A History of the Welsh Alaskans: A TLIAW

[King_Arthur]

A History of the Welsh in Alaska: A TLIAW

​

Introduction​

The Welsh Alaskans have shaped our state's history over the last 150 years. 2018 marks the 150th year since Love Jones-Parry and Lewis Jones first landed at Porth Madryn, becoming the first Welshmen to set foot in Alaska. Y Wladfa was set up a few years later and the Welsh settlers have been a heavy influence on Alaska from the Klondike Gold Rush to the Revolutionary Period, the World War and the Peaceful Revolution and beyond, all the way to the present day.

We should use the 150th anniversary to celebrate the unique culture and language the settlers brought with them, as well as their crucial role in some of the most important events in Alaskan history. Even today, if I were to take a walk through Porth Madryn, Trelew or Maksutov, then I would be able to hear people talking in Welsh on the street, in the shops or perhaps on the way to chapel, if it was a Sunday.

It is an honour to write the introduction to this booklet by Professor Glyn Williams of St David's University, Porth Madryn. It is a concise guide to the rich history of the Welsh Alaskans, written by a renowned expert on local history and proud Welsh Alaskan. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as me.

12th June 2018
Mike Gravel, Premier of Alaska

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter One – The Early Years

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Michael D. Jones was a Welsh Nationalist and a Nonconformist Minister from Bala in Gwynedd, Wales. He spent some years in Ohio, where he discovered that Welsh immigrants to America assimilated quicker than those of other ethnicities. Seeking to preserve Welsh language and culture away from the influence of English, he began looking for a ‘little Wales beyond Wales'.

He considered Australia, New Zealand, Palestine and even arid Patagonia before the Russian government made an offer. Tsar Alexander II viewed Alaska as too vulnerable to a British invasion after the Crimean War, and wished to sell it. Lord Palmerston declined in 1859, believing that the British Empire would be too extended and also that Canada had enough barren wilderness, while Seward, the Secretary of State under Lincoln, declined on account of what he saw as Russia's high asking place. Alexander would later be declined by Napoleon III in 1876.

Alaska still had only 700 Russians, and Russia controlled it only in name. Seeking to increase the population, the government offered Jones free land around the Gastineau Strait and Chilkat Inlet in 1867. He sent Captain Love Jones-Parry and Lewis Jones to determine whether the area was suitable for a Welsh colony.

Sailing through the Straits of Magellan, they first went to Nova Archangelsk, the capital, and met with Governor Maksutov. After finalising the deal agreed between Jones and Russia, through their Ambassador, they sailed up the Gastineau Strait and talked to some local Tlingit Indians, who mentioned the abundant Gold near their landing point, which they named Porth Madryn [1], after Jones-Parry's estate.

When they returned to Wales in 1869, they reported the Gold as well as the fertile fishing grounds around Alaska. Jones published a pamphlet in Liverpool, Llawlyfr y Wladfa, to raise awareness.

On May 7th 1871, the tea clipper Mimosa arrived at Porth Madryn with 171 settlers. 118 of the settlers were from the South Wales Coalfield or English cities [2]. The settlers included tailors, cobblers, carpenters, brickmakers, miners, a few farmers and several fishermen.

At Porth Madryn, a village soon developed, sustained primarily on fish, but also some small farming around Porth Madryn and also on Douglas Island, just across the Strait. However, most colonists worked prospering along Nant Aur, or Gold Stream. The prospecting was relatively small scale until news of it travelled to Canada and Seattle. A small scale rush, known as the Porth Madryn Gold Rush occurred. Although it was nowhere near the scale of the Klondike Gold Rush, it did lead to the influx of several thousand Americans and Canadians, and the establishment of numerous large scale mines.

This threw Y Wladfa into crisis. These immigrants dwarfed the Welsh population, and were English speakers, destroying the entire purpose for the colony’s resistance. Lewis Jones began to scout out possible locations for a second settlement, and found a location at the top of the Chilkat Inlet, on the mouth of a river [3]. There was plenty of fish and fresh water, which had begun to grow sparse as Nant Aur became increasingly polluted.

Naming the settlement Trelew, after its discoverer, around three quarters of the Welsh population of Puerto Madryn migrated there in 1874. They created a fishing village, where Welsh language and culture flourished, as Michael D. Jones originally intended. They had friendly relations with the natives, many of whom converted to Methodism and attended chapel in Trelew. Several more boatloads arrived from Wales, increasing Trelew's population to about 700 Welsh and Puerto Madryn's Welsh population to around 250 by 1885. The Russian population in Alaska was even less than the Welsh population, around 900 individuals, in 1885 although Orthodox missionaries had converted many of the local tribes. There were around 7,500 Canadians and 3,400 Americans too, mainly in Porth Madryn but some were elsewhere, so the total non-Native population in 1885 was in the region of 12,750.

In Trelew, a chapel and chapel school were both built, and are still there today, as well as jetties, workshops, storing houses for the fish, a fish market and a town hall. The people there elected the council, which Lewis Jones led, with everyone over 18, both Male and Female, getting the vote. Jones also established a Welsh language newspaper, Y Drafus (the Discussion) which was printed in Porth Madryn.

Porth Madryn was a boom town that never went bust. Due to the huge amounts of gold around the town, which is still being mined today, it never became a ghost town, like numerous places in California and the Klondike. Therefore, the layout was haphazard with wooden shacks all surrounding the harbour and the stream. A small railway was also built to carry gold from the mines to the ships more easily. It was the biggest town in all of Alaska in 1885, but had no local government. It was very much a frontier town, with saloons, vigilantes and even gun fights.

