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Seeing what happens to the Philippines iTTL really makes me realize how gentle (I'm looking for a better word) the transition iOTL to independence for the Philippines was intended to be (before WWII got in the way).
 
Seeing what happens to the Philippines iTTL really makes me realize how gentle (I'm looking for a better word) the transition iOTL to independence for the Philippines was intended to be (before WWII got in the way).
Yeah, agreed. There’s a LOT to condemn regarding US behavior in the PI during the 1899-1902 period (especially against the Moros in Mindanao) but out of all the imperial powers they were still somehow the most benign (if that’s the right word) in the long run and at least had some sort of eventual exit plan
 
Seeing what happens to the Philippines iTTL really makes me realize how gentle (I'm looking for a better word) the transition iOTL to independence for the Philippines was intended to be (before WWII got in the way).
Perhaps "smooth" is the word you're looking for? Plus, it may be noted that America had many reluctant imperialists, some of whom who genuinely abhorred the idea of Empire, some of whom who didn't want more non-whites on American territory, and a lot of people who were a little of both. The Philippines were generally intended to be an operation in which the Filipinos were slowly given autonomy, then made into loyal but independent states like Cuba pre-Castro. Very paternalist, but with a lighter touch than most colonial empires at the time.
 
Perhaps "smooth" is the word you're looking for? Plus, it may be noted that America had many reluctant imperialists, some of whom who genuinely abhorred the idea of Empire, some of whom who didn't want more non-whites on American territory, and a lot of people who were a little of both. The Philippines were generally intended to be an operation in which the Filipinos were slowly given autonomy, then made into loyal but independent states like Cuba pre-Castro. Very paternalist, but with a lighter touch than most colonial empires at the time.
The Spanish also left behind effectively no civil society in the Philippines, unlike Cuba and Puerto Rico, having outsourced most practical civilian governance to the friars and then slaughtering basically all the native indigenous intelligentsia who were involved in the Propaganda Movement and Katipunan thereafter (such as Rizal), so there were really just corrupt goons like Aguinaldo left by the time the US showed up
 
One more thing re: the Philippines I didn’t quite touch on - Japan and now to a lesser extent Germany being so close to Australia is a massive strategic headache for Britain and a major motivation in their participation in the Triple Intervention which has now torched their credibility in Tokyo forever. The hope that Germany is satisfied with eastern Mindanao and looking north to get in a pissing math with France for the rest of the islands is essentially the entire bet for Britain because the German East Indies now essentially straddles the main ship routes from Oz to Pearl Harbour
 
Are there any Western powers that Japan doesn't hate at this point?

Come to think of it, the US wasn't involved in the intervention...
Russia comes to mind, and thanks to Teddy Roosevelt’s adventures in Tokyo Japan actually has some prestige in the US, though some with longer memories in the genro may still grumble about the Perry Expedition
 
A New King for a New Britain: The Life and Long Reign of George V
"...the need for more space eventually landed on a suggestion pushed aggressively by Chamberlain, the gargantuan Monumental Hall with a soaring tower [1] that would rise a hundred and forty meters above Westminster, dwarfing everything in the proximity but stealing the thunder of St. Paul's back for the Westminster Cathedral. George was personally initially quite skeptical but private foundations wound up meeting much of the remarkable cost and the grand structure, which would be fully completed in 1920, wound up being one of his great legacies, though for years it was the butt of jokes regarding the larger-than-life Prime Minister who had been its greatest partisan - that the monuments it needed to be so large to fit were Chamberlain's ego, or phallic remarks, such as "Old Joe wanting to leave the Palace of Westminster in the shadow of his cock even after he was dead...""

