13b Part 4 - The Pacific
The Pacific
It is probably easier to deal with all the knowns before one attempts to fill in the gaps !
Russia, without the Maritime Province (where Vladivostock is) nevertheless stretches across the Northern edge of the Pacific, over the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, down not as far as in OTL but with more land inland, and also having acquired the Yukon to the Mackenzie Mountains in the 1880s, from Britain.
The United States coastline is all Oregon, the entire Oregon Territory from the border with Northern California to 54'40" where it meets the Russians in Alaska. This coast has several naval bases, the main ones being on the island of Vancouver and the mouth of the Columbia River.
The Republic of Mexico stretches from California in the North, down to the border with the United Provinces of Central America. The reform of the government in California in the 1860s strengthened the central administration, and saw the expansion of naval facilities at San Francisco.
The Shogunate of Japan across the Pacific has modernised under French support, and has established suzerainty, although not sovereinty over the Principality of Okinawa.
Spain, with its main possession in the Philipines, the Marianas, Carolines and Guam has the oldest and largest holding in the Pacific itself.
France's holdings in the region are confined to Kwangchow province in Southern China, leased from the Imperial Government in Peking, but also encompass close relations with Japan and with Vietnam.
The Netherlands has holdings across the East Indies. These border the independent sultanates in the North (eg Johore, Sulu. Brunei) and tribal holdings in other areas, nominally claimed by the Dutch but not occupied.
Australia is a British colony, but New Zealand is a Maori kingdom, ruled independently, but as a British protectorate.
Returning to the Americas, the United Provinces of Central America, increasingly a US puppet, occupies the area from Mexico to Colombia in its Panama province. The UPCA includes the Pacific terminal of the the Trans-Oceanic Canal, which is now on course to be completed by the middle of the 1890s at the earliest.
The coast of South America includes the coastlines of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The coast of Chile was extended as a result of the War of the Pacific to include the Bolivian province, but hardline calls in Santiago for the annexation of Southern Peru came to nothing. South of Chile is the Pacific coast of the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia, stretching down towards the South,but no longer including the island of Tierra del Fuego which was ceded to Chile in the settlement of territorial disputes in the later 1880s.
This thus leaves the central and Southern Pacific
By and large the islands off the coast of South America belong to Chile (eg Easter Island) or to Ecuador (eg the Galapagos Islands).
The Kingdom of Hawaii has maintained a steady independence, playing various powers off each other, and wth diplomatic and mercantile populations from Russia, Japan, the USA, Mexico, Britain, France and Spain.
Samoa, like Hawaii, New Zealand and Madagascar, has seen the feuding chiefs eventually unite as a result of conquest on the one hand, and federation on the other. By 1890 a paramount chief has been elected king, and Samoa is moving towards conducting diplomacy with the merchants, whalers etc who come by as a single entity. The Anglo-American War proved to be a boon for Samoa, as meddling in its internal affairs died down, the powers having bigger fish to fry, but the importance of Apia as a harbour attracted fresh trade.
Historically Britain and France had claims, and even settlements on islands in the Western Pacific, as well as relations with the kings of Fiji and Tonga.
But the main batleground in the great Pacific naval war, during the Anglo-American War had been in the South Pacific, the British isolated communities on Pitcairn Island, and the various chiefs in Polynesia, including the emerging paramount chief in Tahiti. Both British and American warships, as well as merchants, raiders, and US privateers used the islands as bases, regardless of the legal standing of their operations. Several small skirmishes and clashes occurred between US and British vessels, one or two being decisive enough to eventually make it into the newspapers back home, once news from such isolated places finally reached them.
The Treaty of Montreal made no specific mention of Tahiti, but included a clause about the evacuation of temporary bases in non-sovereign territory. Whilst most politicians in London had Valparaiso in mind, and the railheads across the Andes, the treaty also applied to Polynesia, and saw the evacuation by both sides of the small forward bases established during the war. Britain and the USA, however, established more formal relations with the paramount chief, now calling himself king, and establiished permanent missions in his territories.
Grey Wolf