Trelew was at the mouth of Afon Cymraeg (Welsh River), and explorers were sent up the river to explore, often crossing into the Canadian Yukon Territory. On one such journey on 17th August 1887, three men – Welsh Methodist missionary Rev. John James, American prospector, William Hughes, and their Tlingit guide, Oryaan, struck gold. The news travelled to Seattle and San Francisco and by the next summer the Klondike Gold Rush had begun. A new chapter had been opened in the history of the Welsh Alaskans.
...
[1] OTL Juneau
[2] OTL the numbers were 153 settlers with 92 from the Valleys or English cities. ITTL, there is slightly more settlers due to the heightened interest generated by the discovery of gold.
[3] OTL Skagway

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter Two – The Gold Rush Years

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The Klondike Gold Rush is perhaps the most famous gold rush in history, rivalled only by the 1849 California Gold Rush. The gold was located deep inside the Yukon Territory, near the Klondike River, and far from any established rail lines. One of the easiest ways to get from the American West Coast to the Klondike was to sail to Trelew before travelling on land.

Although some in Trelew supported moving again, the community decided to stay put and profit from the gold rush. Trelew boomed in the late 1880s as thousands flooded in, most moving on but many remaining in the town. A railway was build between the boom town of Jamesville [1] and Trelew, known as the Trelew & Klondike Route. It reached Trelew in April 1889.

Trelew's population in January 1889 had swelled to around 37,000, of which 2000 were Welsh (more had left for Y Wladfa after news of gold spread), while the rest were Canadian and American prospectors. The exact split is unclear, but is believed to be around 60-40 in favour of the Canadians, which would leave the totals at roughly 21,000 Canadians and 14,000 Americans.

While most of the Welsh population lived in Trelew and grew wealthy by opening saloons or providing other services, some made the trip to the Klondike. From Trelew, they would have to traverse the Low Pass [2], also known as the ‘dead horse trail' due to the amount of horses who died on it, despite the low altitude of the pass. Once they reached Lake Nicholas [3], they would have to camp until spring before rafting down the Yukon for 500 miles to Hughes [4].

Hughes was founded by Gwilym Thomas, a Welsh missionary-come-explorer-come-prospector-come-entrepreneur. He bought a large tract of land as the rush was just starting, laying out a street plan and bringing in timber to sell to the flood of immigrants. In doing so, he made himself a tidy profit and set up the town that was to be inseparably linked with the Klondike Gold Rush. The population rose to 30,000 in 1888, and the high density of people, wood buildings and oil lamps made the town very prone to fires. Many women, some Welsh, went there to work as dancers and entertainers, but the population remained overwhelmingly male. One thing the inhabitants of Hughes constantly craved was news of the outside world, as the settlement was very isolated. Rhys Llewellyn, an enterprising reporter for Y Drafus made the arduous journey to Hughes with a printing press and set up the Klondike Discussion. He was to become wealthy from the sales of the new newspaper.

As the hordes of prospectors flooded into Trelew, law and order began to break down, similar to what had happened in Porth Madryn fifteen years or so earlier. Among them, on his way to Hughes, was a certain Wyatt Earp. Con men and gangsters who learnt their trade in the Wild West, notably ‘Klondike Kerry’ James and Jesse Bardwell. The two mobsters fought each other for control over the town, until a group of vigilantes, lead by a Welshman named Michael ‘the Wild Welshman' Roberts , killed James in 2nd April 1889 in the Shootout at the Pontypridd Saloon, immortalised in the 1943 Ronald Reagan film The Wild Welshman, at the cost of his own life, while Bardwell was chased out of town.

Order was re-established by these vigilantes, who were reorganised by Lewis Jones, who regained his position as the most powerful man in town, into the Trelew Police, or Heddlu Trelew.

The gold rush came to an end in 1890 and 1891 as Hughes became a more sedate town and the last holdouts from Trelew's brief wild era upped stakes. The end came when Gwilym Thomas, having sold most of Hughes after he got bored and made enough money, discovered gold in Alaska's Interior, south of the Yukon River [5], while Russian sailors discovered yet more gold at Nome. Many of the characters from Trelew and Hughes became bankrupt, such as Rhys Llewellyn, who spent the rest of his life writing for smaller papers in the American West. Thomas managed to make yet more money from gold and property, and died in 1907 as a wealthy man in Trelew.

As the Klondike Gold Rush ended, the populations of Trelew, Jamesville and Hughes dropped dramatically, with most of the prospectors moving on to Nome or Matsukov, named by Thomas after the Russian Governor who let the Welsh settle in Alaska back in 1868. The boom and bust seen in the Klondike was repeated at Nome, but not in Matsukov, where mining continues until today.

The population of Trelew dropped from its gold rush heights, but remained steady at around 5000 (2000 Welsh) throughout the 1890s. Porth Madryn had a population of around 10,000 (500 Welsh) during this period, while Nome rose to 20,000 (150 Welsh) before falling to 2500 (maybe 15-25 Welsh), while Matsukov rose to 6,000 (200 Welsh) before falling to 1,500 (40 Welsh). The only other significant settlement was Nova Archangelsk, the capital, where the population of 1500 was almost entirely Russian, with no Welsh presence.

