Chapter 4 A King and His Colonies a Republic and Her Woes:
Across the sea in America the turbulent years of 1790-1792 were spent mostly at peace. There were many civil disturbances such as minor protests against the crown. London, terrified of French style action dispatched a further 16,000 troops to the Colonies. Raids by the Army of the Republic increased and in Ireland similar unrest began to erupt.
In France the Grand Army of the Republic suffered many grievous setbacks until they managed to beat the Austrian forces by trapping them at the village of Toul and decimate Prussian forces in the town of Valmy with cannon fire. It was in these battles that French artillery became known as some of the most deadly on the Continent. There was also the revolutionary use of observation balloons to track enemy movements and relay messages which gave the French an advantage over their foes. Though by and by the war see-sawed back and forth between the two sides. On one side were the armies and officers of the royal forces of Europe. On the other were the large levies of conscripts who fought fanatically for their homeland. Fresh officers blooded themselves against old veterans of royal armies casting the ultimate outcome in doubt.
In 1793 events came to a head. Nearly simultaneously the Jacobins seized power in Paris and Republican insurgents launched an uprising in the Colonies. Both movements would be noted for their extreme brutality. In Paris Robespierre convened the Committee of Public Safety and began taking action against the revolutions enemies within and without. In America, Republican insurgents seized control of towns and important cities such as Philadelphia and Richmond. In the West the Army of the Republic now some 8,000 strong but poorly armed and equipped marched into the Southern Colonies and began raising merry hell. The British were swift to react. The Northern Colonies and the Province of Quebec decided to stay neutral in the conflict. Thus was the revolution doomed from the start. The Republican insurgents had overplayed their hand by rebelling so soon. Not only was there little popular support outside Virginia and North Carolina but disastrously the various rebel groups had not coordinated on any large scale and did not operate directly with one another. They also adopted heavy handed measures against those whom they perceived as ‘enemies of the Republic’ humiliating them and stripping them naked before sending them marching towards loyalist towns to spread warnings. This only alienated many people from the rebels cause.
While the Southern Colonies and garrisons moved to fight the Army of the Republic, Northern British troops marched on resisting towns with a vengeance. Villages that supplied the rebels were burned to the ground and crops destroyed in rebel areas. Richmond was besieged and subject to intense bombardment day and night. A column of rebel militia attempting to relieve their brothers in Richmond was smashed by British Regulars in coordination with help from friendly units of local militia not wishing to see their homes destroyed by yet another war. There would be a few intense skirmishes around Philadelphia but no real stand up battles.
In the Southern Colonies slaves rose in rebellion against their masters and to the fury of many land holders the British commanders seemed particularly unconcerned. General Cornwallis declared he could only intervene if these rebellions directly aided the Army of the Republic, and while most uprisings were quickly quashed by the local militia approximately one thousand slaves escaped to bolster the Republicans. In the Battle of Boone’s Road the Army of the Republic scattered local militia forces in Georgia and moved on to win another battle against the British in the recently established Fort Hood. Cornwallis was almost exaggeratedly slow in responding to the threat presented by the Army of the Republic. Truthfully he barely considered them a threat. He was more concerned about the rebels gathering in Virginia and North Carolina rather than the ragtag army that was slowly crawling up the Appalachians. He knew he needed to quickly eliminate the rebels in the Northern states before decisively crushing Arnold’s ragtag force once and for all.
To that end he spent much of 1792-93 combating local insurgents and maintaining the siege of Richmond. Once he defeated the main rebel forces in the Battle of MacDonald’s Field where a force of some 6,000 Republicans was comprehensively defeated by 8,500 red coats. He then marched on Philadelphia which would fall after a harsh siege in February 1794. In April he met and decisively defeated Benedict Arnold’s forces just near the South Carolina border before they had a chance to link up with any remaining rebel forces. He pursued Arnold’s army and shattered it completely at the Battle of Fenn on April 9th. It was only through Arnold’s stunning leadership and sheer tenacity that he and fifteen hundred others managed to escape capture and return to their independent territories, hundreds of escaped slaves in tow. Three thousand rebels were captured and another nine hundred were killed. Only then did Cornwallis turn his attention to finally breaking the Siege of Richmond. The city would fall on January 4th 1795 when the rebels ran out of food and were forced to surrender the city.
Just as one rebellion ended another began. In 1797 the United Ireland movement kicked off an uprising and occupied Dublin and evicted the British from many cities. The British were forced to call Cornwallis and 9,000 troops from America to deal with this crisis. Though the rebellion did not last long it was taking troops from America that simply could not be spared.
