A Different War of the Austrian Succession...or....Finis Austriae (STORY ONLY. Discussion thread link provided)

Are people interested in a different outcome of the War of the Austrian Succession


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1771-1772

Eastern Europe


Moscow remained ablaze as the negotiations for a cease-fire dragged on through the day and into the night. Five days would pass, during which time more of the city would burn, before a cease-fire was agreed without consulting Tsarina-Empress Catherine II (the Great). A Polish team of 300 soldiers immediately went into the city and assisted the townspeople in combatting the firestorm. Eight days later on 24 September, the fire was finally extinguished. The Poles then marched a force of 1,200 into the city as both a garrison and in order to help rescue any who had become trapped. Meanwhile, Von Fersen reconnoitered in Ukraine, soon joined by a Cossack force flying the Polish flag and commanded by Pugachev (who had defected after hearing of retribution to any Cossack sich who switched sides, bringing his band with him). Pugachev sent out his own party of scouts numbering 200 into the Danube Valley, where they came upon the army of Orlov and Apraksin making their way north from Constantinople. Estimating they would have four days before the Russian army arrived, Von Fersen and Pugachev set to work creating obstacles such as ditches, stake-fields, pits and even utilized an early form of landmine. They then built a series of defensive works made of earth, wood and stone and placed artillery behind the earthworks, just managing to get them into place as scouts now spied a dust cloud from below the valley, indicating the advance of the Russians. Pugachev ordered his band to scatter among the brushes and small trees and await the signal to attack, while von Fersen ordered his troops to take positions with a wide enough opening for the artillery to open up. As Orlov's army (with Apraksin leading the few Cossacks that remained loyal to Russia) approached the field before Moscow, they were surprised by the entrenchments and stakes. Nevertheless they continued forward until they triggered the buried landmines. Orlov lost 9,000 in the advance but remained determined to advance. Polish guns opened up at 700 meters cutting holes through the regiments, but still Orlov advanced with his men. Only when the infantry opened fire from their positions on the artificial heights in combination with the artillery did the Russians finally waver. In the assualt, Orlov took a musketball to his thigh, then took a second to his chest. His collapse to the ground disheartened his men and they began to flee, leaving Apraksin with only his loyalist Cossack horse to screen them. During the rear-guard, he was struck in the foot by musketball and fell from his horse, which was killed shortly after by a direct cannonball hit. He found himself surrounded by Polish soldiers and offered unconditional surrender, which Kosciuzsko was only too willing to accept as his men were as exhausted as Apraksin was. The ceasefire was formalized with the Treaty of Kiev..

Preliminary terms for the ceasefire included the following:
- Russia to pay an indemnity of $450,000 talers divided between Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, and another $70,000 talers to the Ottoman Empire
- All Russian troops in Crimea to fall back to defensive positions. Russian troops in the Caucasus to do likewise and any Russian troops in the Balkans to withdraw to the Danube Valley
- Reestablishment of the former Great Republic of Novgorod, with borders to be further negotiated at a European congress. Meantime the lands of the former republic would remain under Swedish occupation.
- All other Russian territory occupied by Sweden, Poland-Lithuania to remain under occupation pending final negotiations at the aforementioned congress

Catherine II was adamant about agreeing to the terms of the ceasefire as it meant Russia would have to accept that her western and southern neighbors had gotten the upper hand. Throughout October and early November, she contemplated forming a large army in the Siberian depths and using it to drive the Poles from Moscow, even considered making a separate treaty with Sweden and isolating the Commonwealth, which she hoped would force them to evacuate Moscow out of fear of a renewed Swedish Deluge upon Lithuania. But when Panin informed her that both Koscuiszko and von Fersen were fully prepared to march on Astrakhan (where she had moved her court) and that both Orlov and Potenkin lacked sufficient troops to drive them back, she finally relented, placing her seal on the ceasefire documents on 13 November, which Koscuizsko duly received four days later on 17 November. Grigory Orlov would survive his chest wound as the musket had grazed his right lung and heart by mere millimeters, but would be unable to command troops again as the musketball in the thigh had made it impossible for him to mount a horse and left him with a limp. Potemkin was stripped of his command and his awards, flogged, and threatened with execution for his failure to push Pulaski back from Kiev, but in the end he was exiled. In an ironic twist of fate, Potemkin went to Poland-Lithuania (where he was received with full military honors by the King-Grand Duke) and allowed an estate in Brest-Litovsk where he would write his memoirs and constantly plead with his former lover for forgiveness.

Iberia

Despite the treaty which ended the Franco-Spanish invasion, and the subsequent-though temporary-loss of their British allies, Portugal remained determined to regain the territories stripped from them by their Spanish adversaries. The Count of Lippe formed an army of 37,000 with the objective of reconquering Oporto and marching into Spanish Galicia to take La Corunna. A second army, slightly larger (43,000) was formed and placed under the command of British Field Marshal Townshend* with the objective of creating a diversionary lunge toward Madrid. On 20 November, taking advantage of French distractions in Germany and North America, Lippe marched into Oporto, taking the Spanish garrison by surprise, and within 4 hours reoccupied the port and city. He then continued northward, but by now the Spanish were mobilizing under the Count of Aranda and the Marquis of Sarria (49,000 and 67,000 troops respectively). Sarria marched from Madrid to meet Townshend's army while Aranda-meeting with French reinforcements of 23,000 bringing his total number to 72,000-marched from San Sebastian in the direction of La Corunna, which he knew would be the Portuguese objective as it was the base of the Spanish Atlantic Navy. The two armies met just outside the port on 25 November, and after a six-hour battle, Aranda drove the Portuguese back with heavy losses (24,000 Portuguese dead compared to 16,000 Spanish dead). Lippe retreated back to Oporto, with Aranda in pursuit, determined to punish Portugal for breaking the treaty. In the east, Townshend was also defeated when he engaged Sarria 50 miles west of Madrid and forced to fall back toward Lisbon, losing 29,000 troops to Sarria's 11,000. Receiving a strong French auxiliary force sent by Soubise of 25,000 Sarria advanced into Portugal and marched in the direction of Lisbon. Lippe attempted to raise a new army but only managed to recruit 16,000 into his force. Nonetheless he gave battle again 3 miles north of Oporto against Aranda, but was defeated decisively (losing nearly all his men, 27,000 to Aranda's 14,000). Aranda besieged Oporto and four days later on 29/30 November-with little expectation of British assistance and the citizens nearing starvation-the city capitulated to the Spanish army. At the same time, the line of Torres Vedras was breached by Sarria's Hispano-French army, forcing Townshend to conscript 19,000 of the townspeople as militia in an effort to hold back the advance while at the same time appealing to London for assistance (which never materialized as the British parliament was dealing with the aftereffects of the Bourbon Invasion and the separatism of the American and Maracaiban colonies). With hope running low and many townspeople urging him to either give battle or offer terms, Townshend had no choice but to march out to meet Sarria's army. On 5 December-still expecting to hear back from London about a relief army, Townshend committed his biggest blunder by placing the citizens' militia in the forefront of the battlelines. With nearly all of them inexperienced in combat, they dropped their rifles and fled before the first shots were exchanged, depriving him at a stroke of the bulk of his force. Nonetheless he gave battle and for seven hours managed to repulse Spanish and French efforts to break through his lines. By the evening, Townshend found that he had lost 4,000 in dead and 340 injured, whereas Sarria lost 9,000 in dead and 239 injured. Townshend opened up battle on the morning of the 6th with a cannonade which was designed more to intimidate his opponent than inflict casualties. Sarria responded with his own cannonade which killed 450 of Townshend's men. Losing those men demoralized the rest, and many now began to call for Townshend to seek terms, which he refused to do. Sarria, seeing an opportunity, ordered a bayonet charge into Townshend's ranks and by 11 am, Townshend's men were routed, broken and exhausted. Townshend fled with the survivors back to Lisbon, which hours later came under siege.
At 3:45 that afternoon, Lisbon announced its surrender and the Hispano-French army was welcomed into the city. Townshend fled on a sloop for Britain still convinced he could raise a new army and drive the Spanish out, but by the time he landed in Cornwall, Portugal had surrendered to Spain and accepted an armistice at Segovia. The terms would not be revealed until the eventual European congress some years later.

North America

Through the course of 1770 and 1771, the American colonial militias-now known as Continentals-had made impressive gains. In the south, they liberated Georgia Colony then pressed into Spanish Florida, capturing Pensacola, Mobile, and St Augustine. To the north, they advanced and captured Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa from the French; in the west St Louis had fallen to an American-Cherokee force under the command of George Rogers Clark (March 1771). The conquests of Pensacola and Mobile were made all the easier not only because of the Cherokee and Seminole Indian auxiliaries that helped lead the Continentals through swamp and forest, but a small flotilla of American ships recently purchased from Britain at the height of the Franco-Spanish Invasion of 1768 when the treasury was nearing depletion and it became a priority to raise armies in the home ilsands to defend London. In Philadelphia in the spring of 1772 the various delegates from the colonies were meeting to determine their future relationship with Britain as well as continue the war against France and Spain. There were many colonials, such as Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin, who strongly believed that because America had defended itself with little or no British assistance, that the natural course was to declare independence from the British Empire and set up a more centralized government while others such as Sam Adams and Paul Revere supported a maintenance of ties to Great Britain while achieving self-governance and representation in the British Parliament. George Washington, the American commander, along with British commander-general in America William Clinton, favored a combination of a centralized local government for the entirety of the Thirteen Colonies in a form of union with the British Empire and equal representation. With deadlock among the delegates, it seemed that for the time being the issue of relations would remain open, though they agreed to continue the war effort against France and Spain. Washington also invited the American flotilla commander John Paul Jones to meet with the Convention and receive the offices of Commander of the Navy and Secretary of the Navy (at the urging of Washington, who believed that a navy equal in strength to the army would better defend the Americans from French, Spanish and if unavoidable even British attack). One major resolution which was passed was a resolution not to close the Convention until such time as a draft proposal for a form of legislature was agreed to. John Jay, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were given the task of traveling to London to meet with the prime minister and the king with the proposal for self-governing dominion status in the empire, and it was decided that until a decision was made in London, there would be no further debate.

New Spain had been bled white by the continuing war, and despite the initial successes Spain enjoyed, taxation had increased to the point many now agitated against the colonial government. In the Yucatan Peninsula, taxation was exacerbated by the continuing efforts by Spanish landowners to establish new farmlands against the descendants of the Mayans who had once flourished in the jungle fastnesses. As taxation increased, popular discontent also increased. But it was Spanish desecration of the burial sites and religious tenples which now drove the Mayans to unite in revolt. Led by an obscure individual who would become known by his nickname Papa Maya*, the Mayans began to arm with both traditional Mayan weapons and the European weapons they could steal from the Spanish patrols Using these weapons, Papa Maya formed two brigades of 700 warriors and launched a series of raids into Guatemala and San Salvador, and westward into Chiapas. The Spanish, already under strain as a result of their loss of Florida as well as British landings near Havana and Guantanamo Bay, could only muster a force of 1,100 cavalry but it was enough to finally check Mayan raids in Chiapas. Their efforts to drive the Mayan rebels out of Guatemala, however, failed because other Mayan peoples, descendants of those who had spread out from the Yucatan region, now joined their kinsmen, raising the number of warriors to 1,700. Knowing that the Spanish woudl eventually return in force, Papa Maya-who knew Spanish as well as Mayan and could write in Latin-now sought British assistance and protection. This was duly granted by Clinton back in Philadelphia (though he did not inform Washington as he considered Yucatan to be vital to Britain's interests more than America's). Soon convoys of supply ships protected by ships-of-the-line were dropping ammunition and firearms for the Mayans, helping to establish yet another new front in the Americas to which Spain would increasingly have to commit their militarr forces to containing.

Maracaibo-the beginning of the independence movement

The Spanglish population of Lake Maracaibo had been affected just as dramatically as their American counterparts by the sudden removal of British Redcoat troops in order to contain and thereafter repel the Franco-Spanish invasion, and like their American counterparts, the Maracaibans rose to the challenge impressively. A former military officer in the Spanish army of mixed Hispanic-Scottish ancestry named Fernando MacDonald** became the commander-in-chief of the Maracaiban military and quickly raised an army of 4,500 Maracaiban, Afro-Caribbean and Native soldiers, then moved into the Venezuelan jungle to establish a base which earned the nickname 'Vinetown'. From here he launched raids deep into the Venezuelan and Colombian interior attacking military outposts, farms, and mission stations, and causing chaos across New Granada with tales of their ferocity. Britain, seeing yet another area from which to open a front against Spain and tie down their forces, sent a supply ship loaded with ammunition, food and medical supplies, but received a surprise when it was fired upon by a fortress at the entrance to the channel linking the Caribbean Sea to Lake Maracaibo (named after Lawrence Washington). While the hull was left intact, the masts of the supply ship were destroyed, disabling it in the channel and allowing Maracaiban sailors in canoes to board and sieze the crew and supplies. When news reached Jamaica of the attack (and hence thru Jamaica to Clinton in New York) a squadron of six frigates was sent to demand redress, only for them to come under attack from Fort Lawrence Washington, and three smaller forts, named Maracaibo, Kingston and Dover. In the clash which resulted, two frigates were hit at the water-line and went down with all hands, one ship was struck at the stern, where gunpowder was stored and exploded and the remainder were damaged so badly they were forced to raise anchor and retreat. It was this attack which announced to Britain, Spain and the rest of the world that Maracaibo was determined on an independent course.

As the Maracaibans struck their former British managers and their Spanish enemies simultaneously, a convention gathered near the town square. Here, all the delegations from the city districts agreed on a united proclamation of the Most Serene Republic of Maracaibo (also known as the Republic of the Lake), granting citizenship to everyone within the newly created boundaries and adopting a flag for the new nation. Taking their cues from the Philosophes, they drafted a constitution for the new state, created a new tax collection system, and laid the foundations for the later oligarchic executive body. However, their effort to gain international recognition of their new status met with mixed results as only Prussia, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Duchy of Flanders, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the American Federation recognized them. Britain refused to recognize Maracaibo as independent, as did Spain (the only real thing both countries could agree on). Their first official act was a declaration of war against both Spain (who still saw them as part of their viceroyalty of New Granada) and Britain (who saw them as a British conquest which had illegally broken away), and named MacDonald as the new prime minister-a position he would hold under the guidance of the later Oligarchic Executive until his death in 1802. He did not receive the news of his appointment to the position, nor indeed of the declaration of Maracaiban independence until nearly 12 days after the constitution was signed into law, due to his remote location away from the city. He would go down in history as Maracaibo's version of George Washington-ironic considering that the British conquest of the lake region had been achieved by a Virginian army led by another Washington who was related.


* Papa Maya is a fictional individual. The closest approximation to this character in real life-in terms of charisma and ability to lead regiments into battle-would be Shaka, king of the Zulus, though unlike the real-life Zulu king, Papa Maya was less bloody in his method of handing down punishments.

** Fernando MacDonald is also a fictional character. His real-life approximation would be the Hispano-Irish general Bernardo O'Higgins

Source:
Wikipedia
 
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The Transformation of the United Kingdom
Reader's Note: This post will generally summarize the changes that would occur in the United Kingdom as a result of the Franco-Spanish Invasion of 1768-70. This will span the period from 1770-1773 and will only use specific dates for those changes which are deemed important enough to be noted. Aside from the king and prominent real-life ministers and military commanders, all individuals named will be fictional individuals and marked with a (*) and where possible, real-life approximations will be attached as was done in my previous post. The main purpose here is to illustrate how the American and Maracaiban situations are resolved in different ways as well as provide a springboard for the later European peace congress.

Ever since the Norman Conquest of 1066-1068, the British Isles have been under various forms of union dominated to a greater or lesser degree by London. Wales was the first Celtic state to come under Anglo-Norman rule, followed to a somewhat lesser degree by Ireland. Scotland, under the House of Stuart (1371-1652 &1660-1707) held out the longest, mainly due to their historic diplomatic ties to France and successful repulse of both English and Norwegian efforts at conquest. The Act of Union of 1707 brought the kingdoms of England (with an integrated Wales) and Scotland together in a common legislative, economic, military and even dynastic unification. The brief periods in which the Jacobites launched their attempts to reclain the Crown of England were not enough to break the union. But in November of 1768 a combined French and Spanish invasion (thru Ireland) and a Jacobite uprising in Scotland (inspired and funded by France) came the closest to breaking the Union of the Crowns which was the bedrock on which the United Kingdom of Great Britain was built. The rebellions in Ireland and Wales, when combined with the Jacobite uprising in Scotland and the march of the French and Spanish armies placed George III in a difficult position-one reason why he was forced to recall troops from other areas such as America, Maracaibo and Central Europe to drive out the French and Spanish as well as contain the rebellions. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the first issue of the British, removing the French and Spanish from their territory, was finally achieved. But even as the surviving French and Spanish troops (those not either in POW camps or dead on the battlefield) reembarked on their ships for the long voyage home, the Welsh rebellion continued to burn while Ireland remained inflamed by Spanish propaganda which called for a fully independent Catholic Ireland (with, it need hardly be said though the Irish themselves never knew it, the possibility of a union with the Spanish Crown). George III knew that he could not crush the Welsh by force, with an exhausted Home Army, mercenaries from the German states eager to return home, and a treasury which was lacking in substantial funds-while at the same time still committed to the war against the Bourbon kingdoms raging in Europe, North America, the Caribbean and India. He was also all too aware that the withdrawal of British forces from North America and the stunning success of the American colonists had awakened a desire for some form of self-government either attached to or free of British tutelage (Maracaibo would soon prove to be a more explosive problem as they were united in their desire for independence whereas America was open to a dominion status and self-rule within the British Empire).

Before he could address the situations in America and Maracaibo, George III first had to reestablish his rule, returning to London four days after the defeat of the French. Here, he convened a Privy Council tasked with the triple tasks of funding the war effort in Europe so that "never again would Albion be subjugated by Hispania and Gallia", reaching some form of accomodation with the Irish and especially the Welsh, and opening talks with the Americans on their future status. The first task was difficult, for much of the countryside outside the major cites like London were devastated either by the French marching through or by the battles which resulted. Farmers and landed gentry had to be reimbursed for the damages they suffered, which called for an increase in taxation. Sir William Pitt (the Elder) First Lord of Chatham proposed the Tax Act (July 1771) which among other things placed a deadline on its existence so as to satisfy concerns among the nobility and merchant class that the high taxation could bring about a new upheval at a time when the Island Kingdom was still at risk of a renewed French or Spamish invasion. The act called for a tax increase to gradually take place, reaching its peak in 1774 before coming back down, coming to a final end in 1776. This would allow both the landed estates to rebuild and recover from the ravages of the invasion and would continue to fund the British military effort in Europe and India (but not America). As the taxes began to come in, the countryside began to recover their former productivity and soon were in a position to even replenish the treasury from the excess crops they harvested and sold on both the domestic and international markets. George III extended this beneficial policy toward Scotland, which had been devastated when the British and Lowland Scots ravaged the Highlands following the defeat and destruction of the Jacobites, as a way to reconcile Scotland to the Union with England. In this way Scotland was not only rescued from famine and recession but also convinced of the benefits of continued union.

For Wales, the solution was somewhat more complicated. Part of the motivation behind the Welsh uprising lay in the fact that after its forced integration with England, Welsh culture became subsumed under the dominant culture of the Anglo-Norman (English) ruling elites to such a degree that the speaking of Welsh had been banned on pain of imprisonment or execution. Here, the champion of Welsh equality within the United Kingdom was an individual named Roderick Glendower (he claimed descent from Owen Glendower, last independent ruler of Wales)*. He favored continued union with England but with the condition that the Welsh language could be spoken again as a recognized language and Welsh culture could be celebrated again. He was invited to attend a sitting of the Privy Council on 9 May 1772, where he presented his plan to provide Wales with a greater voice in the parliament which would need to be rebuilt. His terms were simple: recognition of Welsh as an official language alongside English and Scottish, the revival of Welsh culture protected by parliamentary law and given the Royal Seal, and the admission of Welsh MPs to the British Parliament on equal footing with their English and Scottish countrymen. He was supported by Pitt, who made the argument that a failure to address the wishes-modest as they were-of the Welsh would leave a back door open for future French or Spanish intervention. He concluded his address by stating that British security required "working with the nations we have taken into our bosom, rather than locking them away and hoping someone from outside the prison doesn't forge a key". George III was so impressed with both Glendower and Pitt's addresses that before even awaiting the decision of the Council, he proclaimed a second Act of Union between Wales and England (it went into effect on 1 January 1773 following a transitional period in which financial assistance was also given to Welsh landowners who saw devastation following the Franco-Spanish invasions) which while tying them in the same manner as Scotland, also recognized the importance of Welsh culture and language in the Greater British identity and lifted the ban on Welsh-speaking and writing. While the title Prince of Wales would continue to be used by future heirs to the Crown, George III created the secondary title Viscount of Cardiff** for Glendower and his descendants as well as calling for the Welsh to select their MPs for the upcoming meeting of the British Parliament in Westminster.

Over two years later, with cease-fires and armistices across Europe, the Moghuls and Marathas contained i India and the fighting in the Caribbean winding down with the capture of both Guantanamo and Havana in Cuba, George III could finally call a meeting of the Parliament, reconstructed with the addition of the Welsh MPs and Glendower as their main representative (15 May 1773). The Tax Act of Pitt was reaffirmed while Parliament passed the Military Reconstruction Act which helped to build the Home Army back to its pre-invasion strength and also allowed many of the regiments to be freed for duty elsewhere (particularly to Maracaibo, which had just declared independence). Additionally, new sunsidy treaties were agreed with Prussia and first-time subsidy treaties were signed with Poland-Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire, and the Grand Republic of Novgorod (though Britain had not yet offered full diplomatic recognition as they were still on good terms with Russia). The finalization of the Clearances which removed the Jacobite threat from Scotland was also completed when Parliament, with endorsement from Edinburgh, pardoned 20,000 Scots who, aside from supporting the Stuart Pretender, had committed no further unlawful acts against the Crown (another gesture toward Scotland by the British king). It was to this first parliamentary session since the start of the Ten Years War that the American delegates Jay, Franklin and Jefferson attended before meeting with the Privy Council and the King to present their proposal for dominion status. Many on the Council wanted to more tightly integrate America into the Empire due to the abundance of timber, furs, tobacco, indigo, cotton and rice which the colonies were still providing. Others were open to the idea of American separatism as they had shown unique ability in doing more to defend British interests on their own than they had while under British guidance. George III was opposed to American separatism on the grounds that the Thirteen Colonies provided Britain with a means to further expand their territory at the expense of Spain and especially France, though he did consider the idea of self-government as part of the Empire. Much to their disappointment, the American delegation found the Council and King divided on the American Question and soon after left to return to America to deliver their report. Before they embarked on their ship, they learned of the Maracaiban attack on a British squadron and the simultaneous declaration of independence by the Maracaibans as well as their recognition by the Philadelphia Convention. Alarmed now by the prospects of Britain retaliating against Maracaibo, then using the pretext of recognition as a casus belli, returning to America in force, they set sail for Philadelphia to report and learn more about the decision.

Hpurs after the American delegation learned of the action at Maracaibo, the Privy Council also learned the news. Consternation was universal and several on the Council now pushed the King to issue a Royal Decree outlawing the Maracaibo rebels and calling up troops to crush the rebellion. He also passed a decree which threatened economic and if necessary military retaliation toward any nation, friend or foe, that recognized Maracaibo. It wouldn't be until after British ambassadors in Berlin, Moscow, Novgorod, Constantinople and even Vienna began reporting on the outrage being expressed by the respective rulers that the King would be forced to reconsider his edict. In a letter drafted to the British ambassadors resident in the European capitals, George III agreed not to press his edict until the peace congress could meet and his representative could better explain the circumstances behind it. He also withheld any retribution against the American Federation as they were still considered vital to the war effort. Nonetheless, the Maracaibo independence movement would fundamentally change the relationship between the American Federation and the British Empire at a time when Britain was still rebuilding from the Bourbon Invasion.


* Roderick Glendower's real-life approximation in terms of his desire for a voice for his people in the British Parliament was Wolfe Tone, who will also appear ITTL

** Viscount of Cardiff is entirely an alternate timeline title as none actually existed IOTL. Here it is a title which is a step on the path to Welsh integration in a united Kingdom, with its own MPs in Parliament, its own culture as a composite of 'British' culture and the recognition of its language as one of four official languages.

No sources were used for this.
 
The Boston Incident and American Independence 1773-1776
By September 1773, with the return of American delegates John Jay, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and the culmination of the war against France and Spain, the American Federation found itself in a precarious position. Britain had begun to return to the Caribbean in force, seizing Guantanamo (27 April) and Havana (4 May). With potential bases close to the mainland and still no decision regarding the future status of the American Federation in the British Empire, Franklin and Paine began agitating for separation. Jefferson, disillusioned by his meeting in London, soon came over to the idea of independence. Washington and Clinton still hoped for a solution which would allow self-governance while remaining part of the British Empire, but their voices were increasingly drowned out by the other delegates who soon began joining the calls for independence. Meanwhile, the Continental armies were already on the march into New Spain (the Tejas region) and the Wyoming Country (part of French Louisiana). Pressure was mounting to force the French and Spanish into a separate peace, regardless of Britain, and ultimately, the Convention agreed to send a list of terms for a peace settlement. While a copy reached Mexico City four days after it was drafted by Jefferson, the same copy took almost a month to reach Versailles, back in Europe. The initial terms proposed called for the cession of Lower Canada, the Ohio Valley, Most of Louisiana Colony including New Orleans, as well as the restoration of Georgia Colony to American administration and the cession of Spanish Florida. The Spanish rejected the terms which called for the cession of Florida and they continued to argue against the loss of Georgia. They attempted to delay discussion while mustering an army to drive the Continentals out of Tejas, but as the Mayan Rebellion was raging in Yucatan and the British Royal Navy's Caribbean fleet was blockading the major ports. They could only raise an army of 9,000 which was defeated when they attempted to push the Continentals from the Rio Grand Valley losing 7,800 to the Americans' 2,200. This loss, combined with the losses suffered by the Mayan rebels forced the Viceroy of New Spain, Jose de Galvez y Gallardo to finally agree to preliminary terms (though he sent a copy of the American proposal to Madrid with a request for additional instructions). Meantime, American munitions supplies were sent to the Mayan rebels in order to keep the pressure on the Viceroyalty and balance British influence.

Growing tensions between the Americans and British led to small incidents which generally were resolved mutually and for a time tamped down the unease. But on 4 July 1774, the most horrendous incident in both American and British history happened. It began the day before, when pro-indepenedence protestors attacked the Tax Office in Boston, declaring that no further taxes would be sent to line the pockets of London. A group of 200 Redcoats arrived and arrested the protestors. It had been decided that, in order to prevent further acts of violence from breaking out, the protestors would be released the next day (they had vandalized the interior of the building and gave the British managers a scare, but no one was injured or killed). At 6 am the day of the incident, the 90 protestors were released by the British authorities. Two hours later, and unknown to Commander-and-Chief of the British Army North America Thomas Gage, a party of 2,000 Redcoats began rounding up several of the merchants in Boston Harbor, harassing them over the actions of the protestors the day before. A Massachusetts milita battalion of 2,000 under the command of John Campbell arrived to try to defuse the situation, and while both sides were evenly matched in terms of troops, the Americans had more experience thanks to the fighting in the wilderness under the commands of Burgoyne and Washington. The stand-off lasted through the midday with both sides afraid to yield ground to the other. Then at 3:50 pm a soldier on the British side, reacting to a sneeze from a fellow soldier, accidentally fired on the Americans, which triggered a bloodbath as both sides-already on edge-opened fire. In the two hours of fighting which followed 15 of the merchants who had been rough-housed were killed (3 survived and would recount the incident to Gage three days later) 760 Americans were killed and 18 injured and the British lost 385 dead and 19 injured. Additionally around 25 civilians who had been caught in the killing zone also lost their lives. One of the lucky survivors would report the 'Boston Incident' to the city press, causing outrage in Boston (it would be overblown initially and lead to two more confrontations with the Redcoats before the true account as given to Gage was made public.)

New England had been the most solidly in favor of retaining some form of union with the British Empire before the Boston Incident. When news of the bloodshed spread all across the region however, support for continued union rapidly declined and hundreds of former supporters-turned-patriots of American separatism now began to arm themselves. Four months after the Boston Incident these bands of militias and 'minutemen' had coalesced into two groups of 4,000 and though lacking artillery made up for this in zeal and determination to punish the British for the acts in Boston. Both armies were under the command of Brigadier General Samuel McClellan and they were determined to march on Boston from Concord to force the commander of the British troops stationed there, Major John Pitcairn, to acknowledge his inability to control his men. Pitcairn, warned ahead of time by an informant in McClellan's army, marched out from the city to meet him and the two sides met at Lexington on 6 July at 11 am. Neither side had cannon as it was hoped that a show of force would be enough to bring the other side to terms without great bloodshed (epsecially given that Boston was up in arms over the Incident by this time). But as in Boston, one shot fired triggered a bloodbath. In this case however, it was a sharpshooter hiding in a tree close to the British lines. Though he had taken aim at Pitcairn, he instead hit his adjunt in the forehead, knocking him from his horse in front of a startled Pitcairn (he was dead before he hit the ground). Both sides were startled by the random gunshot and immediately began firing on each other. Pitcairn, in a panic and still trying to calm the situation before more blood was spilled, shouted at his men to hold their fire. But with their comrades dropping under the barrage of American musket fire, none dared to cease firing. On their side, McClellan also attempted to calm his men down. He wanted to face down Pitcairn and force him to acknowledge his guilt in the Incident and accept arrest under British Law. But by 4 pm, the fighting had gotten so out of control that Pitcairn had lost 700 of his 1,800 troops while McClellan lost 90 of his 4,000. Growing despondant, Pitcairn ordered his troops to retreat for Boston and the safety of the naval guns in the harbor while he prepared a report for Gage. McClellan, not willing to let his opponent escape, gave chase and the stationary battle now became a running firefight.

In New York City, General Gage was furious. He had learned of the actions at Lexington (but not yet the Boston Incident) and was already preparing orders for both Burgoyne and Clinton to immediately arrest and detain the American military personnel as well as the delegates to the Convention. He felt betrayed by his former friend Washington (who was also not aware of the Boston Incident, or for that matter the fighting in Lexington). It was later reported that when Clinton received his orders to detain Washington, he flew into a rage and immediately tore off all the medals he had earned in service to the British Army, declaring himself "a proud American". He never arrested Washington, nor did he make his friend aware of Gage's order to do so. Burgoyne, who had also fought with Washington against the French was appalled by the decree and also resigned in protest. As reports from Pitcairn arrived on the strength of the American armies pressing on him as he retreated to Boston, Gage found himself without support as his two best generals had not responded acknowledgment of their orders and Howe was still in Britain helping to retrain the Home Army in the wake of the Bourbon Invasion. On the 8th of July at 9 am, the survivor of the Boston Incident arrived at Gage's HQ with the detailed report of the incident in all its gory detail and made clear that it had been Pitcairn's troops which had committed the offenses leading to and igniting the bloodbath. His later acocunt of the meeting with Gage recalled that upon hearing the story of the massacre in Boston, Gage sank into his chair and wept like a little girl, not just because of the casualties which both sides suffered in Boston, but also because of the fact that the Americans were only desiring Pitcairn to account for his actions-or in the case of the incident, inactions. He drafted a letter to the British Colonial Secretary of State George Germain and the Prime Minister Lord North requesting instruction and calling for immediate dismissal of Pitcairn, who would also be tried for his role in the Boston Incident. He soon after sent an urgent letter to Pitcairn demanding his resignation and an immediate cease-fire.

Gage need not have bothered with the letter, for as Pitcairn drew close to Boston, he found himself facing an army of Redcoats numbering 3,000 commanded by Lord Cornwallis. Cornwallis had been informed by the Massachusetts legislature of the events of the Incident and had brought his troops to arrest Pitcairn. Cornwallis sent a rider to meet with McClellan to inform him of Pitcairn's arrest. Pitcairn, thinking Cornwallis was there to support him, finally turned to face the approaching Continentals, only to find the iron cuffs clapped on his wrists. As McClellan (and the messenger) rode forward, Cornwallis presented Pitcairn's saber as a gesture of trust, then presented the handcuffed ex-Major. He informed him that Pitcairn had been arrested by order of the Boston council and he would likely also face charges from the Colonial Office. McClellan accepted the saber, and called off his troops . On 8 August, weeks after the Boston Incident and the Clash at Lexington, Major John Pitcairn was dismissed from the Royal Army, his honors and medals stripped, and he himself transported to Australia to serve a 10-year prison term. Gage issued an edict awarding damages to those families in Boston who had lost loved ones in the massacre and reducing the number of Redcoat patrols to 100 men, placing the garrison under the command of Cornwallis for the remainder of the period. However, these acts, gracious though they were, had ignited outrage across the American Federation, as it also did in London when they learned the details of the Boston Incident three weeks after news reached Philadelphia. Both sides had been given a kick to the rear-end by the Boston Incident and the resulting Battle of Lexington and though there were those in the British Ministry such as Lord North, who wanted to use the Lexington battle as a means to suppress American separatism once and for all. the strong voice of the elder Pitt now urged that a compromise needed to be made with America, even if independence was the end result as they couldn't afford new enemies at a time when they were still (technically) at war with France and Spain and already fighting Maracaibo as well. At Pitt's urging (and over the head of Lord North, who resigned soon after with his last words being "Oh God! Its all over now") George III sent the Earl of Carlisle Frederick Howard to Philadelphia to meet with Jefferson and Jay.

Carlisle came to Philadelphia on 11 September in the hope of meeting only with Jefferson and Jay. But as both men were at the Philadelphia Convention, he was forced to travel to the Convention Hall, where he found the delegates in a fit of rage over the Boston Incident. Fearing for his safety, he waited in the adjacent room while Jefferson tried to restore calm. Here, Carlisle met General Washington, who agreed to escort him into the chamber and stand with him. Carlisle agreed and entered the chamber with Washington. His presence helped prevent some of the delegates from rushing the still-nervous Carlisle. The Georgia delegation shouted down Carlisle before he could even begin to speak, until they were silemced by a calm Franklin. The following is a later recounting of the opening speech Carlisle made to the Convention as recorded by John Adams:

"It is with great distress that His Royal Majesty learned of the tragedy which befell the citizens of the city of Boston. Our Commander-in-Chief has already awarded damages to be paid to the victiims, though I have no doubt that this will not be enough to assauge the outrage you no doubt feel. It is for this reason that His Royal Majesty, wishing to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion has authorized me to offer the following options. The first isfor self-government with a fixed general tax for maintenance of British troops on this continent. He is even willing to accept a unification of your colonies as a federation. Option two is a full and formal separation. Your colonial militias comported themselves admirably during the war and won significant gains. It is quite difficult for His Royal Majesty to deny that you have earned your right to freedom of self-government independent of Our tutelage...."

Though Carlisle continued for some time with his speech, the announcement that Britain was willing to part company with its American colonies had taken the fire from the delegates. Even Washington was stunned into silence. After finishing his speech, Carlisle left the chamber. Washington made clear that he still viewed with favor continued union with the Empire, but would be willing to accept independence now that it was also an option. Adams, Revere and Franklin also agreed to endorse independence. Jefferson was tasked with drafting the document as well as a Article of Federation for the state. It wouldn't be until 1776 that the last British troops (which had ironically been returning since 1770) would evacuate. Jefferson finished the Declaration on 15 December and finished the Article of Federation on 12 February (it is worth noting that while the documents were made official on their respective dates, the Declaration was not announced until 4 July 1776, which became known soon after as Independence Day). It was decided that a delegation would travel to Europe to discuss final treaty boundaries with the French. Spanish and British ambassadors.


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Wikipedia
Seven Years War - Daniel Marston
 
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The Congress of Frankfurt 1775-1776
Reader's Note: The next posts will consist of a breakdown of the events directly leading to the Congress, as well as the Congress itself and its immediate aftermath. Subheaders will be used to delineate each section and each may contain more than one post. Fictional characters will again be marked with an (*) and their real-life approximates listed where applicable.

Preliminaries


With cease-fires and armistices in place, the diplomats of the major powers involved in the Ten Years War now worked feverishly to construct a general framework for the negotiations which would need to take place for peace to finally arrive. All combatant powers were by now thoroughly exhausted, their populace becoming increasingly unhappy both with the increased taxes being used to fund the war and the loss of life resulting from the war and in nations such as France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Hungary and even Great Britain the combined effects of high taxation, conscriptions, devastation, blockade and outbreaks of disease were straining the populations to the breaking point. Emergency measures were already being applied in Russia and Britain to mitigate the negative effects as best as their governments could, while in France Louis XVI* who had ascended the throne in 1774 after the death of Louis XV, now called the Estates-Generak for the first time since 1612 to seek recommendations on how to rebuild the French treasury and avoid bread shortages resulting both from the shift in climate during this period (the Little Ice Age) and the constant supply of troops in the field. In Russia, the climate shift resulted in large-scale famine only alleviated with the intervention of their former foes Poland-Lithuania and Sweden via shipments of grain, fish, and potatoes. In the Ottoman Empire, famine in Mesopotamia, while responsible for the full Persian withdrawal from the region, did little improvement with the return of the Turkish governors and soldiers. Hungary, too, experienced brief periods of food shortage as their countryside had been devastated by Austrian, Polish, and Turkish raids in the course of the war, and the popularity of King Anton I was at an all-time low with many who were still alive when the Hapsburgs had liberated Hungary from Islamic rule longing for their return. For Frederick the Great, the conquest of Bornholm and defense of Silesia was small endeavors in a country whose treasury, like in France was very low. Unlike France, however, Frederick had no qualms about raising taxes and using force to put down any dissention, even from among his own family. Spain was experiencing a recession due to the decrease in the flow of gold, silver, sugar, tobacco and indigo from their American empire due to British, Maracaiban, American and Mayan interference. Further, they were now at diplomaric loggerheads with many of the nations which were already recognizing Maracaiban independence (and in the case of the American Federation, the Mayan rebels as well) and further felt cheated by the loss of Buenos Aires to Britain, Florida and Georgia to the Americans, Maracaibo to the "rebels" and the Mayan Insurgency. Austria's economic woes, while not as dire as Spain's, was still felt among the landed gentry and even the incorporation of Ragusa and Dalmatia only barely offset the financial costs of having so many troops in the field. Novgorod had already begun constructing its financial base with the assistance of Britain and Sweden but could not as yet raise an army even for purely defensive purposes.

Carlisle, coming off the success of his peace talks with the American Federation, now proposed a congress to settle all outstanding issues remaining from the Hapsburg Succession War (which might not have been settled by the Peace of Munich) and the Ten Years War. He was not alone, for the Polish diplomat Casimir Lokietek* was also eager to bring an end to the war, as his country-despite its victory over Russia-was experiencing economic distress related to supporting both Russia and Novgorod and had already received subsidies from Britain to offset the drain due to subsidizing both its new ally and its old former enemy. Carlisle and Lokietek had begun corresponding on 12 September while he was still in America negotiating the armistice. Lokietek proposed a meeting of the major European powers in a central location where final treaties could be worked out and combined into a general settlement. Upon his return on 20 November, Carlisle-joined by the Marquess of Rockingham** traveled to the Imperial Free City of Frankfurt to meet with the Mayor to discuss hosting a peace congress. Three weeks later, they were joined by Lokietek and the Ottoman grand Vizier Kose Pasha. These three men (Carlisle would play a role, but history would only remember Rockingham) would form the 'Big Three' of the Congress of Frankfurt. They would be joined, on 30 November by de Vergennes, the French diplomat and foreign minister. These individuals would have to discuss the order of precedence, seating arrangements, cuisine to be served during the congress, as well as any entertainments. On the order of precedence, it was agreed that the Bahemianss-as Holy Roman Emperors-would be given the first seat, followed by Prussia, Austria, Saxony, and Hanover (despite the Elector also being King of Great Britain, which meant that a solely Hanoverian representative would have to be selected). Of the non-German powers, Britain and France would take precedence, followed by Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, Spain, Sardinia-Piedmont, The Papal State, Portugal, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Hungary, Novgorod, the Dutch Republic, Grand Duchy of Flanders, Denmark-Norway, Two Sicilies and Morocco (as an observer). Just before the conference was set to begin the American Federation announced it would send delegates to the Congress, which caused some resentment among the Spanish and Russian delegations as they now had to make a place for the delegation (also, Spain was still fuming over the losses of Georgia and Florida, as well as the recognition of the Mayan rebels as independent).

Problems arose when the Russian and Novgorodian delegations arrived on 6 December. With 1 foot of snow already fallen, the delegates came into contact with each other and immediately began taunting one another. When a snowball hit the child of the secretary for the Russian delegation, the verbal fighting became an intense snowball fight which required the city authorities and a detachment of Imperial troops to break up and separate. This wouldn't be the last time the two delegations would face off during the conference, and they were far from the only ones. At the very first dinner between the delegates and their wives and mistresses, the Spanish delegate raised a toast to the health of James III the Stuart Pretender, which outraged the British delegates and nearly ended the dinner prematurely as both groups stared each other down for several tense minutes, causing the Hungarian and Neapolitan delegations to consider withdrawing to their own housing. Meanwhile, after the opening dinner, each of the delegates retired to their own suites, where many continued to receive reports from the commanders on the field. Often the diplomats received these reports well before the sovereigns back home did, which caused some scandal especially with the Hungarians as King Anton often only learned of a military decision six days after his ambassador in Franfurt-am-Main did (and by then he was unable to counter such a decision). Two more days of festivities designed to distract the wives, mistresses, and children of the delegates would take place as final preparations for the conference were completed. The coming of the new year would be a trying time for the diplomats as they worked to repair the damage which had not fully been resolved by the Peace of Munich.


* A fictional character for this timeline. His real-life approximation would be Lech Walesa, founder of Solidarity and Poland's first democratic president
** Charles Watson-Wentworth 2nd Marquess of Rockingham ( 27 March-2 July 1782). ITTL he's part of the trio of British negotiators at the Congress of Frankfurt, the others being the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Shelburne.