The Gold Rush Years are agreed to come to an end in 1901. By this time, Nome and Matsukov had died down, while events in Russia were just heating up.
...
[1] OTL Whitehorse, here named after John James, the Welsh minister who was part of the group that discovered gold.
[2] OTL White Pass, here named due to its low altitude.
[3] OTL Lake Bennett, here named after Tsar Nicholas II by a Russian explorer in 1884.
[4] OTL Dawson City, here named after William Hughes, who first struck gold in Klondike.
[5] OTL Fairbanks

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter Three – The Great Balkan War

Russia in the mid 19th Century was a backwards country. When Alexander II came to the throne in 1855, he tried to change that by liberating the serfs, instituting conscription and simplifying the penal code. However, after the disastrous Bulgarian War in 1880, he was shot in the streets of St Petersburg by an angered Nationalist.

His son, Tsar Nicholas II [1] came to power at a crucial time. He managed to calm the rabid crowds baying for Turkish blood, and shifted the blame to Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaevich, the Commander of the Russian Army, and Nicholas's uncle. The Grand Duke was forced to resign and the mobs were placated for now.

However, the tensions in the Balkans would not go away, and the Great Balkans War erupted in 1898. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina on April 9th, which was still under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Russia and Serbia protested this, and did not back down despite British, French, Italian and Prussian [2] attempts at diplomacy to solve what is known as the April Crisis. This lead to a war with Russia and Serbia declaring war on May 2nd the Ottomans caught awkwardly in between.

Greece and Romania wished to take Macedonia from the Ottomans and achieve full independence respectively, so declared war on the Ottomans on May 9th and 11th. The Bulgarians also rose in rebellion once more. The Ottomans and Austria were forced to ally against Russia and her allies. The Great Balkan War had begun.

In May 1898 Alaska, although officially Russian, was much more Canadian, American and even Welsh. The only signs of Russian governance were the Governor in Nova Archangelsk and the occasional Orthodox missionary among the Natives. The Russians had no response to the gold rushes, which massively increased Alaska's population. However, when war was declared, the Tsar and the Army under General Kuropatkin, expected Alaska to play its part.

Governor Ferdinand von Wrangel put out a call for volunteers to serve Russia. As barely any Alaskans were Russian citizens, he could not conscript them. As the gold rushes wound down, an impressive number of ex-prospectors answered the call, with 6000 signing up. An Alaskan Division was signed up, which included the Wladfa Battalion [sic].

The soldiers of the division were gathered in Trelew, where the steamship SS Grand Duke Alexander took them to Vladivostok. The 6000 men were packed very tight on the voyage, which lasted almost 9 months. Almost 500 died of disease on the way. They then travelled by train for another month on the Trans-Siberian Express [3]. By this point, the war was going quite badly for Russia, as Austria, after much ineptness on both sides, Austria had decisively beaten Russia at the Battle of Opoczno and were nearing Warsaw. Serbia had successfully defended themselves against Austrian attacks, while Greece had seized Macedonia and most of Thrace from the Ottomans, only to lose disastrously at Adrianople in February 1899, in a harsh battle fought in freezing conditions. Albania had successfully won independence from the Ottomans, at the price of becoming a Greek client state, while the Russians and Romanians got bogged down in Bulgaria due to stretched supply lines and the winter. In April 1899, the war was anyone’s game.

The Alaskan Division spent two weeks training in Moscow, before being assigned to the Second Army, on the Polish Front. They were thrust into the thick of combat quite quickly, as the Battle of Warsaw began with an Austrian offensive in early June 1899. It was the largest battle on European soil since Leipzig, as 400,000 Austrians attacked 500,000 Russians. The result was a massacre.

The Austrian's battle plan called for the encirclement of the city to prevent reinforcement. Their Third and Fourth Armies were assigned to this job, while the First Army was to attack the city itself. The Russian First and Second Army were protecting the flanks, while the Sixth Army defended the city itself. A Ninth Army was partially trained and held in reserve in Bialystok, around 110 miles away. The Alaskan Division had their first taste of battle at the Battle of Okuniew, a subsidiary of the main battle. The Austrian X Corps tried to pass though the forest there, so the Russian 9th Army Corps, which the Alaskan Division was part of were sent to stop them.

The battle waged between June 17th and 19th was an intense introduction to combat for the Alaskans. The forest was difficult terrain to fight in, with co-ordination made more difficult by the lack of vision. June 18th was a day that would go down in both Welsh and Alaskan history. C Company of the Welsh Battalion bore the brunt of a large Austrian attack at midday. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William Richards, they held out for as long as possible, delaying the Austrians until they were overwhelmed and perished to the last man. The Austrians did capture a Welsh flag there, which is now in the Military Museum of Austria in Vienna. An Austrian officer said that the Welsh fought more ferociously than the Dragon on their flag. Insoured by this statement, the Welsh Alaskans adopted a new flag – a white dragon (to represent their difference to the Welsh from Wales and the weather if their home) on a red background (to represent the bloodshed of Okuniew). Richards was posthumously given the Order of St. George and many other members of the company were decorated too. C Company’s last stand was immortalised by Okuniew, a song by Lithuanian power metal band Gauntlet. June 18th is Okuniew Day, a public holiday in Alaska.

The Russians managed to stop the Austrian advance at Okuniew, which prevented them from completing the encirclement and led to the battle to devolve into bloody trench warfare, a taste of what was to come later. Eventually, the Austrians were forced to withdraw due to suffering too many losses.

Although the battle was won by Russia, it was a pyrrhic victory. They had lost 200,000 men, compared to the Austrians' 170,000. The catastrophic losses caused by the battle resulted in operations on the Polish Front grinding to a halt as the two sides recovered their losses. 1899 was hardly better for Russia and her allies on other fronts. The Austrians managed to take Belgrade but couldn’t penetrate any further into Serbia, while Bulgaria was still a mess, with various rebel factions fighting each other, the Turks and the Russians/Romanians, while the Greeks and Turks reached a stalemate in Thrace.

