Minor note there is a missing 5 note.
Lovely read though
A very good catch thank you!
I'm glad you're enjoying! I have more coming to round out 1866!
Minor note there is a missing 5 note.
Lovely read though
Russian Hawaii?Well one thing I can tell you is that it won't be sold to the US in 1867...
Though Russian Pacific ambitions are about to have their horizons broadened.
With this talk of setting out the situation in orth America it does bring up one question: What will the fate of Russian Alaska be?
That's not too hard to avoid.Well one thing I can tell you is that it won't be sold to the US in 1867...
Though Russian Pacific ambitions are about to have their horizons broadened.
Russian Hawaii?
I don't think Macdonald realized what he's unleashed with that senate. Sooner or later the Grand Coalition will fall and he's going to have some very powerful senators to contend with on top of opposition in the house.
Assuming the westward expansion happens as per OTL, it makes Alberta and Saskatchewan interesting. Do you split the area into two provinces with double the senators, or risk having a huge behemoth challenging Ontario and Quebec?
The events in China?Unfortunately news travels slowly from Asia, and Her Majesty's Government are in the very near future going to get something they would consider to be very bad news indeed...
As much as Eastern British North America wants union with each other, do the same stresses apply in the West? Could we see BC not joining Canada? Speaking of not joining Canada, what's going on with Newfoundland?Prince Albert of Hawaii's godmother may have something to say about that well, her government might.
Unfortunately news travels slowly from Asia, and Her Majesty's Government are in the very near future going to get something they would consider to be very bad news indeed...
He only has an inkling. It's why you see him fighting hard for men who will be loyal premiers who will appoint good party loyalists to the Senate, and why in Quebec, Ouimet is Premier and Chaveau is in the Senate. They can trust Ouimet to run the province, but Chaveau (who historically resigned to be in the Senate) is a much better choice to coordinate the Conservative-Liberal views in that body.
Sandfield Macdonald in Ontario is a gamble, but in the short term it pays off. Once Brown gets back and starts to realign himself in the political field though, all bets are off...
That's indeed a challenge I've been considering! It will definitely depend on the government of the day, and how much power they want in the West. BC is going to be interesting on her own, and whatever ends up happening in the Red River may also shape opinions to a certain degree.
That's not too hard to avoid.
On the Russian side alone, Alexander II, his finance minister von Reutern and his foreign minister Gorchakov were all skeptical of the proposed sale; not opposed I should precise, but skeptical, like in "if you get us a deal to sell it, fine, but we won't force the matter". Gorchakov feared the sale might antagonize the British, and von Reutern was skeptical the money from the sale would make much a difference to the imperial finances after the costly emancipation reforms and the fallout of previous wars.
I have to re read about the sale, but from memory, the only one to really advocate for the sale with vigor was de Stoeckl.
Actually, the negotiations with the US were kept a secret in Russia, and the sale was not announced here until the news got out in American newspapers as well. Understandably, the domestic reaction in Russia was mostly outrage, as a matter of prestige, though that eventually calmed down. Alexander II was weary as well, and was not far from revoking de Stoeckl's mandate to negotiate a sale when it happened; de Stoeckl had already tried it before the civil war, to no avail, and this second attempt with Seward was the last attempt.
Then, on the American side, besides Seward, I don't know who was actively interested in purchasing a piece of "frozen wilderness" as some put it. And McClellan does not strike me as someone who would waste millions of dollars on it, while there is so much to do after the end of the civil war.
So, if the sale had not happened in 1867, the chances are that it would never have happened at all after it. De Stoeckl was gone soon after for health reason, and his successor as ambassador, Konstantin Katakazi made such a good job of antagonizing the American governments that Russo-American relations cooled down a bit.
My sense, as I explored this path in a TL of mine, is that the Russians would have eventually followed the Canadian example of abolishing the Hudson Bay Company's monopoly by abolishing the Russian-American Company's monopoly in Alaska (the Golovin report, bleak as it was, tended towards such a conclusion from the descriptions I could read of it, even if I'm no certain without having had read the text itself), which would have made economic development of the Russian colony, particularly in the mining sector, easier (there were some mining surveys by Peter Doroshin in the 1850s, but the RAC was uninterested by it, focusing on other activities like fur trade). And once you find gold, no way the Russians would be letting go of it.