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The Congress of Frankfurt

As the wives, children, mistresses and staff were continually treated to balls, concerts, festivals and fairs, the diplomats and their secretaries got to work on the tough task of hammering out a settlement among the various nations which would end the Ten Years War and finalize the earlier Peace of Munich. The task was not made easier by the fact that the generals still in the field often demanded news of negotiations before they were passed to the sovereigns, and the air of tension in the conference hall was such that as an observer later recorded "You needed but one cannon blast, or gunshot, or even an item of glassware to break and the entire hall would've fled as if their lives depended on escape above anything else". In this atmosphere, the slightest disruption was likely to escalate into a resumption of hostilities, and while the conference did finally conclude successfully, the very fact of the unease, thwarted ambitions, distrust of allies and persecution among the diplomats insured that crises would arise which threatened to bring the congress to an abrupt end.
In the first instance, it was decided that the conference would be broken up into several committees which would tackle the most crucial trouble spots, then enfold them into a Final Act which would be signed by all the representatives:
- The Committee on Colonial Affairs*
- The Committee on Germanic Affairs
- The Committee on the Balkans
- The Committee on Eastern Europe
- The Committe on Commercial Affairs
- The Committee on the Final Act
Each committee would be chaired by the Holy Roman Emperor (except the Colonial Committee, as the Emperor had no colonial skin in the game). Charles Theodore of Bahemia (Charles VIII, Holy Roman Emperor and simultaneously Elector of Bahemia)-who had previously replaced Maximillian Joseph (Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor) had the hard task of keeping all sides talking while at the same time-where possible-asserting his own interests. But where the first sign of trouble came from was not the Germanic Committee (which was meeting simultaneously with it) but the Colonial Committee and the source was Spain. Charles III had been outraged by the fact that Britain had seized both Cuba and Luzon (Phillippines) during the war, and the Americans had liberated Georgia and conquered Florida. Furthermore, both powers were aiding the Mayans and Maracaibans who were seeking to break away from Spanish rule. At the conference, him and his minister, Jose Monino Count of Floridablanca** made demands of Britain-namely the restoration of Luzon and Cuba. It was to this committee that American delegates John Adams and John Jay first arrived (Franklin was meeting separately with Belle-Isle, the French emissary with de Vergennes). The sight of the American delegation outraged Floridablanca, who threatened a duel with Jay**. The impasse lasted from the day after the opening of the conference on 10 December nearly to Christmas before Belle-Isle and Franklin announced a compromise solution.

Secretly, the two statesmen had worked out the agreement which would be known as the Belle-Franklin Agreement. The agreement would be contingent on gaining the support of the British, but called for a three-phase process. Phase one would be the restoration of Luzon to Spain in exchange for Buenos Aires and the hinterland, which Britain had conquered during the latter days of the war. Phase two would involve Cuba, but here it was proposed that the island would be ceded not to Spain but to the American Federation. The third phase would involve a readjustment of the American claims on Quebec as well as a small indemnity to France. It had been agreed that only the northern and central portions of Quebec would be restored to France, recognizing American conquests in Lower Quebec (Upper Canada) and Ontario (Lower Canada) retaining the cities of Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa while allowing French navigation of the St Lawrence River. France would also acknowledge the conquest of their Louisiana Colony and the Ohio Country by the Americans.
Floridablanca learned of the discussion and with his sovereign demanded that a separate committee exclusively devoted to America be created, as they still held claims on Georgia and Florida which the Americans rejected. Britain supported the Spanish demands only insofar as they would support the Americans (it was believed that if they were to lose Georgia and Cuba, better it be to the Americans than to either the French or especially the Spanish). Charles III fell into his own trap as the Americans now demanded Cuba from Spain in addition to Florida and received French and British support. Charles III dug in his heels and refused to consider the American claims until he received word on 23 December of a buildup of American troops, Georgia and Carolina militias under General Benjamin Lincoln gathering in Pensacola and Mobile. A French army massing in French Guiana was also preparing to march on New Granada and had already recognized Maracaibo as independent (which would leave a lasting wound on Franco-Spanish relations for the rest of the decade and into the next). With midnight approaching and no way for a Spanish army to be raised to defend their South American colonies from further British (and now French) incursions and the Americans poised to invade Cuba as soon as British regiments left the island, Charles III finally capitulated. The Treaty of Munster was negotiated between the Spanish and American diplomats on 27 December by which Spain ceded Florida and Cuba to the American Federation, as well as acknowledge their loss of Georgia. They also paid an indemnity of $120,000 to the American Federation. In return, Britain returned Luzon to the Spanish (though they retained Buenos Aires, which the Spanish refused to renounce claims on). France pledged to acknowledge Spanish rule over the remainder of Latin America, though they excepted the Mayan and Maracaiban rebels.

The terms of the Treaty of Cordoba had been one-sided in Spain's favor. Joseph I of Portugal had resented ceding so much of his national territory that he made the risky decision to go to war with Spain in November of 1772. While the Portuguese were defeated in Iberia, they enjoyed greater success in South America. Here, in league with Britain, the Portuguese Brazilian Army landed in Buenos Aires aiding the British Expeditionary Force in capturing the city before marching north toward Gran Chaco (OTL Paraguay). They destroyed the Spanish outposts and captured the mission stations in the region and held off efforts by the Spanish from the Viceroyalty of Lima to take the area back. In addition, a second Portuguese army, with British auxiliaries, landed in Montevideo, and defeated a Spanish force of 1,700. As a result, what Portugal lost in Europe, they gained in South America. However, the Armistice of Segovia had expired by the time of the Congress of Frankfurt, and with Spain already in an aggressive mood over North America, they placed a set of two demands on Portugal at the conference. In South America, they demanded the evacuation of Gran Chaco and the cession of Montevideo as well as Rio de Janiero. In Africa, they demanded an end to the long-standing alliance between Portugal and the Kingdom of Kongo.In Europe, Spain demanded the Algarve. Joseph I refused to accede to Spanish demands and was supported by Britain and (again) France. Vergennes warned Floridablanca that while His Majesty would stand by his dynastic kinsman, any attempt at delay would result in a French expedition to Catalonia and likely also trigger British intervention both in Galicia and Montevideo, Once again, Charles III found himself at odds with his Bourbon allies in France and at the mercy of Britain. Here, however, Vergennes offered a compromise solution. Spain would gain the Algarve region of Portugal in exchange for Portugal gaining Gran Chaco and Montevideo. Portugal would be required to pay an indemnity of $25,000 ducats as a means of salvaging Spanish pride. This had the additional support of the Dutch who saw in such exchange a lucrative trade opportunity. Charles III agreed and on 13 January he and Joseph I, with Vergennes as witness, signed the Treaty of Osnabruck. In it, Spain ceded Gran Chaco and acknowledged Portuguese administration of Montevideo. They also recognized British rule of Buenos Aires (a Portuguese demand), and gained the Algarve from Portugal (though the alliance with Kongo remained intact). Charles III was also awarded the $25,000 ducats from Portugal. With this one treaty, both the American and Iberian theaters of war between the Hispanic states came to an end, though it would leave both in some financial ruin.

The Germanic Committe, consisting of Bahemia, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, Wurttemburg, Trier, Cologne, Aachen, Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Oldenburg, Bremen, Verden, Lubeck, Prussia, Austria and Coburg met outside Frankfurt (where it was hoped there would be little interference from foreign, especially British or French intrigue). But even here, the two non-German powers would shape the future destiny of the Germanic world. For her part, Austria's King Joseph I (Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor IOTL) was ready enough to close the war with Prussia, especially given their temporary alliance to overturn Saxony's bid for equality. The two hegemonic German states imposed a new treaty on Saxony, but then Vergennes, eager to maintain French influence in the Empire, intervened. With French troops now evacuating from Saxon Breisgau Vergennes used gold and French threats of intervention to convince the Prussians not to press claims on Saxony itself. Frederick Augustus III, however, refused to relinquish Saxon claims to Silesia, calling the previous agreement between Saxony and Prussia a sham designed to grant Prussia more control over the province. Austrian minister Kaunitz countered by telling the Saxons that if they should reconquer Silesia from the Prussians, then they would have to hold it against the Hapsburgs' own claims (which were never rescinded despite the cession of the province to Prussia in 1748). For his part, Frederick II was not prepared to allow the Saxons to press for Silesia. France, through Vergennes, rallied the Rhineland states against both the threat of Prussian intervention and Saxon aggrandizement, while Britain joined Hanover and the Hanseatic cities in warning both Prussia and Saxony against militarization. Austria and Poland-Lithuania urged restraint from Saxony. On 16 Jamuary, three days after the Spanish-Portuguese Treaty of Osnabruck was signed, both Britain and France signed the Treaty of Hastings pledging to sink their differences for the time being and work together to apply diplomatic and military pressure on Saxony. Frederick Augustus III, faced with such strong opposition and with no allies, bowed to the inevitable and in the Treaty of Bremen the four Silesian towns which had been part of Saxony, was shared between Prussia and Poland-Lithuania. Saxony paid an indemnity of $200,000 to Prussia. For Prussia and Austria, the attempt by a third power to profit from their hostility had shown that they could no longer ignore the rest of Germany.

Prussia had more reason to be grateful for not intervening in Saxony. They had been alarmed by Sweden's resurrection as a military power, and only relaxed when they observed the Swedes invade Russia with their Polish partners. Having secured Silesia against both the Austrians and (more immediately) the Saxons. Frederick II could negotiate the successful purchase of the island of Bornholm from their Danish allies, adding another level of defense to the Baltic. Polish emissary Ignacy Potocki*** and Count von Fersen representing Sweden now met with the new Tsar, Paul I (Catherine II had been so humiliated by the Russian defeat in the war that she abdicated and retired to a monastery in the Ural Mountain region, where she would write treatises on why Russia was defeated and how to regain all that had been lost). Paul I was a mercurial man who sometimes displayed irrationality. Faced with the defeat of his military, the occupation of both Russian capitals (St Petersburg by the Swedes, Moscow by the Poles), and a Europe that seemed to pay little heed to Russia, Paul I was determined to reverse the humiliation. Meeting in Frankfurt, Potocki and von Fersen presented the terms of a peace agreement with Russia. A French observer to the meeting later recounted:

"The expression on the Tsar's face when he read the terms by which his country was to see peace changed so dramatically that one got the sense that he had been told to murder a small child. His face became flushed and his eyes took on a madness only seen by the insane"

The terms as laid down in the joint document drafted by von Fersen and Potocki on behalf of their respective governments were as follows:
- Cession of Estonia and Karelia, including St Petersburg to Sweden
- Cession of Minsk, Kiev, and Smolensk to Poland-Lithuania
- Recognition of Polish national sovereignty (meaning an end to Russian influence in the Commonwealth)
- Recognition of the Ukraine as an autonomous Hetmanate under Polish suzerainty
- Recognition of the Grand Republic of Novgorod as an independent state under the joint protection of Poland-Lithuania and Sweden

Potocki had intended to push the Tsar into restoring Crimea to the Ottomans, but here the Tsar refused outright, warning that Poland-Lithuania could be viewed as "aligning with the forces of the Anti-Christ in their effort to destroy Christendom". Potocki replied with the retort, "You couldn't even prevent the Tartars from overrunning your country back in the 12th century. How did you expect to hold off Hussars and Vikings?" Paul I walked out of the meeting, and for several days, they were at an impasse. During that time, Kaunitz, Vergennes and Rockingham worked to reach a solution that would recognize the Poles' and Swedes' victory in war but save Muscovite pride at the same time. Meantime, von Fersen, again taking up the marshal's baton, readied his army while Potocki instructed Koscuizsko to have his army ready to march on Tsaritsyn within a week. Potemkin reported to Paul I that the Poles were already receiving reinforcements and the Swedes were opening talks with the Ottomans for a major offensive to regain Crimea. Tensions were on the rise and this was the point in which the congress came close to collapse. It was Stanislaw Poniatowski who now came to the rescue at the eleventh hour. A former lover of ex-Tsarina Catherine II, Poniatowski went over the head of the Tsar (a risky proposition given Paul I's temperament) and proposed a treaty in which Russia would keep Crimea as compensation for the losses it would have to acknowledge. Paul I tried to interfere, demanding the Swedes hand back St Petersburg, but von Fersen made clear that the city had been built on Swedish territory and wasn't conceded until the Peace of Nystadt. Poniatowski agreed (angering the Tsar) and a preliminary treaty was seigned on 27 January and finalized in Stettin (with the Prussian king as witness) on 2 February. By the terms of this treaty, the gains Sweden made in Karelia were somewhat trimmed back, awarding slices of the territory to Novgorod. Paul I tried to object, but then he learned of the chaos erupting in Hungary, where King Anton I was in danger of losing the crown due to the territorial and financial demands imposed by the Austrians and Turks (particularly the financial demands) and he realized that as horrible as the territorial losses were, the Swedes didn't impose an indemnity on them (though the Poles would, but even this was nothing compared to what Hungary was forced to pay). Poland-Lithuania was confirmed in possession of Smolensk, Minsk, Kiev and Livonia. Sweden confirmed Polish control of Gotland and Poland-Lithuania and Sweden together confirmed Prussia's purchase of Bornholm from Denmark-Norway. The Danes agreed to divide Scania with Sweden, retaining the coastland adjacent to Zeeland with Sweden retaining the rest. All four powers signed this treaty and brought an end (at least temporarily in the case of Denmark-Norway and Sweden) for the immediate future.

The Kingdom of Hungary had gone from on the cusp of great power standing to a shadow of its once-glorious self in roughly three years. At the peak of the war, Hungary had conquered the western Balkans nearly to the Pelopponese and even joined Russia for what was to be the final partition of the Ottoman Empire. But even as they were on the cusp of realizing the old crusading dream of evicting the Turks from Europe once and for all, their former Hapsburg masters had seized the Dalmatian coast and the independent mercantile republic of Ragusa and thus presented a danger to the Hungarian flank. Combined with the sudden withdrawal of the Russians to attempt to defend Moscow from the Poles, the Hungarian war-effort collapsed. King Anton I, desperate to keep Russia in the Turkish offensive, continued with the siege of Constantinople only to be defeated by the Turks coming off their victory against Persia. Poland-Lithuania took advantage of the Turkish counteroffensive and Austrian movements in Burgenland to send armies raiding over the Carpathian Mountains. Between the Polish raids, the Turkish reconquests of Nis, Sofya, and Sarajevo and the advance of Archduke Charles of Austria from Burgenland into Hungary proper culminating in the Siege of Budapest (1774). With the collapse of resistance and capitulation of the city, King Anton I finally bowed to the inevitable and offered terms. It was agreed to meet in Belgrade on 24 January. Kaunitz, coming just days after bringing the Austro-Prussian-Saxon conflict to a close now worked with Potocki thru correspondence to hammer out a peace agreement. Kose Pasha, representing Sultan Mustafa III, Kaunitz, representing Joseph I and Istvan Andrassy***, representing Anton I would spend the next three weeks discussing and arguing over the terms. Andrassy first broached the subject of Dalmatia, arguing that the loss of the region would affect Hungarian commerce. Kose Pasha argued that the Hungarians had thrown away any chance of sympathy by joining the Russians. Potocki, writing from Moscow, offered a solution in the form of a Navigation Treaty between Hungary and Turkey which would allow Hungarian ships to transport goods down the Danube, alloted a section of the port of Varna and Constantinople which would operate under a joint Hungarian-Turlkish commission (but would still observe Turkish Law. Andrassy conceded the agreement and the Sultan affixed his seal. Potocki also made clear that Poland-Lithuania would not take any Hungarian territory as part of the peace agreement. On 14 February, the Treaty of Belgrade was signed by Andrassy, Kaunitz and Kose Pasha. The terms finally agreed were:
- Hungary would cede Burgenland to Austria
- Hungary would recognize Austrian conquest of Dalmatia and western Slavonia
- Hungary would evacuate their troops from Sarajevo and restore it to Turkish rule.
- Hungary would recognize the annexation of Ragusa to Austria
- Hungary would end its alliance with Russia
- Hungary to pay reparations amounting to $300,000 ducats to Austria and the Ottoman Empire over a five-month period.
- Budapest to remain under Austrian occupation pending final reparation payment.

The Hungarian-Turkish River Commerce Agreement became enfolded into an agreement hammered out by the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Prussian, Swedish, Polish and American delegations and known as the Freedom of the Seas Agreement. These nine nations laid down the framework by which future naval combat and commerce would be waged and as 1775 continued, other naval powers signed on to the Agreement: Novgorod (17 March), The Two Sicilies (3 April), Sardinia-Piedmont (19 April), Grand Duchy of Flanders (6 June), Denmark-Norway (28 June), Russia (3 August) and the Mayan Republic (19 August). This agreement also opened up several major rivers such as the Mississippi (America), Ohio (America), St Lawrence (America), Rhine (Europe), Rhone (Europe), Danube (Europe), Oder (Europe) and Vistula (Europe) to international commerce. Britain also inserted a clause which would begin the process of ending the slave trade, with France and the American Federation joining almost immediately and the rest over time.

During the negotiations in Frankfurt, three world-changing events took place in the western hemisphere which would alter the course of the conference. Maracaibo had declared independence during the conference, which was reluctantly accepted by Britain, enthusiastically welcomed by the American Federation, and rejected by Spain. Charles III announced his intention to bring the Maracaiban rebels (as he continued to label them). He raised an army under Sarria numbering 130,000 men and a fleet of 120 ships escorted by 20 ships-of-the-line and 5 frigates under Lieutenant-General Antonio Barcelo**** for the projected invasion of Maracaibo. A second army of 90,000 under the command of Matias de Galvez y Gallardo***** was assembled in Panama to assist in the invasion and cut off any attempt by the British to land troops to support the rebels. News of the pending Spanish invasion made it to the American delegation, who immediately reported it to Philadelphia (they received the news of the Spanish plans six days before the British learned of it). On 7 September John Paul Jones ordered sea captain Dewey Mahan***** to raise a fleet of 10 frigates and 17 ships-of-the-line (all formerly British Royal Navy ships requisitioned by the Americans) to escort 30 transports which would carry an army of 80,000 commanded by Benjamin Lincoln. They would first sail to Cuba and pick up an additional 20 transports with 40,000 Hispano-Cuban auxiliaries before sailing on to Maracaibo. Britain and France reacted to the news more directly as a French army advanced into Catalonia while a British expeditionary force landed in Galicia. As the two armies march deeper into Spain, diplomatic pressure was applied on the Spanish king by the Dutch, Portuguese and Flandrines. It was only on 17 November, with the British in La Corunna, the French besieging Barcelona, and the American Navy winning a stunning victory over the Spanish fleet off Curacao that Charles III relented. But even as he drafted a proposal for a ceasefire with Britain and France, the American Navy met the main Spanish armada near Caracas and in a four-hour exchange of broadsides captured or destroyed 3 frigates and 16 ships-of-the-line while losing only 3 frigates and 7 ships-of-the-line and further capturing almost all 120 transports (three escaped). Lincoln and his troops were disembarked near the city, and the American fleet took up defensive position, later joined by a small British flotilla of 4 frigates and 7 ships-of-the-line. Charles III informed Franklin of his concession to Maracaiban independence. The result was the Treaty of Caracas (7 December) signed by Maracaibo, Spain, and the American Federation with Britain and France also adding their signatures. The main issue of Maracaiban independence was resolved with Spain recognizing the Republic of the Lake and paying the American Federation $270,000 ducats.

The Mayans witnessed the events in Maracaibo with hope, for they had been fighting Spain since 1773 and had recently begun receiving British and American assistance in the form of munitions drops, food shipments, and medical supplies. The Spanish, unable to do more than hold Chiapas against the continued Mayan assaults and with a naval presence too weak to do little more than harass the British and American ships, increased taxes in New Spain and New Granada further to fund the raising of new armies. But as 1774 progressed into 1775, unrest in New Spain was becoming untenable, with many landowners now talking of separation from Spain. The alarm this caused the Viceroys was enough to bring about a major crackdown. Charles III, already at odds with the Americans and British (and to a degree the French as well), now felt compelled to try once more to resist calls to address the Mayan demands. He announced to the American and British delegations in Frankfurt via edict (Edict of 17 December) that any American and British ships found near Spanish waters would be subject to attack without notice. He further added that should Maracaibo become involved, Spanish retribution would be swift. The Maracaiban Assembly responded by declaring all Spanish ships in Maracaiban waters would be subject to seizure, while John Paul Jones-back in Philadelphia-warned the Spanish that they still had a fleet and an army ready to move. Britain sent 7 additional ships-of-the-line from Ceuta to the Caribbean, while France readied to march their army back into Catalonia (they had withdrawn after the Maracaibo situation was resolved). At the same time, a second American army of 110,000 under the command of Morgan marched for the Tejas frontier (24 December), where they took up positions along the Sabine River. Three days later, Luzon was blockaded by an Anglo-French naval squadron from their Indian bases. Charles III also received a warning from his ministers that Portugal and the Dutch Republic had just signed a mutual assistance treaty aimed at curbing Spanish ambitions. Even Poland-Lithuania and Austria, fellow Catholic states, were beginning to grow uneasy about the likelihood that war would break out again. Once again, faced with a united front ready to go to war with his country and with no allies in Europe, Charles III backed down.

With all other committees now concluded and the treaties signed within them collected, it now remained for the Committee on the Final Act to be worked out. It was here that the treaties signed at Munster, Osnabruck, Stettin, and Belgrade were combined and where the Dano-Swedish Agreement of Lund was also added, to form the basis for the Final Act. It was also here that Charles III announced the Treaty of Chichen Itza with American, British, and French sponsorship. The terms as agreed between the Spanish and Mayans were as follows:
- Spain to recognize the Mayan Republic as an independent nation
- Spain to cede Belize and northern Guatemala to the Mayans
- The Mayans to recognize Spanish rule of San Salvador and Chiapas (maintaining the link between New Spain and New Granada)
- Spain to pay $95,000 ducats to the Mayan Republic for damages
- The Mayans to recognize Spanish residents as equal with the Mayan people and protected by the same laws
- Spanish troops to be withdrawn from the Mayan Reublic within a period 6 months after ratification of treaty

The Mayans made the annoucement, thru the American delegation in Frankfurt, that they had sought protectorate status within the American Federation. Floridablanca and Charles III were outraged, but it was clear they could do little in the face of American and British naval power in the Caribbean region. The Chichen Itza treaty was enfolded into the other treaties as the Final Act was being worked out. Before the draft of the Final Act could be published for review, further news arrived from Philadelphia that a new government had been inaugurated. The American Federation had become the Kingdom of America and General George Washington acclaimed as its first king. This now gave the American delegation the status of Ambassadors Royal. Franklin, who was the first to learn of the new status after reading the letter from the Convention announcing that the formal announcement would be made on 4 July 1776, was stunned by the news. He and the others agreed to keep the announcement to themselves. After two months of legal consultation among the delegations, the first draft of the Final Act was brought before the Committee on 7 March 1776. The basic outline is provided here:

Frankfurt Final Act
as drafted by the Committee to bring to an end the recent war
- All parties to sign and adhere to the Treaty of Belgrade as established by the Kingdom of Austria, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, and the Ottoman Empire

- All parties to sign and adhere to the Treaty of Stettin as established by the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Grand Republic of Novgorod, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire.

- All interested parties to sign and adhere to the Treaty of Munster and Osnabruck as estanlished by the British Empire, the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Kingdom of America, the Kingdom of France, the Republic of Maracaibo, and the Mayan Republic

- All interested parties to sign and adhere to the Treaty of Bremen as established by the Kingdom of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Electorate of Bahemia, the Electorate of Saxony, the Electorate of Hanover, the Electorate of Baden, the Electorate of Wurttemburg and the Holy Roman Empire.

- All parties to adhere to the Freedom of Navigation Act as proposed and agreed between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of France.

Three weeks later, after final negotiations among the delegates were made, the Final Act was presented on 4 April for the Committee to sign. Each of the delegates signed their names and affixed wax seals on the documents, which were then sent to the respective governments for ratification. Britain, France, America, the Mayan Republic, Maracaibo and Spain ratified the treaty on 9-14 April, while the rest ratified the treaty on 17-22 April. With this Final Act ratified by all the belligerents, the Ten Years War came to an end.
 
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Aftermath and Conclusion

The announcement of the inauguration of George Washington as George I of the royal House of Washington on 4 July 1776 brought America into the ranks of monarchical nations. At first, George III of Great Britain was furious over the change in American government, believing that the only reason they rejected his rule was to put another George on the throne. In due course, however, the two Georges formed an amicable relationship-stopping just short of formal alliance between the monarchies. America's territorial adjustment with France in Quebec assured that the new kingdom would have access to the St Lawrence River (which was internationalized in the Frankfurt Final Act). At the same time, French and Franco-American settlers established 'L'Oregon' under French suzerainty, which soon served as competition with Russian settlements in Alyeska for the fur trade. America had also, by making a protectorate of the Mayan Republic, expanded its influence into Central and South America, which over time would bear fruit in a series of revolutions leading to new independent states. America signed a commercial treaty with Maracaibo in Roanoke, Virginia on 18 July, followed by a defensive treaty on 22 July. This guaranteed Maracaiban sovereignty in the face of residual Spanish hostility. George I disbanded several of the armies, leaving only the garrison in Cuba, the army of Lincoln in Maracaibo (later withdrawn) and a reserve army of 230,000 scattered around the kingdom and only on half-duty******. As the new kingdom began to construct itself from its former Federation beginnings, Europe finally knew peace.

Great Britain continued to deal with the aftermath of the Franco-Spanish invasion. With Parliament now reconstructed and the Redcoats returning to be disbanded, the British Isles gradually returned to a semblance of normality. Parliament ratified the existing treaties and approved of George III's commercial treaty with the Kingdom of America, the Mayan Republic and the Republic of Maracaibo. George III and Louis XVI even managed to settle their differences in a 'Gentleman's Agreement' (21 July) establishing them as joint guarantors of Western Europe. George III went to Hanover to help oversee the stabilization of the Germanic lands, where he and Frederick II signed the Treaty of Hanover binding Hanover and Prussia in a defensive league. The end of the war allowed British goods to begin flowing into Europe again without the fear of privateers or blockades (although the Barbary Pirates had begun their raids once again, slipping out of Ottoman control). Britain consolidated its trade networks to India and the Caribbean.

For France, the end of the war, while it restored French commerce and enabled the monarchy to begin drawing down on their troops, led to a recession. Bread shortages became a significant problem across the countryside and inflation began to rise as troops, no longer in need of bread and other foods, began to return to their civilian lives as merchants, farmers, and craftsmen. French colonies in L'Oregon, Quebec and Haiti could do little to offset the growing inflation which the country now faced. France retained its status as guarantor of the Westphalian settlement and protector of Bahemia and Saxony against both Austria (though though they were less of a threat thanks to the Franco-Austrian alliance) and Prussia (more of a direct threat to France itself). France also strengthened its ties to the Ottoman Empire, which allowed for an opening of French commercial relations with the pashas of Syria and Lebanon. This would still not offset the recession which steadily grew worse as the decade drew to a close, though Louis XVI would begin to enact a series of edicts which in the long-term would help France avoid a full revolution.

Spain faced a tougher economic crisis than their French neighbor. Taxation had been high during the war in order to fund the armies which Spain had used to effect against Portugal, Genoa, the Ottomans and Britain. Despite their successes against Portugal and the Ottomans, they were never able to achieve their main objective of detaching Ireland from Great Britain, nor could they expand their South American empire in the face of Mayan and Maracaiban independence. Spain had exhausted its finances in its efforts to build upon their empire and with the losses of Cuba, Yucatan, Maracaibo, Buenos Aires, Florida and Georgia their raw goods sources were reduced and this had the result pf runaway inflation worse than what was happening in France. The effects of the British and American blockades had also hurt Spanish efforts at recovery. In the end Charles III was forced to implement edicts which added yet another burden on the tax-paying landowners without affecting the clergy. In addition, greater focus was given to North Africa in the face of the threat from the Barbary pirates, though each encounter between Spanish fleet and Barbary corsair squadron often ended in defeat for the Spanish, with the capture of their crews and the sinking of their ships. Many in the royal court began to consider the idea which had once been the bedrock of Spanish Hapsburg greatness, a union with Portugal. For the immediate future, Spain would limp along trying various ways to stave off economic disaster while Charles III tried to keep his crown against growing hostility from the gentry.

Poland-Lithuania emerged from the war with an increase of territory, reputation and prestige. But like its western counterparts, the Commonwealth was left with the problem of transitioning from wartime to peacetime commerce. Furthermore, the addition of Tartar settlers driven from the Crimea added to the short-term recession which the Commonwealth now faced. Michal Fryderyk I had adopted the titles of Grand Hetman of Ruthenia and gave his brother August Aleksander Czartoryski the title of Duke of Gotland. Poland-Lithuania also joined Sweden, the Ottoman Empire and Novgorod in a mutual defense treaty directed against Russian revanchism. The King-Grand Duke-Hetman was present for the appointment of a member of the Russian noble House of Dolgorukov, Vasily*******, as Grand Prince (along with Gustav III of Sweden and Frederick II of Prussia). Russian Tsar Paul I refused to attend, citing his claim that Novgorod was Russian and therefore did not exist). Michal Fryderyk even purchased the island of Sao Tome from Spain as a means of getting into the colonial game. The Commonwealth became the first Eastern European state to recognize the Kingdom of America, appointing Casimir Pulaski as their ambassador. Poland-Lithuania would weather the economic crises better than many of its neighbors and enter a second Golden Age over the remainder of the decade.

Russia came out of the Ten Years War with a greatly reduced territory despite winning Crimea from the Ottomans. The double invasion by the Swedes and Poles had ruined much of the countryside that remained to Russia in the west. The fact that much of the rest of Europe remained unaware of Russia's economic distress made recovery much harder as well, Then there was the existence of Novgorod to the north, occupying the most productive timberland in addition to the port of Arkangelsk. This left only the sparsely populated Siberian frontier as an area of Russian expansion as the steppelands were coming under increasing Persian and Chinese influence. Their colony of Alyeska also faced both the French L'Oregon Country and the Kingdom of America as well as Spain's empire in North America. Paul I was forced to put down a revolt of the nobles of Ryazan (2 September) and a revolt by the Crimean Tartars (14 September) while also dealing with a runaway recession and food shortages across the state. It reached the point where Paul I was reluctantly looking to Britain and France to help supply Russia with grains in order to prevent food riots from breaking out, but this only exacerbated the financial crisis because prices were raised on bread, fish and caviar. The introduction of the potato to Russia was almost immediately followed by an increase in prices for the new crop as well and these combined to set the stage for new crises within Russia over the remainder of the decade.

Even in the Ottoman Empire, the largest Islamic empire, the recent war had shown that the Turks had been vulnerable to the predations of Hungarians, Russians, Cossacks, and Persians and that it was only close cooperation with its two former enemies, Poland-Lithuania and Austria, that had enabled them to defeat the Persians, drive out the Hungarians and outlast the Russians. Despite the loss of Crimea to Russia and the autonomous nature of their rule in North Africa, the Turks still commanded a respectable and feared military force in Europe. Inflation and recession had a milder effect on the Turkish economy than on its neighbors primarily because, in the midst of their struggle with Persia, they had opened commercial treaties with the Moghuls, seized the island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea (17 July 1774) and begun planting a Turkish colony on the northernmost tip of the island of Madagascar (12 September 1774) to offset growing Portuguese, Dutch, and British commercial efforts in the Indian Ocean. Using the funds provided as part of the reparations surrendered by Persia, the Turks constructed a series of fortifications along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as a means of slowing any future advances by the Persians. The Ottomans were among the first to recognize the Kingdom of America and appointed Enver Kose Pasha******* as their ambassador to Philadelphia. As the post-war period began, the Ottoman Empire was set to enter the next decade with renewed vigor and a modernized military force.

The Ten Years War had cost Europe 1.1 million dead, a combination of warfare, famine, and disease. With many of the former POWs now returning to their home countries to face the consequences of the war, those lucky enough to escape the various conscriptions found themselves without a means of feeding themselves and in many cases, deprived of the means of securing what little they had in the face of vagabonds, thieves and murderers which roamed the countryside attacking returning soldiers and families alike. Along many of the roads linking the cities of Europe could easily be found the corpses of those who were unlucky enough to encounter the roving predatory bands. Smallpox, measles, plague and syphilis spread from the emptying military camps into the villages and towns along the paths of the returning soldiers and eventually into the larger cities. With the populace unable to cope and physicians still not entirely aware of the causes of the outbreaks, the most they could do was to use leeches or to bleed the patients in the hopes of "restoring balance to the humors", which more often than not led to still more deaths. The war also uprooted the feudal socieities in Central and especially Eastern Europe as many peasants found themselves scattered, murdered or even conscripted into the armies of their lords to serve as cannon fodder. While negotiations continued in Frankfurt, Michel Fryderyk I passed an edict which allowed for the emamcipation of the serfs and a partial abolition of feudal obligations-though he was careful not to go too far as the magnates still held some power despite the constitution which had reduced their power, passing it to the king-grand duke-hetman. Novgorod made emancipation of serfdom a cornerstone of their Charter upon gaining independence. Even in the Ottoman Empire, as part of their modernization programme, emancipation of the serfs became a vital component. Where feudalism remained in full force, such as Russia and Hungary, the agitation over bread shortages and runaway inflation added to the burdens the serfs already felt and led to uprisings which had to be brutally put down. Where the feudal system remained but was not strongly enforced, such as Prussia, Saxony, Bahemia and Austria, only small scattered peasant uprisings broke out and in those cases, it was often the edicts of the monarchs rather than the marching of armies that brought the uprisings to an end.

The Ten Years War also brought about a revolution in the way European states viewed themselves and their neighbors. At the beginning, Great Britain only recognized the two founding nationalities of England and Scotland-Ireland being held as a form of fief while Wales was all but absorbed into England. With the Bourbon Invasion, Welsh and Irish peasants, students, and merchants had banded together to call for either full equality within the United Kingdom or complete independence, which forced the British parliament and King George III to seriously consider the future stability of the island realm. Once the French and Spanish were sent packing, the new parliament reconstituted opened the way to recognition of Welsh and Irish equality within the kingdom, offered seats for Welsh and Irish MPs in Westminster, and recognized Welsh and Irish as national languages providing Great Britain with the stability it needed to carry the war to its conclusion. It also served to moderate their policies in regard to both Maracaibo and the American Federation (Kingdom) allowing both to gain their independence while maintaining cordial ties to their former mother country. In the East, the old Baltic Alliance between Denmark-Norway, Prussia, Mecklenburg, and Poland-Lithuania which had initially been directed against Sweden came in the end to include Sweden as well as Novgorod, with their emphasis now shifted to opposing Russian revanchist plans. In similar fashion, Poland-Lithuania and Austria remained strongly allied against the expansionist designs of the Magyars of Hungary, even including the Ottoman Empire in a series of defensive treaties to block any future Hungarian aggression. On the other hand, the collapse of the Pan-Italian Defense League as a result of Sardinian aggression against Genoa (with French and Spanish backing) and the intransigence of the other Italian states (many ruled by members of the Spanish royal family as secundogenitures) despite the pleas from Genoa, Venice and the Papacy showed that in the face of overwhelming military power no defensive league could even hope to match. An attempt to rebuild the League, led by Venice and sponsored by both France and Austria came to grief amid the protests of both the Spanish and Sardinians (despite the active endorsement of the Pope, who even blessed the enterprise), who wanted to keep Italy divided. The former Nymphenburg Alliance had also been transformed, with the Franco-Austrian alliance and the Great Betrayal of Saxony. They joined the North Sea Alliance only to be evicted from it by the British and Prussians, leaving them diplomatically isolated-a status they shared with Hungary and Russia. Recognition of both America and Maracaibo as sovereign states was also the result of the shift in the diplomatic systems which had existed in some cases since the end of the Hapsburg Partition War. Ironically, the only states that felt no direct-or even indirect effects of the recent war were Venice and the Grand Duchy of Flanders. Venice had sheltered itself against mainland involvements, choosing instead to focus on its remaining colonies in the Aegean, Cyprus, and the Levant. Flanders, a creation of the Hapsburg Partition War and the settlement between France, the Dutch Republic and Austria, had been a benevolent neutral in the war, only calling up their military when it looked as though the French and Dutch were about to clash-and then only in the defense of their sovereignty (this move by the Flandrines had been enough to alarm both France and the Dutch and shortly after they signed treaties reiterating their recognition of Flandrine sovereignty).

In conclusion, the Ten Years War was, in one sense, a conclusion to the earlier Hapsburg Partition War-particularly where Prussia, Bahemia, Saxony, France and Austria were involved in one form or another. Saxony entered the war with the hope of rescuing Silesia from Prussian rule and negotiating with the Hapsburgs for its incorporation into the Electorate (still with an eye toward gaining the Polish crown in the future), but when it became clear that Austria was no longer certain they could regain the province due to its commitments in the south, the Wettins broke their alliance and attempted an all-or-nothing offensive which only served to unite opinion in the Empire against them, disgust the Hapsburgs and anger Frederick II of Prussia to the point Prussian armies overran Saxony proper, while France seized the Saxon Breisgau and Sundgau (to forestall any Prussian moves to do so). Russia entered the war hoping to reduce Poland-Lithuania to a pliable puppet-state and advance their frontiers south at the expense of the Ottomans, but instead was torn asunder by the independence of Novgorod and a Polish amry in Moscow. Prussia entered the war determined to hold Silesia in the face of initial Austrian attempts to regain it, and found itself fighting the Saxons for the province instead. Nevertheless, they succeeded in holding Silesia while at the same time conquering Swedish Pomerania and purchasing Bornholm (which they liberated for the Danes). Austria, hoping to regain Silesia, instead regained Burgenland and seized Dalmatia and western Croatia from Hungary. Hungary, which had briefly ruled over the western half of the Balkan peninsula, found itself without its coastline, the district of Spiz which Poland-Lithuania seized, and eastern Croatia and Temesvar which went to the Ottomans. Spain, which had briefly ruled Georgia during the war, had come out of the war denuded of territory, with Georgia, Florida and Cuba taken by the Americans, Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands regained by Britain, Uruguay and the Gran Chaco taken by the Portuguese (though their hopes of regaining Oporto and Algarve were never realized), and the independence of both the Mayan Republic and the Republic of Maracaibo, with the likelihood that they could lose still more in the Americas as Tejas was beginning to stir. Sweden, which entered the war hoping to seize Copenhagen, Trondheim and Livonia came away from the war with a new alliance with Poland-Lithuania, normalized relations with Denmark-Norway and Prussia, and a new client state in Novgorod. For the Ottomans, if they had to lose Crimea (though they refused to consider Crimea lost as it was extracted from them by the Persians as a price of peace, then handed to Russia), they managed to regain Mesopotamia, and the western Balkans. The end results of the victories and defeats were the shared problems of recession, inflation, disease outbreaks, demoralization, forced abolition of serfdom and a sense of feeling as if all the fighting had been for little or no real gain. This would help to usher in a period known as the Twenty-Five Year Peace. While in actuality it would last an additional 5 years before a new round of warfare broke up, the comflicts that did arise during this period from 1775-1790 would be either internal within states, or only involve a pair of states and at least partially resolved through mediation. Major conflicts would be confined to the overseas regions, where America would start to eye the western lands of the Spanish colonial empire, French L'Oregon would come into conflict with Russian Alyeska, and Maracaibo would attempt to expand its borders along the South American coast, and in India both the Marathas and Moghuls would fall out with each other and attempt to draw the Europeans into their quarrels. This did not mean, however, that there were no ambitions among the European states. France still hoped to strengthen its influence in the Empire in the hope of a Bourbon Emperor. Prussia now looked to expand its influence across northern Germany. Bahemia and Austria were poised to share their influence within southern Germany, sometimes at odds with their French ally. Hungary would seek to rebuild its military power and return to the time when they owned half the Balkans. Poland-Lithuania and Russia would continue to attempt to outinfluence the other even as Russia eyed Novgorod maliciously. Sardinia looked to expand further into northern Italy while the Ottomans hoped to regain Crimea and shut Russia out for good. Only Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark-Norway, Hanover and the Dutch and Flandrines had no ambitions for expansion-mainly because Britain would remain focused on its own rehabilitation, Sweden was content to oversee Novgorod with Poland, Portugal was open to more colonial expansion in Africa, and the Dutch and Flandrines were content to build on what colonial holdings they had. Within Hungary, Spain, Saxony, and Russia, the turbulence of the post-war period would eventually bring to power ambitious governments eager to abrogate the Frankfurt Final Act to their satisfaction, but for Europe as a whole, these developments would for the next 25 years not be noticed.


I WILL COME BACK AT SOME POINT TO ADD IN THE INFO ON PEOPLE THAT WERE MARKED WITH A (*) AS WELL AS MY SOURCE MATERIAL.
I HAVE NOT GIVEN MUCH TIME TO THIS AS I'VE HAD SOME FAMILY HEALTH CONCERNS CROP UP IN THE LAST WEEK.
 
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America: From Federation to Kingdom
Even as the war was winding down and negotiations with Great Britain began, debate continued in Philadelphia over how to strengthen the central government to counter the centrifugal tendencies of the individual colonies. Three plans would soon be drafted which would propose to centralize the government and form an executive to oversee the management of the legislative structure which would be created. With Jay, Franklin and John Adams away in Europe, it was Tom Paine-along with Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton-who now became the most powerful proponents of an executive office or title. Two proposals were now being discussed.

The first, known as the Virginia Plan, proposed a supreme national government with three branches (executive, legislative, judicial) and a bicameral legislature. This would have the benefit of population-weighted representation and centralize the overall government, but had the negative effect of giving the larger territories greater weight in the new federal structure. The plan was drafted by James Madison, and among other things, would've allowed the central administration to use force against territories which failed to comply with regulations. Madison and Edmund Randoplh pushed for adoption of this proposal but were soon faced with a second proposal known as the Small State Plan as drafted by William Patterson. His proposal was supported by the smaller territories and would allow for a more relaxed federal structure, giving greater autonomy to the individual territories (they were not yet organized). Throughout the period debate raged between the two groups with no one gaining a clear advantage, and it soon spread into the general population. Washington was fearful that the continued division would open up outlets in which foreign powers could interfere. He was especially concerned about British and Spanish interference as Britain had yet to fully recognize American independence and Spain was still eager to regain Florida and Georgia and would use the chaos to their advantage. Alexander Hamilton's own proposal calling for a British-style legislative structure was nearly lost among the delegate squabbles until picked up by a Georgia representative, William Houstoun. Houstoun's Comprpmise to the Hamilton proposal became known both as the Houstoun-Hamilton Plan and the Georgia Plan.

The Georgia Plan unifiied elements of the Small State and Virginia plans in that a strong central government would be created with three branches and a bicameral legislature or Parliament. As in Britain the bicameral Parliament would be comprised of the House of Peers (equivalent to the House of Lords) in which prominent families would have representation based on the territories where they originated from-and they would be limited to one family regardless of the size of the territory, and a National Assembly (equivalent to the House of Commons or the US Senate IOTL). Where the compromise lay was in the structure, duties, and title of the executive. The Georgia Plan called for a royal title to be offered to a prince of a European royal house, the formation of a ministeriate which like the House of Peers would be appointed by the king (but unlike the House of Peers, the ministeriate would answer only to the king and could be dismissed by the king alone. The House of Peers, while appointed by the king, would answer to the citizens and be responsbile for assuring their well-being by working with the senators, but not interfering with them) Opinion of the Georgia Plan was mixed in the beginning, but as the conflict over the other two proposals threatened to create a gulf in the Convention, gradually the Georgia Plan began to win support.