The Welsh Battalion suffered 327 casualties, almost half its entire strength, at Okuniew. As the Welsh community in Alaska was only small, it was particularly hard on it. Many there were pacifist, due to their Methodist beliefs and never supported the war in the first place. However, the Welsh Alaskans became one of the first groups to oppose the war in its entirety. As Russia doubled down on conscription in late 1899 and early 1900, they tried to conscript some prospectors which led to the Alaskan Conscription Crisis. They refused to be drafted, and Russia couldn’t spare the troops to send to Alaska, so they dropped the matter. In mainland Russia, the war was getting less and less popular.

The Alaskan Division, which suffered around 2000 casualties at Okuniew, was reinforced by non-Alaskans in the winter of 1899-1900 and sent to Bulgaria, where Kuropatkin was planning a big offensive in the spring. In mid March, around 175,000 Russians, 40,000 Romanians and 25,000 Bulgarian rebels attacked. The plan was a big wheeling movement that would trap most of the Ottoman Army around Varna, which would be destroyed, before pushing on to Constantinople.

However, the attack was doomed to fail. Britain, who had a vested interest in keeping the Ottomans and Austrians around as a counterweight to Russia, intercepted Russian radio traffic, some of which wasn’t even coded [4]. The Ottomans knew about the offensive beforehand and were prepared. The attack met suspiciously little resistance as it advanced, but then the Ottomans struck at Shumen. Cutting the Russian advance right in half, it interrupted the lines of communication and led to the collapse of the Russian offensive. The Greeks, on the other hand, took advantage of the Russian distraction by taking Adrianople and pushing ever closer to Constantinople, which worried the Turkish government immensely, so they promptly fled to Ankara and sent out peace feelers to Greece and Russia via Italy.

By the summer of 1900, it was clear that no one was close to winning the war, and all the nations involved had suffered horrendous losses, with casualties topping one million. In August, all the involved parties were invited to a conference in Naples by Italy and a ceasefire was declared. The negotiations lasted two months but eventually a peace deal was hammered out. The Treaty of Naples stipulated that the Russia-Austria border was to remain the same, Austria would gain Bosnia in exchange for giving Transylvania to Romania, a semi-independent Bulgarian state, tied economically and politically to Russia would be created, with Albania having a similar relationship with Greece. Romania would become fully sovereign, while Macedonia and all of Thrace would be given to Greece. Austria would pay reparations to Serbia.

After over two years of war and a million deaths, the Balkans were at peace. But how long would it last?
...
[1] Tsarverich Nicholas Alexandrovich survived his illness here.
[2] Frederick III gave up smoking after a health scare and was also saved from his illness here, ruling as a smarter and more intelligent Kaiser than his son. He is less militaristic and gung-ho, so does not back Austria here.
[3] Russia keeping Alaska means that the route to Vladivostok is completed earlier than OTL, where it was completed in 1916.
[4] IOTL, the Russians sent transmissions that weren’t coded at the beginning of World War I.

It lives! Not much Alaska in this chapter I know, but this and Chapter 4 were originally supposed to be one chapter, but I had to split them because it got too big. Hopefully the wait next time won't be so long.

 

[King_Arthur]

I forgot to post this, the Welsh Alaskan flag, in the update

Thanks to @Karolus Rex for making this

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter Four – The Revolutionary Decade

The end of the war led to riots and strikes in Russia, where the Tsar was blamed for the less than favourable results for Russia. Nicholas tried to crack down hard but it backfired, leading to the Russian Revolution. Anti-government forces quickly seized St Petersburg, and the Royal Family with it – Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, Tsarevich Alexander, Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Maria and Grand Duke Konstantin. However, the Tsar's brother, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, fled across Siberia to Alaska, which had declared for the Tsarists.

Around 15,000 Russian exiles and a chunk of the navy also fled to Alaska, beginning the Imperial Years. The sudden influx of Russians, and their reactionary Tsar, was not popular among the Welsh, Canadians and Americans of Alaksa.

Grand Duke Alexander was opposed to the liberal Methodist views of the Welsh, and the Russian Exile and Welsh communities were not friendly at all, especially as Alexander set up shop in Trelew, the largest settlement in Alaska, and requisitioned the town hall as a temporary seat of government.

In Europe, the new Russian Republic, led by President Brusilov, was being fuelled by a desire for vengeance against Austria. They achieved this wish in 1905, when a border dispute in Poland escalated into a war. After the Great Balkan War, two big alliances formed in Europe. The Berlin Pact, composed of Prussia, Saxony, Italy, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, opposed the Triple Alliance of France, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Britain was on the side-lines, with both alliances wanting to get the world’s most powerful nation on their side.

The war was fought mainly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but it did arrive in Alaska in May 1907. With Russia doing well on the Eastern Front, Brusilov tried to take back control of Imperial Alaska. A naval task force was sent from Port Arthur to Trelew, but it was intercepted in the Sea of Japan by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan had territorial ambitions on the Russian Far East and Korea, and had seized the opportunity to strike. Using the attempted annexation of Alaska as a casus belli, they declared war. Britain, who didn’t want a powerful Russia on Canada’s doorstep again and wanted to keep Constantinople out of Russian hands, also declared war.

Russia had to redirect troops from Hungary, so the front, with the British Expeditionary Force now reinforcing France and Italy, solidified. As millions had died for little gain, and many countries were exhausted, the European War came to an end in January 1908 with the Treaty of Barcelona. However, the war in Asia was still ongoing.

