered between true radicals who had never listened to Parnell and Redmond's ossified, unsure leadership; elected county councils across Ireland diminished the power of Unionist landlords, and the promise of potential pan-British land reform on the horizon beckoned. For now, the idea of Home Rule was ever more distant, and Chamberlain had seemed to untie one of the knots of the Irish Question to his advantage..."

- Ireland Unfree

[1] John Redmond of the Irish National Federation, that is
[2] For those unaware, Charles Parnell's fall from grace shortly before his 1891 death was due to him shtupping the wife of a fellow IPP MP and it coming out during their very public, very acrimonious divorce

 

[Curtain Jerker]

I love Chamberlain pulling a mini-Bismarck and giving the Irish just enough to defang them but not enough to actually, you know, do anything to address their needs. Great juggling job by him.

 

[KingSweden24]

I love Chamberlain pulling a mini-Bismarck and giving the Irish just enough to defang them but not enough to actually, you know, do anything to address their needs. Great juggling job by him.

Thanks!
I’d say he’s doing a decent amount for poor Irishmen in rural areas by empowering the counties, he’s just savvy enough to not do it in a separate Act like the British did OTL - nothing that applies to Ireland doesn’t apply in the rest of the UK, avoiding any semblance of special treatment. Aligns with his vision of an Ireland more tightly bound to London, but he was a fierce localist in his views too. Interesting man, for sure

 

[Curtain Jerker]

Thanks!
I’d say he’s doing a decent amount for poor Irishmen in rural areas by empowering the counties, he’s just savvy enough to not do it in a separate Act like the British did OTL - nothing that applies to Ireland doesn’t apply in the rest of the UK, avoiding any semblance of special treatment. Aligns with his vision of an Ireland more tightly bound to London, but he was a fierce localist in his views too. Interesting man, for sure

I'm curious how in an era marked more or less by more centralization how a measure that de-centralizes authority will impact British law going forward. Will there be a stronger separation of powers between Parliament and the local counties in GB now?

 

[KingSweden24]

I'm curious how in an era marked more or less by more centralization how a measure that de-centralizes authority will impact British law going forward. Will there be a stronger separation of powers between Parliament and the local counties in GB now?

Probably, though the Local Government is pretty similar to what OTL had, just not broken up into three bills. The key is making Dublin Castle less powerful on Irish affairs compared to London; so in some ways Ireland is sliding further from Home Rule

 

[KingSweden24]

"...such development of this railroad would allow considerably more rapid transit between European Russia and the Far East; indeed, the only hindrance to it was climatic and economic. Still feeling spurned by both Germany and Austria at the Berlin Conference that ended the Turkish War, Tsar Alexander took a narrower view of Russian foreign policy objectives, one disaligned from European incentives and inward-looking at its vast internal empire in Central Asia and, increasingly, the Orient. The completion of the China Eastern Railway and an eastern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad transformed Vladivostok; Russia suddenly had a viable port on the East Sea from which it could begin to build up a more substantial Pacific Fleet, no longer needing to harbor it in winter in San Francisco. Rail lines also gave Russia substantive influence in Manchuria, a position it craved having been boxed out of influence in major eastern and southern Chinese ports by other European powers. But perhaps most critically, Vladivostok served as a "window to Korea," from where Russia could exert influence in the neutral peninsular kingdom that every European power, as well as the Americans and Japanese, engaged in intrigue over, seeing it as the key to East Asia. A Russia with a cozier Korea would enjoy more warm weather port access; it would block off a potential rival in Japan from a stepping stone to Chinese markets; and it would serve as a way to further keep British interests, already ascendant in Tokyo, away from Russian territory in the event that the Great Game ever turned hot. As with all of Alexander's decisions in Asia, they were made with a wary eye toward London; it was well understood that, after the French, Whitehall viewed the Bear as its pole imperial competitor in the East..."

- The Bear Looks East

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the death of five strikebreakers, and hundreds of others being marched out of town by gunpoint, resulted in President Hill responding by sending the US Cavalry to Coeur d'Alene to crush the uprising of miners lest it spread further across the West. The ensuing massacre, and importation of Chinese strikebreakers triggered a riot in town that killed multiple cavalrymen and polarized public opinion across the West; perhaps most importantly, it led to the formation of the Western Federation of Miners, a new labor union that was perhaps the most militant in all of North America. Within months in 1892 it had chapters in every Western state and territory as well as British Columbia; its organizers were infamous for being armed and forming their own posses and "workers' councils," which could shut down mines on a whim and which aggressively fended off outgunned mercenaries and Pinkertons who attempted to respond, and who were so radical in their goals - including, within some chapters, the outright seizure of mines - that even the Knights of Labor refused to partner with them. The Western Mine Wars had begun, triggered by a bloody battle in remote northern Idaho..."