By the time of the Treaties of Caracas and Munster, the Georgia Plan had gained enough support from among the general populace and with enough delegates in the Convention to be brought up for a general vote. Of all the delegations present, only Delaware and Vermont voted against the Georgia Plan (they would, unfortunately, suffer the consequences of their nay vote by being incorporated into the newly created provincial divisions). The Georgia Plan would serve as the bedrock for the later Royal Constitution which Jefferson would draft. Having agreed to establish a monarchy, it now became imperative to seek out a suitable candidate from among the great European houses to be the first king of America. Adams, always astute as to the danger that would result from a European dynastic house becoming king of America and potentially inheriting his main European crown at the same time, urged that a proviso be inserted into the Royal Contract hastily drafted which would require any potential European candidate renounce his claims to the crown in his own country as a condition for being given the Crown of America. Armed with this, the American delegation in Frankfurt was now given the task of sounding out the various European diplomats and crowned heads to find a suitable candidate. Initially they were rebuffed as the Powers were too busy attempting to delineate the peace terms either to preserve what they held or to maximize their conquests. It wasn't until the closing days of the Congress of Frankfurt that the delegation finally had their chance to meet. To no one's surprise, the British delegation refused, though they offered their support should a candidate be found among the other dynastic families. Louis XVI was initially interested, but between the rift with his Spanish kin and a debt crisis which needed to be addressed, could only offer military support in the event of a successful candidate. The Hapsburgs-who at one time had an empire in the Americas as well as East Asia (Phillippines) and with a coastline acquired from the Hungarians which would allow for a return to colonial empire, instead rejected the idea of a Crown in America as the proviso of renouncing their titles and rights in the Hapsburg Patrimony was anathema to many. Prince Henry of Prussia showed some interest, but when the report was sent back to Philadelphia, the Convention rejected the idea because it would give Prussia too much power both in Europe and in America. The Portuguese rejected the proposal as their potential candidate would've found themselves ruling over a majority Protestant population. Both the Danes and Swedes, while acknowledging the independence of America, were unable to provide any candidates. Spain, still at odds over the losses of Cuba, Florida and Georgia to America, refused to recognize the new nation despite the treaties they were compelled to sign, It became apparent that while America would have a European-style monarchy and legislature, they could not find a European prince to assume the crown.

With their efforts to find a European prince thwarted, the Convention began to reconsider the idea of a royal title. The key stumbling black, however, remained in the Georgia Plan, which had been adopted by the Convention and for whose purpose Jefferson was already writing the Royal Constitution. The Delaware and Vermont delegations, in one of their last acts as sovereign territories, introduced a measure which would've unified the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. This was met with strong opposition from the Georgia, New York, and Massachusetts delegations who simply struck it from the debate. In the midst of this, it was John Adams who now made the proposal that would shape the future destiny of America. Using the example of the late Roman Empire in which gifted successful generals were often elevated to the purple by their soldiers and in almost every case proved just as adept in politics as on the battlefield, Adams nominated Washington, the successful general from the recent war. Washington initially hesitated, seeing in acceptance the likelihood that other generals such as Gage, Burgoyne, Arnold and Gates would attempt to challenge Washington and lead the new nation into a civil war. Arnold did in fact have an idea to challenge Washington and attempted to gain the support of Burgoyne and Gates, but they offered their support to Washington while Gage declined to even become involved. Arnold, with no support, relented and gave his support to Washington, thus clearing the way for his acceptance of the royal title. It was agreed that on completion of the Constitution the formal coronation of Washington would take place. Five months after the Frankfurt Final Act was submitted to the various delegations for signature and ratification, the Kingdom of America was proclaimed (4 July 1776) with the completion of the Royal Constitution, a Declaration of Principles, and the coronation of George Washington as King George I of the newly created American royal house of Washington, with Martha Custis Washington now a queen and the two stepsons as heirs.
It would take another four yrears for King George I to outline the line of succession, but the new kingdom was already on a strong foundation.


Source:
Wikipedia
 
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France: Reign of Terror Avoided
READER'S NOTE: The French Revolution IOTL was the result of fiscal mismanagement on the part of Louis XV and Louis XVI as well as the constant wars France fought in the period between 1740-1789. While French support in the American War of Independence was not THE point of no return, it did play a major role in the chain of events which led to the French Revolution. ITTL, mainly due to the enormous reparations France receives from Portugal, indemnities seized from Genoa, and the lucrative trade in both India and 'L'Oregon as well as astute finance ministers Turgot and Neckar, the revolution will have a different outcome than what happened IOTL

The Ten Years War had finally come to an end. French troops which had been in Germany, Iberia, even Poland-Lithuania as mercenaries, were returning home. Troops in India and North America were already on ships bound for the home ports. Commerce could now resume with the ending of the British blockade of French Indian and Caribbean ports. But there were serious problems to which Louis XVI had not forseen in the end of the war. Primary among these were the sudden unemployment of the privateers which had operated from bases in Dunkerque, La Rochelle and Brest. These privateers, now without government sanction, began attacking French merchant ships, provoking a devastating reprisal by the French Navy which forced many to actually join the resurgent Barbary corsairs. Where the French Navy couldn't defeat or scatter the privateers, the British Royal Navy provided the decisive factor in the final defeat of the privateers. Those who had not escaped to join the Barbary pirates, or had gone down with their ships, found themselves in French and British prisons. The depredations of the privateers only added to the economic crisis which now plagued the country as peasants continued to struggle for bread amid a climate shift brought on by volcanic activity. Upon returning from Frankfurt, Louis XVI began to take an intense interest in the financial and economic situation. He removed the previous finance minister, and brought in the duo that would help bring France back into economic parity with its former rival Britain and guarantee that alongside her new partner, France would become the arbiter of western Europe.

Louis XVI appointed Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as finance minister and First Minister of State on 24 August 1774 to begin the process of reorganizing France's fiscal budget. All departmental expenses were to be submitted for the approval of the controller-general, a number of sinecures were suppressed, the holders of them being compensated, and the abuse of the acquits au comptant was attacked, while Turgot appealed personally to the king against the lavish giving of places and pensions. He even set up a regular budget for the country which delineated what the king could spend. While this had some effect on the domestic budget of France proper, the French colonies in India, L'Oregon, and the Caribbean were still incapable of meeting the new regulations and continued to struggle to meet the demands of both the merchants based in France and the settlers themselves. Turgot, in desperation, turned to the king and implored him to appoint a second finance minister to assist him in the rejuvenation effort. To this the king appointed Director-General Jacques Neckar as Second Finance Minister. Turgot and Neckar could now divide the tasks they faced and with resolve began to reorganize the French colonial and domestic economy. They had nearly managed to bring the French domestic economy back into order when the soldiers arrived from the various European battlefields, which now added additional mouths to the already strained civilian population. Bread shortages reached such high levels that in many places, stores were broken into, and bread stolen straight off the shelves. Local security clashed with the civilians or sans-cullottes in pitched battles across France, leading to the deaths of up to 20,000 people. As the intendants began to clamp down on the unrest, resentment rose to fever pitch as many military veterans now joined with the sans-cullottes to demand affordable bread and reduced taxes. This led to the storming of the Bastile prison on 14 July 1776 (ten days after the proclamation of George Washington as King George I in America), in which 99 were killed and 186 were injured. This action convinced Louis XVI that he needed to call the Estates-General into session. In the Session of August 1776 Louis XVI stunned everyone with a radical reorganization of the legislature. To the shock of the nobility and the consternation of both the clergy and the Third Estate (commoners of middle class standing) he proclaimed a constitution which on the one hand allowed for greater legislative authority yet at the same time reserved the power to declare war, negotiate peace, and appoint ministers to the king and at the same time preserved the principle of Divine Right. He added concessions to the Third Estate which won them over, such as a reduction in taxes and an increase in agricultural output which would help reduce the price of bread. This revolutionary change brought into existence an unlikely combination of constitutional and absolutist government where the king still ruled according to Divine Right yet provided a framework on which he could rule his kingdom. This was best summed up in the opening line in the Louis Constitution: "I Louis XVI, with the Grace and favor of He who is Lord of the World and the source of My Divine Power, have bestowed upon the people of France...." Thomas Jefferson, on learning of the French Constitution, said that "today France has taken a new course in its history, one which insure the continuation of the current dynasty"

Reactions across Europe to the new French constitutional absolutism varied. In Britain, George III applauded the new form as it allowed the king to retain important powers while also delegating management to the legislature. King Leopold I (Emperor Leopold II of the Empire IOTL) remarked that France "could now become a power more impressive in the future than at any time since Francis I). Charles III of Spain expressed dismay over his kinsman's choice to give greater voice to the common people and especially reducing the power and influence of the clergy, lamenting that France would become atheist "within 5 years". Frederick the Great, back at his estate in Sans Souci, scoffed at the news from France, deriding the king for "submitting to the scum of the land over those whose very blood was the true source of his power". The changing legislature had also opened greater opportunity for the Turgot-Neckar duo as they were no longer restrained by a nobility that often placed the burden of taxation on the peasants, and they now set to work constructing a new tax plan which would in effect give to the poor. Remaining respectful of the clergy, they agreed to a limited tax increase on Church property (which nonetheless earned them excommunication by the Pope) and a greater tax increase on the nobility. Louis XVI, in order to stem the likely noble uprising, also established a national guard comprised of many of the Noble Regiments (with the rest incorporated into a new, more professional royal army) thus depriving them of autonomy and yoking them tightly to the new system. Thus by the end of 1779 as the 25 Years Peace began, France had not only strengthened royal authority and balanced it with a more or less equally strong legislature (now known as the National Assembly) but had neutralized the power of the nobility and reduced the clergy to subservience to the Crown. France had escaped what would otherwise have been the bloodiest upheval in its history and in so doing, became-with Britain-a shaper in the future affairs of Western and Central Europe


Source:
Wikipedia
 
The 25 Years Peace....A Broad Outline
The 25 Years Peace was a period in which no major outbreaks of war on a continental or global scale. After the exhausting experience of the Ten Years War, all the major powers needed to recover. There was conflict, of course, but on local scales which did little or nothing to disturb the balance of power. For the most part these minor conflicts were resolved easily and without resorting to military force, such as the border adjustment made by a treaty between Sweden and Novgorod on 7 February 1777 which awarded a strip of territory in eastern Estonia to Novgorod. Britain and France concluded a treaty in Cherbourg on 9 August 1777 which delineated their respective spheres of influence in India and support the other in their effort against the Barbary Pirates. Both London and Versailles applied pressure on Constantinople to curb the Barbary corsairs and finally on 18 September a Turkish army was deployed to Algiers, Djerba, and Tripoli, crushing the corsair bases and strengthening Turkish rule over the North African coast. France and Britain mediated a dispute in the Caribbean between the Dutch Republic and Maracaibo over fishing rights off Curacao, a Dutch possession. France also strengthened its relations with Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and Austria.

All three Central and Eastern European powers , while forging alliances among themselves and bringing Novgorod into their defensive glacis, continued to regard Russia, Hungary and Prussia with suspicion. Despite the rapproachment between Austria and Prussia brought about by the Saxon Betrayal, the Hapsburgs continued to regard the Hohenzollerns as rivals. In the Holy Roman Empire, Saxony, Bahemia and Hanover continued to vie for influence despite no longer having the full support of their patrons Britain and France. They were soon joined by the principalities of Hesse (Kassel and Darmstadt), Mecklenburg and Baden. The overriding influence of the Wittelsbachs as Holy Roman Emperors managed to keep the squabbling estates under tight control, enacting new reichskommandments and bringing to the Holy Roman Empire a more unitary economic system and a standing army which was controlled by the Imperial Diet so as to remain independent of the many constituent principalities as well as the larger states like Austria, Saxony and Prussia.

The Ottoman Empire continued its own modernization program after the Ten Years War, equipping its regiments with British and French made artillery and small arms. The Janissaries, the oldest fighting force in the Ottoman Empire, rose up in revolt attempting to stall or reverse the modernization, but Mustafa III marched an army of 87,000 equipped and trained on Western lines against the Janissaries who numbered 83,000. After a skirmish in which the Janissaries were driven back to their barracks with substantial losses (54,000 killed), Mustafa III ordered the barracks bombarded. In 5 hours of ceaseless bombardment the Janissaries resisted nearly to the last man. Of the 29,000 remaining Janissaries, only 3,000 survived to be arrested, tried, and eventually executed. The sultan then disbanded the Janissary corps, executed the aghas and appointed new military commanders for his New Model Army. For him, the time couldn't be better, for the Persians were coming under threat from the Uzbek khanates in Central Asia and had been forced to transfer troops from the western frontier adjoining Ottoman-ruled Iraq to meet the new threat. An obscure Kurdish chieftain named Omar Bey was appointed Ottoman commander with the task of recruitng his Kurdish irregulars, to which an Ottoman army would be attached. Raising a force of 113,000 troops in total, he marched down the length of the Tigris, then advanced into the Iranian plateau. meeting little resistance as the Persian armies were engaged in the east. Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Qajar and Teheran were sacked with little resistance from the garrisons who were caught unprepared for the Ottoman advance. Shahrohk Shah was compelled to seek peace terms with the Ottomans as his forces were losing their fight against the Uzbeks, who had advanced on Herat abd were driving southwest. The Treaty of Bandar Abbas (7 January 1778) forced the Persians to cede Tbilisi, Kars, Ardahan and Erzurum to the Ottoman Empire, reiterate their renunciation of claims to Mesopotamia, allow Ottoman access through the Strait of Hormuz, and pay an indemnity of 125 million ducats. The Ottomans managed this diplomatic feat primarily because their other rival, Russia, was undergoing an internal revolution and at the same time applying its own pressure on the Persians to end the war against the Uzbeks. Russia's fear was that a weakened Persia would be more vulnerable to Turlkish invasion and also a stronger Uzbek khanate which would hamper future Russian designs on Central Asia.

In North America, the establishment of the Kingdom of America had a ripple effect. The Mayan Republic, established after the Ten Years War, almost immediately sought the protection of the kingdom as it still faced opposition from the Spanish who ruled the rest of Central America and Mexico. Papa Maya became 'Premier and Principal Chief' of the Maya on 20 July 1776 in a ceremony which was attended by Samuel Adams as representative of the American Kingdom. Seven months later, Papa Maya received newly crowned King George I of America and in a ceremony of welcome bestowed a jade statue of an ancient Mayan serpent-god. In return, George I had a replica of the Liberty Bell delivered and placed in the town square of Chichen Itza. Bilateral treaties were also signed between America and the Mayans which infuriated the Spanish viceroy of New Spain to such a degree that he began to hire privateers (including a handful of French privateers who had secretly escaped the Anglo-French crackdown then escaped the Ottoman suppression of the Barbary corsairs) and began raiding American and Mayan commerce. In response, Secretary Jones ordered a flotilla of 23 frigates into the Caribbean to attack the privateers and their bases. Veracruz and Corpus Christi were bombarded from the coast and the Viceroy relented, surrendering nearly all the privateers and signing the Treaty of New Orleans (7 January 1777) recognizing American and Mayan freedom of commerce and paying indemnities of 75 thousand ducats to both the Mayan Republic and America. With a more hardline, absolutist government coming to power in Spain, the Viceroy was recalled to Madrid, where he was arrested, and a new hardliner viceroy installed in his place. This was domino that would start a chain-reaction and in time lead to renewed war between Spain and America.


No sources were referenced
 
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The Petty Conflicts During the 25 Years Peace
This next post will detail the so-called 'petty conflicts' which took place during the 25 Year Peace. These conflicts are petty in the sense that they involved no major conflagration among the major Powers, being confined either to a dual-power conflict, or an internal revolt. It is meant to clearly demonstrate that despite the general peace which had settled in the wake of the Ten Years War, there were still opportunities for smaller-scale war. Brackets will be used to outline those 'petty conflicts' which will have consequences later. As has been done before, any fictional names will be marked with their corresponding real-life inspiration provided in the cited sources section. Enjoy!


Flandrine Succession Dispute (10 February - 30 April 1777)


The Grand Duchy of Flanders had been ruled by the French House of Orleans since before the Ten Years War. Despite the fears of the British and Dutch that Flanders would become a satellite of the Kingdom of France, and owing chiefly to the settlement between the royal houses of Orleans and Bourbon-Conde, Flanders remained an independent sovereignty, neither falling into the French or Dutch orbits. At the end of the Ten Years War, it was apparent that the current Grand Duke would likely not survive and already the competition over who would inherit his mantle began. Pro-French, pro-Dutch, and pro-English groups began to form and though the Anglophile and Francophile groups eventually united, it was the Dutch Party which threatened the stability. Thanks to a convention signed in Dunkerque between Britain and France (16 February) it was agreed that should the Dutch Party attempt to use the Dutch Army to seize control and force a union, both nations would respond with military force. At the same time, both powers began looking for an alternative to the options available, and this now came to involve the Austrians, Portuguese and the Duchy of Oldenberg. The Portuguese declined, citing the residual hostility between the Dutch and Portuguese dating back to the Iberian Union period and Portugal's desire to stay away from the Dutch. King Joseph I of Austria (Emperor Joseph II IOTL) declined the offer given the fact that despite her victory in the recent war, Austria was too financially and militarily exhausted to commit to the Flandrines given the proximity of Prussia. Thus it was left to Carl Frederick of Oldenberg to accept the grand ducal crown. Meanwhile however, William V, Stadholder of the Dutch Republic now laid a claim on Flanders, spurred to do so by a group of Dutch sympathizers in Flanders who became known as the Nederlanden. Using money they made from selling tulip bulbs and spices, these Nederlanden were able to purchase weapons and organize into battalions for the purpose of imposing a pro-Dutch regime with an eye toward eventual union. By the end of March, they had gathered a group of 39,000 followers and forced the Duke of Oldenberg to withdraw his candidacy before he could be coronated. At the same time, the Nederlanden attempted to gain the support of the Danes, Swedes, Prussians, Badenese and even the Poles while simultaneously marching their Nederlanden army to Ostend sieging the port for seven days before it capitulated. On 11 April, they advanced on Antwerp, the Flandrine capital and placed it under siege, two days later marching into the city. Nederlanden leadership now planned a new offensive to liberate Brussels from French rule. When news of this reached the other capitals, condemnation was swift, with even Prussia warning the Dutch that any action in support of the Nederlanden by the Dutch army would be met with retaliation. Ignoring this warning., the Nederlanden army marched south and four days later on 15 April in what the Dutch presented as a restorative action, marched their army into Flanders. But here their role was not so much to end the dispute within the Grand Duchy but to prevent foreign intervention while at the same time giving the Nederlanden army time to advance to and besiege Brussels (19 April). After four days in which the garrison was overwhelmed, Brussels capitulated and immediately the Nederlanden began purging the civic administration of opposition. At the same time, the main Nederlanden army now advanced to the French frontier to lay siege to Lille. The Dutch, bowing to Nederlanden pressure in the Stadholderate to follow up with an occupation of Flanders, marched their army into the Grand Duchy.
The reaction and response from Britain and France was swift. Marechal (Marshal) Soubise was recalled and asked to form two armies for the purpose of driving the Nederlanden from Lille and restoring order in the Grand Duchy. Britain dispatched its Channel Fleet under the command of Sir Garnet Hemmings*, later joined by a French squadron from La Rochelle. George III, fully aware of France's financial difficulties but needing them to provide the military arm of the joint response, signed an agreement by which the British treasury would pay for the French armies under Soubise. At the same time, an expeditionary force was gathered in Dover, transported to Calais and marched to Dunkerque. The armies under the unified command of Soubise were led by Gaston de Tourville** and Robert Neuilly*** respectively. Both armies converged on Lille and after a skirmish drove the Nederlanden army back toward Brussels, where they called on the Dutch to come to their aid. As the Dutch army began to move inth Flanders, the British army-joined by a nationalist Flandrine army under the unified command of Guillaume Tourcy**** (soon to be De Tourcy), advanced to Antwerp to cut off Dutch supplies. The British-Flandrine army continued to drive the Dutch back even as the French armies closed on Brussels from the south, finally surrounding the city on 6 July. William V, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic-finding himself cut off from the Nederlanden by the French encirclement of Brussels, and with the Anglo-Flandrine army closing, finally chose to make a stand near Waterloo. On 22 April, in four hours of hard and bloody fighting, the Dutch were utterly defeated and forced to retreat back across the border. The Nederlanden, seeing their Dutch patrons forced to retreat and with no prospect of foreign support (aside from Russia, but this was only a token gesture as France and Poland-Lithuania had recently signed a mutual assistance treaty in Posen, which antagonized Paul I, the new Tsar-Emperor), finally capitulated. On 30 April in Waterloo (and with Prussia, Austria and Oldenberg as interested parties with observers at the negotiations) a treaty was signed. In it the Nederlanden were disbanded with 500 members sent to prison, and three of its top leaders tried in a joint Anglo-French tribunal, then sent to France for crimes against them resulting in their being beheaded by a new invention, the guillotine. The Dutch Republic was forced to pay an indemnity of 75K guilders to the Grand Duchy and recognize Guillame de Tourcy as the first Flandrine grand duke. Britain and France maintained a smaller force of 25,000 troops under British pay pending the final liquidation of the Nederlanden group.


Ottoman Colonization of Madagascarand Expansion into East Africa

In the immediate aftermath of the Great Janissary Revolt and the successful war against Persia concluded by the Treaty of Bandar Abbas, the new sultan Abdul Hamid***** who assumed the throne after the death of his brother Mustafa III, continued the westernization program or Tazimat within the Turkish military and political systems. While the main body of Janissaries had been crushed by Mustafa III in Constantinople, there were smaller groups of Janissaries serving as provincial garrisons across the empire. Many of these joined the New Model Army, while others simply deserted and returned to the villages from which, as young boys, they had been taken. In Egypt by contrast, the Janissary institutions were stronger, and as Egypt had been on the frontline in the Ten Years War, the Janissaries were still eager to win martial glory for themselves. Led by an individual named Turan Bey******-having first assassinated the Agha of the Janissaries two nights previous, they rose up against the Sultan, taking Cairo and Alexandria on 11 May 1778. Claiming to restore the former Mameluke authority, they marched into Palestine and sacked Jerusalem (14 May), Damascus (16 May) and Aleppo (20 May) before being met by an army under the command of an Anatolian named Hassan Pasha*******. The rebel Janissaries were defeated near Antioch (24 May) and driven back into Palestine. At the very same moment, however, a group of Greek Janissaries got out of hand and attacked the garrison in Salonika. Abdul Hamid I led an army in person and in three hours of bloody fighting, on 26 May, he defeated the rebel Greek Janissaries, executing their ringleaders. Here, however one of his ministers presented an idea that would alleviate the unease within the surviving Janissaries, and expand Ottoman influence further afield. An Ottoman trade vessel had steered off course, coming to rest on the island of Madagascar. Finding it unsettled, he and his crew explored the inland for 7 miles from their landing site and claimed the area for the Ottoman Caliphate. They had returned and recounted the tale of their explorations, which intrigued the grand vizier. He convinced the Sultan that the defeated Janissaries could be useful as settlers. Satisfied with the idea, the Sultan ordered the Egyptian ringleaders executed, then presented the survivors with the option of helping to settle a new land in the name of the Ottoman Caliphate or facing execution for treason. All but 300 agreed (whereupon the 300 were immediately beheaded).

On 11 June, a fleet of 300 deep-sea galleys, 20 frigates (built using British and French hull designs) and 800 transports sailed from Aqaba after marching for 17 days across the Anatolian and Syrian frontiers. Their voyage southward had not gone unnoticed however as the mercantilist empire of Kilwa*******, formed by the various Swahili states along the east African coast became alarmed at the sudden arrival of a large fleet off their coast. A Kilwan flotilla of 25 ships sailed out to meet the Turkish fleet, attacking on 28 June. Though they were ultimately outnumbered and outgunned by the Turkish fleet, the Kilwans managed to sink 78 galleys and 4 frigates before finally dropping sail for the coast, losing 18 of the 25 ships they started with. News of the Kilwan attack reached Abdul Hamid I, who ordered a larger fleet of 50 galleys, 15 frigates and their new ships of the line (20 total) to sail around Africa. These were joined by a Barbary squadron of 500 galleys. 200 of these were lost in storms as the fleet sailed down west Africa's coast and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Menaced by Portuguese patrols as they sailed up past their colony of Mozambique, the Turkish fleet reached the Kilwan coastline. Troops were landed and began their march toward Kilwa. The Kilwan sultan met these troops and on 7 July in eight hours of slaughter, the Kilwans were defeated. Omar Bey********, the Ottoman commander, issued an ultimatum calling for the Kilwans to submit to his master the Sultan and retain self-government as an Ottoman client and vassal state, or resist and lose any autonomy as well as their women and children who would be enslaved to help settle Madagascar. Even while he waited for the reply, he led his army closer to Kilwa's capital until they soon had their artillery within range of the city. To further pressure the sultan of Kilwa, cannons were fired, with the cannonballs grazing the walls. The Turkish fleet blockaded the island of Zanzibar while the Barbary corairs ranged up and down the coast attacking merchant ships trading with Kilwa. Faced with the prospects of starvation and economic collapse, the Kilwans finally offered unconditional surrender. The Turkish flag was planted on one of the battlements (though the Kilwan flag continued to fly) and a force of 12,000 admitted into the city.
By the terms of the Treaty of Zanzibar (18 August), Kilwa submitted to Ottoman suzerainty. One-third of the population of Kilwa Kiswani were removed from their homes and sent to Madagascar to assist the settlers who were only now beginning to disembark from their transports. An indemnity of $35K ducats was imposed on Kilwa as well. A later military expedition to Oman in September assured Ottoman control of that part of Arabia and kept pressure on both the Portuguese in Hormuz and the Persians across the Gulf. Victory against Kilwa assured Ottoman influence in eastern Africa and the colonization of Madagascar (which they would later share with Kilwa) brought a measure of security to the region.

The Border Wars (16 May 1779 - 5 January 1780)

Persia after the Ten Years War had entered a state of anarchy following the death of Shahruk Shah three weeks after the Congress of Frankfurt. Militarily and economically, Persia was stretched thin by the war and the loss of Mesopotamia. To futher aggravate the situation, the Ottomans began expelling Shi'ites from the region in order to solidify their control, which put added pressure on the economy. New shah Karim Khan Zand immediately began to implement measures to bring the Persian economy back into order. He knew the situation was critical, especially given that the Caucasus region, where Circassian and Chechen slaves were the source of labor, was hotly contested between the Persians, the Ottomans, and Persia's former ally Russia. The recent victory of the Ottomans over Kilwa and the submission of Oman to Ottoman vassalage placed a greater need for stability on Persia as it was likely that conflict would erupt between the Islamic superpowers again in the future. But his biggest challenge would come not from the Turks or the Russians, but from Central Asia

Following the collapse of the Chagatai Khanate as a result of the depredations of Timur, various khanates centered around the trade cities of Bukhara, Kashgar, Samarkand, and Balkh vied with one another for dominance of the Silk Road trade, often calling on the Ming Chinese to address the balance. But as the Ming gradually shifted their attention toward Korea and Indochina, the khanates came under threat from the seminomadic Uzbek tribesmen who roamed the steppe in the tradition of the Mongols. Under an energetic ruler named Agha Khan, the Uzbeks seized control of the small khanates and unified them into a large Uzbek Khaganate. Utilizing the Uzbek keshik cavalry, Afghan horse, Indian elephants as well as Persian and Turco-Mongol foot soldiers (even Chinese foot-soldiers defecting from the Ming Empire) the Uzbeks soread the khaganate to the frontiers of Afghanistan. Agha khan knew his soldiers would become restless without a new target to invade, but he knew his options were becoming limited. A campaign against the Dzungars of western China provided a temporary outlet for their ambition, but he knew that if they pressed too far the Ming would become involved-despite facing peasant revolts in the south, Japanese raids on the coast, and the advance of the Manchus to Mukden, which became their capital. Russia, depsite being in the throes of a revolution, was still considered too formidable to attack without allies-which were unlikely to be found. He saw in the change of dynasty in Persia-with its resulting temporary instability-as the perfect time for an attack and readied his forces to begin the invasion. He had no real objective in mind, aside from an extraction of Persian recognition of his authority and further rights to expand into Afghanistan, but he was already dreaming of following in the footsteps of Timur.

On 16 May, Agha Khan, having formed six armies of 75,000 comprised mainly of Afghan horse archers, Uzbek keshiks, Persian and Chinese infantry and even a small body of Russian arquebusiers (24,000 in total), launched his invasion, taking Rasht on the 19th, Mashhad on the 24th, and Zahedan on the 30th. Karim Khan was caught off-guard by the Uzbek invasion, not expecting that there would be a formidable power in the region in the wake of Timur's earlier rampages. Finding himself with only the western garrisons available and a treasury that was low, he was forced to enact measures to collect emergency funds. In two onths time, he had raised enough funds to create four armies comprised of foot troops, archers, camel dragoons and artillery and numbering 75,000 each. He sent these armies against the Uzbeks, but in a series of battles between June and August, in central Persia, each was defeated by the Uzbeks despite having terrain advantage. In an emergency council meeting held with his ministers, it was urged that a mission to the Ottoman Empire be sent to seek benevolent neutrality in exchange for a readjustment of borders to benefit them. Meanwhile, the Persian armies fell back to hold Isfahan, Fars, and Teheran in the face of the Uzbek advance.

Abdul Hamid I, fresh from his victory over Kilwa in the Madagascar War, now saw an opportunity in the Perso-Uzbek conflict. The Ten Years War, while it had restored Iraq to Ottoman rule and added Basra, had failed to address the earlier losses in previous wars, notably Ardahan, Kars and Erzurum. On 3 September, the Persian emisssary arrived in Constantinople and presented the terms of neutrality. While many in the Divan or legislature urged the Sultan to accept the offer, hard-line generals and ministers persuaded him to denounce the offer and immediately launch an offensive. The Sultan, as was his character, agreed to meet the emissary, but then pressented a counteroffer which the emissary-given only simple instructions-could not agree to or reject. Viewing his immobility as a refusal, the Sultan had the emissary imprisoned in the Seven Towers, then called up recruits from among the sipahis, akinjis, surviving Janissary units and his new, westernized infantry (now known as Topijis) and raising 210,000 troops which were then divided into five armies of 42,000. On the day that Manzandarin was attacked by the Uzbeks (12 September), Abdul Hamid I placed Suleiman Pasha, victor of Madagascar, in overall command, where he appointed his most trusted veteran comrades as commanders of the individual armies, then launched a major offensive-without formal declaration of war- into the Persian western frontier. Having been forced by the continuing losses against Agha Khan to pull troops from the wetern frontiers-and without waiting for word on the Ottoman response to his offer-Karim Khan found himself unprepared for the Ottoman invasion. Three Turkish armies advanced from Iraq and began to ravage the country, even seizing the ancient Persian capitals of Ctesiphon and Persepolis while approaching both Bandar Abbas and Isfahan. Two armies (one of which was under the direct command of Suleiman Pasha) advanced into Erzurum on 17 September, Ardahan on the 22nd, Kars on the 26th and Batum on the 30th. Suleiman Pasha then made the decision, without consulting the Sultan, to advance on Tabriz and Baku. Meanwhile, the Uzbeks had ravaged Qom and were advancing on Gilam and Yazd. With Yazd under siege by Agha Khan and Tabriz and Baku facing Ottoman assault, Karim Khan made the fateful decision to try and seek terms with one of his two opponents (he had reached out to Constantine Romanov, Autokrator of Russia hoping to induce them to attack the Ottomans in the Black Sea and Transcaucasia to draw them away from Baku, but as he was still in the midst of purging Paulist loyalists from the army, was unable to agree to such inducements). Knowing that Agha Khan would be unlikely to be receptive, he rode to Baku to meet with the Turkish commander. Initially tempted to take the shah prisoner, Suleiman Pasha changed course, seeking and receiving the Sultan's support to act as lead negotiator. Both men traveled to Ctesiphon with a ceasefire in place, but here it almost ended before fully taking effect. Suleiman Pasha pressed again for the terms of the counteroffer the Sultan had made months before, insisting that only by relinquishing Baku and Tabriz and restoring the Ottoman border cities to the Sultan could a peace be agreed. Karim Khan hesitated. After receiving reports that Teheran was about to face a Turkish attack and that Yazd had fallen to the Uzbeks, placing Isfahan in danger, the shah capitulated. In the Treaty of Ctesiphon of October 8th, Karim Khan agreed to the restoration of the border cities, the cession of Tabriz and Baku to the Ottomans. He also ceded the island of Hormuz-minus the Portuguese port-city-to the Sultan's Omani vassal. Finally the shah agreed to an indemnity of $15K ducats.

With the Turks now reestablished in Tabriz and installed in Baku, the shah could now free up his reserve forces, pulled from the provinces ceded to the Turks, to deal with Agha Khan. On 5 November, with a large army of 115,000 troops, Karim Khan himself attacked the Uzbek army besiging Isfahan. This engagement had the effect of forcing Agha Khan to recall his other armies to crush the Persians, but in a two-day battle outside Isfahan, the Persians managed not only to defeat the Uzbek attacks on their fortified positions, but counterattacked and destroyed four regiments of Chinese infantry and routing the Afghan horse. They followed this up with another counterattack which all but destroyed one of the armies meant to reinforce the Uzbeks. Alarmed by the change in fortunes, Agha Khan pulled his armies back into Khorasan, where they prepared to make their stand in Nishapur. Karim Khan pursued the Uzbeks and on 7 November in the Battle of Nishapur again inflicted a major defeat on the Uzbeks, nearly capturing Agha Khan in the process. This second defeat of the Uzbeks came at a moment when, in the Hindu Kush range, the Afghans were rising against their Uzbek overlords with the help of the Moghuls and in the east the Dzungars were conquered by the new Manchu rulers of China, bringing the Chinese frontier right up to the border of the Uzbek Khaganate. At this stage, his generals urged the shah to commit to a counterinvasion of the khaganate with the aim of annexing the whole of it to Persia and thus cutting off both the Moghuls and Chinese. Instead, Karim Khan chose the limited objectives of taking Bukhara and Samarkand for late December when the snows of the mountain ranges would obscure Persian troop movements. On 27 December, with the Uzbeks now distracted by advances in Afghanistan by the Moghuls and the Chinese military buildup in former Dzungaria, Karim Khan launched his offensive, taking Bukhara on the 30th and Samarkand 3 days later. With his power now broken, Agha Khan met the shah in Samarkand hoping to spare his khaganate in exchange for Persian vassalage as a means of protecting his rule against the Moghul and Manchu encroachments. But in the resulting Treaty of Samarkand, the shah annexed Bukhara and Samarkand, and broke up the rest of the khaganate into its constituent parts, assigning Agha Khan to the role of satrap in Khorasan and establishing a protectorate on the remaining khanates, thus effectively blocking the Moghuls-though thanks to the presence of a Moghul emissary at the treaty talks, he was forced to acknowledge Moghul rule of Afghanistan in exchange for Moghul recognition of Persian interests in Central Asia (no such delineation was established between Persia and China, which would leave the two powers in a state of potential hostility for some time to come). The clear beneficiaries of the Border Wars were the Ottoman Turks, with their borders extended in the north, secured in the south and a militarily weakened Persia as neighbors. The clear losers were the Uzbeks, whose dream of recreating a Uzbek-dominant Chagatai Khanate had come to an end on the cusp of fulfillment and who would now become little more than pawns in the power struggle between Persia, China and later Russia.

[The Empire of Malta]

In 1522, the Ottoman Empire conquered the island of Rhodes, where the Knights Hospitalers had been stationed following the fall of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291. In 1530 the Knights were given a new home on the islands of Gozo and Malta-plus the mainland city of Tripoli. Becoming known as the Knights of Malta, the Order established a fortified bastion which withstood an invasion by the Ottomans in 1565. From then on, the Order had settled down to building infrastructure, protecting Christian pilgrims bound for the Holy Land and often attacking Muslim merchant shipping and Barbary corsairs, though they lost Tripoli in 1551 to a combined Berber-Turkish invasion.

After the Fall of Genoa during the Ten Years War and its division between Piedmont-Sardinia and France, the Genoan city of Tabarka had been attached to the Sardinian province of the new conglomerate kingdom. Though the garrison now consisted of Piedmontese troops, the civil administration and laws remained from the period of Genoese rule. But as Sardinia-Piedmont entered a period of recession following the end of the Ten Years War, King Victor Amadeus III considered what to do about both Tabarka and the nearby city of Bona which had also been a Genoese possession. At the same time, an energetic new Grand Master, Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc*********, began a reformation of the Order military, incorporating arquebuses and rifles as well as artillery. In an even more unusual turn of events, de Rohan drafted a constitution for the Order which abolished the strictly Catholic membership in the Order, which now allowed for the Order to recruit from Protestant and even Eastern Orthodox countries. As a result, Protestant branches of the Order-known as Johannite Orders in the Dutch Republic and Scandinavia, the Bailiwick of Brandenburg, and the Most Venerable Order in Great Britain could now recruit more members and soon as many as 500,000 were recruited-with 100,000 from northern Germany, 200,000 from Britain, 25,000 from the Dutch Republic and Scandinavia and the majority of the remainder from the Catholic powers of France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Naples and Poland-Lithuania. Even Orthodox Russia contributed 8,000 new recruits to the Order. Needing a place to house the new recruits and train them, de Rohan approached Victor Amadeus III with an offer to purchase the North African cities. Meeting in Sassari on the island of Sardinia, a treaty was concluded on 7 January 1780 ceding Bona and Tabarka to the Knights of Malta for a sum of $10K ducats. Sardinia-Piedmont also agreed to donate 100 frigates to the Order to bolster their small navy comprised of galleases and Man-of Wars. This allowed the knights to phase out the Man-of-Wars as obsolete and further develop the frigate design into a five-decked behemoth to be known as the Maltese frigates. Additionally, thru their office in London, the Order secured 10 ships-of-the-line from the Royal Navy, modifying them as well into Maltese dreadnaughts. Raising their number to some 700 ships the Order had become a formidable naval power in the Mediterranean Sea, with only France and Britain having more power. De Rohan had ambitions of crusade and now only lacked a strong military force to realize this ambition. Raising an army of450,000 troops including 10,000 native Maltese, he now had the military muscle. As more recruits arrived from mainland Europe, these would in turn be trained and organized into additional armies.

The perfect pretext for his crusade was soon offered by the Bey of Tunis. Refusing to oblige a transport ship's passage through his sovereign sea territory en route for the Holy Land, his fleet captured the transport and took 800 aboard, enslaving them. The affront, which could not be controlled by Constantinople as the Bey was autonomous of the Ottoman Sultan, enraged Europe. De Rohan saw this as a means to fulfill his dream of ruling a Maltese empire in the Mediterranean. He sent an ultimatum to the Bey of Tunis demanding the release of the prisoners and $100K in reparations, adding that he would only have three months to locate and release the prisoners, the failure of which would see a declaration of war. The Bey in his turn sent a direct appeal to Abdul Hamid I seeking Turkish assistance to which the Sultan replied that the condition of such assistance being sent would have to be the Bey's submission to the Sultan as effective ruler of Tunis. This the Bey could not agree to, and thus his appeal was rejected. Meanwhile the Bey of Algiers and the Sultan of Morocco signed a defensive treaty and prepared for war. On 8 March, roughly three months later and with no response from the Bey of Tunis, de Rohan issued a declaration of war. He divided the 700 ship fleet, alloting 300 ships to the defense of Malta and sending the rest to ravage the coast in preparation for a landing. The Bey ordered his own corsair fleet to engage the Maltese and in a major battle fought offshore from the ruins of Carthage-and hence known as the Battle of Carthage-the Maltese fleet inflicted a crushing defeat on the Tunisian fleet sinking 95 of their 110 galleys and losing only 15 galleases and a deep-sea galley. Switching to transport operations, the Maltese landed 110,000 troops from the island made up mostly of Maltese irregulars with a Russian battalion recently arrived from Naples. This second army now advanced westward from Bona with the objective of taking Algiers and Oran. The larger army of 450,000 were now marched from Tabarka with the objective of taking Tunis itself. On 12 March, this army began to lay siege to Tunis and as more recruits were trained on Malta, they were dispatched to mainland North Africa. A third army of 110,000 comprised of mainly Spanish tercios, British redcoats, Polish hussars and a Russian artillery battalion under the Maltese banner marched from the point adjacent to Tunis and besieged the older city of Utica, capturing it two months before the Fall of Tunis itself. In the east, the second army finally reached Algiers and with a small Maltese squadron of 20 Maltese frigates providing coastal bombardment, laid siege to the city, finally taking it on 4 April. The Bey of Algiers fled as the Maltese irregulars breached the walls and began storming the city, escaping to Rabat in Morocco. News of his escape caused demoralization in the nearby city of Oran, and just as the army was approaching, they sent a single soldier under a white flag to proclaim the surrender of the city (10 April)..

In Constantinople, Abdul Hamid I had been content to leave the Beys of Algiers and Tunis to their own devices as they had abrogated their treaties of submission to his direct authority. News of the Maltese victory against the Tunisian fleet was even greeted with some relief as these had even been known to attack Turkish trading ships when times were rough, and with their defeat the Turks could now claim supreme naval status as the only effective Muslim power in the Mediterranean Basin. But as more reports from the frontlines reached him and he learned of the capture of Algiers and Oran by the Maltese, he grew concerned that his own authority in the region could now be in danger. He sent edicts to Syria and Egypt calling for the formation of a military force to be sent through Tripolitania to Tunis to restore Ottoman authority and drive out both the rebellious Bey and the infidel Maltese. At the same time, in a Divan he summoned shortly after the Capitulation of Oran, he demanded an emergency fund to begin incrreasing the number of ships in the Ottoman Navy. Shipyards in both the Aegean and Black Seas now increased construction of ships. The Pasha of Syria even began stepping up construction of ships at the various ports in the Levant, expecting a Maltese squadron to appear at any moment. But even with the increased funds and more rapid construction it still took seven months for the first 50 ships from each region to be fully completed and in the meantime Maltese successes in the mediterranean increased the likelihood of a Maltese strike into the eastern waters. With an army of 130,00 now gathered in Egypt under the command of a protege of Suleiman Pasha named Omar el-Din**********, a Kurd of Persian ancestry who had rose through the ranks after defecting from Persia during the Ten Years War, the Sultan now ordered them to Tunisia. Six days later, deep in the Libyan desert, a sandstorm scattered the army to such extent that very few troops remained-with most dying of asphyxia due to the sand, or dehydration. These were no longer capable of fighting and thus began their trek back to Egypt. Of the 130,000 that marched for Tunis, only 23,000 returned to Egypt. Deprived of an army, the Sultan now contemplated a naval assault followed by a siege of the island in the footsteps of Suleiman I.

Six months into the campaign and de Rohan learned through Venetian merchants of the Ottoman naval buildup. Knowing this was a stepping stone to eventual Turkish attack, he ordered 200 ships, mainly fast galleys and frigates equipped both with rams, artillery and the feared 'Greek Fire' to sail into Turkish waters and wreak as much havoc as possible. On 6 September, with weather conditions in the Mediterranean calm, the squadron sailed into the Aegean Sea, where they were met by a flotilla of 75 ships hastily crewed and put to sail once word of the Maltese approach was received. Off the coast of Corinth, the Maltese engaged the Turks in a six-hour battle in which the Turks lost 5 captured, 15 sunk outright, and the rest so badly damaged they could not pursue. The Maltese lost only 7 fast galleys and 3 Maltese frigates damaged. They continued attacking shipyards, destroying some 90 nearly completed ships and severely damaging 15 others while killing 4,000 through the use of Greek Fire. Deciding that the Black Sea squadron would by now be fully deployed and ready to fight, it was agreed the flotilla would strike Cyprus and Crete before sailing back to Malta, but as they approached the Cypriot coast and came upon the Levantine squadron in full battle array, numbering 220 ships, they knew they were outnumbered and with 5 captured Turkish ships (their crews held as POWs in the galleys) they could not risk an engagement, so they dropped sail and turned for home waters. News of the disaster in the Aegean was met with cold fury by the Sultan at the very fact an infidel fleet had penetrated imperial waters for the first time since 1571. A further shock was delivered when news arrived of the Fall of Tunis to the Maltese.