Japan were demolishing Russia's forces, taking Port Arthur and large portions of the Russian Far East. Enthused by seeing one Russia being smashed, the Welsh Alaskans began to talk about removing Alexander and his exiles. A key figure in the nascent Alaskan Revolution was William John.

John was born in Caerphilly on June 28th 1865, but emigrated to Alaska with his family in 1877 and ran a saloon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Following the end of the rush, he transformed the saloon into a hotel and became an important figure in the community.

Throughout 1908 he was organising resistance to the Russians, by arranging secret meeting and setting up Cymdeithas Rhyddad y Wladfa (Society for the Liberation of the Colony). However, Alexander caught wind of this in March 1909 and organised a crackdown. So began the Alaskan Revolution.

The CRW mobilised and there was fighting on the streets of Trelew. The Battle of Trelew lasted from March 7th to March 10th and was won by the CRW, who were joined by thousands of Canadians and Americans. Dozens of key exiles, including Alexander, were arrested and imprisoned while thousands more Russians were expelled from the settlement. They took what is now known as the Exile Trail.

The Exiles followed the path that prospectors took twenty years prior and ended up in Hughes, now pretty empty but with some small scale gold mining still going on. They suffered heavy casualties on the journey. The Exiles took over the settlement, and renamed it Rodinagrad. The town still has a 89% ethnic Russian population today, and is the seat of the Orthodox Diocese of Alyeska, despite its isolation.

After the victory in Trelew, the Alaskan Free State was declared. Elections were held in the major settlements for a constituent assembly to draft a constitution for the new nation. The Tagish and Tlingit tribes were both permitted to appoint a representative. The Assembly of 32 men and 8 women met at Trelew town hall. Despite some advocating annexation by either Canada or the USA, Alaskan independence was affirmed by 29 of the delegates. They drafted a constitution which established Alaska as a Parliamentary Republic. Alaskan citizens, defined as any Welsh, Canadian or American person residing in Alaska on the date of the declaration of independence (March 19th 1909) as well as all members of the Tlingit and Tagish tribes, would elect an Assembly of 80 members, with seats granted proportionally to each party list. The Assembly, which would be elected once every five years, would then elect a Chief Minister, who would be the Head of Government, who would appoint a weak President, who would be the Head of State. Suffrage was granted to all citizens over 18, regardless of their gender. Trelew was agreed to be the capital, and the document was written in both English and Welsh. Later it would be translated into Russian, Japanese and a whole host of Native languages.

The first elections for the Alaskan Assembly were held between November 2nd and December 2nd 1909. The election was won by the Alaskan Party, a pro-independence party, who gained 54 seats. The Union Party, which favoured annexation to Canada got 10 seats, Plaid Cymraeg, which was a Welsh interest party, got 9 seats, the American Party, which favoured annexation to America, got 5 seats, while there were two independents – one Tlingit and one Tagish.

The leader of the Alaskan Party, former prospector and saloon owner John Meredith, was elected the first Chief Minister. He appointed William John, father of the revolution and now a Plaid AM, as the first President.

John's first task was to secure international recognition. Britain certainly didn’t want Russia to control Alaska and it’s natural wealth, and, although it being part of Canada would be preferable, they could argue with the democratic will of the Alaskans. They were the first country to recognise Alaskan independence, followed shortly after by Canada and Japan, who coveted the Aleutian Islands, so wanted to get in Alaska’s good graces. The USA followed, as did every country besides Russia and her puppets.

As 1911 came, and with it the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it could safely be said that Alaska, now an independent democracy, had come to the end of its revolutionary decade. However, that does not mean that the story of the Welsh Alaskans has come to an end. As Chancellor Goebbels [1] once said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. [2]

[1] Yes, that’s right.
[2] Churchill said this OTL after the Battle of Britain.

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter Five – The Free State Years

John Meredith (1868-1937)
​

Meredith spent his first term as Chief Minister setting up his new country. It was agreed that there was to be 9 members of the Cabinet – the Chief Minister and President, of course, would be joined by Ministers of Finance, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Mining, Native Affairs and Agriculture and Fishing. The Alaskan Party held all those roles except President, held by Plaid, and Native Affairs, held by an independent Tagish assemblyman. The Minister of the Interior, Michael James, was given the title of Deputy Minister, the designated successor to the Chief Minister.

Meredith also encouraged immigration to help Alaska's growth. Between 1911 and 1916, the population grew by an estimated 15,000. Though there was more immigration from the US, Canada and Wales, many of those new immigrants were Japanese. Japan desired control over the Aleutians, so they asked the Alaskan government for permission to settle a number of immigrants in those islands, which were purely inhabited by the native Aleuts at that point, since the Russians had all left. Meredith wanted to keep friendly relations with all the local powers, to expand control over the Aleutians, and to grow the population, so he consented.

Most of the Japanese moved into the settlement of Unalaska, where the Russians had built an Orthodox church, both for themselves and the Aleuts, who has converted. Many of the Japanese converted to Russian Orthodoxy too.

With Japanese assistance, Alaska trained a small militia of a thousand men, called the Alaskan Regiment, and converted some trawlers until patrol ships. This cooperation with Japan made Britain worry about Japan's influence on Alaska, so they responded by reaching out to the Welsh Alaskans.