- A New King for a New Britain: The Life and Long Reign of George V [2]

[1] This monstrosity, also known as the Seddon Proposal. Here it's slightly shorter than the OTL proposal which of course never happened (it was ruinously expensive and completely out of character with that part of London) but with a powerful egomaniac like Chamberlain pushing it, I could see it happening. Also, alt-architecture is kinda fun :p
[2] Considering the remarkable similarity in title to the textbook about Tsar Michael II of Russia, chalk this one up to either A) the same publisher or B) me being very lazy
 
The Arson of Austria: Understanding Central Europe's Conflagration
"...shortly before Christmas, and her illness only steadily grew worse. Finally, on January 22, 1905, Sisi passed away at the Schonbrunn, Franz Josef's hand in hers as he sat at the bedside, an unusually intimate and ordinary end to their otherwise unconventional and tumultuous marriage. His strange love for her did not extend far enough that he could honor the dying request in her testament and even on her lips as she passed, though: "I want a funeral in Budapest."

Sisi had always preferred the Hungarian half of the realm and been its greatest partisan at Court. The culture, the people, the city where her equally Magyarphile son had been murdered, that was the part of the Dual Monarchy where she had felt at home. The old Emperor pondered her request for two days in agony; what was the downside in holding the funeral mass in St. Stephen's, anyways?

Franz Ferdinand was firm in his advice not to, however, and for once Franz Josef took his nephew's advice. A funeral for the Empress at one of Catholicism's two seats in Hungary less than a year after the anti-Viennese parties had captured the state organs of Transleithnia would only serve as a propaganda platform for parties opposed to the current Habsburg settlement. No, though the Crown of St. Stephen was one of two the Emperor wore, there were Hungarian events that warranted such imperial pomp in Budapest but Vienna was the ancestral home of the House of Habsburg and Elisabeth should be buried there accordingly. The Emperor conceded after considerably pressure by other centralists in Court, and the Empress's funeral was scheduled for early February, one of the most lavish in the history of the Empire.

To say the least, this stance was not popular in Budapest, where Sisi had been adored by the public and her son had been genuinely mourned after his shock assassination six and a half years earlier. Even Liberal politicians, generally deferential to Vienna, complained that "Hungary will be unable to properly bid adieu to this admired Empress on our own soil." Erzsi was particularly apoplectic; though not particularly close to her eccentric grandmother the one thing they had shared was their love of Hungary and in the Empress's will she had received much of her personal property (that which wasn't bequeathed to various religious orders). The snub was the last straw for her in her alienation from Court and her eventual renunciation of her place in the Habsburg family and indeed in high nobility in Europe; her commitment from here on out was to herself and to her beloved Hungary..."

- The Arson of Austria: Understanding Central Europe's Conflagration

(THanks to @suburbanbeatnik for some of the Erzsi ideas!)
 
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Shadow Wars: A History of Espionage and Counterintelligence
"...borders in the Balkans were strange things, though; there, truly, they were merely lines on a map, and even the hodgepodge of linguistic communities for which the complex region is famous was more fluid than meets the eye. There were many who were not merely a Greek or Albanian, nor merely a Turk or Bulgarian, but a bit of both, with a partial command of both languages, with no firm identity beyond residency in their village. The mountainous southeast of Europe's fluidity was economic, too; Serbs regularly migrated south into Nish and Sofya to work throughout the summer before returning home, traveling merchants roamed the valleys like they had since medieval times, and banditry knew no borders, nor did the mercenaries and posses assembled - like something out of the American Old West - to catch them.

This status quo was not uneasy but rather quite simple to those who lived within it, a normal they took for granted, and fertile soil for powers around to easily pay spies and intrigue across borders..."