The capture of Tunis on 4 October was achieved primarily through a combination of Maltese sappers and the Russian artillery battalion which had been transferred from Oran. The combined operation proved more successful than expected as the mines laid down by the sappers had been placed near a magazine. When the mines were detonated, the magazine's explosion ripped open a hole, which Russian artillery fire widened. The knights and their infantry complement rushed the breached walls and began slaughtering all the defenders, sparing only a few women and all the children. They placed a garrison of 90,000 troops within the city, then marched to a point opposite the stronghold of Djerba, where they awaited more transports bringing newly trained units to replenish their numbers. Their third army, having conquered Utica marched into Tripolitania and here they encountered the corpses of the troops the Sultan had sent. Pillaging what they could easily uncover, they continued until they reached Tripoli. it was agreed that they would rest and refresh from the march before commencing the siege, which was duly begun on the morning of 17 October. But as word of the atrocities committed in Tunis began to circulate across Europe, statesmen began to worry that the Maltese actions were causing disruption and leading to an increase in tension across the Mediterranean and even as far as India. Britain, France, Poland-Lithunia, Austria, and Naples began implementing policies to curb the recruitment drive, but to no avail as many simply traveled to Spain, the Papal State, and Sardinia-Piedmont, then crossed to Malta. Furthermore, Spain under generalissimo Joachim Murat*********** began to feel a crusading spirit among the people and was eager to resume the Reconquista which had been stalled in 1571. The Maltese began receiving Spanish armaments as a result, and these were put to devstating effect with the conquest of Tripoli on 27 October, resulting in a smilar purge of the population. Leaving a garrison of 15,000 in the city as they had in Algiers and Oran, they advanced toward Benghazi. De Rohan now received word of a massive Turkish armada coming from Crete, comprising 220 galleases, frigates, ships-of-the-line and cruisers. As he readied to begin the siege of Djerba, de Rohan recalled the ships of the Maltese fleet to prepare for the battle he knew was coming. Unknown to him, the sultan of Morocco had pledged his fleet of 200 galleys to join the Turkish fleet. He did so as a result of a Maltese attack on another former Genoese trading outpost, Sale. Though the city fell to the Maltese army, they remained in a constant state of conflict as the Moroccan army kept the Maltese trapped in the city. On 7 November, as the Maltese army began to siege Djerba, their navy positioned itself in a crescent formation to cover all the major towers of the fortress, cutting off any escape and insuring they received no help.

Artillery batteries were positioned on a series of rises close to the fortress. From here, the attackers began their bombardment of the walls while sappers were sent to dig tunnels and plant explosives beneath the walls. For sixteen days the sappers worked in the tunnels until they finally reached the base of the walls, where they began laying the explosives. On the morning of the 24th, they detonated the explosives and brought down the walls, but when they attempted to follow up, they were pushed back by Berber irregulars and Turkish troops in ferocious fighting. More explosives were laid under the walls and exploded, offering more breaches for the Maltese to storm. Maltese irregulars rushed into the breach before the Turks could cut them off, then stormed two of the closest towers, killing the garrisons within and taking the towers closest to the sea. As fighting continued to rage within the fortress and efforts by the Turks to retake the towers were repulsed, the Maltese fleet moved to a new position which could allow the guns of the captured towers to be brought to bear on the Turkish fleet. Finally on 5 December, the Turkish fleet appeared on the horizon in full battle array. At 9 am, the Maltese naval commander, Alonzo Vitelli, sent a flotilla of 100 fast galleys armed with Greek Fire to attack the Turkish fleet. Despite losing 17 ships, the Turks sank the galleys. Taking position, the Maltese fleet drew up for battle, with the captured towers forming the central bastions. At 12;30 pm the cannons opened fire and the Maltese ships opened up with broadsides. The battle broke down into a series of skirmishes and boarding actions on both sides. Vitelli lost his life in such a boarding action, though it resulted in the capture of the Turkish Man-of-War Caliph. For five days, and in view of the armies still fighting within the fortress, the two fleets went head-to-head. Finally, on 11 December, the Turkish fleet withdrew with the loss of 215 sunk and 83 captured. The Maltese lost 229 sunk and 74 captured. Though it is considered an inconclusive battle, the Maltese and Ottomans both claim it as a victory, yet the sultan of Morocco withdrew his surviving ships shortly afterwards and signed a ceasefire with the Knights. This ceasefire was sponsored by Britain and France, who were concerned that Malta's rise in power could be used by the Spanish absolutist junta to expand their own empire. Now they worked to end the war between Malta and the Ottoman Empire, joined by Austria and Poland-Lithuania. As mediators worked to bring an end to the war, the Knights took Benghazi after defeating a small Egyptian-Turkish army of 30.000 which had crossed the desert from Egypt. The Knights advanced into Egypt, reaching Tobruk on Christmas Day. Here they faced a third Egyptian-Turkish army of 600,000 troops under the command of Siuleiman Pasha and in a nine-hour battle, were finally defeated, losing 300,000 killed and 75,000 captured. The Turks lost 475,000 killed and 15,000 injured. The survivors fled to Benghazi, which was then placed under siege by the Turks three days after the battle. The Knights received reinforcements from Tunis in the form of a relief army numbering 125,000 which attacked the besieging Turks while at the same time sorties were launched from within the city which tied down the Turks further. On the morning of 27 December, using a coastal fog to mask their movements, the Knights attacked the Turks again, inflicting losses of120,000 men at the cost of 88,000 killed and forcing the remainder to fall back to Egypt,

British, French, and Austrian mediation finally led to a ceasefire between the Knights of Malta and the Ottoman Empire on 31 December, opening the way to negotiations in Benghazi. Through three long months of discussion, it was finally agreed that the Beys of Tunis and Algiers would be treated separately from the Ottomans. The First Treaty of Benghazi signed on 8 March 1781 required the Ottomans to pay an indemnity of $130K ducats to the Knights and evacuate their troops from Tripolitania, For their part, the Knights provided transports for those who wished to leave with the troops. Having gotten what they wanted from the treaty, the Ottomans now worked with the Knights when it came time to negotiate terms with the Barbary rulers. On 14 March, the Second Treaty of Benghazi was signed by the Beys of Tunis and Algiers as well as the sultan of Morocco. The terms in this treaty called for the cession of Tripoli and Benghazi as well as Algiers and Tunis to the Order. Morocco would cede the former Genoese outposts of Safi and Sale to the Order. Prisoners seized during the war would be exchanged and the Bey of Tunis would pay an indemnity of $175K ducats, Djerba was also ceded to the Order by Tunis. The Ottomans also used this second treaty to reassert their rule in what remained of the Barbary states, reducing the beyliks to beylerbeyliks and effectively ending the bouts of piracy. De Rohan later stated that the Benghazi talks had initiated the Imperial Order of the Knights of Malta by giving the tiny island of Malta a more defensible territory, but also left a legacy of discord between Muslim and Christian. Worst of all, it awoke the crusading dream in Spain and the desire for revenge against the Ottomans for the empty victory at Lepamto.


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Map of the Maghreb, the Middle East and Persia showing the Imperial Order of the Knights of Malta and a slightly reduced Persia in relation to their neighbors



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Map showing the vassal Sultanate of Kilwa. the Ottoman colony in Madagascar (Ottoman Malagasy), and Ethiopia
 
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The First Tejas Rebellion (15 January - 20 March 1780)
By the end of the Ten Years War, with the birth of the Mayan Republic and the Republic of Maracaibo, Spanish power in the Americas had begun its decline. The Viceroyalty of New Spain had lost a substantial tax base with Mayan independence, but moreover, their labor pool had been lost. Taxation remained high as the viceregal authorities attempted to compensate for the losses. This led to uprisings in the outlying provinces. Coupled with attacks from the Native American Karankawa, Apache, and Commanche, these uprisings forced the Spanish authorities to use increasingly tougher measures to put down the uprisings. In one such border province, Tejas, the uprising took on a separatist flavor when American settlers hoping to travel westward despite the Spanish regulation that they renounce their American citizenship and embrace Catholicism. Led by a pioneer and former Continental soldier in the Ten Years War, Daniel Boone*, these settlers would make the first of two efforts to break Tejas away from New Spain**.

The First Rebellion began on 15 January 1780 when the governor of Tejas, Domingo Cabello y Robles, received the military support of the Viceroy of New Spain to begin a crackdown on the Karankawa people, who had been fighting a guerilla-style war since the end of the Ten Years War. To pay the cost of the army, Robles increased taxes for the seventh time, and even began sending agents to harass the 'Anglos' who were coming from America, often detaining them in order to collect a huge ransom from their families. Boone, who had been a Continental and served during the Ten Years War, raised a force of 800 hardy hunters and militiamen, hoping to assist the Spanish authorities to neutralize the Karankawa threat. On 7 February, the combined forces of the Spanish-Mexicans and the Anglos under Boone defeated the Karankawa and drove them deep into Comanche territory along the Rio Grande in the west of Tejas. Expecting that this would be enough to satisfy Robles and end the excessive taxation, Boone and his men expected to earn favor with the Spanish authorities. But by now Robles, who had never agreed to cooperate with the Anglos against the Karankawa, condemned Boone and his militia as outlaws and renegades. Robles ordered the militia to stand down, but Boone demanded compensation from the colonial government in Mexico City in order to pay his troops and insure fairness. Robles in turn demanded that all Anglos were to leave Tejas. Boone refused and his militia, augmented by fresh waves of immigrants from America, Louisiana, and even L'Oregon, grew in numbers. Fearing an attempt to break Tejas away, Robles began courting the Apache Indians in an effort to drive the Anglos out.

Clashes soon began between the Anglo-Tejans and the Spanish and Apache in April and into May, leading to the worst bloodbath in the region's history at Goliad. Here, an Anglo force of 1,900 was surprised by an Apache warband of 2,600 and forced to retreat right into the waiting guns of a Spanish force of 3,900 men. In the four-hour battle which followed, 1,600 of the 1,900 Anglos were slaughtered by the Apache and Spanish, with 100 survivors taken captive only to be scalped later by the Apache. Boone and 200 others managed to return across the border to America. News of the massacre spread across both Mexico and America, where outrage was strongest. Pressure was mounting for George I to send an army into the region and put an end to the unrest, but he refrained from military action, choosing to open negotiations with the Spanish over the future of Tejas. Meantime, Boone, gathering a force of 8,500 Anglo-Tejans, Cherokee, Caddo, and Choctaw braves, returned to Tejas and attacked the Apache settlements on the west bank of the Rio Grande. The Viceroy, convinced that the Kingdom of America was behind the invasion, attempted to raise an army in Mexico for the counterattack, but the increased taxation and food shortages caused by recent drought led to an uprising which required him to put down the rebels violently. Faced with the possibility of both a native Mexican uprising and a renewed Anglo invasion of Tejas, he was finally forced to offer terms to George I. The resulting Treaty of Nuevo Laredo (13 August) kept the Spanish administration in Tejas but now recognized the rights of the Anglos, and offered tax exemption for those who had lived at least two years in the province. It also ended the Spanish-Apache cooperation by corralling the Apache and confining them to the western lands. The Viceroy became unpopular with the peninsulares (people from the Iberian peninsula who settled in New Spain), while the Anglos still felt uneasy about his future plans. Many of the peninsulares would form the backbone of support for Ferdinand VII when he would replace the reigning monarch.


* Daniel Boone (2 November 1734 - 26 September 1820 OTL) In our timeline, Boone was responsible for the settlement of the land which would become the state of Kentucky. ITTL he still explores the new land, but he also makes friends among the Shawnee, Cherokee and Caddo Indians. He would lead the second, successful Tejas Rebellion and with a youngSam Houston lay the groundwork for Tejas (or Texas as it would later be renamed) to join the Kingdom of America as a self-governing province.

** The Tejas Rebellion doesn't happen OTL until 1836, but because of the changes happening in Spain as a result of their defeat in the Ten Years War, and the exactions of the various viceroyalties in the New World, including New Spain, uprisings will become a major problem until the viceroys are replaced by authoritarian peninsulares, which will lead to the Second Tejas Rebellion, and war between Spain and the Kingdom of America

Source:
Wikipedia

TejasandMaya.png

Map showing the area of the First Tejas Rebellion, as well as New Spain, the Kingdom of America, and the Mayan Republic
 
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Prelude to the Avalanche
READER'S NOTE: As the Scientific Age and the Age of Enlightenment happen almost fully the way it happened IOTL (with only some locations changed thanks to the alternate outcomes of both the Hapsburg Succession War and the Ten Years War, with individual philosophers whose works are also altered to be featured in a future post), they will not be touched upon for the sake of time and in order to remain focused on the geopolitical and military developments of this alt-timeline. It is NOT to suggest that they aren't important, it is only to say that as i have many reference sources to draw upon for the basics of the timeline construction and a limited amount of time, they will be bypassed. But again, those philosophers whose works are now altered by the different outcome of the recent wars will be detailed in a future post.

With the exception of the Imperial Order of the Knights of Malta, who had conquered a swathe of the North African coastline and both neutralized the threat from the Barbary corsairs and humbled their nominal overlords the Ottoman Empire, Europe at the beginning of 1785 was a peaceful continental peninsula, with any wars being fought confined to the perimeters in the Middle East, North Africa and the Americas. France and Britain held the line in the west, having recently joined in combatting elements within the Grand Duchy of Flanders who sought union with the Dutch Republic. Following up on their military victory, they signed a mutual assistance treaty in Plymouth (19 January) which resolved lingering differences going back to the Bourbon Invasion during the Ten Years War and also pledged to defend Flanders against any effort by the Dutch or Prussians to force a union. While the French still had some misgivings regarding their new cooperation with Britain, they were increasingly concerned about their Saxon clients and fearful of their Prussian rivals. Britain too was concerned about Prussian pretensions as the British Royal Family remained-in ddition to rulers in the British Isles and of the British colonial empire, also Electors of Hanover. What neither nation knew, was that the seeds of arevolutionary deluge were already germinating in Spain, which had suffered humiliation and defeat in the Ten Years War as well as territorial losses to Britain, the Mayans, Maracaibans and Americans. Britain and France began offering subsidies to Portugal in an effort to help them rebuild their military in the face of the growing concern over Spanish ambitions.

In Central Europe, the Bahemians maintained their hold on the title of Holy Roman Emperors, eve emacting reforms which further consolidated the Empire. They also mamaged to hold the line among the major German powers in the HRE, supporting Austria against the irredentism of the Saxons, the rivalry of Prussia and the mistrust of Hanover. Despite their best efforts, however, two new centers of independent authority arose in southern Germany in the form of the two electorates of Baden and Wurttemberg. Austria, with its new coastline as a result of the defeat of the Hungarians in the Ten Years War, had begun expanding its trade with Venice, Malta, Naples, and even the Ottoman Turks. Their rivalry with Prussia-though much abated since the Hapsburg Succession War-remained to plague any efforts at reconciliation between the two states, now all the more necessary because of the territorial ambitions of their shared Saxon neighbors. Hanover endeavored to incorporate the Hanseatic cities of Bremen-Verden and Hamburg and thus become a rival for commerce with the Danes, Dutch and Swedes. The ecclesiastical states, wedged between French, Prussian, Saxon, and Hanoverian spheres of influence, maintained their precarious existence. Across the Alps in Italy, memories of the Pan-Italian Defense League remained strong despite the abyssmal failure of the League to stop Franco-Savoyard designs on the Republic of Genoa which led to its abolition and division. Impetus for a revival of the League arose with the overthrow of the last Duke of Milan-King Joseph I of Austria-by a popular uprising. The conspirators began to search for an alternative and soon a delegation of Milanese nobles appeared in Madrid to offer the ducal crown to Charles IV, the new king. Fully aware of the potential backlash from France and Austria but also seeing an opportunity to restore Spanish domination of the peninsula, Charles IV accepted the ducal crown and added the title to his many others. He then led an army of 25,000 troops to assert his rights in his new possession, which led the Venetians to raise a force of mercenaries, and call upon the Pope to reform the League. Though the rebirth of the League was not enough to prevent Charles IV from asserting his rights as new duke, it did serve to bring the independent Italian states together.

In Eastern Europe, Poland-Lithuania held the line, alongside Novgorod and the Empire of Sweden against a Russia which had suffered major defeat in the recent war-coming away with only Crimea, and that only because of the determination of Persia to strip their Ottoman enemies of some territory in Europe to counterbalance their own losses to the Turks in the Middle East. Still ruling over a large multiethnic and multireligious empire and with expansion still their main focus, the Russians began to eye the lands of Persia, Central Asia and Mesopotamia as possible avenues of expansion, while at the same time they made clear that the reunification of the Russian lands remained the highest priority. In India, the Moghuls had finally gained the upper hand in their conflict with the Marathas-despite the old alliance brokered by France, driving them back to the coastlands near the British colony at Bombay. Thus strengthened, the Moghuls could begin the process of expanding their influence into southeast Asia, and dispute Tibet and the Himalayas region with the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China. China itself was at the zenith of its power, though they lost control of Mongolia when the Khalkas broke away and refounded the Khanate, placing a member of the Genghisid family on the throne. Japan remained divided among the various daimyo owing only nominal allegiance to the shoguns as the emperors had little real power.

In the Americas, the Republic of Maracaibo struggled with debt, piracy and the threat of Spanish invasion even as they began building their own trade network. The Mayan Republic faced similar challenges despite being a protectorate of the Kingdom of America. America had built its political and economic structure, and began a reform of its military now that the kingdom was no longer involved in war. This became all the more necessary as the First Tejas Rebellion had been brought to an end violently. The Anglos in Tejas were given some respite but as the year continued pressure mounted to curb the emigration of more Anglos into the region. It was already discernable that a future conflict would erupt in Tejas and this time the powers of America and Spain would be drawn into it. French L'Oregon and British Columbia struggled to build their nascent trade networks while maintaining their ties to their respective mother countries in the face of growing American economic power.


No sources were used for this post
 
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Revolution!
READER'S NOTE: This will be broken down into three phases over the period 1790 - 1820 and may include conflicts in other parts of the world not directly tied to the main conflict in Europe. The phases will be highlighted in bold and will start with a recap of previous events before continuing the timeline, both as a bookmark for me and as a summary for the reader. Again, events of the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Age will be highlighted where the great men are concerned in a later ret-conned post. Enjoy!

Phase I

It has been said that the ending of the 25 Year Peace came with the attempt by the Dutch to establish a personal union with the Grand Duchy of Flanders. Though the pro-Dutch parrty did nearly succeed in their goal, and though Britain and France did enter the conflict as allies and guarantors of the Flandrine succession, driving out the Dutch army and defeating the plans of the Nederlanden Party, the conflict had been confined only to the states directly involved. Similarly, with the Persian Deluge-the double invasion of Persia by both the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbek Khaganate, which almost involved other nations such as the Moghuls, Russia, and Manchu China, the conflict remained confined to the local theater and involved nothing from the Persians aside from the loss of their control over the Caucasus passes to the Ottomans and an increase of territory at the expense of the Uzbeks. The most sensational development during the later period of the 25 Year Peace, the growth of a Maltese empire in the Mediterranean basin under the revamped label of the Imperial Order of the Knights of Malta caused no general conflagration despite the involvement of both Spain and the Ottoman Empire as nominal overlords of the Barbary States. But as the last two cited conflicts do not show, both Russia and Spain were in the throes of a dramatic revolution which either replaced the ruling monarch with an extreme absolutist (mainly Russia) or complemented an existing absolutist with a military regime (mainly Spain). But there were other revolutions which also overturned the existing political systems and would, like the Russian and Spanish revolutions, overwhelm the world and lead to a major global conflict which at its end would set the stage for a longer peace and a new order. In Europe, these wars would lay the groundwork for the eventual unification of both the German and Italian lands. In the East, it would lead to the unification of Japan under a new emperor and dynasty as well as the resurgence of an old enemy in the form of the Mongol Khaganate. In the West, it would lead to American expansion both to the west and to the south and establish the American Empire as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. But it would not be Spain, or Russia, or even Hungary-which also sought to overturn the order established at the Congress of Frankfurt. It would begin in Saxony, the most disgruntled and least suspect of the defeated states.


The Prusso-Saxon War or the Fourth Silesian War (6 October - 3 December 1790)
Frederick Augustus III had been thwarted in his two goals of an expanded Saxony and a personal union with Poland-Lithuania in the Ten Years War, much as his father Frederick Augustus II (Friedrich August II) had failed in the Hapsburg Succession War before him. Prussia had secured control of Silesia, thus cutting off the Electorate from the neighboring Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, which allowed the Polish native king to consolidate his power at the expense of the magnates who might've aided the Elector in his scheme to acquire the crowns. The dual sets of treaties with Prussia and the Kingdom of Austria had further negated any effort by the Wettins, the ruling House of Saxony, in their drive to acquire the Polish crown. Prussia's new king Frederick William II was determined to contain the Saxons - preferably with the assistance of his Polish and Bahemian allies as well as his former enemy Austria. It had in fact been the shocking decision to ally with the Hapsburgs which had defeated Saxony's bid for royal power in the recent war. But Austria had become distracted by events in the Low Countries with the disputed Flandrine succession while Bahemia was attempting to meet the challenges presented by the rising states of Baden and Wurttenburg. This would provide the opening the Saxons needed.

In the period of the 25 Year Peace, Saxony introduced the cantonal system of military recruitment (seeing how successfully Prussia had applied it in the Hapsburg Succession War* to conquer Silesia from the Hapsburg Monarchy). This allowed the Saxons to raise their army strength to almost twice their previous numbers. This was followed by a reorganization of the tax system which could now better sustain their military. On 28 September 1790, Frederick Augustus III entered into an agreement with King Anton I of Hungary and his son and successor Nikolaus II** which would allocate the Galicia region of Poland-Lithuania to the Hungarian kingdom in exchange for Hungarian support for the Saxon succession to the Polish crowns. Adam Kazimierz (Adam Casimir I) had become king with the death of his uncle Michel Frydryk in 1775, and had begun his kingdom's own reform program, and for the Saxon elector, the chance to force a personal union on the Poles was fast disappearing. Thus, the decision was made to launch their offensive into Silesia.

Four Saxon armies of 115,000 were formed. Two of the four armies would advance into Silesia and secure the province. The third would advance north to seize both Anhalt and Magdeburg, while the fourth would tie down Prussian forces by threatening Berlin. On 4 October, Frederick Augustus III appointed his younger brother Anton*** commander of the armies assigned to Silesia, while putting himself in command of the army assigned to threaten the Prussian capital. Two days later, as his army advanced deep into Brandenburg and began to harry the city proper and Berlin-which had the effect of drawing the Prussians away from Silesia, Anton's two armies advanced into the province with little opposition from the Prussian garrisons who chose to surrender rather than fight a hopeless defensive battle. Frederick William II, learning of the capitulation of Breslau and loss of Silesia for the second time, was said to have gone into a rage. Determined now to defeat the Saxons and regain his lost province, he forced his Wettin opponent to give battle in Neumark, just east of Berlin (16 October). In thirteen hours of bloody assaults and repulses, the Prussian king was forced to retreat in the direction of Berlin. Meanwhile the Saxon 3rd Army advanced north and besieged Anhalt on 18 October. Frederick William II raised another army of 95,000 mostly survivors from the earlier battle and marched west in an effort to break the siege, but after a four-hour battle was forced to retreat again with the loss of 55,000 killed or captured to the Saxons' 33,000 killed. On 25 October, Anhalt surrendered to the Saxons. Four days later, with no help coming for them, Magdeburg also surrendered to the Saxons. Frederick William II made one final attempt to defeat Frederick Augustus III. On 2 November, with a force comprised of 23,000 soldiers of the town garrison, 15,000 Royal Guards and an assortment of citizen militias numbering 7,500, he attempted to break out of Berlin, link up with a hastily assembled army of 55,000 coming from East Prussia, and attacking the Saxon Elector head-on. After managing to slip out of the capital, he marched through Neumark and West Prussia, arriving at Danzig on 9 November only to be met by the shock of a reduced army arriving. Instead of the expected 55,000 troops only 15,000 had been ready for battle. Still hoping to turn this disadvantage into an advantage, he unified the military force and began his march back, but he was soon faced with a greater shock, for on 15 November, the Saxon 3rd and 4th armies were waiting for him. Left with no choice, the Prussian King ordered an attack, hoping to separate the two Saxon armies enough to make a dash for the safety of Berlin. Initial success led the king into believing he had achieved his objective and he began to push through on his way to the capital, but the Saxons closed the gap and trapped the Prussians. In seven hours of battle, the Prussian army was utterly destroyed, and the king taken prisoner. Berlin was seized shortly thereafter, though Frederick Augustus III had no initial plan to conquer the city. Nevertheless, presented with the opportunity afforded by the defeat and humiliation of the Prussian king, he seized upon it. Despite protests from the Holy Roman Emperor, the kings of Austria, France, and Poland-Lithuania, Frederick Augustus III felt secure enough to impose terms on his Hohenzollern enemy. On 3 December, in occupied Berlin, Frederick Augustus III forced his Prussian opponent to sign a treaty which imposed these stipulations:
- Prussia would cede Silesia, Anhalt, Magdeburg, and Berlin to Saxony
- Prussia would recognize the Saxon succession in Poland-Lithuania and was forbidden from offering Poland-Lithuania military assistance
- Prussia would pay an indemnity of $75K talers to Saxony
- Prussia would recognize Frederick Augustus III as Frederick Augustus I of the newly raised kingdom of Saxony, in addition to his titles in Poland-Lithuania
Showing some grace to his defeated enemy, Frederick Augustus III allowed Frederick William II to retain his royal title and a vestige of Prussian territory, but forced him to move his capital back to the ancient Prussian city of Konigsberg. Frederick William II would bide his time, but it was clear that the cantonal system, which had served Prussia so well in the past, had now outlived its usefulness. Upon his arrival in Konigsberg, he called all his generals to the palace and began the process of reform which would enable Prussia to raise and maintain an active military force tied directly to the king and autonomous of the kommmandants.



The Saxon-Polish War (18 January - 4 February 1791)
Meanwhile Frederick Augustus III, with access to Poland-Lithuania thanks to his conquest of Silesia, now began a correspondence with several of the lesser Polish magnates who had become uneasy about the reform programs initiated by Adam Casimir I. They drew up a treaty which named the Saxon Elector as the new king of Poland-Lithuania and in exchange, Frederick Augustus III would recognize the rights of the magnates in their estates. Among those who flocked to the Saxon cause were such noble families as the Sulkowski, Lubomirski and Sapieha. At the start of the new year of 1791, three Saxon armies positioned themselves along the new frontiers with the Commonwealth and Frederick Augustus III, now the self-appointed King of Saxony as Frederick August I, sent an ultimatum to Adam Casimir calling on him to renounce his reform programs, draft a clause into the Royal Constitution granting the 'Golden Liberties' to the magnatial families of the Commonwealth, and agree to name himself as successor. Failure to comply would be the incentive to drive Adam Casimir from the thrones. Meantime, a Hungarian army arrived at their border with the Commonwealth under the guise of defending the southern cities from Saxon aggression (in actuality, they were ready to make good their claims on Galicia). Forbidden from assisting his Polish ally, Frederick Wiliiam II could only fume in silence as Adam Casimir prevaricated on his response to the Saxon threat. Finally on 18 January, Frederick August I grew tired of waiting, launching his two armies into Poland without a declaration of war (it should also be noted that he also never issued a formal declaration of war against Prussia). The lesser magnates sent their House Armies to join the Saxons as they besieged Poznan, Krakow, and Warsaw simultaneously. Adam Casimir, finally recovered from the suddenness of the Saxon invasion, recalled the garrison army which had been in Novgorod since the end of the Ten Years War and with the addition of a Lothuanian army of 125,000 and a Ruthenian/Cossack/Tatar army of 145,000 prepared to relieve the siege of Warsaw. On their march, they came upon the House Armies of Sanguszko and Pomimski, who attacked them outside Brest-Litovsk. As the armies battled, news soon reached the king that Poznan had fallen and Krakow was close to collapse thanks to the assistance of the Hungarians. In a desperate gamble, he ordered his Tartar Horse into battle going head-on into the ranks of the infantry loyal to Sanguzsko, where they sacrificed themselves, taking 15,000 of the Sanguzsko 25,000 for the loss of 17,000 of their 20,000. They pushed the battle closer to Warsaw, but as Krakow finally fell to the combined Saxon-Hungarian force and Warsaw itself was on the point of capitulation, it became clear that the odds were no longer in the king's favor. Adam Casimir I withdrew his army into Lithuania, arriving in Smolensk on 4 February. Later that same day, the people of Warsaw offered terms to Frederick August I, who announced that Adam Casimir I had been deposed "by the will of the people" and crowning himself king with a crown that had been made in advance (though this was not the official crown of Poland-Lithuania as the Papal primate refused to bless the crown, which would've legitimized Frederick August's seizure of the throne. For his loyalty to the Polish king, the papal primate was executed, which earned for Frederick August I excommunication by the Pope). Though he claimed the Crown of Poland and was quick to fulfill the terms of the agreement with the lesser magnates, Adam Casimir I had not in fact surrendered his royal authority, nor formally submitted to the Saxon King-Elector. The king continued his reform programs from the safety of Vilnius, where he relocated in March under the protection of Lithuanian and Swedish arms-Sweden having signed a treaty which allowed them to send an army to act in support of the Polish king and place Lithuania temporarily under Swedish protection as a safeguard against Russia. For the rest of the Revolutionary period, Poland would remain divided between those magnatial families still loyal to the Polish king and those who were now loyal to the Saxon Elector-King. Thus began the period of Polish history known as the Saksońska Okupacja or 'the Saxon Occupation'. For their part in bringing Poland to heel, the Hungarians were granted Galicia, again in disregard of the fact that Frederick August was king in name only and that Adam Casimir I had not relinquished his royal title. For the inhabitants of Galicia, the Saxon Occupation was merged with the more regional Hungarian Captivity or Niewola Węgierska.


Second Balkan War (10 October 1790 - 30 January 1791)
At the close of the Ten Years War, when the combined might of the Austrians, Ottomans and Poles brought the Hungarians' dream of a western Balkan empire to a bitter end, King Anton I, who had won popularity for the early successes, quickly became a pariah. He was also growing sicker from an unknown illness. Gradually, he transferred royal power to his son, Prince Nikolaus (which included the mutual assistance treaty with Frederick August I of Saxony granting Hungary control of Galicia). But the unpopularity of the Esterhazy dynasty was already such that other noble families were already plotting to overthrow them. Leading the effort was Karoly Andrassy of House Andrassy and a minor nobleman named Janos Erdody. The three men could be no more different, as Prince Nikolaus determined to follow his father's footsteps, Andrassy aimed not only to drive the Turks from Europe but also destroy the Hapsburgs and annex Austria in its entirety and exceed even the great Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, and Erdody showed more of a tendency to favor union with Austria in a form of federation (his views on Ottoman Turkey were never made clear). While Erdody lacked the substantial support he would've needed to seize power, Prince Nikolaus did command strong support from among those who were staunchly loyal to his father, while Andrassy had the support of the Hungarian army and the mercantile community, which gave him the economic and military foundation. On 3 October 1790, taking advantage of the absence of Prince Nikolaus due to his father's deteriorating condition, Karolyi Andrassy launched his insurrection. Raising an army of 220,000 mostly peasants with muskets but also containing thousands of professional soldiers and 400 pieces of artillery that had once been given to Rakozy by the French, Andrassy marched on Budapest, easily overawing the meager garrison of 85,000 troops without firing a shot. Planting his family standard on the battlement, Andrassy declared the Esterhazy dynasty to be overthrown. Hearing the news of Andrassy's move, Prince Nikolaus gathered an army of 230,000 troops from Szeged and marched north to Budapest in an attempt to drive out Andrassy. Andrassy rushed his army from the city walls in his own effort to deter Prince Nikolaus and in the Battle of the Danube, taking advantage of the fact the peasant fighters were left to defend the walls and hence had no experience in using the artillery batteries to any effect, Prince Nikolaus pinned down Andrassy's army. A Transylvanian army of 145,000 sent by Anton I closed in on the capital from the other side and drove the townspeople to offer unconditional surrender. Andrassy, unaware of the easy capitulation of the capital, attempted to flee back across the river into the bastion only to be met with rifle fire from the walls. Realizing his situation was hopeless, Andrassy offered unconditional surrender to Prince Nikolaus, who was initially in favor of execution for Andrassy and all his men-until he was convinced by his father that Andrassy could be more useful as a military commander than as a prisoner or a martyr. Though Andrassy was sentenced to a week's imprisonment, the coming campaign against the Ottomans meant that Andrassy would not serve his prison sentence for even that short a length of time.

Prince Nikolaus became king as Nikolaus I at the death of his father King Anton. In his coronation speech, he declared that he would return the Hungarian people to greatness and finally achieve the dream of Hunyandi himself, the eviction of the Turk from Europe once and for all. News of the coronation caused alarm in Constantinople at a time where rumblings from the Crimea already appeared to show an imminent Russian descent. On 5 October, Nikolaus I issued an ultimatum to the Ottoman Sultan demanding the cession of Serbia, Sofya, Macedonia and Epirus as well as a demilitarized zone in Bulgaria and Thrace. When this was met with rejection, Nikolaus I declared war on 10 October. With Andrassy in command of the largest of the four separate armies, Nikolaus' strategy was an imitation of that used by the Saxon Elector. Managing to catch the Turkish garrisons still in the midst of preparations, the Hungarians conquered Sarajevo (14th), Belgrade (16th), Pristina (19th) and Tirana (22nd). it was only when Andrassy's army reached the outskirts of Salonika that he encountered a large Turkish army under the command of Kose Pasha, numbering 195,000. For several days both armies manuevered and countermanuevered around each other hoping to gain tactical advantage. It became a question of which army would tire first and as days became weeks, it became clear that the Turks, with their eyes on the Straits and the imminent arrival of the Russian armies (by this point, Russian armies had already overrun the Caucasus Mountain region and were advancing into both Mesopotamia and Persia) would become desperate to attack the Hungarians if only so they could withdraw to the capital. Andrassy, more patient despite his own men growing restless, continued to drag out the engagement, occasionally sending his hussars to harass Turkish supply lines and further demoralize his enemy. Meanwhile, Skopje finally fell to a Hungarian assault on the 5th of November after holding out far longer than anyone had expected. With Hungarian forces advacing into Thessaly and Attica, Kose Pasha now had no choice but to attack. On 11 November, the Turkish infantry formed into their lines, the Janissaries from Egypt and Arabia at the forefront, followed by the bashi-bazouks and the modernized Topijis behind them, screened by the Sipahis and Kurdish irregulars. Andrassy drew in the Turks into a gully, then surrounded the bulk of the infantry and began raining fire down upon them. Despite heroic efforts by the Kurds and Armenians to break through and free the trapped men, they fell in large numbers to Hungarian rifle and cannon fire. After 5 hours of fighting, the Turks lost 92,000 dead and 17,500 captured while Andrassy lost 57,000 killed, yet he retained the superior numbers on the battlefield. Kose Pasha, short of supplies, bearing wounded troops, and faced with the prospect of total defeat, began to withdraw for the coast, avoiding Constantinople as it was now blockaded by the Russian Black Sea fleet (as a prelude to a major landing). It had been hoped that Kose Pasha could link with additional troops coming from Syria and Mosul, but with all reinforcements needed in the capital for the defenses, he could do little more than withdraw to the temporary capital already being set up in Angora, in the heart of Anatolia. Nonetheless, the Sultan withheld offering terms to King Nikolaus I for several more weeks. it was only on 30 January of the new year that he was finally forced to capitulate in order to contain the Russian advance. the resulting Treaty of Salonika, signed on 1 February, laid out the following terms:
- The Ottomans would cede Serbia, the region of Sofya, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Attica to Hungary
- The remainder of the Greek region would be under Hungarian military occupation for ten years
- The Ottomans would recognize Bulgaria as an autonomous demilitarized zone, while still retaining suzerainty over the province
- The Ottomans would surrender 3/4 of their navy to Hungarian control
- The Ottomans would pay an indemnity of $50K ducats to Hungary
- The Ottomans would abrogate all alliance treaties with Austria, Poland-Lithuania, Novgorod and Naples
The Ottomans had been humiliated by their loss to Hungary, and were likely to lose even more to the Russians, but this reestablished the old Hungarian Empire in the western Balkans and paved the way for their final objective, the destruction of Hapsburg power once and for all. They would be further aided in this by the award of Galicia from Poland-Lithuania as dictated by the new Saxon King Frederick August I.


The Second Reconquista (25 September 1790 - 15 February 1791)
King Charles IV had ascended the throne at the death of his father, Charles III, in 1788. He ascended the throne at a time when Spain was still reeling from its defeat in the Ten Years War, having lost the Yucatan to the Mayans, Maracaibo to rebels, Georgia and Florida to the Kingdom of America, and Buenos Aires to the British, Their kinship ties with France had been damaged when France began to side with America and increasingly with its former archrival Britain. Furthermore, the indemnities which Spain had been forced to pay to Britain, the Mayan Republic, Maracaibo and America had pushed the kingdom into bankruptcy. Charles IV was only able to bring the country out of financial debt by increasing taxation across the Spanish Empire, which while enabling economic reforms to take place also strained relations between the colonies and the mother country and even led to revolts such as had occured in Tejas province.

With the appointment of Diego de Gardoqui as Finance Minister, Manuel de Godoy as First Ministerm and Joachim Murat as Generalissimo of the Royal Armies, Charles IV had the Trio of Ministers which would play a major role in Spain. Charles, not missing the opportunity the appointment of the Trio offered, was quick to confirm their appointments. It had been under Murat's direction that Spain had given assistance to the Knights of Malta in their campaign against the Barbary corsair states and their Ottoman overlords which had earned him his appointment under Charles IV. Now Murat would have new opportunities to bring glory to Spain. His first chance came with the economic crisis on the island of Sicily, which had been hard hit by the recent expansion of Malta into an imperial monastic state. Food shortages had led to unrest on the island which Charles IV was quick to exploit. Raising an army of 45,000 troops supplemented by 40,000 Maltese knights and transporting them in 800 ships escorted by a fleet of 75 ships (25 galleases, 25 ships-of-the-line, and 25 frigates), the Spanish seized control of Sicily with no resistance on 25 September. While the island offered no resistance to the Spanish conquest, the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV became alarmed at the presence of a large Spanish force just across the Strait of Messina with a fleet in the Tyrhennian Sea close to the capital. He called upon the Republic of Venice, the Papal State and Piedmont-Sardinia to send assistance in order to drive the Spanish out of Sicily only to discover that the Pope was aloof from Italian matters despite the Papacy being in the Pan-Italian Defense League, Venice secretly supported Spain against Naples due to a long-forgotten dispute which had never been resolved, and Piedmont had declared neutrality. Faced with the likelihood of war with Spain, he mustered some 115,000 troops in preparation to cross the Strait into Sicily. However a storm scattered most of his transports and those unlucky enough to have been driven far from their ports were quickly captured by Spanish patrols, leaving the Neapolitan army stranded in Reggio. As he struggled to find a new way to get them into Sicily, a larger Spanish army of 117,000 was already on its way from Spain. These landed south of Naples itself, forcing Ferdinand IV to recall his army to defend. As the Spanish dug in to begin their siege, their navy engaged the remnants of the Neapolitan navy just outside the Bay of Naples in a three-hour battle which all but destroyed them at the cost of 23 Spanish ships (20 galleases and three frigates)lost. Meanwhile elements of the Spanish Army of Sicily crossed the Strait of Messina, captured Reggio, and advanced north toward Naples. They met the Neapolitan Army near the town of Capua on 7 October, engaging in a five-hour battle costing the Neapolitans over 90,000 dead or captured for the loss of 22,000 Spanish and 17,000 Maltese Knight-soldiers. For 12 days the city held out, between the naval bombardment from the Spanish fleet in the bay, and the Spanish positions on the heights close to the city. Ferdinand IV fled north to Benevento where he hoped to rally his fellow Italians for one last effort to break the siege, receiving only 1,700 troops mainly from Tuscany which offered little to boost his dwindling army. Finally on 19 October, Ferdinand IV with his surviving troops and the Tuscan auxiliaries, made one last attempt to break the Spanish siege. As they reached the top of the rise, they were met by canister shot from the Spanish batteries which cut down their numbers and caused widespread panic among the survivors. They broke and fled down the rise, pursued by Spanish cavalry and Maltese knights-cavalry. On 1 November, 14 days after the battle, Naples capitulated to the Spanish and Ferdinand IV fled north back to Benevento. After assigning a garrison to defend Naples and redressing his army, Murat-acting as supreme commander of the Spanish Army of Italy, advanced north in pursuit of the Neapolitan king, laying siege to Benevento on 8 November which lasted for 22 days.