In the 1910s, the Welsh Alaskans were doing rather well. They dominated Trelew, owning most of the saloons and the docks, as well as having many seats on the Council and the Mayorship. The first cars in Alaska were brought over by Dafydd Jenkins, a Welsh businessman who established Jenkins Automobiles, which still exists today. The Welsh Nationalists were now a minority as most of the community supported the moderates led by President John.

Therefore, Britain’s efforts came to naught. They then courted the Union Party, who happily received them. During the Jenkins Presidency, the Alaskan Party evolved into a liberal, pro-Japan, pro-independence party occupying the centre to centre-left of the political spectrum. The Union Party became a conservative, pro-Britain, pro-annexation party occupying the centre-right.

In 1916, the second elections were held. The Union Party were major gainers, having gotten 11 more seats (all 5 American Party seats and 6 from the Alaskan Party), while Plaid and the Independents kept the same number of seats. The composition was then 48 seats for the Alaskan Party, 21 for the Union Party, 9 for Plaid and 2 Independents. Meredith and John both kept their jobs.

In his second term, Meredith decided to open up Alaska to gambling. Trelew and Porth Madryn became famous for their casinos, most famously Casino Crand (Grand Casino) by the river. It was such a famous gambling haven that, The Welsh Casino, the first of the famous John Black spy series by Ian Fleming was set in Trelew.

These reforms weren’t popular among the many Methodists and Orthodox Christians, especially the clergy. This led to a famous meeting between Reverend Llewellyn Roberts, the most prominent Methodist Minister in Alaska and a Welsh Nationalist, and Mikhail, Bishop of Alyeska, in Matsukov. They agreed that a combined Christian front against immorality was needed, so the United Christian Party was formed. To avoid violating the separation of church and state, which was enshrined in the Constitution, a devout Methodist, Michael Williams, and a devout Orthodox, Grigori Petrov, were appointed as co-chairmen. However, the real power lay with Roberts and Mikhail.

Alaska prospered, so the population increased yet again to around 84,000. Of this, around 35,000 were Canadian, English, Irish or Scottish in origin, 16,000 were American in origin, 12,000 were Native Alaskan in Origin, 10,000 were Russian in origin, 9,000 were Welsh in origin and 2,000 were Japanese in origin.

Before the 1921 elections, Meredith and the Alaskan Party decided to grant all the Natives, Russians and Japanese citizenship and suffrage, hoping to gain their votes. The 1921 Election, saw the Alaskan Party lose their majority for the first time, as they won 28 seats, the Union Party won 22, the United Christians won 14, Plaid Cymraeg won 7, Native Independents won 6 and the Russian Bloc (a secular Russian party) won 3. The AP managed to secure a third term in government thanks to a coalition with Plaid and supply and demand from the Natives, but Meredith resigned as Leader. He was replaced by Edward Patrick, a more moderate figure. William John was reappointed as President, which was part of the deal with Plaid.

Patrick decided to continue developing Alaska and encouraging immigration, most of which came from Canada and Japan. As Japan was asserting itself more and more aggressively during this time, he came under increasing pressure from both Tokyo and Ottawa to choose a side. Instead, he initiated the Peaceful Neutrality stance, in contrast to the Armed Neutrality of Switzerland. He kept good relations with both Japan and Britain/Canada but refrained from going with one side definitively. This led to a split in the Alaskan Party. Patrickists supported his neutrality doctrine, while Nipponists favoured a Pro-Japan foreign policy and Canadists favoured a Pro-Canadian foreign policy. These divisions became irreparable and led to the shattering of the Alaskan Party in 1924, an event which caused major changes to Alaskan politics.

Patrick lost a vote of no confidence, leading to snap elections being called. This resulted in a complete mess of an Assembly. Union got the most seats with 21, while the United Christians got 16, the rump AP got 11, the New Alaskans (Nipponites) got 9, Plaid got 8, the Alaskan Alliance (Canadists) got 7, Native Independents got 7 and the Russian Bloc got 1.

A coalition between Union, the United Christians and the Alaskan Alliance was formed. George Farr was elected Chief Minister, with Joseph W. Parsons appointed President. However, the Unionists and Christians had different priorities. Complicating the situation were internal disagreements between Methodists and Orthodox in the UCP. Therefore, Farr couldn’t get anything done before the 1926 Elections, which caused even more mess.

The Christians were the largest party with 16, while both AP and Union had 15, the newly formed Radical Party had 13, Plaid had 9, Native Independents had 7 and the Alaskan Alliance had 5. Coalition negotiations broke down, and everyone wanted to keep the Radicals out of government, so a Popular Front grand coalition was agreed between the UCP, AP, Union, Plaid and AA. Michael Williams was elected Chief Minister, while John Meredith was appointed President as he was a unifying figure.

The Popular Front was unstable but held together, managing to chart a neutral foreign policy while increasing the military to 5,000, with 2,000 of them professional, and securing both Japanese and British military training. They also increased the economy by exporting gold, but that all came to an end with the Great Depression.

With the gold trade drying up, the economy evaporated, and with it the government’s popularity. Miner strikes were common as the popularity of the Radical Party soared, leading to the Popular Front agreeing to an electoral pact for the 1931 Elections. Opposed mainly by the Radicals, the election was close fought but the Radicals managed to eke out a victory with 43 seats, compared to 30 for the Popular Front and 7 for the Natives.

The new Chief Minister was Edwin Burrow, who appointed Welsh Socialist Rhodri Evans as President. They passed laws protecting the Tribes, leading to all of the Native Representatives joining their party. They also enacted welfare and other Keynesian policies to help ease the Great Depression. They were moderately successfully but Alaska became indebted to foreign powers. In foreign affairs, Burrow charted a neutral course that failed to please either Canada or Japan.

