Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

Here’s hoping the Empire can pull through

Not to tip my hand too much; the problems of the Empire existed for a reason, but there’s no reason they had to resolve themselves in the 1889 coup the way they did. Lot of other paths this could take for the Braganza family

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the reception of Carlota in Europe was icy at best, even by her own brothers Leopold II and Philippe during her 10-month sojourn in Brussels. Her reputation for eccentricity - bordering on mad paranoia - preceded her even in the courts of Europe, and King Leopold himself saw to it that Prince Louis Maximilian spent substantial time with his uncles and cousin, the future Leopold III [1], to "avoid her mutterings and musings." (By modern standards, the treatment of Carlota by her contemporaries obviously has substantial whiffs of sexism, of dismissals of a woman due to her gender, but it is still likely that Carlota did suffer from some adverse mental health issues, most likely severe depression. Her beloved husband's frequent dalliances, of which she was often aware, affected her deeply). The extended, nearly three-year time Carlota was in Europe, coincidentally and conveniently corresponding with the revolts stared down by her husband at home, was not just to expose the Crown Prince to a European education but also to tour the continent seeking out an appropriate bride, and ideally bring her home to Mexico to assimilate to the country before her son's majority. Carlota's eye was first and foremost on her niece, Clementine, whom she entertained and aggressively tried to woo. Leopold was neutral to the match, and indeed Clementine would eventually marry her cousin Baudoin [2], but her mother Queen Henriette was aggressively opposed, having come to detest Carlota during her stay. It did not help that the Belgian royal family did not care much for Louis Maximilian, who by this point a late teen-ager began to show some of his later personality traits - a mercurial temper, a contempt for household staff, and bouts of depression and paralyzing terror. Dismissed in his day as merely having inherited his mother's madness, it is quite likely in hindsight that the Crown Prince would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder his entire life, thanks in large part to the severe injury sustained to his face, causing the loss of his left eye, much of his left ear, and the permanent scarring of his temple and side of his head, on the attempted assassination on the day of his first communion.

Carlota departed Brussels shortly after the marriage of her nephew Prince Leopld, the Duke of Brabant, to Marie Anne of Portugal in early 1883 [3]. Her destination was Vienna, where she wanted Louis Maximilian to spend time with his uncle Franz Josef, learning the history of his father's land and picking up matters of Court. It was here in his nearly two years in Vienna that Louis Maximilian, all of 15 upon arriving, developed his penchant for prostitutes, being taken under the wing of the infamous Crown Prince Rudolf, his cousin. (Leopold of Belgium, it should be noted, was infamous for his extramarital affairs as well, but never once thought to drag his young cousin out to get him into any sort of trouble). Carlota also saw the stay in Vienna as an opportunity to "find a Habsburg girl" for her son to marry, after her embarrassing failure in Brussels. The Empress' eye fell on Archduchess Valerie (full name Marie Valerie), Franz Josef's youngest daughter, who was almost precisely of an age with her son down to a few weeks and was famed for her beauty (and remarkable resemblance to her father, contrary to rumors of her parentage). Once more, she was defeated by the desires of the girl's mother - while "Sisi," the Empress Elisabeth, did not loathe Carlota in the way Queen Henriette did, she loved Valerie above all her other children and was firm that her favorite daughter would not have to marry against her will. Franz Josef, despite seeing the match as favorable, especially as Louis Maximilian came to be extremely smitten with his cousin, was unable to overrule his wife in this matter, as with most matters in their unusual and tumultuous marriage [4]. Carlota did not press the matter once Franz Josef reluctantly declined her proposal, and Louis Maximilian was heartbroken - the Crown Prince would never fully reconcile himself to his Austrian heritage for the rest of his life, taking considerably more interest in Belgian (and French) matters as he grew older and by the time of middle age considering Europe totally alien, and regarding himself as fully Mexican [5], which neither of his parents ever did.