As the Spanish were besieging Benevento and incorporating the rest of southern Italy, Charles IV began to cast his eyes across the Strait of Gibraltar, to Morocco. Spain already owned a strip of coastland containing the port ot Melilla, but the success of the Knights of Malta in acquiring two additional ports now provided a new opportunity for the Spanish to conquer the sultanate despite the British presence in Ceuta. Moving their transports to Malaga, Charles IV raised a second army of 145,000 under the command of military veteran Martin Alvarez de Sotomayor****. Sotomayor and his troops landed in Mellila on 10 November, the day before the clash of Hungarian and Turkish armies at Salonika, and marched toward the Moroccan capital of Fez. A Moroccan army of 120,000 attempting to raise the siege was destroyed with the loss of 97,000 killed or captured-thoigh Sotomayor lost 82,000 in the engagement. Receiving fresh reinforcements from the mainland, Sotomayor continued the siege, finally launching an assault on 22 November. In seven hours of street by street fighting, the Spanish forces closed on the city square and the bastion located there. The Moroccan sultan, instead of choosing to make his stand with his men, fled through a secondary gate and made his way toward Ceuta, pursued by Spanish cavalry until he reached the safety of the fortress defending the land route into the city. The surviving defenders, joined by the townsfolk, fell back to the bastion, raising the black flag to show they would resist to the end. Sotomayor, showing an unusual degree of compassion, now issued a manifesto in which he recognized the valiant defenders and offered them special privileges in exchange for their surremder, noting that the women and children should not have to suffer for the actions of men. This was enough to convince them to submit and a small garrison of 25,000 was sent to the bastion to accept the surrender. Sotomayor continued south to Marrakesh where he tried the same tactic of inducing a surrender. Here, however, he was met by defiant resistance when his messenger was murdered and his head put on display on the walls. Angered by this show of defiance, on 17 December, Sotomayor ordered an artillery bombardment which opened a hole in the walls. The Maltese knight-soldiers rushed in, clashing with Berber irregulars trying to plug the gap in the defenses which had now opened with the collapse of the walls. When the Berbers begin to gain the upper hand, Sotomayor sends the tercios to bolster the Maltese forces, driving the Berbers back and allowing the rest of the Spanish and Maltese troops to pour through the breach and spread into the city. In street-by-street battles, the Moroccan and Berber forces were steadily reduced until the survivors raised the white flag and requested terms. Sotomayor, unwilling to entertain the idea of negotiation after his own messenger had been executed, raised his own black flag to show that no quarter would be given. The tercios stormed the battlements on 29 December and in three hours of hard fighting slaughtered nearly the remaining defenders, allowing only a small group of women and children to escape. Mulay Slimane *****(also known as Slimane) finally accepted the inevitable and sent a messenger to General Sotomayor requesting terms. Charles IV ordered Sotomayor to accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. Slimane tried to request Ottoman assistance in defeating the Spanish in order to force them to moderate their possible terms, but as the Ottomans were dealing with the almost simultaneous invasions of the Hungarians and Russians, were unable to send anything but a token force of 1,900 Berber and Egyptian troops which the Maltese put to flight after a skirmish. Slimane knew he no longer had any options and agreed to unconditional surrender. Meeting in Fez with the Spanish representative on 7 January 1791, Slimane agreed to accept Spanish vassalage. But his nephew Abd al-Rahman ben Hisham proclaimed a jihad against the Spanish and Maltese, raising a force of 320,000 from such diverse areas as Mali, Tunis, Egypt and even Kurdistan and Arabia (the Kurds who arrived to fight were driven from their homeland by the advancing Russians and had made their way across the Libyan and Saharan Deserts to reach Marrakesh disguised as merchamts only to find the Spanish already in control). Fighting under the Banner of the Prophet, Abd al-Rahman led his multinational force from the Moroccan Sahel to capture Ifni (13 January) before advancing on Marrakesh. Sotomayor, finding himself in a holy war he had not expected, called for reinforcements from the Imperial Order of the Knights of Malta, which were duly sent. A Maltese force of 195,000 were landed in Oran but did not reach Marrakesh before the Moroccan army drove the Spanish from the city (18 January) after a four-hour engagement which cost the Spanish 78,000 killed and 31,000 captured-including the 25,000 serving as garrison. Sotomayor fell back to Casablanca, where Maltese transports were already bringing Spanish reinforcements to boost the army back to nearly full strength and where the Maltese reinforcements gave Sotomayor the numerical edge over his enemy. Using this new advantage, Sotomayor aggressively attacked ben Hisham's army, driving them south and managing to recapture Marrakesh (24 January) before trapping the enemy in Ifni. Prevented from escaping by the Spanish Navy, ben Hisham made his last stand and in the nine-hour battle, lost 137,000 troops killed and 8,250 captured to Sotomayor's 111,000 killed and 9,780 wounded. Knowing the Spanish stood between him and sanctuary in Ceuta, ben Hisham fled south to Mali, where the king welcomed him with due pomp. The jihad defeated, Slimane was now prepared for the full Spanish Fury to be visited on his people. Charles IV deposed the sultan, naming himself sultan and joinng Morocco with Spain in a personal union by the Treaty of Melilla on 15 February. Other terms of the treaty were as follows:
- Morocco would be heavily Christianized and all Muslims would face eviction or imprisonment
- The Knights would be freed of their obligation to pay a poll tax to maintain their ports as the Moroccan sultanate no longer existed
- Slimane and his nephew were to be considered outlaws and subject to arrest and execution should they be found in Spanish (Moroccan) territory
- Morocco's foreign affairs would now be controlled by Madrid and existing alliances would be considered nullified.



Russo-Turkish War (15 December 1790 - 20 February 1791)^ ^part of the far larger Russo-Islamic War which would continue to 1795
Russia at the end of the Ten Years War was a battered, demoralized, broken and bankrupt empire. Despite the acquisition of the Crimea from the Ottomans-due largely to Persia's desire to get payback for their loss of Mesopotamia, Russia had made no major advances into Europe, They had in fact lost territory to the Swedes, Poles and to the new Grand Republic of Novgorod. Furthermore, the Cossacks had largely went over to the side of the Poles while the Tartars migrated to Polish Ruthenia to escape Russian depredations. The losses had been so traumatic for her that Tsarina-Empress Catherine II abdicated in favor of her son Paul Im despite the fact that his grandsons were more favored than their father. She retired to her own palace at Tsaritsyn and Paul I was crowned Tsar-Emperor in Moscow. He faced multiple dilemmas including hyperinflation, food shortages, disease outbreaks, and the masses of disgruntled soldiers. Paul I would need to tackle these problems in order to get his empire stabilized. His mentor, Panin, suggested he appoint ministers for finance and military affairs. Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgorukov was appointed finance minister on 25 june 1788, and Alexei Orlov-former favorite of Catherine II, was appointed Minister of the Military in September of the same year. Orlov brought in Alexei Arakcheyev, Alexander Vasilchikov, and Mikhail Kutuzov to replace the aging commanders. He also began a reorganization of the military cadres and implemented a decimal recruitment system similar to that used by Genghis Khan in the 1200s.. Dolgorukov implemented a new fiscal system which separated the budgets and enabled military spending to exist as a secondary system. In a few short months, many of the farmlands which had been devastated by the war were repaired and brought back to their pre-war production levels, which in turn finally began to have an effect on the food supply.

Paul I began to look at ways in which Russia could regain its great power status. There were two schools of thought about how Russia could achieve this, though the general consensus was shared that the reasons for Russia's defeat lay in the fact that Poland-Lthuania had managed to strengthen its central government and thus block efforts by those magnates who were funded by Russia to implement measures which would've decentralized the government. Poland-Lithuania also had strong alliances with the Kingdom of Austria, Prussia, and the Empire of Sweden. Despite their previous disputes over Silesia which only ended when the Saxons first attempted to seize the province, both states had begun to work out their differences more diplomatically. Lastly, Poland-Lthuania had forged an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, which in the eyes of Russians was the ultimate act of blasphemy. This alliance had made it impossible for the Russians to advance into the Balkans and Constantinople. Orlov suggested that the first priority of Russia should be the neutralization of Poland-Lithuania in order to prepare the ground for a renewed effort to descend on Constantinople. To this end, Dolgorukov began supplying Frederick Augustus II with funds and weapon supplies. But there were elements of the Russian military who felt that this was not enough. Platon Zubov, another of Catherine II's former favorites fanned the flames of discontent and soon found a willing partner in Grand Duke Constantine (Konstantin), the younger son of Paul I. Konstantin gathered a number of ex-military, disgruntled merchants, and even the Guards-who were believed to be the most loyal to the Tsar-Emperor, and was able to raise an army of 230,000 from them and many citizen-militias who were outraged by the damage inflicted. Konstantin marched his army to Moscow on 10 July 1789, and after a demonstration against Paul I, which involved clashes with Paul's hastily assembled and inexperienced new troops, forced his way to the Palace and removed Paul I. Contemplating what to do about his ex-Tsar father, Konstantin finally decided on exiling him to Tsaritsyn to join his mother (he knew that there was bad blood between Catherine and Paul and was therefore assured that he would get no help from his mother). Four days later on 14 July, he was crowned Tsar-Emperor as Konstantin I. He had failed to take into account his older brother Alexander, who was already raising an army of 200,000 to challenge his assumption of power. Prince Alexander marched his army in the direction of Tsaritsyn with the intention of freeing his father, rallying the people in opposition to Konstantin I and taking back the capital, but when the Tsar-Emperor learned of the plans, determined to stop him. On 23 July, the armies of Alexander and Konstantin met outside Volgagrad in a five-hour battle. At the opening of the battle, Konstanin was forced to divert 30,000 troops to put down a Tartar revolt in the Crimea likely instigated with the support of both Poland-Lithuania and the Ottomans, who feared Konstantin's designs on their Balkan territories. Alexander's crack Chechen irregulars managed to break through the center of Konstantin's lines and had it not been for the rapidity in which the Tartar revolt was brutally put down, and the return of the 30,000 at a timely moment in the battle, it is likely Alexander could've split Konstantin's army in half and surrounded them with the chance to annihilate them, Instead as the majority cavalry returned to the battle just as Alexander was about to encircle the enemy and drove them back, Konstantin grabbed victory from the jaws of utter defeat. The battle continued into the next day, but Alexander already knew his chance had been missed and by midday was already ordering a retreat. Konstantin, not willing to let his older brother slip away without a price, chased Alexander's fleeing army toward Nihzny Novgorod. Here on 28 July, forced to make a stand, Alexander suffered a second defeat, sending him back on the run. Alexander managed to slip across the border into Lithuania via Novgorod and Sweden, and was welcomed by the Polish king and allowed sanctuary. Konstantin I vowed to make Poland-Lithuania pay dearly for allowing his traitorous eldest brother sanctuary one day, but in the meantime began a purge of all officials who had supported both his father and brother. This purge would continue until late in November.

A major ship-building program, instituted as part of the effort by the state civil authority chaired by the Tsar-Emperor, had been in operation even before the sudden deposition of Paul I and his replacement by Konstantin I. By the beginning of November, there were now 100 armed transport ships in the ports of Azov and Sevastapol ready for deployment, while squadrons of frigates, galleys, ships-of-the-line, and man-of-wars numbering some 240 in total were already sailing the Black Sea. Konstantin I had prepared the naval support for his 'Grand Project'. In a meeting with his generals in Sevastapol on 9 November, Konstantin I outlined his objectives to his generals. One army, commanded by Kutuzov would advance into Moldavia, then follow the Black Sea coast to reach the Bulgarian port of Varna, which would be secured and serve as a beachhead. Arakcheyev would lead one of two armies which would cross the Black Sea and land close to Constantinople-with the Tsar-Emperor leading the second army. Alexander Suvorov******** would be in command of the other three armies which would be deployed close to the Caucasus Mountains with the objective of conquering Mesopotamia and securing access to the Persian Gulf. News arrived of the Hungarian invasion of the Turkish Balkans, which presented Konstantin I with an opportunity he wouldn't dare miss. Reports arrived from Russian ships patrolling the Aegean Sea and from Hungarian sources who made contact that the Turks were struggling to send reinforcements from Anatolia and the Middle East in an effort to contain the Hungarians at Salonika. Seeing his chance, Konstantin I ordered Suvorov to launch an offensive into the Caucasus with the aim of both seizing the passes leading into Mesopotamia and pulling more Turkish troops from potentially reaching Europe. News of a mutual assistance treaty between the Ottomans and Persia only served Konstantin's ambitions and by the 10th of November, Russian troops were on their way to seizing Tabriz and advancing into Persia as well. On 13 November, three days after their victory over the Turks at Salonika, a Hungarian embassy arrived at Sevastapol. They proposed the establishment of a Bulgarian buffer zone which while still nominally under the Sultan's rule, would be demilitarized with the proviso that the Russians could at any time in the future choose to occupy the region. They also proposed the creation of Moldavia as a buffer-state separating poland-Lithuania from the Ottomans and thus prevent any possibility of assistance as Adam Casimir had fled to Lithuania despite the effective seizure of the Polish crown by Frederick Augustus (August) I as king of Saxony-Poland. Konstantin I requested only that the Hungarians continue to remain in a state of war until such time as the Russian armies could begin the crossing of the Black Sea. The proposal was accepted on 30 November and though the Hungarians did not advance on Edirne or Preslav, they did seize Bucharest and the rest of Wallachia, and confined themselves otherwise to raids which at various times did come close to Edirne and Constantinople.

It was on 15 December, with Turkey's attention divided between the Caucasus front and the continuing Hungarian raids in the Balkans that Konstantin launched his second invasion. It was also only now that he announced his full intention to seize Constantinople as well as Mesopotamia and the Persian littoral of the Caspian Sea, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Merv-recently taken from the Uzbeks. Even as alarm spread across Europe at the audacity of the Russian attack, the Russian Navy, whose Black Sea squadron had effectively cut off Constantinople from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, escorted the transport armada. Konstantin I's******* army of 185,000 troops arrived just 10 miles south of the port of Varna, where they were guided by a group of Hungarians who had reconnoitered the city just days before. Setting up their artillery on a series of hills overlooking the port, the Russians began their siege while offshore, their ships-of-the-line and man-of-wars began to bombard the harbors. The Turks put up a desperate resistance, even sending sorties to attempt to drive the Russians from the high ground, but by Christmas Eve the defenders were reduced to eating rats, cockroaches, even their own children. Varna capitulated to Konstantin I, who treated the surviving citizens generously, bringing much needed food and medical supplies. Nonetheless, roughly 7,000 people died during the siege, mostly the elderly and young children. Six days later with the arrival of Kutuzov-who had secured the Moldavian frontier during the initial Siege of Varna, Konstantin I marched his army south for Constantinople, bypassing Edirne for the time being as the city was constantly hit by Hungarian raids and thus posed no threat. On the other side of the Straits, Arakcheyev and his army of 110,000 men landed close to the Turkish fortress of Anadolu Hisar (meaning 'Castle of Anatolia') and proceeded to storm the battlements against a resistance of 8,000 Turks. All but 300 Turkish troops were slaughtered by the Russians, who ran their flag up. After taking three more fortified bastions on the Anatolian side of the Straits, Arakcheyev placed his rocket artillery along the heights commanding the Dardenelles, and on 2 January 1791 began their bombardment of the capital. Konstantin I, setting up his own artillery outside the village of San Stefano could observe the rocket attacks from his vantage point.

Selim III, who had replaced Abdul Hamid I on his death in 1789, found himself in a perrilous situation. Trapped in Constantinople by the Russian blockade, hemmed in by the Russian armies on either side of the Straits and still facing hostility from the Hungarians, he knew it wouldnt be long before the Russians turned their siege of the city into an all-out assault possibly with the assistance of the Hungarians. He remained hopeful that an army from Anatolia under the command of Suleiman Pasha would drive the Russians from the Anatolian shores and open a route to join his ministers and viziers in Angora. By the morning of 30 January, it became clear that no help was coming-he was unaware of the Russian advance into the Caucasus and Mesopotamia and would remain so until he did finally arrive in Angora only to learn of the invasion through a Persian envoy seeking alliance. Hoping to separate the Hungarians and Russians if only temporarily, he finally agreed to the terms King Nikolaus I of Hungary put forward, signing the Treaty of Salonika the next day. Persuaded by his remaining viziers to escape before the Russians closed in, he fled south to Gallipoli, then crossed the Straits and reached Nicomedia on 6 February. He raised an army of local militias and some professional troops numbering 80,000 and moved north in an attempt to drive Arakcheyev into the sea. But at the Battle of Anadolu Hisar, Arakcheyev (who refused to halt his rocket attacks on Constantinople and sent only 82,000 of his 110,000 to meet Selim III's army) easily shattered Selim's army, forcing the Sultan to flee with the few viziers that weren't captured as POWs. Selim III lost 59,000 killed with the rest taken captive while Arakcheyev lost only 1,200 killed. Upon learning of the Sultan's escape into Asia, Konstantin i was furious that his prey had managed to slip away from him and ordered the switch to an all-oit attack on 16 February. Assaulted on all sides by the Russians, the Turkish garrisons numbering 90,000 held out and even repulsed several attempts by Cossacks to storm the walls using cables and ladders. But by midday on the 19th, a section of the land walls was brought down by an intense cannonade, killing 3,000 on its battlements and creating a hole which Konstantin I quickly exploited, sending his Guards and the Cossack irregulars through. Furious hand-to-hand, street-by-street fighting pushed the Turks to the very steps of Hagia Sophia church and the Topkapi Palace and it was here that the surviving garrisons made their last stand "for Allah, for Osman, and for the Empire". They were slaughtered to a man, while those townspeople who aided the troops in trying to hold back the Russian surge were rounded up and crucified in a gruesome display which quickly took the wind out of any further resistance. Though the Sultan had escaped and therefore survived as ruler of the empire, for all intents and purposes, Konstantin I had restored Constantinople to a Christian city. For added measure, three days later, he sent 90,000 troops to secure Gallipoli and cut off any Turkish crossing of the Straits, then forced Edirne to capitulate by threatening a bombardment. By the 20th of February Konstantin I had achieved the great dream of his grandmother Catherine ii and restored a Christian emperor to Constantinople. Selim III, unwilling to surrender fully to the Russians as he had been forced to with the Hungarians, but painfully aware that for the time being he was powerless to challenge Konstantin I's conquest of his capital, reluctantly accepted the loss of Constantinople, focusing his attention on the Mesopotamian front. But the Sultan knew he was now a wanted man and that sooner or later, Konstantin would come for him, intent on finally bringing the infidel empire which had "usurped the Holy Cross" to his Last Judgement.

The End of Phase One-Summary
By the beginning of 1792, the revolutionary governments had not only seized power in Saxony, Spain, Hungary and Russia, but had also brought those countries into a period of militant expansionism and extreme revanchism the likes of which Europe had never seen before. Atrocities unheard of since the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire or the Mongol Conquests fueled a growing sense of outrage among the Powers. Britain and France especially protested the Hungarian invasion of the Balkans, the Russian invasion of the Caucasus and especially the treatment of their prisoners at Constantinople, but were unable to do more than protest as they were increasingly alarmed by the actions of Spain in the Mediterranean Basin. Prussia had been reduced in territory, driven into a new recession by the indemnities they were forced to pay Saxony, anxious about Saxony's future designs on Bahemia and Austria and alarmed by the seizure of the Polish Crown and loss of a crucial ally as a result. Austria, equally alarmed by the Saxon seizure of Poland, defeat of the Prussians and elevation to royal status now feared for Bahemia as well as its own sovereignty, but they also watched the spectacular rebirth of Hungarian ambitions in the western Balkans with dread, knowing that Nikolaus I was not about to stop with just the Turks and he aimed at the restoration of the 'empire' of Matthias Corvinus, which meant Vienna would soon be his next objective. The Ottomans, forced to cede much of the western Balkans to Hungary and now conceding the loss of their capital of Constantinople to Russia, could only brace themselves as the Russian advance in the Cucasus and Mesopotamia continued, though here they would have an ally in the Persian Empire, who were themselves fighting the Russian invasion. There would be smaler conflicts tied to these revolutionary states which would in later years be considered part of the first phase of the Revolutionary Wars-with the ongoing Russo-Islamic War being the largest of them. These smaller conflicts will be listed as part of the first phase for the sake of continuity, but for American scholars of history when looking back on this period, it is generally believed that these opening conflicts and their conclusion-at least where the Russian conquest of Constantinople is concerned, ends the first phase of the wars.


* The War of the Austrian Succession OTL
** Nikolaus II Prince Esterhazy (12 December 1765 - 24 November 1833)major general, prince of Hungary and last patron of composer Joseph Hadyn. ITTL, he became King Nikolaus I on the deatn of his father King Anton I
*** Anton was in fact the brother to the Saxon Elector, and never attained the title of elector or duke
**** Martin Alvarez de Sotomayor (1723-1819) Spanish general who fought against Portugal, fought in the War of the Polish Succession, and in the American War of Independence OTL
***** Mulay Slimane was in fact the Sultan of Morocco during ths same time period OTL, but was never driven from his throne by the Spanish
****** Alexander Suvorov (24 November 1730 - 18 May 1800) Field Marshal and Generalissimo of the Russian Empire. Best remembered for being the first Russian general to face Napoleon Bonaparte in battle.
******* Konstantin (27 April 1779 - 27 June 1831) did rule Russia briefly, from 1 - 26 December 1825 during the Decembrist Revolt. ITTL he would usurp his father Paul I and seize power, ignoring the law of succession which would've made his elder brother Alexander Tsar-Emperor

Source:
Wikipedia
Europe: A History - Norman Davies
 
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Minor conflicts considered part of the First Phase
READER'S NOTE: These conflicts, while taking place mostly outside Europe, are considered by all except American scholars, as part of the First Phase of the Revolutionary Wars and marks an important stage in the evolution of the various forms of government in the states. Where conflicts potentially bleed into the Second Phase period, it will ne so noted.

The Border War (Mayan Republic - New Spain, April-July 1794^) ^later becomes merged with the Second Tejas Rebellion and the 1st Spanish-American War
During the Great Reformation whch brought about an absolutist dictatorship and military junta in Spain, changes had taken place in its overseas empire. In New Spain especially, hardliners from Madrid replaced the officials who had managed affairs in the territory for years, bringing with them the same drive to expand their jursdictions and ambitions. One such individual was Juan Vicente de Guiemes, 2md Count of Revillagigedo*, who assumed the viceregal position in 1789. He was determined to expand New Spain and make it a more viable part of the Greater Spanish Empire and he first achieved this objective by separating Colombia from New Granada and adding it to his viceroyalty** in 1790. Three months later, in the same year, he managed to separate Cayman from the West Indies captaincy. In both cases he did nothing to provoke his neighbors. But as he began to eye the Yucatan and the Mayan Republic, he was storing trouble for himself in the future.

Papa Maya, the enigmatic former rebel leader and premier of the Republic, stepped down in 1788, and his daughter Ixchel*** was acclaimed premier. She brought a new purpose to the Mayan people by enacting a series of economic and legal reforms while at the same time expanding diplomatic and trade relations with the Kingdom of America, its protector, as well as Britain, Maracaibo and Portugal. Increasingly, she also began entertaining the idea of expanding the Republic to embrace the remaining Mayan states still under Spanish dominion. Guiemes too was looking to expand Spanish colonial control, into the Yucatan. He hoped to reduce the sovereignty of the Mayans to a more tolerable level and regain the port of Campeche. The perfect opportunity for him came with the revolt of the Mayans of Chiapas on 5 April 1794, due to the high taxation and forced conscription of many of the men into the Spanish Colonial Army (the bulk of the casaulties in the wars with the Karankawa Tribe were of Mayan heritage). Guiemes dispatched an army of 55,000 into Chiapas to crush the revolt only to come against a Mayan army of 80,000 under the command of Chipahua, a veteran of the Mayan Rebellion and close companion of Papa Maya. With no instructions from Mexico City as to how to address the Mayan army's arrival, the Spanish fell back to Zapotec. Guiemes, infuriated at the interference of the Mayans but also seeing a golden opportunity, sent an additional army of 105,000 to Zapotec to reinforce the first army, then descend on Chiapas again (14 April). At the same time, Guiemes issued a declaration of war on the Mayan Republic, using the pretext that the Mayans were sponsoring revolts in all the ethnically Mayan territories of New Spain. Ixchel replied with a declaration of war calling on New Spain to evacuate Chiapas, southern Guatemala and El Salvador.

Knowing that the Spanish would have the advantage of artillery, Chipahua decided to split his army into two armies of 40,000 and assigned the second army to a lieutenant named Coyopa. He tasked Coyopa with raiding the munitions depots and seizing as many artillery pieces as they could carry off, then prepare a defensive bastion on the road to Campeche where they would make their stand. Meantime, Chipahua marched his 40,000 into Chiapas on 26 April and began to recruit from among the rebels while at the same time evacuating as many of the women and children as they could before the Spanish army arrived. Sending scouts into the jungle to track the movements of the Spanish, Chipahua was able to evacuate 13 villages in the Chiapas region while bringing his total force to 115,000. Finally on 4 May, with the Spanish closing in, Chipahua ordered his troops to fall back, abandoning 247 women and children to be taken into captivity and eventual slavery by the Spanish, who also burned the villages. Guiemes himself then led his troops into the Yucatan jungles in an effort to reach Campeche. On 16 May, he came upon the 40,000 troops of Coyopa, entrenched in the ravines. Eagerly, Guiemes ordered a charge of the light infantry with their bayonets, and as they drew closer to the ravine, they were surprised by a barrage of canister shot from the well-concealed artillery Coyopa had seized in the raids. Shocked that his enemy was using his own artillery to hold his troop at bay, Guiemes ordered a second attack, directed at the stolen artillery placements. Three of the seven Mayan cannons were destroyed in this attack, which made it possible for the Spaniards to begin pushing forward. It was at that moment that Chipahua arrived with his 115,000 equiped with obsidian hatchets, spears and even stolen Spanish muskets. Caught between the enemy in front of him and the enemy behind him, Guiemes again decided to retreat in the direction of Veracruz. Here, however, Chipahua pursued him, inflicting casualties on his troops before they were in their turn driven back from the port by the bastions guarding the landward walls. Unknown to the Mayans, however, was the fact that a large Spanish army which had been stationed in Colombia under the command of Juan Antonio Cubero and numbering 165,000 troops had been on the march since the first attempt to suppress the Chiapas Revolt. Even as the Chiapan Maya declared the formation of the Independent State of Chiapa Maya, Cubero was closing on the Mayan Republic's southern frontier, slaughtering those Mayans that lived in the region and thus putting an end to any hopes of the El Salvador Maya attempting a similar revolt. By the end of June, Cubero was poised to begin his invasion of the Republic while Guiemes, soon to receive reinforcements from Spain, would set his sights again on Campeche. Meanwhile, Chipahua was forced to reorganize the 98,000 troops which remained after the battle in the hopes of engaging Cubero before his army went too deeply into Mayan territory, while Coyopa returned to raiding the Spanish munitions deopts to replace their gunpowder and the three cannons lost in the battle. On 4 July, receiving reinforcements from among the refugees from the Salvadorian Mayan villages destroyed by Cubero and additional levies from Chichen Itza-bringing his total troops to some 123,000 total, Chipahua marched to meet Cubero in Copan. Utilizing the terrain for their intial advantage, Chipahua's troops managed to inflict heavy casualties on Cubero. But as Cubero brought his artillery to bear on the Mayans, the advantage went to the Spanish. Using canister shot, Cubero managed to drive Chipahua's men back, and even injured Chipahua himself. With no recourse left, Chipahua ordered a retreat for Nim Li Punit, essentially abandoning Copan and Quirigua to Cubero, who promptly put Copan to the torch while massacring the inhabitants of Quirigua and turning it into a forward base to continue his advance. By 30 July, Cubero had rebuilt his army and the Spanish fleet escorting the transports carrying the reinforcements were just days away from Veracruz. But by this point, with a second revolt breaking out in Tejas, and the Spanish aggression against the Mayans, the interests of the Kingdom of America had come into play, with results which would change the political landscape.



The Russo-Kilwan Naval War (30 December 1790 - 25 January 1791^) ^part of the Russian campaign in the Russo-Turkish War which resulted in conquest of Constantinople
During the height of the Russian campaign which ultimately lead to the conquest of Constantinople from the Ottomans, a Russian squadron of 6 ships-of-the-line, led by the HIMS Peter the Great, sailed through the Dardenelles and Bosporus, entering the Mediterranean Sea on 20 December 1790. They sailed across the Mediterranean Sea, causing panic in Austria, Naples, Sardinia-Piedmont and France. As the squadron sailed into the Atlantic, they raided the coasts of Mali and the Kingdom of Kongo, and even set up trade-stations along the Gold Coast. By the 30th, they had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, receiving supplies from the Dutch in their Caape colony before skirting up the eastern coast. On the 1st of the new year, they came into contact with a small Ottoman squadron patrolling the Mozambique Channel and in a three-hour engagement seized one vessel and sank two others, forcing the remaining Turkish frigate to withdraw. Four days later, the Russian fleet came into contact with a larger fleet of Kilwan deep-sea galleys and Turkish frigates near the Madagascar coast. The seven Russian ships formed up into an inverse crescent, with their recently captured Turkish frigate protected. The Kilwan commander Daleel al-Farra, ignoring the advice of the Turkish admiral, formed his flotilla into a wedge, hoping to punch through the Russian formation and sink the captured Turkish frigate. On the morning of 5th January, as a fog rolled in from the mainland coast, al-Farra ordered his flotilla to battle. Using specialized cannonballs, linked by a chain, it was hoped they could rip up the Russian sails or even de-mast their ships and make it easier to board them. But the Russian admiral in command, Vagin Valerianovich, knew enough about pirate battle tactics from the accounts the Spanish left about piracy in the Caribbean to be prepared for such a tactic, ordering his ships to take their sails down and space themselves apart to reduce the risk of de-masting. As the Kilwans closed in, grapeshot was loaded into the Russian cannons. Valerianovich waited until the Kilwans were at point-blank range, his ships taking hits from the Kilwan guns, then had his ships open fire. The Kilwan marine troops who had been on deck were now under heavy fire and 850 were killed immediately in the opening salvos. With the threat of boarding now neutralized, the Russian fleet switched to standard 8-pounders and began hammering the helpless Kilwans. In four hours of broadsides exchanged, the Russians suffered 127 casualties to the Kilwans' 980. Surviving Kilwan ships used the thickening fog to escape, leaving the less fortunate ones to the mercies of the Russians.

With a thick fog obscuring the area, both sides sailed to separate anchorages to redress their injuries, make any repairs they could and wait for the weather conditions to improve. The Russian fleet found its anchorage on the south coast of Madagascar, where several sailors even went ashore to raid a dozen villages nearby, while the Turkish fleet-with the remnants of the Kilwan squadron sailed north to Zanzibar Island. On 12 January, with the weather now clear and calm, the two fleets sailed into Mozambique Channel. The Turkish fleet now comprised some 3 frigates and 3 man-of-wars, with the Kilwans contributing 4 deep-sea galleys including two surviving ships from the previous engagement, and the Omanis contributed 2 deep-sea galleys. The Russians had their six ships, plus the captured Turkish frigate remained ivan Grozny. Utilizing Greek Fire and thus staying at a safe distance from all but the standard cannon of the Russian fleet, the Omani ships started the Second Battle of Mozambique Channel by setting fire to three of the Russian ships' sails, rendering them unable to manuever as the Kilwan ships closed to point-blank range and opened fire. While the Russian ships-of-the-line had more guns, the Kilwan deep-sea galleys were faster and more able to manuever, making them difficult to hit. Nonetheless, one of the Kilwan galleys was heavily damaged in the engagement and eventually had to be scuttled while one of the three Russian shiips already in flames from the Omani attack sunk with all hands as the other two were abandoned. With the Russian fleet in disarray, the Turkish ships sailed straight into the midst of the Russians and unleashed broadside blasts from their cannons, driving one Russian ship to run aground on the Madagascar coast-where they were slaughtered by the Kilwan survivors from their scuttled ship Another Russian ship exploded when its gunpowder magazine was struck by Turkish cannonfire. A third Russian ship lost its rudder after a close exchange with a Kilwan galley and its crew eventually surrendered. Valerianovich, aboard the Ivan Grozny, saw that the battle was lost and ordered a retreat, but the Turks-not wishing to allow the Russians escape-gave chase. Peter the Great was struck by multiple cannonballs from the pursuing Turkish ships and finally sank with all hands. Ivan Grozny was driven aground near Delagoa Bay, with Valerianovich and four other men managing to disembark before a Turkish cannon exploded the gunpowdermagazine aboard the beached ship, killing the rest of the crew as they tried to get off the ship. In all, the two battles at the Mozembique Channel had taken the lives of 8,000 Russians, 4,000 Turks, 400 Kilwanis and 55 Omanis. This was, up to this point in the larger war, the only major victory for the Ottoman Empire as it safeguarded Madagascar from a potential Russian attack and served to deliver a psychological blow to Tsar-Emperor Konstantin i's hopes of expanding Russian naval power beyond the Mediterranean Basin. But in a surprise twist, this also served as the catalyst which brought about the rise of one of the most powerful African empires in history, for in their desperation to escape Turkish retaliation, Valerianovich and his three men had stumbled upon the expansionist Zulu Empire.^

^ more on the Zulu Empire and Shaka later


The Rebirth of the Mongol Khaganate and the Mongol-Nippon War (10 May 1792 - 20 July 1793)
The Mongols had not been a formidable power in Asia since the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, and while Yuan rulers continued well into the mid-1630s, their power was greatly diminished. As the Ming emperors in China faced the dual threats of southern rebellion and Manchu invasion, Eljei Khan, the last khan of the Northern Yuan Dynasty-the last remnants of the Great Yuan Empire founded by Kubilai Khan in 1271, surrendered his title and his lands to Hong Taiji, who would found the Qing Dynasty and die years later in 1641. Mongolia was divided into administrative units called amags. In 1760, a descendant of Genghis Khan named Tsedendorj* reached an agreement with the Manchu Qianlong Emperor** whereby Mongolia would be restored as an independent khanate allied to the Manchus in exchange for military support against the Dzungars. After their victory over the Dzungar, Mongolia's independence was guaranteed. During that time, events in Europe were leading to the outnreak of the Ten Years War. Both Asian powers watched events in Europe with interest as the Qing had ceded Transamuria to the Russians in 1689 and could easily use Russia's distractions in the west to reclaim the territory, while the Mongols could seize the lands of Yakutsk, Irkutsk and Siberia.

The war in Europe took a turn for the worse for Russia as they faced the double invasions of Sweden and Poland-Lithuania. This forced them to recall their armies in the east in an effort to prevent the Polish conquest of Moscow, but by the time the armies reached Yekaterinburg, the Poles had already begun their siege of the capital while the Swedes held St Petersburg. They continued westward even as the delegates of the combatant powers were meeting in Frankfurt to bring the Ten Years War to an end, leaving Transamuria and the Eastern Regions virtually open. The Mongols swiftly took advantage, marching an army of 90,000 commanded by Bayan Olgei into Transamuria, It was initially believed the Mongols wanted to claim the territory before the Manchu did, but only 20 years later, it was revealed that a secret arrangement had been made-known as the Treaty of Mukden-which awarded Transamuria to the Mongol Khanate, upgrading it to a khaganate. The Mongols also seized the area around Lake Baikal as well as lands along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka. Though this still left the Russians with territory reaching to the Bering Strait, this seizure of land would hamper future Russian colonization efforts in nearby Alyeska (Alaska). In May 1777, the Mongols conquered Sakhalin Island from the native Ainu people, which provided them with a means of invading Japan should they choose to do so.

In the first four months of 1792, as Japan continued to struggle for its unity, A revolt in Karakorum installed a new Khan, Tolon. He claimed descent from Genghis Khan and even married a princess who actually descended from the great conqueror to solidify his claim. On 20 March, he met with the Qianlong Emperor to reaffirm his khaganate's alliance with the Qing-and in return the Mongol conquest of Transamuria was recognized again. It was also at this meeting that the two powers agreed to divide Eastern Asia between them, with Korea going to the Qing Empire and Japan going to the Mongol Khaganate. Lastly, it was agreed that the Mongols would absorb the remnants of the Uzbek Khanate to form an additional buffer between the Chinese and Russian empires. 3 April saw the Qing invade Korea, forcing the Joseon king Jeongjo*** to accept vassalage. In that campaign, the Mongols had sent a force of 4,000 to fight under the Qing banner.. An opportunity for the Mongols would come nearly a month later in Japan.

Japan during this period was still under the de facto rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate, with the Emperor, Kokaku, being little more than a figurehead with no real power, though he still commanded great respect among the shoguns and daimyo. Emperor Kokaku, however, wanted to attain full power in the kingdom and help bring about a unification of the four main islands. His chance came when he learned through Ainu refugees from Sakhalin Island reported on a group of men who "appeared attached to their horses and fought like demons'. He journeyed north to Hokkaido on 7 May, where he met with Bayan Olgei, the successful Mongol general. It was in Sapporo that an agreement was reached whereby the emperor would rule Japan (also known as Nippon or Nihon) as a puppet of the Mongol Khaganate in exchange for Mongol assistance in uniting the four islands. He was risking all-out civil war as it was likely the shogun would rally the daimyo to oppose him. Tsedendorj (now taking the name Tomor Olziyt) met with both the Qing Emperor and the Joseon king to request naval assistance for the coming campaign. It was agreed that a force of 15 Qing war-junks and 10 Joseon turtle-ships would combine operations in the southern theater while a Mongol naval force of some 20 four-masted junks of Chinese design would escort a transport flotilla of 25 ships ferrying Bayan Olgei and 50,000 foot soldiers, 15,000 Keshik cavalry and 40 cannon of Chinese design (but Mongol manufacture) from Sakhalin Island to Hokkaido. Kokaku urged the Ainu to submit to his personal, absolute rule as a means of sparing them from the fate of their kin in Sakhalin. The Hokkaido Ainu submitted, enabling the Mongols to consolidate their foothold.

Tokugawa Ienari, current shogun and descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu, learned of the Mongol occupation of Hokkaido on 9 May. Calling upon all daimyo to rally for the defense of Japan, he formally declared war on the Mongol Khaganate, which because of their agreement meant that technically he was also declaring himself to be an outlaw to the emperor as he was considered to be showing disrespect for the living god. On the 10th, as the Mongol army marched across the Honshu Strait using pontoons constructed from Ainu fishing boats, Ienari led a force of 100,000 samurai to meet them at Towada, Many of the samurai fought with their traditional weapons, katanas, bows, and niigatas, but some were equipped with the latest in firearms from Portugal, muskets. Much to their surprise, in the opening minutes of the battle they discovered that the Mongols also had firearms, seized from Russian weapon caches in Transamuria and Vladivostok. The Mongols, relying on their classic strategy of sending the keshiks armed with bows and scimitars, managed to create confusion and even managed to inflict 3,000 casualties even though their losses were higher, at 8,000 killed. Splitting the remaining keshiks into two wings to be used for flanking, they rushed 20,000 equipped with halberds and scimitars into battle, holding back their musketmen for the final victory and pushing the samurai into tighter quarters. Unable to fight in such tight quarters, the samurai were easily cut down by the keshiks and mounted musketmen. Ienari was forced to retreat to Miyako and call upon the daimyo to provide more samurai. Four days later, with fresh samurai arriving to join the survivors, ienari launched a counterattack on the Mongol atmy near Tomiya. Before they could engage, however, several of the southern daimyo learned of attacks on their coastal domains from the Qing and Joseon navies. Fearing for their own latifundia****, many of them withdrew to defend their homelands, reducing the overall shogunal army down to 45,000 to face the Mongols' 52,000 (Bayan Olgei dispatched 2,000 keshik musketmen to harry those daimyo armies returning south). Nevertheless, Ienari launched his counterattack on 28 May, this time utilizing his musketmen as front-rank troops and cutting down 600 keshiks before they were in their turn assaulted by the Mongol muskets. As the battle continued, samurai trying to rush the musket line of the enemy fell by the hundreds as samurai cavalry and samurai archers attempted to hold back the Mongol advance. Finally, by mid-afternoon, Ienari was again forced to flee to Yokohama with the total loss of 22,000 killed. The Mongols lost 12,600 in the battle, but Bayan Olgei was already receiving reinforcements from Mongolia via Sakhalin and Hokkaido and within a week of the battle, had built his army back up to 100,000. Faced with the potential of a Qing invasion from the south and the relentless drive southward of the Mongols, Ienari committed seppuku rather than admit defeat on 1 June. In a stunning move for the Tokugawa clan, the next in line as shogun, Ieyoshi*****, declared himself emperor citing the betrayal of Kokaku. The last battle of 1792 was fought of the coast of the Sea of Japan in September. In it the Mongol admiral Yisu Qatun (the first female Mongol military commander since the time of the Great Khans) led the 25-ship fleet against a fleet of 20 ships from the coastal daimyo placed under the unified command of Hiroi Yoso. After spending four hours manuevering and attempting to gain tactical advantage over one another, the Mongol admiral launched their attack using catapults and rockets as well as primitive cannon. The Japanese fleet, caught by this sudden assault, could only hold position and try to draw the Mongol fleet closer, so they could board individual ships to effect a capture. An unexpected storm on 22 September wreaked more havoc on both fleets than their armaments had done in the last three days of the battle, sinking 6 Mongol and 7 Japanese ships. On the 23rd, the Mongol fleet made one last push into the Japanese fleet now stretched in a long line and unable to reform their battle formation. Yisu Qatun personally led the first boarding action of the battle, seizing the Japanese flagship Fuji and killing Yoso. The loss of their flagship and death of their admiral took the spirit out of the Japanese, yet they determined to fight on, making suicidal runs on the Mongols and managing to sink an additional 5 Mongol ships. In the end, the Japanese lost 10 ships and 3 captured to the Mongols 11 ships sunk.

In the following spring of 1793, the Mongols resumed their offensive, taking Okaya and Nagano. Ieyoshi raised a force of only 32,000 samurai as the coastal daimyo remained concerned about the Qing/Joseon raids. They would make their last stand in Kyoto, where the Japanese would have the advantage of a strong fortification and terrain less suitable for Mongol cavalry. On 4 May, the Mongols met the Japanese at Kyoto, starting the 3-week long Battle of Kyoto. The battle began with a bombardment of the castle walls by Mongol cannon and rockets which lasted for 6 days and resulted in breaching at several points. However, each followup assault was repulsed by samurai now determined to fight to either total victory or to the honorable death bushido expected. Mongol archers began pouring arrows over the walls in the effort to drive the samurai back from the breaches and allow the foot-troops to storm through. During the nights, samurai would slip out and raid the Mongol supply caches, gradually reducing the amount of supplies they had. By the end of the first week, the Mongol beseigers had lost 25% of their supplies to these night-raids and Bayan Olgei now ordered the remaining supplies to be moved to a more secure location. Fresh supplies could be brought in through Hokkaido and the port of Yokohama and the Mongol siege continued much to the shock of Ieyoshi. At the start of the second week, the Mongols again resorted to cannon and rocket attacks which were beginning to have an unsettling effect on the townspeople, yet despite opening five new breaches in the walls, the Mongols were still unable to break into the city as the samurai fought back with a drive born of desperation. On 13 May, the Mongols finally manage to break through and seize the eastern wall, nearly making it to the main gates before a determined samurai counterattack drove them from the walls again. Bayan Olgei, frustrated by this failure, now determined to open as many breaches as possible and force the defenders to stretch themselves thin. The strategy worked, for on 24 May, at the end of the 3rd week, the defenders were down to eating whatever they could catch and growing exhausted. Bayan Olgei ordered a massive assault on all the breaches with the stipulation that none should stop until they've reached the castle itself. Wave after wave of Mongol infantry pressed against the thin line of samurai until finally several dozen Mongols broke through and fought their way toward the castle. Ieyoshi, determined to fight to the end, gathered 800 samurai for a final stand. Fighting room by room in the castle, the samurai made the Mongols pay for every victory they achieved, often killing up to 500 Mongols in each room before being forced to fall back by the Mongols' numbers. Finally trapping the shogun, his family, and 300 surviving samurai, the Mongols engaged them in a four-hour battle which saw Bayan Olgei killed by Ieyoshi-who had hoped that his deatn would so demoralize the Mongol troops that he could pull victory from the very depths of defeat. Instead he had so enraged the Mongols that by the end of the battle Ieyoshi was himself killed, then beheaded. Bayan Olgei's second, Teleboge-who now became commander upon the death of his superior, ordered the rest of the shogunal family taken prisoner. He would later execute the family retainers and enslave the concubines and daughters of Ieyoshi while forcing his many sons into the Mongol army (he saw their potential use as pretenders to the shogunate or even the imperial title should the current emperor become less pliant).