Japan in the early 1930s was getting increasingly militaristic. The militarists were buoyed by the gain of the Russian Far East, which was achieved in the Great European War, they set their sights on Qing China. With tensions growing between the two Asian nations, a supposed Chinese spy assassinating a General was deemed a suitable casus belli. Japan declared war on June 1st 1932, a date which is now considered the start of the Pacific War.

The modern Imperial Japanese Army demolished the out dated Chinese Army and took Manchuria without much hassle, pushing onto Beijing, which fell in 1934. This led to the Qing imploding, as their heartland was occupied, and the Fragmentation of China began. As Japan began to get bogged down in a widening front, they looked elsewhere for gains. An embargo by America meant that they were running out of oil, a crucial resource. The IJA and IJN decided that a coup de grace attack on the Dutch East Indies should secure a reliable oil supply.

The attack was a complete disaster. Japan had overstretched itself, and British code breakers had found out about the attack beforehand, immediately informing the Dutch. This brought the Netherlands into the war, and Britain and France, who wanted to contain Japanese expansion, too. The Pacific War had truly begun.
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I hope this is a nice Christmas present for you all! Unfortunately progress on this TL stopped but as there is not much left I'm bringing it back with the aim of finishing it by the end of January.

 

[King_Arthur]

Chapter Six – The War Years

The Burrows-Evans government pursued a policy of strict neutrality in the Pacific War, spearheaded by Foreign Minister Dafydd “Diplomacy Dai" Jones, but it was far from being the majority opinion. It was the issue of the war that finally split the Popular Front. In 1934 the two largest parties in the crumbling alliance were the Union Party, which supported joining the war against Japan, the United Christian Party, which was on the brink of collapse as the Methodists were Anti-War, agreeing with the government's policies, and the Orthodox members were Pro-War, wanting revenge against Japan. There were also several minor parties in the coalition – the Alaskan Party supported the government, the Alaskan Alliance were Pro-War, while Plaid, long past their glory days as most of their voters and Assembly Members had bolted to either the Radicals or the United Christians, supported peace.

Edwin Burrows was a man who had incredible influence on the history of not only Alaska, but the entire Pacific region. Born in Port Madryn to a prostitute and an unknown father on July 20th 1886, he had a hard beginning in life. He began working in the gold mines when he was just 16 and, after taking part in the Revolution, ended up leading the local union. A founding member of the Socialist Party in 1914, he was elected to the Porth Madryn Council in 1915. When the Socialists merged with the left fringe of the old Alaskan Party in 1925, he became the national leader and was elected to the Assembly in 1926. Burrows was fond of alcohol and cigarettes and was not a very nice man, as he often shouted at and even hit staff and his own wife. He also had an authoritarian streak.

Despite opposition, the government made it to the 1936 Elections without collapsing or joining the war. The war was currently a stalemate, with the front lines in China and Indochina grinding to a halt. Before the elections, there had been a major shakeup in the Alaskan political landscape.

Both the Popular Front and the United Christians had finally fallen apart in early 1936. The two reorganised coalitions were the Alliance For Peace, consisting of the Radical Party, Native Independents, the Alaskan Party and Plaid Gristgynol, the Methodist portion of the old UCP. Opposing them were the Internationalist Alliance of the Union Party, the Alaskan Alliance and the Party of Faith, which was the Orthodox portion of the UCP. By this point, Plaid Cymraeg had completely collapsed into the Radicals or Plaid Gristgynol.

The Canadians and Brits provided copious amounts of funding for the Internationalists before the election, which was scheduled to occur on April 30th. Polling predicted that they would emerge with a massive majority and if it was not for an event that would occur on the 25th, said majority may have emerged and led Alaskan History down a very different path.

America had led to the escalation of the war by embargoing Japan, and now President Hull wished to enter the war against Japan before they set their sights on the Philippines. Along with General MacArthur, who commanded the Philippines Garrison, he engineered an incident where an old destroyer was “sunk" by a Japanese submarine. Just like the USS Maine Incident that started the Spanish-American War, in which Hull fought, almost forty years prior, a declaration of war was accepted by Congress in a wave of patriotic fervour and outrage.

What played well in Washington didn’t play well in Trelew. The incident was seen as hugely suspicious and blasted in numerous papers. Burrows seized upon it and declared, in a statement viewed as ironic in later years, that the underhand tactics used by the Allies were why Alaska should not join the war. The results showed that the attacks must have resonated.

The Alliance For Peace won a huge majority of 63, with the Radicals winning 49 seats, PG winning 7 seats, AP winning 5 and the Natives winning 2. The Interventionists scraped 17 seats, with Union winning 11, AA winning 5 and PoF only managed tow in a single seat. The result was a resounding victory for isolationism, and Burrows re-appointed his friend Evans as President.

Britain and Canada were not pleased at all, and began plotting against Burrows. They wished for an offensive in the North Pacific that would enable them to take the old Russian Far East, threatening the Japanese hold on Manchuria and Korea, as well as Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which would threaten Japan itself. However, to commence the operation they would need the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska.

Knowing that Burrows would refuse military access, General Alexander, Commander Allied Forces North Pacific (CAFNP) enacted Operation Arctic on June 2nd-8th. British, Canadian and American Marines and soldiers landed at Unalaska, the sole significant settlement in the archipelago, Dutch Harbor, an excellent natural Harbour unused by the Alaskans, and several of the larger islands.