The events in China?
However, given that the topic talked about was the Russian Pacific getting expanded... (types "Russian Colonialism 19th centure" to Google)
Hokkaido gets annexed by Russians?
Russian return to Hawaii for reasons?
Remnants of Qing turns into a Russian puppet, with Russians grabbing as many lands as possible from their new vassal without making them go extinct?
As much as Eastern British North America wants union with each other, do the same stresses apply in the West? Could we see BC not joining Canada? Speaking of not joining Canada, what's going on with Newfoundland?
Need I mention that if Russia retains Alaska, this means the OTL Alaska boundary dispute between the US and Canada becomes a boundary dispute between the Russian and British empires... Not that it matters now, but comes the Klondike Gold Rush... ^^Post 1867 Alaska is still in Russian hands (spoilers) but whether they decide - or are made to decide - otherwise, is an open question. Both Russia and Britain are about to have changing motives in the Pacific world so that will influence various decisions going forward.
Need I mention that if Russia retains Alaska, this means the OTL Alaska boundary dispute between the US and Canada becomes a boundary dispute between the Russian and British empires... Not that it matters now, but comes the Klondike Gold Rush... ^^
Not quite new. It technically dates back to the 18th century, and there was a treaty in 1825, but back then, this particular border was a non issue and the Great Game was not something yet. Add the Great Game, a Canada emerging and aspiring to grow out of the motherland's shadow, and, lest we forget, an awful lot of gold to the equation...Oh there's plenty of new opportunities for relations between Britain and Russia to get fraught as we go into the 1870s... this new boundary between them and some other emerging troubles are going to weight heavily on the minds of British politicos and military thinkers!
I mean with it being the Era of Hard Feelings, it's entirely possible if the gold rush happenes around the same time that Russia might actually be more stable than the US at the time, so there won't be the background that led to the Texan revolution and the US is really not going to want to start a war with the only European power they're on good terms with.
Not quite new. It technically dates back to the 18th century, and there was a treaty in 1825, but back then, this particular border was a non issue and the Great Game was not something yet. Add the Great Game, a Canada emerging and aspiring to grow out of the motherland's shadow, and, lest we forget, an awful lot of gold to the equation...
Oh, I also forgot to mention, the HBC had built a trading post on the Yukon inside Russian territory as defined by the 1825 treaty, Fort Yukon, though I believe from memory that he did not quite ask the permission from the Russians; the HBC was a rival and competitor of the RAC for the fur trade, but it's my understanding the Russians were simply not able or willing to do much about it, it being so deep inside the lands, at a time Russian control was essentially limited to the coasts.
The Americans did expell the Canadians from Fort Yukon after the Alaska purchase; unlike the Russians, they had more teeth to throw around I think.
Now, things might get a bit interesting if the HBC still has a presence at Fort Yukon if a serious crisis was to erupt between Russia and the United Kingdom. For one, since the boundary was clear cut along the 141st meridian west, the Canadians and the HBC would be hard pressed to justify their presence here and maintain it if the Russian wanted to evict them.
Read a bit about Gwin. He was a pro-Confederate sympathizer who advocated for a Pacific Republic centred around California until 1861. I'm unsure if that actually happens ITTL but it seems the seeds for Western Alienation are being laid when Western US opinions is gradually turning away from Washington. Maybe not the case of the West seceding in another civil war scenario but I can see how this might cause future Presidents and other officials to have to consider the West in US politics. Perhaps the West will be seen as an equal to the East in the future.
On another note, I'm still trying to figure out what the Great War would be like and where it starts. Europe seems likely but I even thought the spark is a Pacific Republic seceding from the US that involves the rest of the world but that seems as plausible as The Pig War starting a full-blown Anglo-American War.