Despite the victory in Kyoto, pockets of daimyo resistance continued in central Japan right up to the end of June, when food shortages brought on by the continued Qing raids finally forced many daimyo to seek terms. A representative of the daimyo, Miyake Tamesane met with Teleboge and Emperor Kokaku in Hiroshima on 20 July. The terms, while moderate, were still fairly harsh by Japanese standards:
- The southern and south-central daimyo were now considered independent warlords subject to Mongol overlordship and required to provide troops where and when needed
- Japan would be divided between an independent south and a Mongol-ruled north
- The Empire of Japan would be constituted in the northern zone, though it would be empire in name only, with Kokaku acting merely as the 'public face' of the empire
- A Mongol governor appointed by the Great Khan would act as the real authority in the 'empire'

This division of Japan into a feuding mass of independent warlords in the south and a Mongol provincial government disguised as a Japanese empire in the north. Fearing for his life now that the Treaty of Hiroshima had been signed, Kokaku took up permanent residence in his fortified castle-stronghold of Sapporo, protected by 90,000 Mongol and Imperial Japanese troops. Those daimyo who remained loyal to Kokaku were guaranteed freedom from taxation for a 3-year period with the consent of the Mongol governor, former successful admiral Yisu Qatun. She would go on to serve as Mongol governor of Nihon for the next 27 years.


EastAsia.png

Map of eastern Asia, showing the Qing Empire, the Mongol Khaganate and its puppet-state the Shogunate of Nippon



The Rise of the Zulu Empire and the Zulu-Kilwa War (28 February - 1 April 1791)
The Zulu people hd first coalesced around the figure of Chief Zulu I kaMalandela in the late 1600s after their ancestors had migrated southward from central Africa as part of the Bantu migrations. Over time, the Zulus established their chiefdom in the region of Natal in southern Africa, where they learned to coexist with other clan-chiefdoms such as the Qwabes, Ndebele, and Mtetwa-who like them, were also Bantu. Their greates chief pre-empire was one Jama kaNdaba whose name translates as 'he of the stern countenance'. He fathered two children, a son named Senzangakhona and a daughter named Mkabayi******. While the Ten Years War raged in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, Jama passed away in 1781 and Senzangakhona succeeded him as Chief, with his sister Mkabayi acting as advisor and commander of a military regiment due to her remaining unmarried. It was during his reign that the first of many changes would begin to take place. Though he married sixteen wives and had fourteen known sons, the first son he had out of wedlock would bring about the changes to Zulu society which would in due course raise them from the status of one among many chiefdoms to an imperial and even colonial power in its own right.

Am illicit relationship between Senzangakhona and the princess of the Mhlongo (eLamgeni) clan, Nandi, resulted in July 1787 in the birth of a son. Many of the Zulu advisors, including Mkabayi, refused to acknowledge the child as the son of the chief, mocking the child as the work of an intestinal parasite or ishaka. It was Nandi's defiance in adopting the modified version of the name, Shaka, and her resolve to make him heir to the Zulu succession that won over Senzangakhona, and he made Nandi First Wife (as opposed to Great Wife, whose son was automatically prinicpal heir. His Great Wife, Mkabi, lost their son in childbirth and almost lost her own life as well). As Prince and Royal Heir, Shaka was well-cared for by both his mother and by Mkabi, who had befriended Nandi). His relationship with his father, while amicable, was from time to time strained as his aunt Mkabayi and uncle Mudli (Senzangakhona's first minister) still distrusted Nandi and feared what Shaka's ascension would do to the Zulu nation. Their fears would be justified as Senzangakhona and Nandi had two more children, a son Ngwadi******* and a daughter Nomcoba, which elevated Nandi to the status of an almost second Great Wife (this did not change the friendly relationship between Mkabi and Nandi, who over time had come to be almost sisters).

There had been some contact between European traders and the Zulu going back to the time of Chief Jama, as the Dutch administered a colonial settlement in the central region of southern Africa and the British controlled territory at the Cape of Good Hope. While trade was merely whatever the merchants presented as gifts, it did allow for something of a cultural exchange. However, things would change with the Revolutionary Wars, with the landing on the Natal coast (14 January) of the Russian admiral Valerianovich and three other survivors from the Russo-Kilwan naval war. The four men traveled into the grasslands beyond the beach to escape Kilwan sailors or Ottoman troops who would likely hunt them down, only to fall into the hands of a Zulu hunting party, who took them for 'white demons'. it was said that Valerianovich screamed in fright upon seeing the Zulus, believing them to be agents of the Devil. The four Russians, along with their firearms, were brought back to the Royal Kraal to face Senzangakhona, who was curious about the "logs that spit fire". Testing one on one of the three Russian survivors, he was impressed with the power it gave him (this rifle was gifted to young Shaka, who is later said to have made use of it in a dispute with one of his numerous half-brothers, killing him). When the king demanded the remaining Russians teach his people how to make the muskets, and Valerianovich refused, Senzangakhona ordered them to be impaled in the center of the cattle pin for all to see. For 20 days, the three Russians writhed in extreme agony as the wood spikes gradually worked their way deep into their bodies until finally through suffocation, they died (Valerianovich was the last to die, attempting to cry out his last invocation to Heaven only to gasp as the spike finally worked its way out of his mouth and squeezed shut his trachea). The next seven months were spent with the various primitive iron-working centers across the chiefdom forging copies of the rifles and by the end of January had manufactured 700 primitive Zulu muskets********. Senzangakhona would use these muskets to great effect. By the middle of February, the Zulus had used a combination of diplomacy, coercion, and military victory to meld the various peoples such as the Qwabes, Ndwandwe and eLangeni into a single, united Zulu Empire. Senzangakhona did recognize the need to maintain the stability of his newly won conquests and thus adopted a policy of leaving the chiefs in place in the territories of the former chiefdoms as governors. During the Great Expeditions, a Zulu regiment came across the wreckage of the Russian ship-of-the-line Peter the Great. In a very short period of time, the Zulu not only learned the arts of shipbuilding, but had already constructed 5 ships with sails woven from the manes and tails of zebra. They also learned of the 'land in the east' and the Kilwans.

On 27 February, with the encouragement of Mkabayi-who also suggested Shaka participate, with the view that his death in battle would remove the threat he'd overthrow his father, Senzangakhona sent the primitive Zulu navy, with 300 Impis armed with the new muskets, across the Mozambique Channel. The moment was chosen right (though the king did not know this) as the Kilwans were distracted by a revolt in Mogadishu which was supported by the Coptic Christian empire of Ethiopia. Landing on the southern coast of Madagascar on the evening of the 28th, the Zulu surprised the Kilwan settlements, then defeated a Kilwan garrison of 1,700. The Kilwan response was swift. Gaining a truce with Ethiopia, they sailed their 8-ship fleet from the Mogadishu coastline into the Channel, but were surprised by the Zulu fleet on 2 March (they had picked up additional impis armed with both the throwing assegais and muskets) and in a two-hour battle lost 3 ships to boarding actions by the Impis and one driven aground and later captured. Determined to drive this new invader from their territory, the Kilwans sent another fleet of 8 ships-including four that managed to survive the first engagement with the Zulus into the Channel on 17 March, landing troops on the western coast to reinforce the garrisons. The Zulus met the Kilwan fleet at the coast on the 19th and again employed boarding and grounding tactics in the five-hour battle. The Zulus lost three of their original five ships and 1,000 lives, but took 4 Kilwan deep-sea galleys and 2,500 Kilwan lives. in inland Madagascar, the Kilwan garrisons, now reinforced, counterattacked the Zulu Impis, driving them back south and killing 780 at the cost of 1,400 killed or captured. With a Zulu regiment commanded by Mkabayi preparing to sail north to attack the Kilwan territories directly, the Ethiopians annexing Mogadishu, and their Ottoman vassal-lords still distracted with the Russian invasion, the Kilwan sultan had no choice. He sent a delegation overland and through Portuguese Mozambique to the Zulu Empire and requested terms. Thanks to an English trade mission already present, negotiations were conducted and a treaty signed. Known as the Treaty of the Cape, its terms were rather generous for the Zulus and acknowledged their new status as a regional power:
- Kilwa would cede the southern portion of Madagascar to the Zulu Empire
- Kilwa would pay indemnities in the form of gunpowder, iron, and precious stones
- The United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire would jointly guarantee the terms of the treaty.

With this brief war, the Zulus had emerged as a regional power in southern Africa, respected by both the British and the Kilwans. Senzangakhona had increased his power, but in so doing had also become more tyrannical. Worst of all for Mudli and Mkabayi, Shaka had won his baptism by fire and was appointed Induna or military governor of the newly conquered Malagasy coast by a relieved Senzangakhona, making the future emperor the youngest military commander in Zulu history. in time, they would convince the king's son Sigujana to betray his father and assassinate him as a means of luring Shaka back so he, too, could be killed.

SouthernAfrica.png

Map of southern Africa showing the locations of the African empires of Mutapa and Zulu in relation to the British, Portuguese, Kilwan and Ottoman colonies
 
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The Second Tejas Rebellion (15 August - 10 October 1794)^
^ merged with the Border War which is still ongoing despite the break in combat and also serves as the opening events of the later 1st Spanish-American War

During the period in which the Border War had broken out, continued Karankawa and Comanche raids in the northern frontiers of New Spain, threatening the numerous Anglo settlements in Tejas once again. Guiemes, the Viceroy, had begun raising taxes on the settlers, singling out the Anglos once again and in violation of the Treaty of Nuevo Laredo. Daniel Boone, who had led the first rebellion against the Spanish-Mexican viceregal government, was targeted by Mexican bandits hired by Guiemes, and he fought and killed all but one who fled when he saw hi comrades fall. Boone sent a letter of protest to the government in Saltillo demanding an end to the high taxation. When his letter was ignored and he was threatened with arrest, Boone planned a new rebellion. First traveling to Comanche territory, he forged an alliance with them, then brokered a peace agreement with the Karankawa (20 July). In early August, Boone gathered 8,000 Anglo militiamen, 900 Comanche and 500 Karankawa and marched on Saltillo. The governor, Jose Maria Viesca y Montes, rushed 1,500 militia to meet this force and on 15 August, the first battle of the Second Tejas Rebellion. Boone's multiethnic army defeated the Spanish-Mexican militia, killing 600 and taking 500 prisoners as well as seizing 4 of the 6-pound cannon. They lost 40 Comanche, 10 Karankawa and 200 Anglos in the battle. Viesca was captured a day later, trying to flee his mansion and Coahuila was occupied.

Guiemes, his reinforcements from Spain having arrived at Veracruz at the beginning of August, now had a substantial army with which he could put down the rebellion. With 185,000 troops at his disposal and with Comanche, Apache and Karankawa raids increasing in intensity, Guiemes decided to divide his huge army. Keeping 92,500 under his direct command, he assigned the other 92,500 to the command of a lieutenant, Juan Jose Marques. Marques would lead his army into Comancheria and devastate the farms and villages, then rejoin Guiemes in Tejas to hunt down and eliminate the Anglo menace. Boone, aware that the Spanish-Mexicans would eventually attack after neutralizing the threat from the Comanche and Karankawa, sent out a call for recruits. A defector from the Spanish army, Saul Rodríguez, arrived in Saltillo with 20,000 troops of mixed Anglo and Iberian makeup on 22 August, bringing his total to 29,150 men. Leaving 1,000 both to hold Saltillo and bait the Spanish-Mexican army, they marched into Comanche territory, near Lubbock, to receive an additional force of 5,000 Cimanche, Apache, and Kiowa indian auxiliaries. Seeing the approach of Marques' 92,500, on 4 September, they began constructng a series of earthen barriers, ditches and anti-cavalry spikes, then set up bastions for the captured cannon. As the enemy advanced to within 800 yards the cannons opened fire, killing 105 in the opening volley. Under heavy cannon fire, Marques and his men marched to the top of the rise, then spread out and began returning fire with muskets as they set up their own field-pieces. Seeing the danger, Boone sent the Kiowa horse to harry the artillerymen before they could fully set their pieces up. At the cost of 400 horsemen, the Kiowa managed to cripple the guns. Marques needed to defeat the Anglo/Indian force so he could rejoin Guiemes in Tejas, but saw no way to do so until he noted the small size of the Apache horse. He hit upon the idea of splitting his militia into small groups and sending them to pin down the Apache while his Mexican regulars kept the attention of the enemy focused on them. He launched his offensive on the morning of the 6th after repairing two of his six 12-pounder cannon, using them to further shake up his enemy. Boone realized that his opponent was outmanuevering him and spread his forces out. Unfortunately in doing so, he had isolated the Apache horse, who now came under attack from the Mexican militia. Dispatching militia to counter Marques while commanding the Tejan regulars to fix their bayonets and advance. The Kiowa horse, meanwhile, flanked the attacking Mexican militias, killing 200 and scattering the rest of them. The Comanche attacked the flanks of Marques' army, forcing him to fall back and abandon the repaired field-pieces to Boone. Seeing Marques falling back, Boone ordered an advance on all fronts. As his situation had become hopeless, Marques called a retreat which escalated into a rout when the Comanche and Karankawa charged into the fleeing mass of Spanish-Mexican troops. Those who could still shoot, emptied their muskets, even at times killing their fellow soldiers in their desperation to escape. Boone ordered a pursuit, knowing Marques would rejoin Guiemes' army, which had meantime recaptured Saltillo after a spirited but ultimately futile defense.

Buddy Colt*, an obscure cattle-rancher and ex-soldier who had fought in Georgia as part of the then-Continental Army, and later in Maracaibo as a militiaman, had gthered around him a force of 120,000 fellow ex-soldiers in Texarkana, close to the border with the Kingdom of America. Learning of the recapture of Saltillo and Guiemes' plan to crush the Tejan Rebellion at its heart, Dallas, he marched his army west. Reaching the city on 13 September, he gathered an additional 7,000 militiamen then marched to the Colorado River, where he planned to lay a series of trenches, earthen barriers, and stake fields to slow Guiemes' advance. He then withdrew five miles north of the river and began to reconnoiter the countryside around the river to locate his enemy. He created two forms of scout, a picket comprised of five people stationed at two-mile intervals in a radius of 10 miles from his camp, and a mobile scout which would scout to a radius of 30 miles from camp and also serve as a warning for the pickets. Guiemes brought his army to the south bank of the river and began his own reconnoiter, and on the morning of the 19th, scouts from the two armies met and clashed. The Spanish scouts were killed in order to prevent Guiemes from learning of the location of Colt's army, and his scouts soon located a ford in the river where they could cross. With this information, Colt sent a scout to locate Boone, while detaching a group of 600 Caddo/Anglos (300 Caddo, 300 Anglos) to the crossing to secure it. He then sent a larger force of 1,000 Caddo and Cherokee Braves with 60 Anglo sharpshooters toward the riverbank in order to fool Guiemes into believing his army was closer than they actually were. A week later, Colt's scouts made contact with Boone's army, still pursuing Marques and informed him of their disposition and location of Guiemes' army. Seeing an opportunity, Boone changed his objective and redirected his men toward the Colorado River. Meanwhile, Guiemes sent a second scout to locate Marques' army, having received word back in San Antonio of his defeat and forced retreat from Lubbock. They made contact on 2 October. Marques turned his forces southeast, believing that a rebel force was on the north bank of the Colorado and seeking to crush them and rejoin Guiemes. He dispatched the scouts to return to Guiemes with the plan to arrive at the Colorado riverbank within 2 weeks. But it would soon be clear that Boone would arrive nearly three weeks before Marques, due largely to the fact he had several days' head start but also due to the appearance along the Sabine River of a Royal American army commanded by a young Andrew Jackson**

On the evening of the 6th, Colt moved his army to within 2 miles of the riverbank, placing his artillery on small hills which nevertheless offered the best views of the opposite bank. After sending a party of 800 Choctaw to locate and secure any fords further down the river (which they would do just as the battle began), at 5 am on the 7th, Colt opened the battle with a cannonade that awakened the Spanish sentries and sent the rest of the enemy army into a panic. Guiemes, quickly recovering and reorganizing his men into battle formation, quickly rushed them to the riverbank, where they came under fire from the small force facing them directly. Protected from nearly all the incoming cannon fire, the Cherokee, Caddo, and Anglo sharpshooters kept the Spanish-Mexican force pinned down. By 5 pm, Guiemes had already lost 4,500-including 7 colonels and 3 majors, while Colt lost 57 men-50 Anglos, 3 Cherokee and 4 Caddo. Choosing to continue the cannon fire into the night, Colt thus kept Guiemes from being able to bring his own artillery to bear, while Cherokee raids against their supply convoys forced Guiemes to break off a cavalry squad of 400 to chase off the Cherokee. Meanwhile at the secured crossing point, Boone and his army finally closed in on Guiemes position from the west. On learning of Boone's location, Colt ordered the rest of his army to descend on the riverbank. Guiemes, in a panic, pulled his army back far enough to escape the range of the cannon-and unknowingly give Colt the chance to construct a pontoon across the river. Before he could reform his lines, Boone descended upon his army from the west, his Kiowa and Karankawa auxiliaries charging into the battle with their bows, tomahawks, muskets and war-cries. Guiemes detached a small force of 10,000 to try to hold Boone while he moved back to the riverbank. His idea was to put a geographical obstacle behind his men so they would be dissuaded from retreat, but as he fell back to the riverbank, he came up against Colt's well-entrenched army. On the 10th, with nowhere left to retreat and with Boone pressing on him from the southwest, Guiemes raised the black flag at 4 am to indicate his determination to go down fighting. In 11 hours of bloody fighting, Guiemes was captured with 2,500 others. The rest either fled south all the way to the Rio Grande River (25,500) or killed (50,000). Those who made it back across the Rio Grande River were so demoralized that they could no longer be of use in future battles.

Guiemes surrendered at 2:30 pm to Boone. He was taken to Fort Worth, where the resulting Treaty of Fort Worth was signed on 11 October. Its terms were straightforward:
- New Spain would evacuate its armies from the territory of Tejas
- The Republic of Tejas would be granted independence from New Spain
- New Spain would pay indemnities and reparations amounting in total to $500,000 dollars to the Republic
- The territory of the Republic of Tejas would be bordered in the west and south by the Rio Grande River, in the north by the Arkansas River and its tributary the Purgatoire River and in the east by the Sabine River.

Guiemes was released two days after signing the treaty and allowed to return to New Spain. Unknown to him, however, a new viceroy had been selected by the Spanish Colonial Council (Council des Indes). Miguel de la Grúa Talamanca de Carini y Branciforte, a Spaniard of Sicilian birth and hence Italian heritage, had been sent by Godoy to assume the office after Madrid learned of Guiemes' failure to crush the Tejan Rebellion. This was the first step on the road to the 1st Spanish-American War around six months later. Upon his return to Mexico City, Guiemes attempted to plead his case to be given a military command and allowed to assist Cubero in his Mayam campaign. But Talamanca, concerned that having Guiemes commanding an army would lead to a second disastrous loss, rejected his pleas and placed him under arrest. He would die, a week later, from poisoning, possibly on the orders of Talamanca***
 
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Revolution! Phase II (mid-1795 - 1800)
Prelude:
By the end of 1794, the world was in the grips of a new conflict. Revolutionary regimes ranging from royal dictatorships such as Saxony-Poland and Russia to absolutist monarchies such as Spain and Hungary had already begun to redress what they believed were the injustices of the Congress of Frankfurt. Saxony had achieved its main objectives, seizing Silesia on 6 October 1790, and the Crown of Poland on 4 February 1791. Hungary had seized the western Balkans by the end of January 1791, and was occupying the Pelopponese and Attica. Their military force was now among the top-rated armies in Europe. The victory against the Ottomans had awakened dreams of restoring the Hungarian Empire of Matthias Corvinus. King Nikolaus I was eager above all else to conquer Vienna the way his illustrious predecessor had done. The Ottomans had been unable to prevent the Hungarians from reaching their objective because they had lost their capital, Constantinople, to the Russians in the first wave of a major Russian offensive against Islam. They had launched their second offensive while still besieging the Turkish capital and managed to break through the Caucasus range and into both Mesopotamia and northern Iran. Tsar-Emperor Konstantin I still harbored ambitions to reunify the Russian lands, and a militarily decrepit Grand Republic of Novgorod presented a tempting target. The rivalry and animosity between Novgorod and Russia would only intensify with the arrival in Novgorod of Prince Alexander, twice defeated by Konstantin I. Russia faced the restoration of a Mongol Khaganate in the eastm absorbing the remnants of the Uzbek Khanate, as well as the Manchu Qing Empire. Spain had not only conquered Morocco and removed its sultan, but had also forced the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies into a Union of the Crowns and even reduced the West African state of Jolof to vassalage. They had also installed hardliners in their various colonies, which allowed for further consolidation of their power. Charles IV was still ambitious, however, and was already looking to the remnants of the Kingdom of Portugal (or Rump Portugal) for further expansion. The return of the Nederlanden faction in the Dutch Republic-whose main objective and goal was the union of the Dutch and Flandrines under a Dutch dynasty would also present an opportunity for the Spanish king both to restore the Low Countries to Spanish rule, but also place a region in close proximity to both France and Great Britain with the opportunity to foment uprisings in Picardy and Ireland. Their only source of potential trouble remained in the Americas, with the continuing Border War with the Mayan Republic, and the existence of the new Republic of Tejas which would attain the status of an American protectorate and the invasion of which would draw America into war.

The Iberian War (15 January - 28 March 1795)
During the interval in which Spain was expanding its power across the central Mediterranean Basin and in the Americas, Portugal under its new queen Maria I, who had ascended the throne on the death in February 1777 of her father, Joseph I. Portugal, however, was a shadow of its former self, confined to Entre-Duoro-e-Minho, half of Beira and Alentejo, Estremadura and the Algarve after the Spanish victory in the Ten Years War. With reduced territory came reduced taxation and reduced manpower, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that its major colony of Brazil would have to provide the needed manpower in the event of a future war with Spain. For this reason, both the Portuguese and Spanish began a naval arms race with each other during the intervening period which saw Spain finally emerge victorious-which it would flaunt first with the cross-Mediterranean conquest of Sicily and Naples, then with the assistance it lent to Malta during the Ottoman-Maltese War. While Portugal lost the arms race, Brazil's close proximity to Maracaibo allowed Portuguese goods and munitions to be delivered in the cargo holds of British and American ships. Despite their limited manpower and an economy struggling to escape recession even with French and British subsidies, Maria I still held the dream of restoring Portugal's borders to what they had been before the war, as well as expanding Brazil's interior borders further.

For his part, Charles IV had felt anxious about a residual Portuguese presence on the Atlantic coast as it would allow a future British descent should the two countries go to war again. Further, the rapproachment with France-he believed-went against the traditional emnity between the two powers as in the past France and Portugal had often fought each other as often as they fought side-by-side against others. Lastly it was believed, especially by Godoy* that the addition of Portugal's reserve of manpower and mineral wealth would be the factors that would allow Spain to win in the Border War with the Mayans and even reconquer the Yucatan peninsula. With the end of the Second Reconquista, Charles IV and his generalissimo Joachim Murat** began to plan the third and final invasion of Portugal. Murat proposed that four armies would be needed, with three attacking and pinning down any Portuguese forces on the field, clearing the way for the fourth army to advance directly on Lisbon. Ferdinand elected to lead that fourth army himself, but he placed Murat in command of the southernmost of the remaining three armies, which would scourge the Algarve before turning north to take Estremadura. Over the remaining months of 1794 and into the first week of 1795, the king raised and trained the four armies of 75,000 in preparation for the coming war. He sent letters to Maria I advising her to abdicate the throne in exchange for attaining the Crown of Brazil and receiving favorable border adjustments there. She never replied until on the mid-morning of the 14th of January, she finally replied, stating that she'd sooner rip out her heart and impale it on a pike than yield the crown. When he received the reply late in the evening, he became resolved on punishing the queen for defying him.

At 3 am on the 15th, Maria I was roused from her sleep by a messenger who had informed her that four Spanish armies had invaded the kingdom. Immediately, she called for a force of 115,000 troops under the command of Emilio Couto, and a militia force of 80,000 under the command of Carlos Melo. Melo would hold Lisbon while Couto would attempt to delay the Spanish armies. Within hours, she announced a state of war between Portugal and Spain, making it clear that it was a response to the massive Spanish invasion. On the afternoon of the 21st, Couto's army came up against Charles IV's main army at Evora. Spreading his forces out, Couto placed his cavalry as screens on the flanks, with his artillery on a series of rises to increase their range, and four lines of 5,000 spread apart by one foot and spaced a foot apart between individual soldiers. Charles IV's army stretched their infantry formations, with artillery at the wings and cavalry at the rear as reserve. At first the battle went well for Couto as his artillery had punched a hole in the Spanish lines and sent the cavalry spreading out to avoid the blasts. Charles himself came close to being injured from an explosive shot that impacted several feet away from him, killing 20. But he rallied his men, and they held their ground just as, to the north, reinforcements from the Spanish Aemy of Navarre commanded by Captain Luis Miguel Díaz, descended on Evora. Diaz swung his army around the town and positioned themselves where Diaz could unleash his own cavalry against Couto. On the cusp of potential victory, Couto, seeing the incoming enemy cavalry at his back, made the fatal decision to turn part of his army to engage Diaz. Ferdinand VII saw his chance and pressed on Couto's flank. By the afternoon of the 17th Couto felt compelled to withdraw, falling back to the defensive line of Torres Vedras. In all, Couto lost 60,00 killed or taken prisoner while Ferdinand VII and Diaz lost a combined 4,000 killed.

Couto reformed his army with the addition of fresh troops which had been conscripted via a decree of Maria I, building his army back to 110,000 which he then marched northward to engage a Spanish army, the Army of Leon commanded by Lieutenant-General Xavier Cerecero which had taken Aviero just a day after the Battle of Evora. At mid-morning on the 21st, Couto and Cerecero met near a stream, and in six hours of fighting, Couto managed to drive Cerecero back to Aviero, but was unable to advance because of news that the Torres Vedras lines were coming under assault from Ferdinand VII's army and Melo's militia were on the verge of collapse. Marching south quickly, on the 24th Couto pushed Charles IV back but suffered heavy casualties-roughly 72,000 killed to Charles IV's 17,000 killed and 1,300 captured. Having to pull militia from Melo's regiments to restore his numbers, Couto rebuilt the defensive works, then pursued the Spanish king to Torres Novas. Charles IV arrived in the town seven days ahead of Couto and was able to receive additional reinforcements building his army to some 175,000 and clearly shifting the advantage back to the Spanish. Couto, not aware of this, reached Torres Novas on the 31st to find a Spanish army that now outnumbered his by nearly 4 to 1. Opting to fight nonetheless, Couto launched his attack on 7 February after receiving some additional militia support. Once again, Couto started well by routing an attempt by the Spanish cavalry to take his artillery, killing 900 at the cost of 1,100. At mid-afternoon, Couto attempted to follow up with a flying wedge cavalry assault on the Basque irregulars under Muzio Abio, and though he scattered their lines, he lost 1,500 cavalry and now had a significantly reduced cavalry force left, which he was forced to pull back. Abio, regrouping his surviving irregulars, rushed into the Portuguese regulars, using their bayonets. The Moroccan irregulars rushed in behind the Basques, led by their commander Ruhul Al-Aziz. The confusion caused several of the Portuguese troops to break and run, pursued by Morrocan camel archers. Couto was steadily pushed back as the Spanish poured more reinforcements from their Moroccan, Basque, and Catalan contingents. By 8 pm on the 12th, Charles IV was ready to offer conditions for the surrender of Couto's army, which included his own surrender as a POW and the condiscation of the Portuguese army's weapons and equipment in exchange for their being allowed to return home unmolested. As Couto pondered the offer, a messenger arrived from Lisbon with news that Maria I had raised a second army using her own personal wealth, numbering 130,000 and under a Portuguese of Spanish ancestry, Julio Tudela. Buoyed by the news, Couto rejected the Spanish offer and prepared to entrench his army on the road to Lisbon. For seventeen days he waited for the Portuguese 2nd Army to arrive to reinforce him. By the morning of the 27th, despairing of receiving the reinforcements, Couto decided on one last attack, sending in his Madeira Brigade and Brazilian dragoons into battle covered by what remained of his cavalry. Anticipating the attack, Charles IV's artillery, firing canister shot, mowed down the Madeirans, killing all but 20 of them as well as 100 of the dragoons and all of the surviving cavalry. Seeing the battle as lost, Couto and 5,000 surviving infantry, with their artillery as as much of their supplies as they could load into messenger bags, retreated quietly, leaving the rest of the army to finally be overrun by the Spanish. Of those who could escape, 45,000 made their way back to the Torres Vedras lines harried by Spanish and Moroccan irregular cavalry, while 20,000 were taken prisoner. The Battle of Torres Novas became the single greatest disaster in Portuguese military history, and upon his return to Lisbon, Couto was arrested, charged with desertion in the face of the enemy and treason against the crown and four days later executed by firing squad. Charles IV, meanwhile, persuaded the Portuguese captives to abandon their queen and swear allegiance to him as the new king of Portugal.

Tudelo had been delayed by the Army of Navarre commanded by Diaz, who had pushed him all the way back to the Torres Vedras before Melo's force attacking his flank forced Diaz to retreat to Oporto. But by the time Tudelo was able to advance to Torres Novas to join with Couto, he had already been defeated by the Spanish king and forced to retreat. Though he missed the commander by three days, he was able to catch up with the 45,000 who had fled, incorporating them into his own army and bringing his numbers to 175,000-which now gave him equal numbers to Charles IV (who sent his reinforcements to the other armies and thus sacrificed his own advantage, though this would ultimately prove temporary). Instead of marching out to meet the Spanish king, however, Tudelo advocated a policy of luring the Spanish toward the Torres Vedras and using the numerically superior Portuguese artillery to reduce his numbers as a prelude to a counteroffensive. However, the king was fully aware of the improvements made to the fortified line and had decided on a scorched-earth offensive to starve the capital city into submission. For her part, seeing that she likely faced the very real prospects of encirclement, Maria i chose to escape and set up her court in Brasilia, Brazil. Enlisting the aid of British and French privateers, she, her royal court, and several ministers were able to leave Lisbon on 3 March. A messenger from Madrid brought the news of the escape of the queen to Charles IV four days later. He ordered the Spanish South Atlamtic Fleet to pursue the privateers and capture Maria I, while himself pushing deep into Portugal laying waste to as much of the countryside as he could and shattering what little resistance the hapless Portuguese could offer. On the 14th, Ferdinand VII finally appeared before the line of Torres Vedras, joined by the Army of Navarre under Diaz and the Army of Navarre under the command of Alfonso Jurado. Tudelo, facing them from behind the line, repulsed seven attempts by both Diaz and Jurado to breach it. The Portuguese Royal Navy may have been able to supply the capital and Tudelo's army had they been given the financial support they needed to construct more ships, but as the British and French subsidies were increasingly directed to the land forces in their desperate struggle to keep Rump Portugal from military collapse, they had no ships they could use, and such of their fleet as existed had been divided up and sent to their Brazilian, Mozambique and Sao Tome ports to defend them from Spanish privateers. Thus when the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet arrived off the coast of Lisbon and began to bombard the port, demoralization set in among the inhabitants. Lisbon's city council, left in charge of the war-effort in the name of the queen, now urged Tudelo and Melo to break their encirclement and give battle. On the morning of 21st March, Melo formed his militia into a makeshift army and the two commanders decided on a simultaneous attack using the artillery and bastions of the line to keep the Spanish pinned down. At 11:30 am, both armies pushed around the Line and engaged Diaz and Jurado. Charles IV had not expected the sudden offensive but lost no time, sending in small units of Catalan irregulars and Basque sharpshooters to attack the bastions. Managing to avoid the sentries, the Catalans and Basque slipped in and killed the garrisons, then turned the guns on the sentries forcing many to flee before then attacking the flanks of Tudelo's and Jurado's armies. Charles bided his time, dividing his army and sending it to bolster the two other Spanish armies. Only when a fourth Spanish army commanded by Antonio Jesus Cuellar arrived to join the battle did it become apparent that the Portuguese would lose. Melo was killed by a Catalan sniper on 23rd March attempting to rally the remnants of his militia who had broken and were retreating. None of the fleeing men even cared that their leader had been killed as they fled to Lisbon hoping to grab any seaworthy ship and escape. Tudelo, having lost 130,000 men and with no other recourse, finally sent a messenger under a flag of truce to seek terms for surrender. After 5 days of discussion with his minister, Godoy, Charles IV demanded nothing less than unconditional surrender. Tudelo anguished over the demand, finally accepting it reluctantly on the 28th.

Meanwhile in Brazil, Maria I had set up her court in Brasilia, where she proclaimed defiance. Spanish efforts to invade Montevideo were repulsed with heavy losses to the Spanish and a naval battle between the Portuguese Brazilian fleet and the Spanish South Atlantic Fleet on the 30th led to a major defeat for the Spanish as they lost all but three ships-of-the-line to the Portuguese-who lost only 3 frigates in the battle. This naval battle is considered the last battle of the Iberian War only because of the relocation of the Portuguese royal court to Brazil. The fact that the battle took place 3 days after the Capitulation of Lisbon only meant that the Spanish would be unable to invade Brazil. in the overall scheme, Portugal had lost the Iberian War, and Ferdinand VII speedily took advantage. With a captive Tudelo in Barcelona representing the Portuguese Crown, Charles IV imposed the Treaty of Barcelona. Its terms were as follows:
- Portugal to be fully integrated into the greater Spanish Empire, including the islands of Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde.
- Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa and Timor to be administered by the newly created Spanish Colonial Council
- All Portuguese troops who fail to swear allegiance to the Spanish Crown to be arrested for treason, tried, and executed
- As Lisbon is no longer the capital of Portugal, all ministers and members of the royal family are to be considered outlaws and subject to arrest.

Two days before the treaty could go into effect, Maria I proclaimed herself Empress-Queen of Brazil, the African Lands and Portugal, though her claim to the Portuguese crown was only titular as she was not in Lisbon. Charles IV now added the title King of Portugal and even toyed with the idea of reforming the old Iberian Union of Charles I (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) but ultimately decided against it, wishing to punish the Portuguese for their stubborn resistance. He imposed on them as Royal Governor his Finance Minister, Godoy. Though Maria I would rremain defiant in her assertion that she never surrendered the royal title or the crown, for the time being, the Spanish now ruled in Portugal.



Russo-Islamic War (10 June - 13 October 1795)^ ^ongoing since March 1791
Throughout the period from February 1791 to May 1794, the Russian advance moved slowly south from the Caucasus Mountains into the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Their progress had been slowed down by the seasonal and climatic changes which took place during the period. But it was also due to the expansive nature of the front in which the Russians were advancing. Tsar-Emperor Konstantin gad achieved the Great Dream of being the first Christian Emperor of Constantinople since his Byzantine namesake in 1453, but he knew his hold on 'the City of the World's Desire' was tenuous due to the fact Sultan Selim III had escaped to Angora, where he was well-defended. In May 1792, Konstantin I began a policy whereby Russian Cossack forces would raid into the interior of Anatolia for the dual purpose of reconnoitering the region and keeping pressure on the Turks, never knowing when a Russian army would invade the interior of Turkey. Meanwhile, he seized Varna and began a major fortress-building program, determined to hold his new prize. He contemplated moving the Imperial capital to Constantinople, but after receiving sound advice from the aging Count Alexei Orlov, decided against it. Nonetheless, he named the territory of the capital Byzantium in deference to the medieval Byzantine Empire and as a way to snub the Ottomans who had been occupying the city since 1453, crowning himself king on the very day that, back in 330 his namesake had founded the city. Their disastrous defeat in the Indian Ocean at the hands of the Ottomans' vassal Kilwa had ended any further Russian ambitions in that region and at the same time accelerated the birth of a southern African power with repercussions for the future. But even as they advanced into Mesopotamia, the Russians had also advanced into Persia, taking Tabriz on 28 April 1793, followed by Isfahan on 7 May. Konstantin I relied on his general, Suvorov, for many of the victories but as his army of 220.000 advanced toward the classical capital of Persepolis, he was met by an army of 200,000 under the command of Mohammad Reza Momeni They clashed just 30 miles north of the classical ruins on 16 May and the Persians finally inflicted a defeat on Suvorov's army, killing 120.000 for the cost of 129,000 Persians. Suvorov withdrew his army to Isfahan to restock his water supply and await reinforcements from over the Caucasus range. He would remain there for nearly the next two years.

By the late spring of 1795, Suvorov had replenished his supplies and rebuilt his army. He began his new offensive by seizing Rasht in Gilan on 10 June, massacring its 3,000 defenders in a two-hour bloodbath. On 14 June, Arak was conquered after a three-hour battle with a Persian force of 5,000. Momeni, his own army rebuilt, now marched south toward Ilam, following reports that Suvorov was marching there. At Eivan on 20 June, the two armies clashed. Momeni used the Arab camel archers to harry the Russians, but ultimately lost 600 of them to cannon fire when the Russian artillery were brought into range. As the Afghan irregulars laid down cover fire for the Arabs, the Cossacks in their turn charged into their ranks, killing 4,500 of them and sending the rest fleeing northward. Momeni, having lost 1/3 of his force now risked everything in an all-out frontal attack which surprised the Russians and even worried Suvorov himself. Rallying his men, Suvorov led a battalion of Russian dragoons into the front ranks of the Persians, taking a bullet to the shin, but nevertheless killing 900 Persians. Momeni, with little hope of defeating his opponent, began a withdrawal from Eivan, Suvorov, recognizing his opponent's valour, chose not to pursue, instead pillaging Eivan once the Persians had left, then proceeded to Mehran, which after a four-day siege capitulated om the 25th. A second Russian army under the command of Smolin Larionovich had advanced from Baku, defeated a Persian army of 11,000 and taken Qazvim. Agha Mphammad Shah of the Qajar dynasty-who had seized power in 1784, was becoming hard-pressed as two more Russian armies had invaded the northeastern lands and conquered Bukara, Merv and Samarkand, He formed two more Persian armies numbering 130,000 each and placed under the command of generals Jahangir Rastkar and Saeed Khaledi. Rastkar would be tasked with liberating Bukara while Khaledi would liberate Samarkand. Both would then converge on Merv.

Three months later, on 8 September, Khaledi and Rastkar advanced from central Persia to the north. Rastkar arrived in Bukara within a week and began to lay seige to the city, against which the Russians could only muster 14,000. In a six-day siege culminating in a fifteen-hour battle, the Russians were driven out with heavy losses. Rastkar lost 28,000 in the siege and battle due as much to dehydration and disease as to enemy combat. After securing the city, Rastkar awaited developments while redressing his supplies. At Samarkand, Khaledi had also begun the siege against a slightly larger Russian garrison of 30,000. The city was better provisioned than Bukara, and the Russians held the advantage, but Khaledi was determined to take the city. On 27 September, he ordered sappers to dig tunnels to the walls and mine the foundation while simultaneously launching a diversionary attack. As the sappers dug their trenches, sharpshooters picked off several of the Russians on the walls. At 4:45 that afternoon, the mines were laid and exploded, tearing a section of the walls and killing 1.200 Russians. As the Persians now poured into the city, the remaining Russians fled, not wishing to be captured. Khaledi lost 700 of his best sappers and 14,000 troops to enemy combat and disease. But before he could begin to rebuild his army, messengers sent from Bukara alerted him to a Russian counterattack in which Rastkar was now outnumbered. Khaledi force-marched his army to Bukara, arriving on 3 October just as the assault on the city. The Russian commander, Karl Pavlovich, had collected the surviving troops from Bukara as well as the Merv garrison and added them to his 200,000 (giving him 270,000 troops). Rastkar had lost 42,000 in the first hours of the assault and Khaledi's 115,300 could easily tilt the battle in the Persians' favor. Deploying his troops, Khaledi brought his artillery to bear on Pavlovich and opened fire. This surprised the commander, and he was now forced to break off the attack to deal with Khaledi. Sending his Kazakh horse to flank Khaledi, Pavlovich advanced his Chechen irregulars in the face of blistering musket fire and arrows from the Persian front ranks, and with bayonets fixed. This attack lasted for 47 minutes and ended only with the rout of the Persian forward lines. Khaledi attempted to rally his troops but was hit in the neck by a musketball and forced to withdraw from the field-he'd die hours later. From within the walls, Rastkar and his surviving troops could do little more than watch as Khaledi's men, seeing their commander collapse, lost all will and began to flee, being pursued and butchered by the Kazakh horsemen. Rastkar raised the black flag announcing his intention to gp down fighting. Pavlovich, still with superior numbers and a tactical advantage, was nevertheless moved by the courage shown by his opposite and ordered a ceasefire while the two men met to discuss an honorable surrender.

In Bukara, Pavlovich and Rastkar met face to face. It was later recorded in his journal that Pavlovich's first impression of Rastkar was nothing like he had expected. "On first seeing him, I was shocked at how professionally he carried himself despite his rugged, desert-worn clothing and appearance. It was hard not to see him much like a Frederick the Great instead of a ragged Afghan chief". They discussed the terms of the honorable surrender of Bukara and agreed that once the Persians surrendered their arms, they would be granted safe-passage out of the city and be given any medical care needed before being allowed to return to their homes. Rastkar would retain his military rank and his troops would be allowed to keep their standards and banners. Rastkar agreed to release those Russians that had been captured during the previous siege. But as the two men shook hands, Pavlovich was already preparing to arrest his Persian counterpart. The moment Rastkar and his adjutant left the building (a bazaar), they were immediately seized and bound. He was forced to watch as his countrymen, now disarmed, were bound together and beheaded by the Chechens in front of Rastkar. Rastkar was led in procession through the streets of Bukara before being sent to Astrakhan. Momeni, already on his way with his army to Bukara to assist, was forced to turn back on learning of the fate of Khaledi and the capture of Rastkar. Agha Mohammad Shah, his country facing bankruptcy and internal revolts, finally sent a mission to Moscow to discuss peace. On 13 October, the Treaty of Moscow was signed between the Persian and Russian delegates. Its terms were as follows:
- The northwestern and western regions of Persia to be ceded to Russia
- Bukara, Samarkand, Merv to be ceded to Russia
- Persia to demobilize
- Persia to pay $200,000 in indemnities to Russia
For Agha Mohammad Shah, these concessions were considered lenient given the fact that the Russians had managed to march all the way to the classical capital. For Konstantin I, the conclusion of the Persian part of the greater war against Islam would allow for him to focus fully on his main enemy, Ottoman sultan Selim III. For the Ottomans, the renewed focus of the Russians meant that they would now have to face the Russian invasion alone.



The Saxon-Bahemian War (15 April 1795 - 5 January 1796)^ becomes part of the larger German War after January 5, and also the Danubian War)
Since February 1791, Frederick August I had been consolidating his personal rule over the Polish half of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania and trying to convince the Lithuanians that their king, Adam Casimir Czartoryski had abandoned the Unions of Krewa and Lublin by fleeing Warsaw. Adam Casimir, for his part, launched his own propaganda war against the Saxon usurper, countering that as Saxony was a revolutionary absolutist monarchy and that the constitutional-absolute monarchy of the Commonwealth was superior. Skirmishes along the Polish-Lithuanian frontier had become common as both monarches continued to test the other's resolve. What kept Frederick August I from launching a full invasion of Lithuania was the fact that Adam Casimir I had signed a treaty with Gustav III making Lithuania a protectorate of the Empire of Sweden. For the time being deterred from this, Frederick August I sought other avenues for expnansion.