- Shadow Wars: A History of Espionage and Counterintelligence
 
I was thinking: Anglo-Japanese alliance is going to make it harder for Britain to protect her possessions in the Far East. Given she’s on the least worst terms with Germany, maybe an informal understanding with the Kaiser is for the best? The Germans could at least distract the French and the Japanese
 
Pitchforks, Peasants and Palmetto Politics: The Rise and Fall of Benjamin Tillman
"...even less important than its Union counterpart (with fewer states the Confederate Senate was of course much smaller and thus even more driven by its individual personalities and state interests) but the practice had long been that Vice Presidents, as a "reward" for their serving six years in a powerless, meaningless job, were often granted some sinecure after the inauguration of their successor. In the case of Longstreet's ticket mate Augustus Garland it had been a seat on the Supreme Court; for Joseph Blackburn, it had been consistent appointments to the Cabinet, as Secretary of the Treasury and now Secretary of State; and for William Bate, it was to return to the Senate seat he had held for over two decades after a single-term interregnum by Henry Snodgrass, who was purely a seat warmer for Bate's return in early 1904. [1]

Of course, Bate had been quite elderly already upon his elevation to the Vice Presidency and his return to the Senate had come with eyebrows raised and questions about his potential longevity, especially as he quietly slid into an additional sinecure in the position of Senate President Pro Tem that had been held most of his previous tenure by the imperious [Wade] Hampton. No Senator since Hampton's retirement had held the office for even an entire Congress, either through death or maneuvering in "the world's most eloquent viper pit," and Bate was no different, dying on March 9, 1905 on his way back from serving in the Confederate delegation to the inauguration festivities of William Hearst in Washington.

Bate's death took nobody in Richmond by surprise, certainly not Pitchfork Ben. Since it became clear two years earlier that too many within the populist wing of the Democratic Party had their knives out for the movement's putative leader and would partner with the Bourbons to destroy him, Tillman had begun identifying a different and perhaps cleaner way to exercise power - to become the next Hampton, who had for twelve years held considerably more power than any President by virtue of maintaining an iron grip over the Senate and concomitantly the machinery of the party itself.

Tillman was greatly assisted in his quest for the ring by the debacle in Tennessee that followed Bate's death. Snodgrass [2] was not reappointed, instead denied a return to the Senate by a plot by the incumbent Tillmanite governor James Frazier to take the seat for himself in a deal cut with the Speaker of the Tennessee House (who would succeed him), John Cox, to appoint him immediately upon resignation. The "Tennessee Two-Step" replaced a moderate Bourbon in Bate (whom Frazier and Cox had had to be cajoled [3] with considerable deference on patronage to reappoint in the first place) with a reformist Pitchforker and, critically, gave the Tillmanites what they had lacked for years - a working majority in the Confederate States Senate. Even Vardaman fell in line to prevent the Bourbon faction from continuing to hold power and with that, Tillman had recovered from his political nadir to become quite possibly the most powerful man in the Confederacy. Almost as soon as he was in office, he began to box out Vice President Tyler (who had previously tried to bully the Senate as its typical presiding officer) and trained his attention on fomenting discontent towards two major Cabinet officers of the "Kentucky cabal" - Treasury Secretary John Carlisle and Secretary of State Blackburn, both former Senators and the new leaders of the Bourbon faction within the Jones administration - to divide the Cabinet into competing camps and make his mark on Richmond from the Senate. Patronage, appointments, legislation - everything now flowed through Pitchfork Ben.

The Tillmanite consolidation, far from having ended with Jones' compromise nomination, had only just begun..."

[1] The textbook doesn't need to cover this, but Roger Q. Mills doesn't get a soft landing by the old boys club thanks to his antics in Texas and everyone hating him
[2] What a great, stereotypically Southern name
[3] This being the South lets call this a polite aphorism for "bribed"
 
I was thinking: Anglo-Japanese alliance is going to make it harder for Britain to protect her possessions in the Far East. Given she’s on the least worst terms with Germany, maybe an informal understanding with the Kaiser is for the best? The Germans could at least distract the French and the Japanese
The British would absolutely love to have the Japanese as a bulwark against Russia and France, though open question if Japan would listen.
 
Give the Japanese lands or give them a Blanck cheque when it comes to Asia.
I don't know if the British could realistically do that; its hard to see Germany or France agreeing to see Japan extend its power into the southern part of the Archipelago (and into their spheres of influence). Plus, the British don't fully trust the Japanese either, they as much as the French or Germans can cause headaches for the British in Malaysia and China.
 
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