- Brothers in Arms: Trade Unionism in the United States

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Labor Wars of the West became a massive headache for Hearst, at first a distraction from his adventures in New York high society but by the middle of 1892 a genuine crisis he could no longer ignore as miners at Hearst facilities, both mines and smelters, joined up with the WFM and began to partner with the larger, equally militant Living Wage League that organized other industries in the West. Ironically, the Hearst Corporation's mines paid better than most others, had better hours, and had even begun providing pensions for miners after ten years of service and widows' stipends for those wives of miners killed on the jobs who had two or more children. It was for that reason that Hearst felt he had more cachet to deal with the complaints of the WFM, and traveled to Denver that summer to meet with representatives of the Living Wage League. Though little was accomplished, it nevertheless served as an important moment in the development of his public image; rather than dispatching Pinkertons or the US Cavalry on miners, Hearst traveled to listen to them first; he agreed not to hire Chinese strikebreakers in the event of a strikeout or use railroads known to hire "coolie labor" to transport wares, and he agreed to increase wages by 2.5% per year for five years. The Denver meeting did not end labor militancy in the West, or even in Hearst's mines and smelts; but it did give Hearst the public image of a man who listened to labor, who attempted to thread the needle to find compromise on the grievances of the day, and who unlike many of his peers of his gilded class cared about the common man. It was a potent, and noted, difference in the radical climate of the early 1890s..."

- Citizen Hearst

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the hinterland being informally aligned with the Sultan's influence; even Ripon, a skeptic of the imperial project, knew there was little informal about France's African ambitions. Nominally Ottoman territories around Lake Chad had as many Foreign Legionnaires garrisoning the oasis stations as they did Turkish and Egyptian soldiers; Belgium's spendthrift, loutish King had secured financing for his deepening project in the vast forests of the Congo by mortgaging the north bank of the eponymous river to the French government, thanks in large part to the influence of his brother-in-law, Emperor Napoleon IV's cousin. Though France was far from possessing even practical control over much of the Niger Basin, it was clear what its long-term plans were; a vast empire in Northwest Africa, connected to the Red Sea via concessions in the most isolated and easily managed corner of Egyptian suzerainty, and then securing access to the African Great Lakes as well, in search of the Nile headwaters.

Aware of a French expedition in 1892 to the King of Buganda, British residents in Zanzibar began a program of pushing for further resources in East Africa. The longstanding foreign policy objective of preventing any French encroachment on the East African coast south of the Bab el-Arab whatsoever continued; expeditions were increasingly launched from Mombasa into the interior, with British parties selling firearms and other goods to local kings in order to buy their loyalty and keep French or Belgian-aligned tribes from encroaching on their lands. Britain even pre-negotiated secret concessions on behalf of German, Spanish, Portuguese, American, Confederate and Brazilian merchants in Zanzibar to make sure that other states had a stake in a network of independent statelets in East Africa below the Horn that nobody else could seize; France was to never reach the Lakes, let alone the coast, in the views of the Foreign and Colonial offices..."

- Chessboard: The Splendid Isolation and British Foreign Policy

 

[KingSweden24]

"...de Lanessan dispatched more men into the Lao highlands as anti-Siamese sentiment flourished both in Saigon and on the French street at home; the regime, led primarily by the aggressive populist Boulanger at the War Ministry and foreign minister Courbet, who viewed Siam as a "miniature China" waiting to be swatted aside, was eager for colonial interventionism during a time of unusual unpopularity for the Imperial family in the aftermath of the Bourse crisis of 1890 and the Panama Affair's revelations the year before. Incidents east of the Mekong flared up throughout the spring, including the massacre of several Siamese commissioners in Khammuan, which resulted in a violent response from French soldiers and their Vietnamese sepoys deploying along the river.

Chulalongkorn's response was to send an entire army north, which ambushed the French column at Kien Ket. The Frenchmen present were taken hostage; the Vietnamese sepoys, 30 in all [1], were massacred and buried in a mass grave. Upon word arriving in Saigon, de Lanessan exploded with outrage and ordered four ships, including Lalande, the most cutting-edge protected cruiser in the world at the time, sailed into the Chao Phraya and trained their guns upon Bangkok, with a list of demands to be drafted and relayed from Paris. What French diplomats did not count on was loud protestations on Siam's behalf from not only Britain - which had favorably settled the border of Burma with Siam and saw Bangkok as an important buffer against French ambitions - but also Germany, which had long enjoyed excellent commercial ties between its Cambodian protectorate and had helped Chulalongkorn modernize his bureaucracy. The fury of the Anglo-German response made France hesitate ever so briefly - but it was a hesitation that the other two powers used to their benefit..."