Karl Theodor (Charles Theodore) I, current Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bahemia (the union of the crowns of Bohemia and Bavaria), had watched the developments in Poland with apprehension. He had already witnessed the defeat and despoliation of what had been the greatest German Protestant power by the upstart Electorate. Fearful that his Saxon neighbor would cast his eyes on Bohemia, Charles Theodore I signed a treaty with King Leopold VII of Austria on 12 December 1794, guaranteeing their mutual borders and providing military assistance in the event of an attack by a third party (this would prove to be a broken reed once King Nikolaus I declared war on Austria later). Ar the same time, he reached out to his old ally, France, signing a treaty in Nancy with Louis XVI on 31 December. In the following month, he also signed treaties with Baden, Wurttemburg, Hesse and Hanover. For his part, Frederick August I, more concerned with the Bahemia-Austria Treaty of Vienna than with the other treaties, reached out to King Nikolaus I, signing a treaty with him at Poznan on 16 February which in effect partitioned both Bahemia and Austria, granting Vienna, Carinthia, Carniola, Styria and Burgenland to Hungary and Bohemia and Upper Austria to Saxony (thus effectively eliminating Austria entirely). Frederick August i raised troops and began forming five armies of 150,000 each (750,000 in total) through the late winter and into early spring. On 15 April, with no declaration of war issued, Frederick August I advanced into Bohemia from three directions-one from Saxony proper, one from Silesia and one from Occupied Poland. Karlovy Vary and Liberec were conquered in a matter of hours, Hradec was conquered a day later, on the 16th. Four of the five armies then converged on Prague, while the fifth, commanded by Baron Anton Graf, moved to engage a Bahemian army of 140,000 commanded by Count Gabriel Vítek. The battle, which occured near Jihlava, resulted in a defeat for Vitek-who lost 98,000 killed or captured to Graf's 29,000 killed. With Vitek forced to retreat into Bavaria - and Graf in pursuit, Frederick August I began the siege of Prague. Charles Theodore would attempt to raise the siege by advancing from Munich, but after two attempts were repulsed, Graf's army, which was still pursuing Vitek, finally all but annihilated the Emperor's army near Ingolstadt (21 April). Graf ravaged the lands between Bavaria and Bohemia before turning back to ravage Moravia.

As the Siege of Prague dragged on through May and June and into July, 3rd Army commanded by Janusz Bielski, a Silesian of Polish heritage, implemented a new tactic of scorching the countryside around the city. it was a bold and risky move which had every chance to impact the besieging troops as much as the defenders, and Frederick August I was unsure of the tactic at first. But as his armies were well-supplied thanks to supply routes running from both Saxony and Poland, they were able to press the siege while the townsfolk within the walls began to slowly starve. In Bavaria, Charles Theodore now raised a larger army and began to press his Hapsburg ally to send additional troops to aid in the repulse of the Saxons. But Leopold VII could not afford additional troops as his kingdom was now at war with Hungary. Using his Imperial office, he pressed the Diet to condemn the Saxon invasion of Bohemia-which they did. But when he followed up by demanding an Army of the Reich to be formed from the middling and minor principalities and Imperial Knights, they showed a greater reluctance to do so, citing the fact that the Imperial finances had still not fully returned to their pre-Ten Years War percentages. Angered but powerless to protest, Charles Theodore resolved to deal with the Saxons alone. He was thus surprised when Frederick William III of Prussia broke the treaty they had been forced to sign with Saxony and declare war. A Prussian attack on Brandenburg forced Frederick August I to send an army of 270,000 under the command of Captain Tadeusz Stepniak north to meet the Prussians, while anticipating Charles Theodore's move to take advantage of the Prussian intervention to move northeast to engage him, he sent Gtaf into Bavaria to meet him. Sure enough, on 13 July at the historic battlefield of Blenheim Graf met the Emperor. In a four-and-a-half hour battle Charles Theodore's army was all but shattered after a lightning move by Graf exposed the Emperor's flank to a devastating cavalry charge which caused panic to set in and took the lives of 55,000 Bavarians and 23,000 troops sent by Hanover to fight under the Bahemian banner. Gtaf then laid waste the village before returning to Bohemia. As Graf scoured the countryside following the battle, the army of Captain Stepniak clashed with Frederick William III's army south of Brandenburg (19 July). Here too, the Saxons managed to surprise their Prussian opponent with a flanking move which exposed their artillery and their rear infantry ranks to a major cavalry charge which broke the artillery and sent the infantry fleeing, some not even getting to shoot their rifles. Frederick William III tried to rally his troops to stand firm, but after a bullet grazed his thigh, he was forced to join the masses of his own troops trying to flee. In all the Prussians lost 49,000 out of an original 95,000 troops-mostly killed. Stepniak lost 17,400 troops in the battle. Two weeks after the battle, Frederick William III sued for peace. As punishment for breaking the treaty, Frederick August I stripped the Prussian of his electoral title and forced him to pay an indemnity of $70,000 talers. Charles Theodore, only three days from Prague, learned of the defeat and capitulation of his unexpected Prussian ally and was forced to turn back, realizing that his advantage had all but evaporated.

By the end of September, the Siege of Prague was in its final stages. Many of the townspeople had slipped out from within the doomed city and surrenderd themselves to the Saxons, reducing the garrison to some 15,000 hungry, dehydrated, exhausted troops to face 480,000 well-fed, fresh troops. On 3 October, Frederick August I, seeing the moment right, ordered a full assault on the walls. Holes were punched using the four 6-pound and 2 12-pound cannon, followed by sorties by bands of Polish irregulars which cleared the way for the main Saxon regiments to march in. Eight hours of hard fighting culminating in a final stand near the clock tower left only Hradcany Castle to be taken. At this stage, the Saxon King offered the few survivors who had fled into the castle an honorable surrender. At 9 pm that evening, as a full moon was rising over the eastern horizon, the survivors threw down their arms and accepted the offer. True to his word, Frederick August I treated them very well, providing escorts for them as they returned to assess their living situation. Frederick August I rewarded his courageous troops by allowing them to rest as he turned Hradcany Castle into his headquarters to plan the next stage in his war against the Emperor. Graf, having followed the defeated army of Charles Theodore back to Munich, decided to risk everything and attack the Bavarian capital without consulting Frederick August I. being joined on 19 October by the army of Stepniak, who had ravaged West Prussia in the wake of his victory against the Prussians, Graf surrounded Munich and put it under siege. When Frederick August learned of Graf's actions, he was compelled to take an army of 20,000 and travel to Bavaria to join them. Using a similar strategy to that used by the Saxon King-Elector in taking Prague, Graf had groups of his cavalry ravage the countryside, destroying what couldm't be seized. Throughout October and November, the Saxons tightened their siege of Munich and many thousands of townspeople began to escape only to be captured. Charles Theodore opted for one major push to break out of his encirclement and om 4 December led a small detachment of 30,000 troops from an unwatched gate, then attacked a battalion of 25,000 German and Polish troops. Easily catching them by surprise and defeating them, he then attacked another battalion and scattered them as well. Thinking he had opened a large enough gap for his troops and the civilians to escape, he signaled them via gunshot. Unfortunately, Frederick August I was alerted by the gunshot signal and ordered the bulk of his army to crush the Bahemians. Realizing his error, Charles Theodore tried to rush back into the safety of the walls, but was caught by the Saxons and forced to give battle. At the same time, a small group of Silesian dragoons seized control of the gate and with a battalion of Polish troops, seized the gatehouse. The bulk of the Saxon army now poured into the city even as regiments continued to fight Charles Theodore. As he attempted to escape, he was dragged from his horse, clasped in irons, and led to the camp of Frederick August I. He was forced to watch as his city was pillaged and his people taken into captivity. Finally, Frederick August I took his captive to Brno, where on 5 January he was compelled to sign a treaty. In the Treaty of Brno:
- Charles Theodore was forced to relinquish the Imperial title to Frederick August I pending a decision of the imperial Diet to legitimize his claim
- Bavaria and Bohemia would be separated, with Bohemia going to Saxony
- Bavaria to pay an indemnity of $200,000 talers and disband its armies

On 25 January, Frederick August I forced a measure through the Imperial Diet which formally deposed Charles Theodore and named himself Holy Roman Emperor. He did this after a demonstration against Hesse in which the city of Kassel was ravaged. He followed this up with the sack of Frankfurt, the place where the Congress of Frankfurt had ruined Saxony's dreams of martial glory just 30 years earlier. This had the desired effect of frightening the small principalities and Imperial Knights into agreeing to the edict. However, resentment among Bavaria, Austria, Hanover, Prussia, Oldenburg, and Baden would lead in a short time to a German War in which the Saxon claim to Empire would be challenged.



The Third Northern War (10 June - 20 November 1796)
Needing the time to rebuild his military after concluding peace with Persia on 13 October 1795, Konstantin I, Tsar-Emperor of Russia, began to cast his eyes on Novgorod, the independent grand republic created after the Ten Years War when the Swedes and Poles collaborated on their plan to divide Russia and weaken it. He kept Russian armies pressing on the Ottomans to insure no help would be forthcoming from them, and signed a treaty in Odessa with Frederick August i of Saxony-Poland recognizing him as legitimate King of Poland and offering subsidies to support him against Adam Casimir I in Lithuania. On 17 January 1796, on the cusp of his new campaign against Novgorod, Konstantin I was faced with an uprising in Mesopotamia-but not from the Islamic inhabitants. A group of Christians, hoping to break free of their Muslim oppressors, overthrew the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, then attacked the Beylerbey of Mosul with a force of 9,000 equipped with Russian artillery. They proclaimed an independent state, then invited Konstantin I to become their ruler as a safeguard against Ottoman retaliation. In response to their appeal and seeing a new means by which the Russians could gain access to the Persian Gulf, and hence the Indian Ocean and at the same time threaten the Ottoman vassal sultanate of Oman, The Tsar-Emperor sent Pavlovich with his army to Mesopotamia to help secure the region and accepted the royal title as King of Sumeria. Russian advisers were soon in Baghdad, drafting a new charter for the state, building churches, schools, markets and barracks, and providing poor relief for the inhabitants. They also set about driving out or executing the Muslim populace in what would later be known as a 'religious cleansing'. To further aggravate efforts by the Turks to build an effective defense, the refugees were driven to Angora, where food shortages soon became a serious issue. This would open the door in future to increasing efforts to take the city and end the Osmanli dynasty once and for all.

Observing these events from Novgorod, Prince Alexander Romanov (OTL Alexander I) grew alarmed at the running successes in the Middle East, as well as the treaties his young brother had signed with Hungary and Saxony. He petitioned the Grand Prince, Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgorukov to build an army and launch a pre-emptive attack on Moscow with the aim of forcing his younger brother to yield. in this he was joined by the Tartar general Toktamish Bogdanov and the Polish ambassador from Adam Casimir's court, Kamil Rokosz.. the Grand Prince did not accept the proposal citing the view-later revealed to be misguided-that the Russians were too focused on their southern front to show any interest in their northern regions despite the ominous warnings from the Tsar-Emperor. Not content to sit and wait for a Russian declaration of war, Alexander and Toktamish began to raise troops. They were able to raise 10 battalions of 1,000 Novgorodians, 15 squadrons of Tartar cavalry numbering 500 and a mixed assortment of Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians and even Russian defectors numbering 20,000 (for a grand total of 37,500) and prepared to march them to the Russian border. Grand Prince Yuri, furious over the actions of Prince Alexander and Toktamish, threatened to exile both but held back from doing so. He became gradually convinced of the need for a military force when his border outposts began to report on massive buildups of Russian forces close to the border. He still refused to accede to Prince Alexander's plan for a pre-emptive strike on Moscow, however, which led Toktamysh to angrily denounce the Novgorodians as cowards. Grand Prince Yuri sent a deputation to Moscow to inquire about the buildup along the border. For 20 days they were ignored by any in the Imperial Court (who were already beginning talks with Saxon ambassadors aimed at a final campaign against Poland-Lithuania's King Adam Casimir I). Finally, a minor official threatened them with immediate arrest unless they left the city within 24 hours. On 6 February the deputation returned, alarmed at the fact that Russia was about to commence their invasion and further informing the Polish ambassador of the discussions with the Saxons on the final disposition of the Commonwealth. Prince Alexander now beseeched Grand Prince Yuri to allow him to inform Adam Casimir of the Russo-Saxon discussions. Yuri was determined to keep Alexander as commander of the ragtag army he had helped assemble, opting to send Toktamysh-with whom he still harbored resentment toward for his denouncement-to Vilnius. On the day that Toktamysh left for Vilnius, 9 June, the Russians announced a state of war with Novgorod and a day later 8 Russian armies of 180,000 surged across the border and began their invasion.

By August, Nizhny Novgorod, Suzdal and Perm had fallen to the Russian advance and despite victories in open battle, Prince Alexander could not break the sieges. Forced to retreat due to disease outbreaks or supply shortages, Prince Alexander could only delay the advance. Refugees were soon filling the streets of Novgorod and even trekking to St Petersburg, in Swedish territory, in an effort to escape the brutality of the Russian invasion. It was only as Tver and Yaroslavl came under siege that Grand Prince Yuri finally committed to the defense of his republic, using his own privy purse to raise an army of 175,000 troops, with an additional 170.000 provided through subsidies from Sweden and Lithuania. Meanwhile, Prince Alexander led his 37,500 troops deep into Russia, attacking Tsaritsyn on 16 August. It had been hoped that Alexander could liberate his father Paul I from his gilded cage. But it was discovered that his father had been murdered on the orders of Konstantin I to prevent such a rescue. Forced by Cossack raiders to retreat, Alexander vowed to make his younger brother pay for the affront. On his retreat, Alexander managed to ravage the countryside, attacking Cossack siches and killing 3,000 people. This one small victory proved insufficient, as the Russians advanced to Beloozero, the second of two remaining cities remaining to the Grand Republic. The Grand Army of the Republic under the command of Victor Ivanovich marched from Novgorod and on 23 August met the main Russian army commanded by the Tsar-Emperor himself. Despite scoring a victory when the Novgorod cavalry seized the supply wagons of the Russians-which Konstantin I in his haste to engage had left lightly defended, they were driven back with sustained losses of 8,000. Ivanovich attempted to fall back to a pre-determined location to recoup, but Konstantin I, knowing where he planned to fall back to, had another army of 180,000 waiting for them 3 miles north. Ivanovich drove staight into this force and his army was all but destroyed with Ivanovich himself taken prisoner. Beloozero itself held out for another month, until it was completely cut off from its food supplies and the people began to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Reports of a stench emerging from withiin the city began to filter back to the Tsar-Emperor, who became so sickened by the news that he finally ordered the siege broken. But in a calculated move he hoped would instill fear in Novgorod itself, he ordered his troops to set fire to Beloozero, torching not just the buildings but the half-eaten corpses and the meager survivors as well. As the city burned the two Russian armies proceeded to Novgorod, harassed by the surviving 170,000 stromg army as well as Prince Alexander's army. They put the capital under siege on 9 October and began to dig trenches to further close off the capital. Alexander made his first attempt to break the siege on 14 October, attacking the workers as they dug the trenches, but was driven back with some losses. After getting some reinforcements he made a second attempt on 19 October, this time with the assistance of the 2nd Novgorod Army commanded by Grigory Vasilievich. Vasilievich attacked the Russian 5th army commanded by an incompetent lieutenant-general, Avilov Stepanovich. Stepanovich, in trying to respond to Alexander's attack, left his supply wagons exposed and Vasilievich seized them in a daring move, then brought his army in at an angle to avoid most of the Russian artillery fire that Konstantin was now directing at Alexander and drove his cavalry straight into the flank of Stepanovich's army. In a murderous encounter, Stepanovich lost 18,000 men to Vasilievich's 4,000. This victory offered some hope to the defenders, even as Grand Prince Yuri was preparing to abandon the capital and seek asylum in Sweden. Vasilievich, seeing his victory as a sign, now prepared to repeat the attack, but Konstantin I was now prepared for him. As Vasilievich began his attack, the Russian guns unleashed all their fury and in the chaos Vasilievich would lose his own life and the lives of 100,000 of his men. Alexander, taking advantage of the distraction, attacked and put to flight a group of artillerymen, destroying their cannon by stuffing the barrels with peat from the nearby marsh. He brought his army forward to render assistance to Vasilievich when the smoke and dust cleared just enough to reveal the carnage. Seeing Vasilievich dead on the field, Alexnder was forced to call off further attacks and, taking the survivors from Vasilievich's army, retreated to the capital. Here, he urged Grand Prince Yuri to withdraw his court to the port of Archangel. Konstantin now sent orders for the remaining armies to converge on Novgorod, determined to take the city. As the siege continued and the Russians closed the noose, Yuri now saw that his situation was hopeless. He fled the city with his court, barely managing to slip past the Russian armies closing. He reached Archangel a week -and-a-half later. During that same time, the citizens reached the point they could no longer hold on. A deputation was sent to the Tsar-Emperor's camp to seek terms for a cease-fire, to which a gracious Konstantin granted for 72 hours, demanding only that Grand Prince Yuri surrender himself.. When he was informed that Yuri was no longer in the city, he flew into a rage, declaring the cease-fire null and void. He ordered his men to enter the city and search any house or building and execute anyone who resisted. For several days, the city was ransacked and thousands were killed in wanton acts of violence. Konstantin I claimed the city as his and declared the restoration of united Russia on 20 November, not bothering to demand terms from Yuri as he was now considered deposed.

Grand Prince Yuri, safe in Archangel thanks to the arrival of a Swedish army of 200,000, met with Gustav III in Helsingbors/Helsink on 3 December in which it was agreed that a Swedish army of 380,000 would march south to liberate Novgorod in the Spring of 1797. Grand Prince Yuri agreed to pay Gustav III $100K talers to subsidize the army. In addition, he also signed a treaty with Adam Casimir I of Poland-Lithuania agreeing to support his restoration to the Polish Crown. While Konstantin I would soon divert troops to Central Asia for the coming war against the Mongol Khaganate for control of northeast Asia and the Bering Strait, for all intents and purposes he was in effective control of Novgorod and all but the port of Archamgel.



The German War (5 May 1797 - 10 April 1798)
The Saxon Wettins had managed not only to seize the crown of Poland, but also the crown of Bohemia. They then followed this up with the deposition of Charles Theodore of the Bavarian house of Wittelsbach as Holy Roman Emperor and, in the person of King Frederick August I, attain the Imperial title after a series of military actions in which both Kassel and Frankfurt were devastated frightening the minor principalities and Imperial Knights into endorsing the coup. But the military bullying of Saxony-Poland had created resentment among the states of Bavaria, Austria, Hanover, Prussia, Baden, Oldenburg and Wurttemburg. In the months since the usurpation, Frederick August I-now Emperor-King-focused on securing his claim to the Polish crown by pursuing a cold war with the legitimate king, Adam Casimir I of the House of Czartoryski. Despite having a peace treaty with Saxony which was the resulted of an ill-fated Prussian attempt to intervene in the Saxon-Bahemian conflict which limited the size of the Prussian army, by March 1797, the Prussians were already close to their former strength. Austria too, had a full compliment, but due to concerns about the Hungarians were hamstrung in what they could do. Bavaria had lost nearly a quarter of its fighting men with the conquest of Bohemia by the Saxons, while Baden and Wurttemburg were at odds with one another since reaching the second-rank standing in the Empire. Hanover, still bound by dynastic union to Great Britain, could also do little so long as their Electors remained in London. It wouldn't be until the following month when the Opposition would finally begin to stir.

King Christian VII of Denmark-Norway had grown anxious at the sudden rise of the Saxons in the Empire. As ruler of the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, which were within the boundaries of the Empire (hence giving him some leeway in Imperial affairs), he was especially concerned about the fate of his ally Prussia, which had been driven out of the Empire altogether with the conquests of Brandenburg, Berlin, Magdeburg and Silesia by the Saxon Wettins. In a meeting in Bornholm on 7 April, Christian VII agreed to provide subsidies to Frederick William III to train new armies. In a second agreement-added to the Concordat of Bornholm-the Danes and Prussians agreed on a joint military initiative to drive the Saxons from Brandenburg and restore Frederick William III to his capital, Berlin. On the 11th, Frederick William III met with King Leopold I of Austria (Emperor Leopold II OTL) and King Adam Casimir I of Poland-Lithuania to build a military alliance. Leopold remained uncertain as to what he could contribute as the Hungarian threat was growing on his border and Adam Casimir was watching the events in Novgorod with alarm at the successes of Tsar-Emperor Konstantin I. Christian VII met with the rulers of Baden and Wurttemburg in Bonn on the same day, getting them to agree the terms of the Convention of Bonn in which they settled their differences and forged a mutual assistance agreement. On 20 April, the Danish king met with George III-acting only as Elector of Hanover- in Hanover and agreed to a treaty of alliance. In their final meeting of 23 April in Bonn, it was agreed that the German Alliance would make their move while Frederick August was tied down in Poland against Adam Casimir. Their combined offensives would-they hoped-force the Saxon king to submit and concede all the territories he had conquered. But thanks to a spy planted at the summit, Frederick August I became aware of the plot against him. Drafting four Polish armies in addition to the six armies he had begun recruiting in Bohemia through forced conscription, he vowed to make the first strike before they could organize.

His first offensive was more diplomatic than military. On 30 April he stunned everyone by signing a Truce in Brest-Litovsk with Adam Casimir essentially dividing the Commonwealth between them. Adam Casimir was recognized as King of Lithuania in exchange for Frederick August I being given the same accord with Poland. While both men knew this to be a temporary expedient which would allow them to ready themselves for the final conflict over the fate of Poland-Lithuania, it also removed a potential partner from the German Alliance and place Prussia and Austria in a difficult position. Then on 5 May, Frederick August I launched his preemptive invasions. At the battles of Schweinfurt and Ingolstadt-fought within hours of each other, he crushed the Bavaro-Badenese army and the Austro-Bavarian army respectively. He sent one army against Munich and another against Bayreuth. At the same time, he sent two of his four Polish armies into Prussia and ravaged the country so thoroughly that Frederick William III refrained from any military campaigning, choosing to hole himself up in Konigsberg while his subjects were forced to endure rapine, pillage, murder and forced conscription into the Royal armies. Frederick August refrained from besieging Konisgberg for the time being, though he often sent cavalry toward the city as a means of reminding his Prussian foe that he could still attack the capital. Throughout the summer of 1797, Saxon-Imperial and Saxon-Polish armies ran amuck across Germany, sacking Cologne (3 June), Heidelberg (17 June) and Osnabruck (11 July). Christian VII, meanwhile, marched his army south to Luneberg in an effort to assist the Hanoverians gathering their mixed Hanoverian-Hessian-Dutch-British-French army of 39,000 for the relief of Osnabruck. Frederick August I, having sacked the city and conscripted the surviving men into his army, marched northward to meet the Hanoverian-Danish allied armies near Meunster. On the morning of 21 July, the Saxons, with their loyal Imperial and Polish auxiliaries set up camp 4 miles from Christian VII's camp and at 3 pm attacked the Danes with a charge of the Polish hussars. Christian VII only barely managed to order his troops to tighten their formations into defensive squares, and though he lost 1,900 in the initial attack, had managed to inflict losses of 2,400 on the Saxons. However, when the Danish king attempted to follow up with a charge of the Hessian dragoons, Frederick August I brought forward his pike-armed Landsknecht and the counter-charge failed with devastating losses of 3,000. Meanwhile a Polish flotilla which had slipped through the Danish Sound by flying Danish flags, appeared off the coast of Verden, within range of the Danish camp and began a bombardment. Christian VII now faced the likelihood that his men were now cut off and were about to be eliminated by the naval bombardment. Choosing to make his final stand, he led his troops straight into the fire of the Saxons in an all-out offensive launched out of desperation. As the full moon began to rise over the battle-only to be soon after obscured by the thick smoke from the cannons, the full fury of the Saxons was thrown upon the Danes and their Hanoverian allies and in five hours of slaughter finally broke the morale of the Danes, forcing them to disengage and withdraw. This became a rout when the Hessians capitulated to the Saxons, exposing the Hanoverians who soon after panicked and began to flee. Christian VII attempted to rally his forces but was unhorsed and captured by Polish hussars, and led to the camp of the Saxon Emperor. At first he was accorded all the honors due as a royal, but when the question of Schleswig-Holstein brought up, Christian VII refused to concede either duchy. Frederick August I, determined now on punishing the Danish king, sent two Polish armies into Jutland with the objective of pillaging, sacking, and so devastating the country that popular support for their king would drop away and he'd be forced either to concede defeat or face rebellion. After 11 days in which Christian VII was forced to listen as the reports of the actions in Jutland arrived, he finally bowed to the inevitable and accepted the terms. The Treaty of Verden of 10 August 1797 forced Denmark-Norway to:
- Surrender Schleswig-Holstein to the Empire and renounce future claims to the two duchies
- Terminate their alliance with Adam Casimir I and acknowledge Frederick August as King of Poland
- Surrender 2/3 of their navy to the Empire
- Pay an indemnity of 250K talers to the Empire and another 150K to Saxony-Poland

Christian VII was released two days after the signing of the treaty and allowed to return to his kingdom, which was-as Frederick August i had intended-now in the throes of rebellion against the king thanks in no small part to the devastation inflicted by the Emperor's Polish auxiliaries. But before the Saxon Emperor could rest on his laurels, he received news that Ravensberg had been conquered by yet another party to the German War: The Dutch Republic.

William V had watched the events in the Rhineland and northern Germany with concern and the spectacular defeat of the Danes and Hanoverians had finally shocked him into action. Raising an army of 30,000 troops under the command of Major Lennerd de Waard, William V ordered them to march for Ravensberg with the primary aim of securing the duchy for Prussia-but also to put them close to the Danes. When Christain VII was taken prisoner in the Battle of Verden, de Waard marched east and southeast, meeting an advance unit of Saxons in julich on 28 August, de Waard scattered them, taking 700 POWs and killing or injuring 800 others. De Waard then took the bold decision to march across Germany, picking up a few allies from among the duchies of Goslar, Wurzburg, Ansbach-Bayreuth and Coburg, and struck directly at the Saxons. Passing just north of Dresden, the Dutch raided and burned Cottbus before being forced to withdraw by the timely arrival of a Polish army of 45,000. Deciding that any further strikes could cost them, de Waard marched his army back across Germany, engaging and destroying small Saxon forces along their route. Frederick August i, concerned that the Dutch could persuade Christian VII to repudiate the terms of Verden and bring Denmark-Norway back into the war, now sought a means of getting the Dutch out of the war. He began to plot with surviving members of the Nederlanden movement and at the same time opened negotiations with Charles IV of Spain. In due course, the Nederlanden would once more gain considerable influence in the States-General and the coincidental death of the Grand Duke of Flanders would give William V a second chance, making Dutch withdrawal from the German War easier. Having successfully ravaged northern Germany and Jutland, Frederick August I marched his main Saxon-Imperial armies into winter quarters in Zollern Castle (from where the Hohenzollern dynasty hailed from. This was likely meant to be an insult to the hapless Prussian king). But even as he took the time to relax and issues edicts as Holy Roman Emperor, he still had enemies on the field.

In September, the Austrians and Prussians signed a subsidy treaty which granted 125K talers to the Prussians to rebuild their economy and their armies. Frederick William III was no doubt further incensed with the news that his opponent was desecrating his ancestral castle. Receiving additional financial support from both Sweden and Lithuania, he planned a winter offensive designed to reclaim Berlin. Unknown to him, Frederick August I had already West (Royal) Prussia to his Polish magnatial supporters, who had already sent armies in to establish their rights. On 8 November, Frederick William III advanced with his army of 180,000 troops to Gdansk/Danzig, where he still managed to take the Poles by surprise. Claiming the port, he then moved southwest to Tuchela, destroying a Polish army of 150,000 by utilizing only 20,000 of his own men in a manuever which the Poles did not count on. Outraged by the news of the Poles' defeat, Frederick August I ordered his two best generals Bielski and Graf to prepare the defenses around Berlin and raise an army to drive the Prussians back. As the Prussians advanced through West Prussia and reached the borders of Brandenburg, Bielski was able to raise an army of 225,000 while Graf force-conscripted 30,000 townspeople-overseen by a Saxon 'police force' of 95,000 within the city itself. The two commanders decided on a strategy which would allow the Prussians to think the road to Berlin was open. Once they marched in and began their siege, Bielski would close the escape behind them and between the city defenses and Bielski's overwhelming numbers crush the Prussians once and for all. On 19 November, the Prussian army reached the outskirts of Berlin, setting their artillery in place to begin the siege while trenches were prepared. It was at this moment that Bielski chose his moment to launch his attack, charging into the ranks of the Prussian engineers with his Polish hussars. At the same time, the guns on the walls of Berlin opened fire, pinning down the infantry in their half-completed trenches with the resulting loss of 4,000 men. The Hussars drove into the ranks of engineers, then pulled back. This convinced Frederick William III that Bielski was short of manpower-despite the warnings of his scouts to the contrary-and he formed up five brigades of irregulars to take on Bielski. This had the unfortunate effect of leavng the artillery undefended. Quick to take advantage, Bielski ordered his crack Saxon infantry to take out the Prussian guns, sending a screen of Saxon dragoons as a screen. He brought his own force of Polish irregulars forward to turn the flank of the Prussian irregulars and make it easier for the hussars to finish them off. Frederick William III, seeing what Bielski was doing, attempted to hold the Poles while sending his dragoons against the advancing Saxons but failed to fully pin down the Polish troops who were able to turn the flank of the Prussians. As the hussars now charged in and began to scatter and slaughter the helpless Prussians, the king gathered the few thousand who had managed to stand their ground in the hope of rallying the rest, but failed to offer support to the forces trying to defend the artillery positions and once they broke and fled, the artillery easily fell into Saxon possession-and they were quick to turn the guns on the Prussians. Frederick William III bowed to the iminent and ordered a retreat back into West Prussia. Of the 180,000 that went into battle expecting to liberate Berlin from the Saxon occupiers, only 71,000 were able to reach the temporary safety of West Prussia-the bulk of which were support cavalry which were ineffective as the primary fighting force. Within Berlin itself, Graf had implemented martial law, resulting in the arrest and execution of some 20,000 of the inhabitants and so cowing the rest that no future uprisings occured for the rest of 1798 and into 1799. Bielski chased the stragglers among the fleeing Prussians and on 3 December came upon the remnants of the army and the king. In a four hour battle near Gdansk/Danzig, Bielski inflicted another 20,000 casualties on the Prussians and almost captured Frederick William III as he dodged cavalrymen who were being picked off by Saxon sharpshooters. He reached the castle of Konigsberg on 12 December and three days later the countryside around the port city was laid waste by Bielski, who then put the city under siege from both the land and the sea-thanks to the recently captured former Danish frigates now under the Imperial banner Frederick August I followed up this success by pushing through an Imperial Edict placing the Ban of the Empire on Frederick William III, stripping him of his remaining Rhenish principalities and even his royal title, reducing him to a mere duke, but he was now determined to take Konigsberg and place the former King of Prussia in irons. Austria, which had at the beginning of the Prussian offensive had been placed to render assistance to its former adversary was, by the time of the Second Battle of Gdansk now facing the Hungarian invasion of King Nikolaus I, thus removing one more potential adversary and forcing the other would-be enemies to rethink their entire plan of resistance.

One final military action did, however, take place. In late March of 1798, Baden and Wurttemburg formed a minor alliance against the Saxon Emperor with some encouragement from France and Denmark-Norway. A Badenese army under the command of Richard Brahms and numbering 45,000 advanced into the Saxon Aargau, briefly taking the ancestral Castle Hapsburg as well as Freiburg. Frederick August I, from his bastion in Zollern Castle, marched an army of 95,000 south and at the Battle of Saarlouis, near the French border, inflicted a crushing defeat on Brahms, forcing him to seek refuge in French territory. The army continued south and razed Baden to the ground with the massacre of all but 3,000 of its inhabitants. Wurttemburg surrendered the next day. It was the capitulation of Wurttemburg and the protests of the Badenese emigres which would fuel the awakening of Germany and in time, the intervention of France and Great Britain.


Austro-Hungarian War (1 April - 5 June 1798)
King Leopold I had been unable to render much assistance to the Prussians, Badenese or Bavarians because of the slow mobilization of the Austrian armies so many years after the Ten Years War. Faced with the prospects of a Hungarian invasion, moreover, Leopold I could ill afford to send needed troops to northern Germany. In the months leading up to April, he sent Kaunitz to Budapest to try and convince King Nikolaus I to refrain from any military action against the kingdom in exchange for a trade agreement. King Nikolaus I had already received overtures from Frederick August I but decided to keep the Austrian emissary waiting with vague pledges of a full treaty. Meanwhile, as Nikolaus I had finally withdrawn the last of the Hungarian garrisons from the Pelopponese and Thessaly, he now had roughly 80,000 troops available. On 30 March, he finally called Kaunitz to his throne room and in the presence of his ministers and nobles issued a demand which amounted to an ultimatum: Relinquish the Adriatic Coast, Burgenland and Vienna or face war. With only three days for the Austrian government to respond, Kaunitz found that his mission had failed. He managed to return to Vienna with 24 hours to spare, reporting to Leopold I that Nikolaus I intended to invade-but never fully bringing himself to tell of the ultimatum. It would be this failure that would taint Kaunitz for the rest of his life.

As part of the negotiations with the Saxon Emperor, Nikolaus I agreed to lend a force of 14,000 troops to his army as additional auxiliaries. In exchange, Frederick August I agreed to send his army close enough to the Austrian frontier to force Leopold to divert troops. Several villages and farms were ravaged by this force, which brought about the intended result of diverting Austrian troops. Seeing his chance, Nikolaus I issued a manifesto in which he announced that because the Austrian king had refused to concede the lands demanded, a state of war now existed. On 1 April, three Hungarian armies invaded the Austrian kingdom along the Adriatic coast, in Burgenland and from Hungarian Galicia. Leopold, realizing almost too late that the Saxon raids had been merely a distraction, recalled his troops and rushed them to Burgenland. Under the command of an obscure Tyrolese of Austrian ancestry, Wilhelm Mann, the 50,000 troops of the Austrian 1st army managed to repulse the Hungarian 2nd army under the command of Biró Gyula (8 April). They barely had time to celebrate before they had to rush to Moravia to fight the 3rd Hungarian army under the command of Orsós Péter. Peter's army of 70,000 inflicted two defeats on Mann, but by a stroke of luck, Mann turned Peter's flank and drove them back into the Carpathians (13th). Meanwhile, 1st Royal Army under the command of Leopold I himself marched south into Slavonia, ravaging Zagreb before being driven back by a Hungarian army commanded by Nikolaus I. Nikolaus pursued Leopold into Carinthia, forcing him to battle at Gorz (22nd), where he destroyed Leopold's army. Leopold fled to Vienna, where he gathered 120,000 of the town militia and 20,000 conscripted troops for the city's defense. Gyula's army of 90,000 rebuilt after their defeat in Burgenland now advanced into the region again, while Peter's army of 55,000 veteran/survivors advanced into Moravia where they received the additional support of 20,000 Saxon irregulars.

Nikolaus I laid siege to Vienna on 3 May, after ravaging the countryside around the city. Peter and Gyula joined him on the 11th, demoralizing the inhabitants with the near-constant connan fire from the Kalhenberg Heights. Leopold I organized the first attempt at a breakout on the night of the 16th, during a lull in the bombardment. After initially getting 5,000 people to freedom he was attacked by Gyula's army and lost 8,000 killed or captured. Undaunted, on the night of the 22nd, Leopold tried again to break out of the trap. Sending 15,000 to engage Peter's battalion of 11,000. They overwhelmed the battalion but were then attacked by Nikolaus's army. Leopold lost an additional 9,000 men in this second attempt. One noteworthy event during this second attempt was the evacuation of the royal family to Innsbruck. The siege tightened as a result of both failures of Leopold to break out and on 4 June, seeing his people starving and growing exhausted, made one final bid to break out. Rallying the surviving militias and townspeople for one last stand, Leopold issued a challenge to Nikolaus I to try and take the city before sunset on the 5th. The respomse came immediately, in the form of a massive bombardment of the city walls which killed 4,000. From mid-morning into the night the defenders managed to hold off efforts by the Hungarians to breach the walls. By midnight on the 5th, however, a lucky hit near the powder magazine destroyed part of the walls. Immediately, Peter sent his army into the breach where furious hand-to-hand battles raged on nearly every street. Nikolaus sent his troops in a effort to find the Austrian king, but the wily Leopold had taken a disguise as a Hungarian soldier and managed to slip out with the wounded who were being taken to safety. Once he was at the Kahlenberg, Leopold doffed his disguise and made his way to Innsbruck. By sunrise, the Hungarians had pushed the Austrians to the center of the city. Nikolaus I offered the people tax exemption and freedom of religion as the price for their voluntary submission, but as the inhabitants had come to love and respect their Hapsburg rulers, they felt no compunction about transferring loyalties to a foreign king. As a result they made their last stand and all but 12,000 mostly women, children and infirm were killed to the last man. Nikolaus I now proclaimed himself Emperor of Danubia*, moving his seat of power to Vienna as a final insult to the "petty Hapsburgs" who were now in exile in Bavaria. No formal treaty was ever signed between the two states, though it was clear that for the time being, Austria had lost.

Dutch-Spanish War and the Return of the Nederlanden (30 August 1797 - 15 December 1798)
Guiilame de Tourcy had been the first Flandrine to occupy the Grand Ducal throne, having acquired it thanks to the defeat of the Nederlanden by a combined Anglo-French expedition which even forced William V to renounce his own intention to claim the title for the House of Orange. De Tourcy was, however, a weak man who suffered from various ailments including bronchitis which kept him bedridden more often than not. As a result, his sudden death on 10 July came as a shock to both London and Versailles as they had hoped he would name a successor (as was his right) and as a result, division began to appear. At the same time several members of the Nederlanden who had managed to go into hiding now emerged and began to call for the union of Flanders and Holland, and once again several ministers who were Nederlanden began to work to convince William V to take up their cause once more. At the same time and persuaded by Frederick August I - in the midst of his War of Consolidation in the Empire, Charles IV of Spain began offering William V substantial subsidies to allow him to expand the army under de Waard which was returning from the Republic's only police action in the German War. The Nederlanden movement gained a public face with the chairmanship of Hubert van der Klis, a prominent Fleming from Ostend who had been the man responsible for the Flemish West India Company's development. Van der Klis became the Nederlanden liason to William V purely because of the fact he hd many connections in Amsterdam. It was through van der Klis that William V began to consider unification. Realizing he would need a strong ally, William V traveled south to Barcelona to meet with Charles IV and on 24 July signed the Treaty of Barcelona which granted $400k ducats to the Dutch, as well as place a Spanish army of 300,000 and a fleet of 300 transports escorted by a fleet of 17 ships-of-the-line, 13 frigates, 8 sloops and 4 Man-of-Wars at the disposal of the Dutch king (though in reality they would answer only to Charles IV) in exchange for abandoning the convetions they had signed with Britain and France. The treaty was ratified by both parties on 27 July.

On the 30th, a massive Nederlanden-dominated Dutch army commanded by van der Klis marched into Flanders, in clear violation of the treaty which the Republic had signed with Britain and France. Van der Klis moved cautiously, unsure of what the French response would be to such a violation. But Charles IV, feeling no such reservations given that he still regarded the French 'betrayal' as a blemish on Bourbon family relations, showed little hesitation in sailing his fleet to the English Channel. Utilizing Dutch flags given to him by the Nederlanden, the Spanish fleet anchored off the coast at Ostend, and the troops under the command of Alejandro Castrillón began to besiege Antwerp. The Dutch army - numbering 270,000 men - advanced toward the Walloon frontier, but refrains from advancing further. The inhabitants of Antwerp remain steadfast in their determination to fight off the Spanish, but as the days turned into weeks,, the townspeople began to realize that they were running out of hope as well as food. To further demoralize them, the Nederlanden army reached Antwerp and joined the Spanish siege, but this move would have an unforseen consequence that would spell the end of Dutch independence.

In France, the reaction to the Spanish attack on Flanders and the return of the Nederlanden sent alarms through the Royal Court. Louis XVI sent a letter to Charles IV demanding to know why a Spanish army was in Flanders, but received no reply. The next day, he learned of the Nederlanden-Dutch Army massing on the Walloon frontier near Brussels. He ordered Dumouriez to mobilise 290,000 troops to march to Wallonia for the purpose of blocking any Dutch efforts to attack Brussels, but with no orders to go further. When they arrived on the 2nd of August, the Dutch army had already withdrawn to support the Spanish siege of Antwerp. Dumouriez pressed the king to allow him to cross into Flanders to break the siege. Louis XVI was unwilling to commit to such an endeavor without the support of Britain, which because of their concerns over Russian actions in the Baltic and Middle East, could not be given. Castrillon, not wanting to face a French attack while he was close to winning the siege, broke off 220,000 troops, joining 70,000 Nederlanden Dutch troops to them and sending them into Wallonia to face the French. On 7 August, the two armies met near Waterloo and in a seven-hour engagement the French were driven back to their defensive bastion of Lille. Meanwhile, a French squadron of 19 ships-of-the-line blockaded the Spanish fleet but thanks to the placement of gun batteries around Ostend, the Spanish drove the French fleet away with losses of 6 ships-of-the-line sunk and 2 so badly damaged they were abandoned and sunk shortly after. Dumouriez regrouped his army at Lille and advanced again into Wallonia, but at the Second Battle of Waterloo ( 15 August) were again defeated and driven back. This time the Hispano-Dutch army pursued them and laid siege to the great fort.

By the time of the Second Battle of Waterloo, Antwerp was collapsing as the inhabitants had been reduced to eating cats, dogs, rats, and sometimes even their own children. Castrillon now ordered an all-out attack on the city and after three days of intense fighting, on 18 August the city was occupied by the Spanish and Nederlanden Dutch armies. William V entered Antwerp on the 22nd and proclaimed the Union of Antwerp, placing the House of Orange as the new Grand Dukes and starting the process of unification between them. He also outlined his objective of forcing France to relinquish Wallonia. But even as he began to lay down the groundwork toward that goal, his ally Charles IV was already negotiating with Emperor Frederick August for a joint Imperial-Spanish invasion of the Dutch Republic with the twin goals of resturning the Low Countries to Imperial suzerainty and reestablishing Spanish administration in the region and thus reclaiming another portion of the old Spanish Empire. As the negotiations progressed, van der Klis was invited to Madrid to meet with the Spanish king-while in the presence of the Imperial ambassador-and pledged to him the governorship of the Low Countries under Spanish hegemony if he agreed to submit to Catholicism. He agreed and the Treaty of Toledo was signed on 28 August. Two days later, Castrillon betrayed William V.