In France Robespierre’s Committee was in full swing. The radical Jacobins had launched a coup against what they viewed as a weak and utterly powerless Assembly. Armed gangs of Jacobin thugs roamed the streets of major cities as the Committee bribed or executed members of the National Guard and took control. This allowed them to both deal with external and internal threats. Militia who did not acknowledge the Committee were declared as counterrevolutionaries and their leaders put to death and their members sent to the front lines for suicide missions. At worst the countryside was plagued by a state of near civil war.
Paranoia and xenophobia ran rampant throughout the country. People were executed for looking foreign or not seeming to be revolutionary enough or in some cases, being too revolutionary! This time became known as the Revolutionary Terror. Through which time an estimated 20,000 were guillotined and perhaps 64,000 more arbitrarily put to death[1]. Among these were countless nobles and unfortunate members of the previous National Assembly who were deemed traitors or counter revolutionary. The most famous victim of this was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was long critical of any sort of central government or planning and when Robespierre seized power he publically denounced the Committee as a sham. He was arrested in December 1793 and executed January 1794 with Robespierre himself pulling the guillotine lever. Jefferson addressed a silent crowd with the words “Long live Liberty and long live this glorious revolution”. His body was buried just outside Paris by admirers and a plaque rests on the spot he was executed. It has been thought that Robespierre long wished to take action against his political rival and simply used this as an excuse to silence him. This excuse backfired as the Committee’s horrible efforts at running the country led to famine and rivalry with the many local militias who refused to meet the Committees demands. Then there was the defeat at Der Wald.
The commander of French forces marching against the Prussians had been replaced by the Committee and a new more ‘politically correct’ commander was leading the men in his place. In his previous life the man had been a bookkeeper and had no military experience whatsoever. As he led his forces on the field his horse was shot out from under him. Panicking he grabbed the nearest horse and rode off. This effectively led the French forces leaderless. They did not know which officers to obey orders from and were left in a confused state. The Prussians, seeing the French forces in confusion, charged. The resulting massacre cost some 4,000 Frenchmen their lives and resulted in another 6,000 being captured. The remaining men fled the field. Afterwards the French would suffer a series of defeats along the front lines as similar officers proved either too cowardly, or inept, to properly lead French forces. It spelt the death of the Committee.
In August 1795 members of a group known as “The Congress” a secret club of pro-republic radicals launched a counter coup. By bribing leaders of the National Guard and in a series of co-ordinated assassinations and murders they managed to cripple many militant leaders of the Committee while launching an uprising inside Paris. National Guard troops stormed the Jacobin club headquarters arresting or killing many members of Committee while Robespierre himself was seized and before a mob of cheering citizens beheaded that very day.
This would pass into the time of The First Congress in France. The First Congress was a group of men who were pledged to the ideas of democracy, republican government and free enterprise. They set about disbanding the old mercantile system and replacing the guilds with capitalist ventures and businesses. They began setting up the framework of a new constitution with which to lead the country into a new era. While this was a republic in name, in practice the members of The First Congress tended to hoard power for themselves and support only enterprise important to them creating discontent among the populace. They moved to curb the power of the local militias by conscripting them into the army and sending them to the frontier much like the Committee before them. In essence little had changed.
The First Congress would also oversee the growth of revolutionary France (albeit indirectly) into the Rhineland (through secret treaty with Prussia) and the occupation of Belgium and the established an alliance with the Dutch Republic which they declared a protectorate as well as supporting the rebelling Swiss cantons and proclaiming new Swiss Confederate Republic. Through mass conscription and a near manic industrial effort they soundly defeated the armies of the Coalition at almost every turn with dramatic reversals of the defeats of 1795 and the rising star of the Republic, General Napoleon Bonaparte managed to successfully invade Italy and secure French interests there in order to put pressure on the Austrian armies in the field. Finally in 1797 the First Revolutionary War came to an end with the Treaty of Campo Formio securing French gains in the Lowlands and Italy, establishing a protectorate there, while Britain remained belligerent.
It was the beginning of a long rivalry.
[1] Since Robespierre’s reign of terror lasts longer in TTL the death toll is significantly higher sadly. This also leads to there being fewer nobles in the resulting government.
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And here we have the next chapter. More butterflies to follow next time! My computer is working again so its the same font scheme this time.
Comments and suggestions are encouraged! Enjoy!