The reaction in Trelew was outrage. Burrows gave the allies a deadline of 30 days to withdraw from the Aleutians; the ultimatum was ignored by London, Washington and Ottawa, who began preparations for an assault on the Sakhalin Peninsula and the Kuril Islands. The conflict between Alaska and the Allies would have likely remained a war of words were it not for the events of June 18th.

Burrows gave a speech outside Trelew Town Hall, where the Alaskan Assembly met, decrying Allied imperialism. Watching the speech was a young man named Pete Ware. He had been a miner in Matsukov but was laid off during the Depression. He became a disillusioned young man and ended up sleeping on the streets of Trelew. Likely suffering from a mental illness, be believed that killing Burrows would solve all his problems. Ware managed to sneak onto the stage that the Chief Minister was speaking on and shot at him from point blank range. Fortunately for Burrows, the gun jammed and he was tackled by security guards.

The attempt on his life made Burrows paranoid, so shortly after he began the Midnight Raids. The Trelew Police Force, which was very loyal to the government, arrested many anti-government campaigners and politicians. It also raided the headquarters of the Union Party and arrested former Chief Minister George Farr.

Britain decided that it was time to act. Sir Herbert Samuel, the Foreign Secretary, released a statement attacking the ‘erosion of democracy’ and a naval squadron, led by Captain John Campbell aboard the Heavy Cruiser HMS Glamorgan, was dispatched to Trelew.

On August 21st, the squadron arrived. Captain Campbell demanded that all political prisoners be released, Chief Minister Burrows steps down and that new election should be conducted under the supervision of Britain and Canada. All three demands were refused, so on August 23rd, the guns of Glamorgan and the Light Cruiser Sheffield bombarded key locations such as the Town Hall, the Police Station and the railway station. Then, the company of Royal Marines that accompanied the ships landed and fought the brief Battle of Trelew with the Police, which ended in the Police conducting a valiant but futile last stand in the ruins of the railway station, as the Cabinet ran away, abandoning their loyal defenders to their fates.

Campbell and the AMs who didn’t flee decided that the Flight of the Radicals counted as a resignation so they appointed George Read of Union as Chief Minister and the moderate Radical Owen Smith as President. Burrows and Evans still claimed to be the true government in Matsukov.

In October the squadron left and was replaced by a Canadian garrison under Brigadier William J. Irwin. Irwin was a hard man forged in the brutal jungles of the Indochinese Front who had no time for politicians. He kept Trelew under martial law, with Read and Smith unable to step a toe out of line lest they lose their jobs.

In Matsukov, Burrows established the Red Guards, a militia that raided south, in the occupation zone. They managed to successfully avoid conflict with the garrison until the afternoon of June 2nd 1937. Deciding to eliminate the militia once and for all, Irwin lured them to James, where the 4th Royal Winnipeg Rifles and 2nd Cape Breton Highlanders were waiting. The battle was bloody and fierce with the Guards holding for several hours, before the Canadians pushed through their lines and killed them to the last man. A famous photo of a Guard waving the Y Wladfa flag as he made his last stand was taken by an industrious journalist.

The photo made it back to Trelew and inspired a wave of patriotism, led by members of the Welsh community. On the night of June 5th, the Town Hall was scaled with the Alaskan and Canadian flags being pulled down and replaced with the white dragon of Y Wladfa, which has become the symbol of Alaskan nationalism overnight, and a plain red banner, to show support for the Matsukov government.

This led to the June Riots, the first of many to occur in Trelew over the next few decades. They started when soldiers pulled down the flags leading to previously peaceful demonstrations turning violent. CAFNP viewed the events with concern which only increased when the rioters began waving the Rising Sun flag. The Allies decided to teach the Alaskans not to mess with the British Empire.

The battleship HMS Indomitable, the namesake of her class, was the most advanced warship in the world. Sailing from Portsmouth to Pearl Harbour, she was suddenly redirected to Trelew. On the way she was joined by a battalion of hardened Royal Marines, fresh from the Philippine highlands.

The riots were still going on when the grey silhouette of the ship became visible on the horizon. Without warning, her eighteen inch guns opened fire on Trelew.

It was a disaster. The booms were ear-splitting and the shelling destroyed the poorly-defended town. It was not long before it looked like Shanghai, Singapore, Manila or any number of cities utterly destroyed during the war. Historic buildings dating back to when the Welsh first came to the area were decimated. 1234 people died out of a population of 20,000. 13,000 were made homeless.

After the bombardment, the Marines landed and quickly instituted martial law. Suspected nationalist leaders were arrested and sent to the isolated Kodiak Island, where the Canadian authorities had set up a prison camp. Many newspapers were closed and their printing presses were smashed up.

After successfully imposing martial law on Porth Madryn too, the Marines and Canadians marched north to Matsukov where they crushed the remaining Red Guards and occupied the Government House. Most of the Radicals surrendered, including Evans. However, Burrows tried to flee only to be found dead in the snow three days later.

With the imposition of military rule and the death of Edwin Burrows, Alaska's war came to an end. The larger war ended soon after as the UK and US conducted a joint atomic bombing of Sapporo and Nagoya on December 4th and 7th 1937 to avoid a costly invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. This led to the Fourteen Days, a time of great instability in Tokyo as competing factions opposed and supported a surrender. It ended with the Emperor asserting control and unconditionally surrendering to the Allied Powers on December 23rd. It was made official when the Emperor signed the Articles of Surrender on HMS Indomitable in Tokyo Bay. After just under seven long years of fighting, the Pacific War was over.

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Sorry for the long wait again but this update was a real pain to write. They just keep getting longer!