- The Scramble for Asia: Colonialism in the Far East in the 19th Century

[1] Both French and Siamese actions here are considerably more extreme than what either side carried out IOTL

 

[Curtain Jerker]

A full-blown war between France and Siam is certainly something. Like seeing the non-West stand up (even a little) to the colonizers. I wonder if France actually tries to suborn Siam ITTL as opposed to them maintaining their de jure independence.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Zuloaga's advanced age and poor health could be ignored no longer, not by the deputies of the Assembly who formed his most reliable power base nor at the Chapultepec. Hat in hand, kneeling prostrate despite his bad arthritis and with tears in his eyes, Mexico's longest-serving Prime Minister regretfully tendered his resignation to Maximilian on April 16, 1892, at Cuernavaca. Maximilian was in tears himself; in Zuloaga he had found a man capable of finally bringing about simultaneous modernization and centralization, all while keeping the church and landed aristocracy ascendant, in the aftermath of Mejia's assassination and the three-year war with the various caudillos that at one time had threatened to tear apart Mexico. Zuloaga went into a well-earned retirement in his native Chihuahua on a substantial estate worked with almost exclusively Chinese fieldhands until his death in 1898, aged 84.

The decision on who next to appoint struck Maximilian as difficult; the old premier had made only one major misstep during the grand seven-year Feliciato, and that was failing to groom a proper successor from within the ranks of his Union Popular. Limantour, Zuloaga's reliable and respected treasury minister, was seen as too liberal; Reyes, a proto-caudillo himself ensconced in his northern fiefdom, seen as too ambitious and vainglorious; Corona, the most obvious potential successor and popular with the Mexican street, had died in late 1889 aged only 52. Maximilian turned instead to Zuloaga's decades-long rival and on-again, off-again partner: Miguel Miramon would be named as Prime Minister of Mexico shortly after Zuloaga resigned. In the late Feliciato, of course, Miramon had reconciled with Zuloaga at Maximilian's insistence, generally of the belief that he was permanently retired after leaving the Cabinet in 1890 and having turned 60. To return to the service of the Emperor, then, was a surprise; more than a few Upistas were upset that he was imposed upon the Assembly, having hoped the technocratic Limantour would take his place. But for Miramon, it marked the last great achievement in a career in service to the Mexican conservative cause that had included an interregnum as President of the country; in a life that had enjoyed tremendous highs and stunning lows, where he was hailed as a savior and a scoundrel, and he had been the Emperor's closest friend and the man who allegedly cuckolded him, he was now entering its quieter, more pensive twilight, still at Maximilian's side..."

- Maximilian of Mexico

(I will say I'm going to miss both Max and Miramon, and eventually Carlota too, once this generation of Mexican figures passes on)

 

[KingSweden24]

A full-blown war between France and Siam is certainly something. Like seeing the non-West stand up (even a little) to the colonizers. I wonder if France actually tries to suborn Siam ITTL as opposed to them maintaining their de jure independence.

This crisis is going to get a lot more attention once everything else in 1892 gets a fair checkin - and will be REALLY important in the Far East's development

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Campbell's death that May led to the appointment of John Abbott, a fellow Senator, aged 71. Abbott is best remembered in Canadian history as a footnote; after the long tenures of Macdonald, Tupper and Campbell, he made it only to November, in such poor health he could barely see or stay awake through meetings of the Cabinet. Lord Stanley took the remarkable step of, after being shocked at his condition, consulting other Cabinet members whether Abbott should be dismissed; for fear of interference in responsible government, a cabal led by Tupper instead persuaded Abbott to step down. Nevertheless, the next choice was not much more sound, as Mackenzie Bowell, yet another Senator on in years (aged 69), but critically a newcomer to the upper chamber and a longtime Cabinet leader, the most senior in the body. [1] Bowell was a competent administrator but indecisive; much like Campbell and Abbott before him, he was further hampered by being unable to take part in debates in the House of Commons, where the Schools Question and other important matters raged as Catholic resentment deepened over treatment at the hands of the Dominion Police specifically and the Parliament generally. The aristocratic, fiercely chauvinist Tory order that had formed Canada for a quarter century was starting to show its cracks, and its profound lack of new ideas to tackle the issues of the day that divided it cleanly down the middle..."

- One Party, One Nation: Canada's 19th Century Tory Dynasty

[1] OTL Bowell was appointed two years later because John Sparrow Thompson died; here, the Catholic Thompson would NEVER be named PM of Orange Order-run Canada, so Bowell gets the ring earlier

 

[pathfinder]

once this generation of Mexican figures passes on

That's still a while off though... Isn't it? Franz Josef lived until 1916, and Max was notably more physically active and healthy than him, and one could also argue that Charlotte's otl death was a bit premature, given her stressed mental state. Though, this does make me wonder; what will the next generation of Mexican notables look like? And will they attempt to flex Mexico's ttl strength overseas?