William V had already begun to suspect the Spanish of ulterior motives even as he accepted their help in taking control of Flanders. Van der Klis had managed to assuage his concerns about the Spanish at the very moment when he was also receiving overtures from Frederick August I to bring both the Dutch Republic and Flanders back into the Empire as a guarantee against French retaliation. Behind the scenes, the Emperor and Spanish king had already decided the fate of both states. But as the Dutch Stadholder watched the increased activity on the border with the Empire and also watched the Spanish fortifying Flanders, he soon began to realize that he had been played by both parties. In vain he tried to convince van der Klis of the need to persuade Castrillon to leave Flanders to the Nederlanden garrisons already in place in Ostend and Antwerp. Before he could do so, at 5:30 am on the 30th, the Spanish army attacked the Nederlanden garrison in Ostend, inflcting casualties of up to 45,000 and driving out the rest. William V now readied his army, commanded once again by de Waard to march south to take on Castrillon's army. Van der Klis led his own army of Nederlanden from Antwerp to engage the Spanish, but soon found themselves facing de Waard's army of 145,000 four miles from Ostend. It was at this meeting that it soon became clear that van der Klis had in fact been paid by the Emperor to act independently of both the Spanish and William V, Castrillon had a larger army and was thus able to easily defeat van der Klis on several occasions. Van der Klis surrendered to Castrillon on 2 September after another defeat in which the Nederlanden army lost 15,000 killed and 13,900 captured. Castrillon spared van der Klis with the proviso that he swear allegiance to the King of Spain and convert to Catholicism-which he duly did. Meanwhile Frederick August I sent Bielski with his army to Friesland to threaten William V from the flank. He rushed to block Bielski, and in the Battle of the Frisian Isles (8 September), Bielski defeated William V's army and forced him to retreat to The Hague. Meanwhile, Castrillon marched his army north to Utrecht, and on 14 September defeated de Waard's army of 145,000 capturing 55,000 and killing 70,000. In an act of treachery, van der Klis managed to persuade the 55,000 POWs to switch sides with the aid of Spanish gold, and from this he began to rebuild his personal army. He also used the gold to convince many of the Nederlanden that their best hope of securing Flanders and Holland as Imperial fiefs was through a Spanish governer-general. Joining 90,000 of the most compliant Nederlanden with the 55,000 former POWs, van der Klis marched in parallel with Castrillon and put Amsterdam under siege. De Waard, rushing with the remnants of his army-60,000 in total-to the Hague to join William V's army of 175,000 for an attempt to break the siege and push the Spanish back. William V hoped to then either persuade van der Klis to renounce his Spanish collaboration or arrest the Nederlanden leader. The 235,000 strong army, receiving munitions and provisions from France and Denmark-Norway as a result of treaties signed on 24th and 27th September respectively marched on the 30th, seizing supply wagons bound for the Spanish army besieging Amsterdam. Van der Klis, reacting to this, marched to engage William V but was defeated on 3 October after attempting a nighttime attack which nonetheless killed 20,000 Dutch troops. He fell back on the Hague and called for Bieski to march in to destroy the Dutch army. Bielski marched across Friesland and began to hammer William V from the flank as he continued seizing the supplies from the Spanish. William V inflicted more defeats on van der Klis but could never bring him to end his collaborations with the Empire or Spain, and faced with Bielski pressing hard on his rear, he was forced to commit to the breaking of the siege of Amsterdam.

On 8 October, William V detached de Waard with 30,000 troops to harry the Spanish forces besieging the city-and it was hoped-draw Bielski's army away from his own flank and open him to an attack. De Waard's army attacked the Spanish positions on 11 October in a series of murderous hit-and-run strikes. While this did little to hamper the siege, the casualties among the engineers forced to shelter in half-dug defensive works did convince Castrillon to detach 30,000 to defend them. William V, seeing his chance, ordered de Waard to attack the 30,000, but in a two-hour battle the Dutch suffered a defeat when the Spanish cavalry charged into their flanks as they were closing on gaining a victory. De Waard himself was killed in the battle and his loss demoralized his troops to such a degree that many of the survivors chose to surrender rather than fight or flee. At a stroke, William V lost his best general and 1/3 of his total army. Van der Klis saw his chance and rushed his troops into battle. As the battle stretched into the night-lit by the furious cannon fire exchanged by both sides-neither side achieved a decisive advantage over the other. Castrillon kept the pressure on the city, sending sappers to dig mines beneath the walls even as his 12-pound guns punched holes in them. But with each breach, the Spanish assaults were repulsed with murderous desperation. On the morning of the 13th, Van der Klis finally managed to outflank William V and with Bielski now descending upon him from behind, the Dutch stadholder found his position perrilous. He tried to lead his troops into the city but in the confusion generated both by the North Sea fog which had descended upon them, and the thick smoke from the continuing cannon fire, the defenders mistook William V's army for a wing of the Spanish army and opened fire, with the Dutch stadholder barely escaping alive. He did manage to get his troops into the city, where they were spread out along the walls. On the night of the 14th, however, Spanish mines detonated beneath a section of the walls killed 7,000 troops and left a hole large enough for the Spanish cavalry to charge in. Castrillon had planned to send them in first to clear the way for the infantry to march in behind them and spread out into the city. Meanwhile, as various demoralized defenders began streaming out from the city, Bielski's army rounded them up, taking 200,000 POWs by 5 pm that same day. William V and his surviving army fought the Spanish in furious street-by-street battles which increasingly showed that despite the best Dutch tactics the Spanish tercios were still among the best ranked in Europe. As the enemmy drew closer to the town square, William V abandoned his position at the head of his army long enough to deliver his family to a waiting schooner flying the Spanish flag so as to slip through the blockade the Spanish fleet had imposd on the port. This schooner, after receiving the family members of House Orange, slipped out and made for the British port of Dover. Finally, on 17 October, with most of the city now in Spanish hands and the port all but destroyed, William V, his surviving troops and those among the civilians determined to fight gathered in the town square and for 11 hours managed to repulse the Spanish attacks before diminishing munitions supplies, no food or water and low morale finally took their toll. William V was shot in the leg while on his horse trying to rally his men and fell from the saddle. Before he could be rescued, Spanish marines captured him and brought him back to Castrillon's camp in irons. This was the moment the Dutch broke, and in small groups, began throwing down their arms and surrendering to the Spanish. Castrillon negotiated a ceasefire which took effect on the 20th as William V was conveyed via frigate to Spain for final negotiations with Charles IV.

For the next several days, both on the frigate and in Madrid, William V was treated with some honor and respect by the Spanish. On 23 October he was brought to the Escorial to meet with Charles IV. At first the meeting went well, as Charles IV showed himself to be gracious to his defeated enemy. But as negotiations continued, Charles IV revealed that both the Republic and Flanders-now that they had been joined in personal union-would now be joined to the Spanish crown. Willian V protested, stating the Dutch would not submit to Spanish rule again, still remembering the Spanish Fury of the 1560s under Philip II. When Charles retorted that they would if William signed an abdication edict naming himself as successor and appointing both Castrillon and van der Klis as co-regents. William refused the terms and would languish for several days in a Madrid dungeon. He was starved and often subjected to ridicule by his guards before being handed to the Inquisition. After days of ceaseless torture designed to force him both to capitulate to the Spanish Empire and convert to Catholicism, William V died** on 5 November. Charles IV thus appointed himself the new stadholder and true to his word, appointed both van der Klis and Castrillon as co-regents. News of the death of their stadholder and the self-appointment of the Spanish king enraged the population with even the Nederlanden outraged their leader had handed the country to Spain so easily. On 3 December, days after the assumption of the regency, Nederlanden, Dutch and Flemish civilians in the towns and ports joined with the Archbishop of Antwerp (formerly of Liege, and with his political power greatly reduced) in an uprising against the Spanish. Van der Klis tried to reign in his Nederlanden with promises of political positions, military commissions and money, but they rejected him as a sellout to Charles IV. They denounced him, removed him from leadership in the Nederlanden and placed a bounty on him amounting to $200K ducats, forcing him to try and flee into the Holy Roman Empire for refuge. Bielski captured him and brought him back to Amsterdam, where he was stripped of his co-regal position by Castrillon. At the same time, Bielski marched his army into the province and crushed the uprising, capturing or killing every member of the Nederlanden in the process and pacifying the region. Castrillon, no longer seeing any further use for van der Klis, had him executed by firing squad on 14 December, bringing the Dutch-Spanish War and the Nederlanden to an end. While Castrillon began to consolidate Spanish administration in the Low Countries and began planning the conquest of Wallonia, however, the House of Orange continued to denounce the Spanish from their sanctuary of London, and the seeds of the Great Restoration Wars were planted, to bear fruit years later.

Phase Two: Conclusion
By the start of 1800, the revolutionary regimes in Russia, Saxony, Hungary and Spain had reached or were on the cusp of reaching their maximum territorial extent. They were aided both by the half-hearted efforts of their neighbors in trying to form coalitions to oppose them, and to the often brutal means by which their war-machines were kept fully intact. Forced conscription in Russia and Saxony allowed both nations to achieve their objectives fairly quickly, with Russia creating the Principality of Byzantium after the Fall of Constantinople and Saxony acquiring the Polish Crown and forming the Union of Saxony-Poland a short time later, as well as attaining the Imperial title usurping the Wittelsbachs in so doing. Hungary had not only restored those western Balkan lands they had briefly ruled in the last war, but had recreated the Hungarian Empire of Matthias Corvinus with the conquest of Vienna from the Hapsburgs. Prussia, which had tried to take advantage of Frederick August I's efforts to consolidate his authority in the Empire and regain Berlin and Brandenburg instead got further reduced in territory with the cession of West Prussia to Saxon-ruled Poland and the recession of the electoral dignity Frederick William III held. Adam Casimir, whose crown was usurped by the Saxons, continued to rule in Lithuania in a Commonwealth of (Poland)-Lithuania which was under the protection of Sweden. Novgorod had nearly all of its territory seized by Russia, with their capital now under siege even while Konstantin I continued his campaigns in the Middle East and began looking to open a new war against the Mongol Khaganate in the east. The Ottoman sultan, with the loss of Constantinople, Mesopotamia (to the Russian satellite state of Sumeria) and the western Balkans to Hungary, and an uncertain hold over the rest of their European territories, was already contemplating forging an entente with their other major rival Persia in an effort to better combat the Russian invasion, which was drawing closer to the new capital Ankara every other month. For the Dutch, their hopes of netting Flanders had been used against them with the result that both were now once again part of the Spanish Empire, and their colonies were now vulnerable to not only Spanish efforts to integrate them into the Greater Empire, but also to British, French, American and even Zulu efforts to seize them. Within a short period of time after the Fall of Amsterdam and the conquest of the Republic, their most prosperous southern African colony, Suidafrika, was already being eyed by both Britain and the expanding Zulu Empire (both would sign treaties dividing the Dutch colony between them), and their outpost in Taiwan would become a prize in a threeway struggle between the Dutch, the Spanish and the Manchu Empire of China-with the establishment of a Ming breakaway state adding a fourth rival for the island.

But even as Spain was working to integrate the former Dutch colonies into its empire overseas, the Second Tejas Rebellion, continuing conflicts with the Mayan Republic and the increasing imperial designs of the Kingdom of America forced Charles IV to commit on more than one front. Taxation increased in Spain which angered the various state cortes of the former kingdoms of Aragon, Catalonia, Portugal and Navarre-suppressed with increasing brutality by majority Castilian soldiers. Russia, too, faced economic shortfall brought about by the commitment of so many able-bodied men to so many fronts at once, and increasingly, they began to rely on pillaging, scavenging, and extortion of the lands they occupied to keep their economy afloat and their troops well-fed. Hungary fared somewhat better thanks to an agreement extracted from the Venetians granting them rights in all the Adriatic ports as well as freedom of navigation in the aforementioned sea. Saxony used their new Polish acquisition as a source of easy plunder, stripping the magnates of half their wealth in order to maintain their armies, being used to continue consolidating their hold on the Imperial title. Resentments continued to increase as the middle-rank states and Imperial Knights felt threatened by the Saxons, who intended to turn the Empire into a unitary empire under their rule. The period 1795-1800 was therefore the point at which the forces opposing the revanchist designs of the revolutionary powers began to coalesce, and while it would take some time until the firestorm broke loose across the Peninsula of Europe and the world at large, the match had been lit and awaited only to be tossed into the gasoline-soaked geopolitical landscape.


* The Empire of Danubia would be a title later used with the peaceful union of the kingdoms of Austria and Hungary. This would elevate the Kingdom of Austria into an empire and create roughly the same division of power between Austria and Hungary that were created IOTL with the ausgleich of 1867

** William V would abdicate as Stadholder in 1795 as a result of the French invasion and annexation as the Batavian Republic. He would remain Prince of the principality of Orange-Nassau until his death in 1806 OTL. ITTL, his death at the hands of Spanish inquisitors will allow for an early assumption of power by his young son William VI. Later he would be elevated to king when the Dutch Republic established a new constitution creating a monarchy. IOTL, William VI became William I of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands, but in this alternate timeline, the Flemmings would be too protective of their sovereignty to allow for a permanent union of Flanders and Holland, plus Wallonia would remain united with France.

Source:
Wikipedia
Europe: A History - Norman Davies
Pursuit of Glory - Tim Blanning
 
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The Rise of Shaka
As Senzangakhona continued to rule in the mainland Zulu Kingdom, young Shaka served as governor of the Zulus' Malagasy territory, guided by the iSangoma Sitayi and his mother Nandi. Senzangakhona had allowed Nandi to travel to join her son because he feared for her safety as there were increasing plots to remove Shaka from the line of succession following his elevation as principal heir-replacing Sigujana. Even as a young boy, Shaka had proven his skills in military tactics, having conducted raids into the Kilwan and Ottoman zones on the island and seized cattle and firearms among other things. The raids were steadily building a new class of Zulu impi-the Indoda or Amadoda, meaning 'men who spit fire' and the artillerymen or Amadoda aletha meaning 'men who bring thunder'*. Unfortunately, the raids also brought increased scrutiny from the Ottoman governors who were increasingly embarassed by the Zulu raids. On 16 July 1799 a delegation led by the Pasha of Antananarivo, Mehmet Ali Kosen, arrived at Shaka's kraal demanding restitution for the stolen cattle and the return of the firearms and artillery. Sitayi encouraged the young Shaka that to yield to the tanned-skin "demons" would only bring ruin to the state and endanger the Zulu people. Hoping to gauge the strength of the Ottomans, Shaka pretended to be accomodating, offering a tribute in the form of a dole of grain in payment for the cattle, but he refused outright to return the firearms and cannons, making it clear that they now belonged to the Zulu people. Mehmet Ali was outraged and warned Shaka that retribution would be swift as the Zulus were considered heathen for not practicing Islam and would therefore face annihilation. As he left, Shaka resolved to strike first before the Ottomans could organize their attack.

Fifteen villages on the Kilwan frontier bordering the Zulu province had been in dispute since the Zulus first conquered the southern portion of the island. These villages had borne the brunt of the cattle-raids and Shaka now determined to claim them for the Zulu Kingdom. He thus developed the tactic he would later be famous for, the so-called 'buffalo formation'**. This formation comprised of a 'head' made up of the most fresh and youthful of the impis, two 'horns' comprised of the Indoda regiments equipped with the stolen Ottoman firearms which would encircle the enemy once they were drawn in by the 'head', and a 'loin' comprised of auxiliaries and reinforcing impis which will move in as needed to finish off the enemy. To this was added the 'tail' utilizing the artillery also seized from the Ottomans whose purpose was to frighten any reinforcing enemy battalions, and demoralize those within fortifications. Three days after the Ottoman mission had left, Shaka launched his offensive against the Kilwans (whom he rightly deduced were too weak to offer much resistance without their Ottoman overlords-though he was not aware of the Kilwans' subservient status at the time). Seven of the fifteen villages surrendered without resistance, to which Shaka showed mercy, merely imposing an iNduna to oversee administration. As they went deeper into Kilwan territory, however, the Kilwans began to resist more ferociously, leading Shaka to employ stronger measures to subjugate them. He soon received news of an Ottoman-Kilwan army of 23,000 advancing toward the border intent on invading the Zulu territories. Shaka decided to continue his conquests, counting on the terrain to slow down his enemy as the Ottomans were still not fully used to the climate of southern Africa as the Zulu were. Finally on the 26th, Shaka turned his army southeast, having conquered the remaining Kilwan villages and even razing to the ground an additional five, killing 9,000 men, women, and children. On the 30th Shaka's army of 50,000 met the Ottoman-Kilwan army under the command of Bwana Mkubwa (great master) and in a three-hour battle using the buffalo formation, Shaka annihilated the enemy army, killing all but 4,000 who managed to flee. He then decided to seize some Ottoman villages north of the border on the eastern side of the island. In 12 days of hard marching, followed by four hours of combat, Shaka conquered the five villages, and set fire to nine others before withdrawing back into Zulu Malagasy (Isi-Malagasy). A second predominantly Ottoman army crossed into Isi-Malagasy on 4 August only to be driven back across the frontier with casualties which amounted to some 12,000 killed and 240 taken prisoner-to be executed later. Finally on the 10th a second Ottoman delegation, with their attendant Kilwan vassals, arrived in Ekunqobeni (In conquest)*** to seek peace terms. They had been driven to do this because of threats against the Ottomans' other vassal, Oman, from Russian and Sumerian privateers which convinced the Sultan that peace with the Zulu was preferable to a potential Zulu-Russian alignment which could spell disaster for the Ottoman colony in Madagascar. In the Treaty of Ekunqobeni, the following terms were agreed:
- The fifteen Kilwan villages and five Ottoman villages would be ceded to the Isi-Malagasy
- The Ottoman firearms would be retained by the Zulu in exchange for a bi-annual dole of grain to the Ottoman colonies.
- A demilitarized zone would be established at the triborder, intrusion into which would be seen as an act of war.
- A handpicked group of 500 Ottoman janissaries would be sent to Ekunqobeni to serve Shaka.

This single and brief engagement increased the reputation of Shaka among the Zulu settlers of Isi-Malagasy and even won him support back in the Zulu homeland. This in turn further antagonized Sigujana, Mudhli and Mhlangana, who now worked to bring the king's sister Mkabayi into their plot to assassinate Senzangakhona before Shaka came of age and returned to assume the throne, placing Sigujana on it in his place and relegating Shaka to outcast. But even before they could further formulate their plot, the Zulu Kingdom would find itself at war alongside the British Cape Colony against Dutch Suid-Afrika***.

*
These translations, as well as the name of the provincial capital which Shaka adminstered is based on Google Translate and may not be accurate. Until a more accurate translation can be made/found, this is the best I can use.

** The 'buffalo formation'-excluding the musketmen and artillery of TTL, was the actual battle formation developed by Shaka during his time among the Mtetwa people. It enabled his overlord Dingiswayo to incorporate more peoples into the Paramountcy and was continued after Shaka seized sole power following Dingiswayo's assassination by the Ndwandwe and integration of the Mtetwa and Zulu peoples into a single empire.

*** Remembering their treatment they received at their last visit, the Ottoman delegation brought gifts of spices from Sumatra, silk, and incense from Arabia. Not knowing what to do with the silk, the Zulus simply used them to clean themselves after answering nature's call, which shocked the Ottomans.

Source:
Wikipedia
 
Maracaibo Rising (December 1797 - February 1798)
As the Revolutionary Wars reached their peak in Europe, in the Americas, Spain was at its maximum power. Managing to contain the Mayans for the time being, and faced only with the rebellion in Tejas, the Spanish-American empire seemed destined to weather the revolutionary turmoil. But in the Republic of Maracaibo there were those who saw the Mayans' fight as a clear sign that Spanish ambitions were no longer confined to Europe. At the same time, voices were increasingly calling for the Republic to expand across the Caribbean coast and even sieze Curacao. Mark Kennedy, the Prime Minister and Doge of the Republic declared that the Republic would not feel safe until Cartagena in Colombia was under the Republic's embrace. He began seeking military alliances and readily enough, Papa Maya agreed to an alliance just before his death. America, already anxious about the Tejans and Mayans, also agreed to an alliance. On 15 October, Maracaibo, Great Britain, Framce and America signed a trade agreement allowing for free trade between them, and granting assistance and provision to any trading vessel in distress. This agreement, though not a military alliance, was viewed by Spain as such.

Charles IV watched events with a sense of impending foreboding. Maracaibo had been part of the Spanish captaincy of New Granada until it was conquered by the British during the Hapsburg Succession War. They won independence despite the efforts of both Britain and Spain to reclaim them. In the years since, Maracaibo had built an impressive navy, using them to chase Barbary corsairs who had ventured across the Atlantic. Now they were looking to embark on a series of conquests of their own and potentially disrupt Spain's hold on its colonies. He ordered the military commander in New Granada, Jose Manuel Duque, to assemble an army for the purpose of destroying the Maracaiban military and retaking the city and port. He raised an army of 55,000 in Caracas, and sent out a request for additional levies from the other Spanish colonies. The Captaincy of Antillies contributed some 23,000 troops, while New Spain contributed 12,000-due to their continued campaigns against Tejas and the Mayans. Duque brought his army, now numbering 90,000 across the Caribbean, landing them near Fort William the Conqueror (which had replaced the previous fort located at the mouth of the Maracaibo Canal connecting the lake and its port to the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean) on 16 November. Kennedy responded by raising an army of 115,000 irregulars, ex-slaves from Freetown District and a small group of visiting British Royal Marines who were on shoreleave. Seven days later Kennedy's army marched to the beleagured fort and after a four-hour engagement drove Duque's army west. A British flotilla of 9 ships-of-the-line and 5 corvettes sailing from Jamaica attacked the Spanish Caribbean fleet near Curacao on the 28th, thus preventing Duque from being able to withdraw his army or resupply them. Forced by the British fleet off the coast and Kennedy's Maracaiban army now pursuing him from the east in retreat, Duque took his army to Cartagena, in Colombia, where he now requested additional reinforcements from New Spain. Kennedy used the opportunities to conquer the towns of Riohacha, Santa Marta and Valledupar. A second Maracaiban army was assembled and put under the command of a Spanglish (Spanish-English mixed heritage) cavalry officer named Eduardo Bentworth. He took his army east to capture Barquisimeto and Valencia (31 November) before laying siege to Caracas (4 December). As reports of the defeat of Duque's army finally reached Madrid on 5 December, Charles IV ordered the Victor of Holland, Castrillon, to raise an army for the defense of New Granada and to bolster Duque's positions. In the meantime, with reinforcements from New Spain numbering an embarassing 6,000 to boost his army, Duque prepared to march to Barranquilla to block Kennedy's advance westward. On the 10th, they clashed in am eight-hour bloodbath that cost Kennedy 66,000 captured and 11,000 killed (38,000), and Duque 17,000 killed (83,000). This was a setback for Kennedy, who would soonafter retire from leading armies in battle, appointing another Spanglish officer, Harold Gutierrez as commander. Gutierrez had more experience, having first fought for the Spanish before switching allegiance to the British administration of Maracaibo and joining Maracaibo's independent army upon declaring independence. Using his connections within the British Army, he was able to hire 45,000 Redcoats to restore his fighting numbers, then conscripted an additional 30,000 from Freetown District, bringing the total to 113,000. Duque used mass conscription from among the inhabitants of Barranquilla to bring his army numbers back up to 105,000. Gutierrez led his troops in another attack on Barranquilla before Duque could raise additional troops, and in the Second Battle of Barranquilla (15 December), crushed Duque's army, inflicting 73,000 casualties on the Spanish and capturing 12,000 at the cost of 13,500 casualties. Duque no longer had a suitable fighting force and thus retreated to Cartagena, where he forced-conscripted 2,000 of the town militia to defend the city.

Bentworth waited until 17 December, two days after Barranquilla, before marching for Cartagena, giving himself the opportunity to rebuild his army and restock munitions andr other supplies. But at the far end of Maracaibo, the Siege of Caracas had been going on for 13 days despite fierce resistance from the garrison and the townspeople. A desperate sortie launched in the cover of night failed to break the encirclement and cost 7,000 lives. With food supplies gone, clean water almost nonexistent and munitions running low, many of the defenders were letting themselves over the walls and surrendering. In one final act, the garrison commander, Luiz Mendoza, sent the remaining garrison (1,500) and 2,000 of the more able-bodied townspeople to attempt a breakout with the idea of fleeing eastward. Bentworth caught the group trying to escape, but instead of crushing them completely offered amnesty to the townspeople and those in the garrison willing to lay down their arms. All but 350 accepted, and the ones who refused were imprisoned immediately and their weapons seized. Caracas surrendered formally on 21 December. Meanwhile, Kennedy, on hearing the news of the capture of Caracas, congratulated his commander, then proposed a campaign to sieze Trinidad & Tobago. Bentworth agreed but proposed that the campaign be delayed a few weeks not only to allow him to raise a larger army for the purpose, but to also allow the Royal American Navy to join as news had meantime arrived that the Kingdom of america had declared war on Spain in support of their Mayan clients.

After securing Barranquilla and raising additional troops totaling 30,000 to bolster his army, Gutierrez marched for Cartagena on 9 January of the new year. He had received 200 12-pound cannons and 4 mortar from the Kingdom of America, now fully engaged in New Spain. In addition, the aging John Paul Jones renounced his office as Minister of the Navy to lead a Royal American Navy squadron of 8 corvettes, 12 frigates and 3 ships-of-the-line to join Gutierrez's landward advance. From his position in the tower overlooking the port, Duque could see the masts of the American fleet approaching and knew that Gutierrez was not far behind. But with the Spanish Navy engaged in the Atlantic or defending Puerto Rico, only a handful of corvettes could be spared to hold off the Americans. He ordered them set ablaze and set loose on the enemy fleet-using the very tactic the English used against the Armada of 1588-in the hope of inflicting a similar defeat. Jones, shrewd as a naval tactician, expected such a move and ordered the ships spread apart to avoid collision. The result was that the fireships sailed past the American fleet and out to see without ever making impact. Duque had at a stroke destroyed the one chance he had to force a naval battle and in so doing, left the port exposed. Jones brought his squadron in close to the port and began the bombardment, while at the same time British-manufactured rockets were fired from the advancing Maracaibans. Gutierrez held back on the assault for fifteen days, hoping to starve the garrison into surrender. Duque remained defiant even as the townspeople began to forage for rats and other vermin to sustain themselves, which led a week later to an outbreak of disease. Duque remained defiant and even launched a sally from the walls which was repulsed but not before inflicting 8,000 casualties on Gutierrez's army. On the 24th, with the population nearly dead, food so scarce even the vermin could no longer be found, and the American fleet inflicting serious damage on the port, Duque ordered his garrison, the remnants of his army, and the surviving townspeople to set fire to the buildings, determined that they would sooner perish by fire than face the enemy. All Jones could do from the deck of RAS Leopard was watch the conflagration spread through the lens of his telescope. Gutierrez was horrified by the spectacle and determined to try and save the city. Sending engineers to try to fight the fire, Gutierrez was unable to rescue any survivors however. News of the capture of Cartagena and the fiery death of Duque was viewed from Madrid with outrage-at Duque. Charles IV declared Duque a coward and ordered that his family estates be seized, and his brothers arrested for treason. But even this was not enough to inspire further resistance. The governor of New Granada sent an emissary to request a cease-fire with Gutierrez, who deferred to Doge Kennedy. It was clear that the Governor was buying time-as his later letter to Charles IV would state-but as his military strength was no match for the Maracaibans even without American assistance, he had no other choice. In the Treaty of Barranquilla (5 February), Maracaibo was recognized as in possession of the cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla, Riohacha, Santa Marta, Valledupar, Barquisimeto, Valencia and Caracas. Though this was a temporary measure, Gutierrez began work as soon as news of the treaty reached his HQ on fortifying the conquered cities in preparation for the next round he knew would be coming



Source:
Wikipedia
 
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Spotlight: The Dutch Dilemma
At the end of the Hapsburg Succession War, France had acquired the former Austrian Netherlands as part of the general peace. But out of concern for British and Dutch fears of a future French drive for the Rhine Delta, they had signed an agreement with the Hapsburg Monarchy in which Wallonia was ceded to France and the Grand Duchy of Flanders was created to serve as a buffer between the French and Dutch. Selection of a Grand Duke proved to be a thorny issue until it was agreed that the House of Orleans would serve as the first grand dukes. Over the next few years, the Flandrines would found their own dynasty and rule over the state, guaranteed by both France and Britain. The Grand Duchy and the Dutch Republic would weather the storms of the Ten Years War with little trouble-the Dutch even loaning their troops as mercenaries and auxiliaries to British, Austrian, Hanoverian and Prussian armies. During this time, the Nederlanden movement began to take shape around the idea that the Low Countries could be unified under a central authority and thus provide greater security against French, Spanish and Hapsburg aggression.

As the Grand Duchy of Flanders not only prospered under the various trade agreements with its neighbors, it had even acquired through purchase several colonies in the Caribbean and a trade-station in India, the Dutch Republic found itself increasingly dominated abroad by the Anglo-French rapproachment and the rise of the Kingdom of America, and closr to home with the assertion of Imperial power under the Wettin dynasty of Saxony. As they came to feel squeezed in, the Nederlanden movement picked up new members and more power, fully convincing the Stadholder, William V, to push for the integration of the Ducal Crown of Flanders with a regnal crown and assume the throne of an expanded Netherlands. This effort had been defeated when the Flandrines, in alliance with France and Britain, defeated the attempt and forced William V to accede to the establishment of the first Flemming grand duke. Though he was chastened by the Allies and even compelled to pursue and bring down the Nederlanden movement, many who were not imprisoned or able to flee abroad went into hiding, vowing to simply bide their time until the geopolitical situation proved more open.

The opening years of the Revolutionary Wars provided that opportunity for the Nederlanden Underground to begin making their presence known. By then, the political situation in the Dutch Republic appeared more open to them as they had been quiescent since their first attempt had been defeated. With van der Klis at their head, they began to persuade William V once again to take up the cause of Dutch unity and royal power. But having learned their lesson from the last experience-and knowing they would need at least one foreign power to favor their cause in the face of future British and French efforts, they began opening talks with the Spanish government in Madrid. King Charles IV had made no secret of his intention to restore the 'Golden Empire' of Philip II and Charles V, having already brought Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Naples, and Sicily back under Spanish rule. He would acquire the Portuguese Crown after conquering the country (though Maria II in fact took the actual crown with her when she went into exile in Brazil, forcing Charles IV to have a crown made for him) before putting his plan for the Low Countries into effect-in the meantime providing weapons and money to the Nederlanden.

William V was once more persuaded to bring about the unification of the Low Countries and using the 400,000 Spanish troops (mainly comprised of Portuguese and Italian soldiers with some Spanish tercios as well) moved against the Grand Duchy at a time in which the Old Duke had died and there was a vacancy. William V easily took possession of the Grand Duchy, proclaiming himself grand duke and vowing to bring Wallonia into the Union through whatever means necessary. All the while both he and the moderates in the States-General who went along with the Nederlanden plan were unaware that his efforts at bringing Flanders into the Dutch Union had been part of the larger Spanish plan to bring the Low Countries into the empire. Before William V could begin to apprach France about acquiring Wallonia, he was betrayed by the Spanish commander, Castrillon, as well as Charles IV and his confederate the Emperor Frederick August I, who attacked the Dutch from the flank. After courageous but futile resistance, William V had no choice but to gather his family and as many loyal supporters as were willing, and flee the country. Castrillon-and hence Charles IV had full control over both regions, and for his part, van der Klis was appointed governor. His first act as governor was to place loyal Nederlanden-and also loyal to Charles IV-in positions of leadership in all the major offices. Charles IV meanwhile began gathering a collection of colonial officials and their military muscle to send to the Dutch colonies, much as he was already doing with the Portuguese colonies except Brazil, to take possession of the territories and expand on the cheap the Greater Spanish Empire. Charles also inherited the ambitions of William V in restoring Wallonia to the Dutch Union under Spanish hegemony, but he carried those ambitions further. He had long-term designs on restoring the 'true Bourbon' dynasty to France thru either promoting one of the few remaining direct-line successors or by installing himself on the French throne in a form of Tri-Monarchy with Spain and Portugal.

With William V and his family now exiled in London, the Dutch Republic now under Spanish rule and integrated back into the Holy Roman Empire, and their colonies soon to be brought under Spanish administration, it remains to be seen how the Flandrines and Dutch will accept or reject rule from Madrid. Already there are signs that the Spanish integration of Dutch colonial assets could be challenegd by the British, especially in southern Africa, where Britain would find help in the unlikeliest place, the rising Zulu Empire soon to be proclaimed by the still young heir, Shaka.
 
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Zulu Conquest of Mozambique and the Rebirth of Mutapa
The Fall of Lisbon to the Spanish armies of Charles IV and the survival of Maria I as Queen in Brazil raised the specter of a duel among Portugal's colonies as to to whom their allegiance was to be directed. The Cape Verde islands, the Azores islands and Angola had immediately declared their support for Maria II, but in the case of Angola, this was problematic as there was no outside support for the Portuguese here, unlike in the islands, which could rely on Anglo-French naval support and hence were able to remain defiant. Charles now determind to seize Angola and nearby Mozambique before it could rally to the Portuguese queen (whom he now referred to as a Pretender). Sending his armies south, he defeated a late-day attempt by the Portuguese to sally in favor of the queen and on 8 February 1797 Angola's Portuguese colonial government was replaced by a Spanish governor-general who could now pursue the Marians while preparing a large army to march across Africa to Mozambique in combination with a second Spanish fleet. They bypassed several small states which had once formed the Kingdom of Mutapa (which would later prove their detriment) in planning their seizure of Mozambique and within six months, bolstered by the Spanish fleet carrying additional troops, they began their march. It was planned to have the Spanish fleet sail around the Cape of Good Hope flying Portuguese flags to fool the British and Dutch just long enough to reach the Mozambique Channel. On 20 July, after traversing terrain filled with wildlife, gorges, rivers, jungles, and native bushmen who would often attack at night, the Spanish reached Mozambique just a week ahead of their fleet. Unlike in Angola, in Cidade de Pedra there was little stomach for resistance. The Spanish installed themselves and began to integrate Mozambique into their greater empire. This had the result of bringing them into contact with the Mutapans, who had once ruled a kingdom in the Zimbabwe plateau but had fallen due to civil war exploited by the Portuguese. While the Mutapans had been willing to accept Portuguese rule as an alternative to continued civil war, the arrival and imposition of Spanish rule was seen as an unwelcome change. But because there was as much internal strife as there was the external Spanish threat, little could be done to resist.

At the same time the Spanish and Portuguese were engaged in their African duel, the Zulus in Isi-Malagasy had just completed their war against the Kilwans and their Ottoman overlords. Shaka's successful conquests of the Kilwan and Turkish border villages had increased the territory ruled by the Zulus, but more importantly, increased the prestige of young Shaka himself. This added prestige had won him some support from among his former opponents, as evidenced by the arrival of a force of Janissaries soon after peace was concluded. Initially part of the peace terms, these Janissaries soon became honored members of the Zulu clan. Shaka's prestige was such that his half-brother Dingane even came to Isi-Malagasy to join him (it was Dingane who warned Shaka of the plot of Mudli and Sigujana to poison Senzangakona and seize power before Shaka could claim his birthright). It was this news that prompted Shaka to plan his next campaign, to secure territory on the opposite side of the Channel and allow him to amass a large force of impi to challenge Sigujana. He was cognisant of the fact he would need allies as-even with the gunpowder and artillery technology they acquired from the Russians, Kilwans and Turks-they still lacked sufficient knowledge on its use to be effective. He had only been successful against the Kilwans and Turks because they had not expected a primitive people to know the basic oprations of firearms and cannons. They also lacked knowledge of shipbuilding despite having rebuilt the Russian ship-of-the-line as well as captured several Turkish and Kilwan galleys. This help would come from a group of Portuguese sailors who had fled Mozambique after the Spanish annexation. They were brought before Shaka, who gave them the choice of either helping to train the Zulu in artillery use and live peaceably among them as Zulus, or face death by impalement. All but 30 chose to accept the offer, with the 30 being immediately taken to the cattle-pin in the center of the military kraal and impaled. Over the course of the next eight months, the Zulus learned not only how to manufacture cannon, but also several European tactics for their use from the Portuguese. At the same time, Shaka sent his induna N'Gomane to the British Cape Colony to begin negotiations for a trade agreement between the two states.

On 5 August a fleet of 200 deep-sea galleys escorting 150 transport barges carrying 60,000 impis, Turkish and Kilwan auxiliaries and Portuguese gunners sailed across the Channel, reaching Delagoa Bay on the morning of the 6th and managing to avoid the Spanish patrols. Using the pre-dawn light to their advantage, they began their march straight to the capital. As the Spanish were still in the process of consolidating their authority in the former colony, they were not prepared for a sudden invasion. Nonetheless, as reports began to arrive of the approach of the Zulus, General Rodrigo Labrador roused the 50,000 tercios left to his command to defend the city. On the evening of the 9th, the Portuguese-manufactured Zulu cannon began their bombardment of the walls, being met in turn by cannon fire from the defenders. They were prevented from taking advantage of the perceived inexperience of the Zulu (which would be proven false) by the fact the Kilwans were showering arrows upon them while the Janissaries kept up a continuous volley of fire. At 4:45 in the afternoon, under cover of Turkish fire, the Zulu impis launched their assault on a breach created by the cannon in the outer walls, killing 7,000 of the defenders as they tried to mount a counterattack. Labardor ordered the surviving tercios to fall back to the bastion, leaving many of the Portuguese civilians to fend for themselves in the face of the Zulu advance. Shaka personally led the advance, leaving orders to spare those Portuguese civilians who bore no firearms, and only two women were killed when an impi failed to obey the order (after the battle he would be impaled and a cattle-price of 20 cattle would be paid to the surviving families). The bastion was put under siege and rumors began to circulate that the Spanish fleet was about to challenge the Zulu at sea.

On the early morning of the 11th, the Zulus' primitive fleet came into visual contact with the Spanish fleet. After some discussion, the fleet was placed under the command of a Portuguese renegade, Eleuterio Bettencourt. This was a choice selection as he had fought against the Spanish during the Ten Years War in Uruguay and knew the Spanish battle tactics well. He ordered the smaller, less-armed transports to seek shelter either at Port Natal (then a British enclave in Zulu territory established with the agreement of Senzangakona). The deep-sea galleys and Portuguese galleons now flying a primitive Zulu banner were formed into a wedge with the objective of punching through the Spanish battlelines. As the Spanish advanced, five Kilwan ships were abandoned, then set alight and sent against the armada. Even as the Spanish ships tried to avoid the fireships, the Portuguese ships opened fire, damaging 7 ships and sinking 4 outright. The Zulus by contrast lost 2 ships sunk, 3 severely damaged and one captured-only to be recaptured toward the end of the engagement. With their armada badly beaten, Labrador realized that the primitives had acquired the means to defeat what was still considered the premier European power of the age and that no further help could be expected for some months, by which point they would likely die from either starvation, disease, or Zulu spears and muskets. He attempted to parlay with the Portuguese regiments in the Zulu army by sending Atílio de Lima, a private in the Portuguese Brigade of the Spanish Army to meet with his exact opposite in the Zulu Portuguese Regiment, Teófilo Rocha. Rocha laid down the terms by which a peace could be agreed, which initially called for the withdrawal of the Spanish from Mozambique and recognition of its status as Portuguese. When Shaka learned of the proposed terms, he interjected and with his famed penchant for displays of rage made clear that Mozambique would not be restored to Portugal but instead become a Zulu state tied for the time being to Isi-Malagasy. Rocha protested, only to be impaled by Dingane, Shaka's second-in-command, for his pains. De Lima now had no choice but to negotiate directly with the Zulu heir-apparent, which as a European from a country that had once been and could become again a global power, was considered beneath him. Thus after three days of inaction, the bastion was once more put under siege. Food supplies dwindled to nothing, not even the insects, disease was in spite of the break in combat still running rampant within the city-soon even striking the Kilwan and Portuguese regiments, and demoralization resulting from the impalement of Rocha spreading among the surviving defenders. Labrador thus opted to launch a sortie to open a way through Zulu lines, then focus all his forces on encircling and crushing their enemy. Thanks to Portuguese and Ottoman advisers in his circle, however, Shaka was fully aware of the planned breakout and was ready. Hiding several hundred impi among the brush and small trees near the bastion, he gave the order to withdraw as if in retreat, even killing recalcitrant soldiers who refused to obey to further lead Labrador to believe the disease outbreaks had crippled Shaka's ability to continue the siege. Feeling as though it could be a trap but also seeing no other option left to him, Labrador chose to bring his entire surviving tercios (some 34,000 soldiers with 5,000 militiamen from the city) out to pursue the Portuguese who had been (deliberately) weighed down with captured supplies and crush them in the hope of sending a clear message to Shaka that Spain would prevail. As they advanced-at first cautiously, but then more boldly, they fell right into the trap the Zulu commander and prince had laid. They were ambushed savagely by the impis while the Portuguese and Kilwan regiments stormed the bastion to slaughter any who remained. By the evening of the 15th, Labrador and 200 high-ranking Spanish officers were in Zulu hands, while the rest of the men and the few women and children who had come from Spain were slaughtered or impaled. Labardor was forced to watch as his finest officers were impaled alive for all to witness, but was himself soon after beheaded by a Turkish soldier on the command of Shaka.

In the western fringes of the formerly Portuguese colony, the Shona people, who had fought against both the Portuguese and lately the Spanish, learned of their defeat at the hands of the Zulu. Taking advantage of this, they rose again against their Portuguese and Spanish oppressors, killing 9,000 and driving the rest into the grasslands where they were thereafter picked off by the wild animals and bushmen who dwelled. Their leader, taking the Swahili name of Abasi (stern) proclaimed the rebirth of the Kingdom of Mutapa and appointed himself Mwenemutapa (thus he is known as Mwenemutapa Abasi). Hoping to forge an alliance to protect his restored state from future depredations at Iberian hands, he traveled to Cidade de Pedra to gain audience with Shaka (who was the highest ranked commander and thus could act as sovereign). With the assistance of a British Royal Navy lieutenant named Francis Farewell, a treaty was signed which recognized Mutapa as sovereign and tied them to the Zulu in a form of "brotherly alliance". It also required that a regiment of 20,000 Mutapan impis be provided to Shaka in any future conflicts. As for the Portuguese civilians who waited nervously to hear their fate, Shaka proved most compassionate. He made them an offer to either leave the colony under safe-conduct, going first to Port Natal, then to Capetown and finally back to Rio De Janeiro or remaining and becoming Zulu, with the promise of ten cattle and small plots from which they could establish kraals. All but 200 accepted the offer to stay and the 200 who chose to leave were allowed to do so, Shaka observing his promise to the letter. He would establish his capital in Cidade de Pedra and continue to build his war-machine while now being closer to his kinsmen in Zululand and in particular his father Senzangakona. One dark side-effect of the Zulu victory which would play out over the coming months was that news of the battle and the victory caused so much concern to Sigujana and his co-conspirators that they were forced to step up preparations. Mudli even traveling as envoy of Sigujana to the kingdoms of Ndwandwe and Buthelezi in order to seek alliances against Shaka. At the same time, Dingiswayo, now paramount chief of the Mtetwa Empire sent his own envoy, Joko, to meet with Shaka and propose an alliance (which was accepted). The ground was now prepared for the two sons of Senzangakona to battle to the death for the heart and soul of the Zulu people.
 
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