The saying of course is that the third time is the charm, and Carlota did find her husband his future wife during their time in Vienna - the third daughter of Archduke Josef Karl, Palatine of Hungary, an archduchess two years Louis Maximilian's junior by name of Margarethe Klementine. From the Hungarian branch of the Habsburg line, it was an almost insultingly junior match for the future Emperor, and Louis Maximilian even at 16 found her plain when in late 1884 his mother introduced them at a ball in Budapest. Nevertheless, Josef Karl and his wife were much more amenable to the match than Carlota's brother or brother-in-law had been, and the Archduchess' minor noble German mother did not protest. Shortly before returning to Mexico in 1885, the engagement was announced, and Carlota made arrangements for the future Empress Margareta Clementina - who would be one of the Mexico's most famous public figures in time [6] - to journey back to join her family in Chapultepec and learn to "become a Mexican" before she was married to her betrothed..."

- Maximilian of Mexico

[1] In this TL did not fall in a pond and die
[2] Who here survives, of course, not that it will have a huge impact outside of Clementine not marrying Prince Victor Napoleon
[3] Marie Anne still winding up marrying into a Catholic Low Country monarchy, albeit a decade earlier in Belgium rather than William of Luxembourg... who we will be keeping an eye on. Stay tuned.
[4] Franz Josef was totally devoted to Sisi, who really didn't care for him
[5] Probably for the best, of course
[6] This chapter of course jumps around chronologically a bit, with some minor flashforwards. Of course, a big one here is an obscure minor Habsburg archduchess becoming a major future figure in Mexican history, which is part of what makes projects like this so fun. It took a LOT of work for me to find Louis Maximilian an appropriate bride, I'll just leave it at that (the two failed marriage proposals basically match up with me going "hey this one could work! Err.... maybe not")

 

[Couperin]

Is Crown Prince Rudolf set to have his suicide as OTL? A happier marriage for him (or a different marriage entirely) might give the Hapsburg throne a greater variety of heirs, which would improve the fortunes of the Dual Monarchy.

 

[KingSweden24]

Is Crown Prince Rudolf set to have his suicide as OTL? A happier marriage for him (or a different marriage entirely) might give the Hapsburg throne a greater variety of heirs, which would improve the fortunes of the Dual Monarchy.

He's already married Stephanie so I think a happier marriage is out of the question, and he'll almost certainly still give her syphilis.

I haven't decided if Rudolf is going to kill himself, to be honest. I have decided that Franz Ferdinand will (eventually) see the Austrian throne, which was very briefly alluded to way back in the mid-1870s. The exact mechanism for that is still being worked out, however.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the mobilization of the Yunnan Army and its occupation of northern Tonkin's borderlands was the clearest signal yet from China that it did not intend to allow Riviere's Hanoi expedition to go unanswered and that it would not cede her Vietnamese vassal. The French response was split between alarm and belligerence; a war camp in Cabinet, led chiefly by Bazaine and Boulanger, wanted to immediately respond with the deployment of additional vessels through the Suez. A camp consolidated around MacMahon and Ollivier, however, counseled caution to the Emperor, noting that the situation in Egypt was still unsettled and that it needed to take priority. Napoleon was sympathetic to Boulanger's "bloody nose" [1] proposal, of a massive show of force to prevent further Chinese encroachment on French interests in the Far East, particularly with Korea having just tumbled back into Chinese suzerainty.

Napoleon yielded to the calmer voices around him, and did not sail the Asian Fleet into Ha Long Bay as he was advised, but he did deploy ever-more Foreign Legionnaires to Cochinchina that fall as the tensions mounted. The Black Flags continued their aggressive campaign at the behest of the Vietnamese government, too ramshackle to defend itself, and Chinese support flowed into Tonkin even as French diplomats attempted to negotiate the creation of spheres of influence within the territory - all without consulting the Vietnamese government. Of course, the French also failed to consult the ambitious Riviere, who was outraged at what he saw as his government's equivocating and failure to press the matter, making all his undefeated conquests for naught. It did not take long for him to make his gamble and attempt to answer the Tonkin Question himself..."

- The Scramble for Asia: Colonialism in the Far East in the 19th Century

[1] This phraseology lifted from the asinine proposals to give North Korea a "bloody nose" back in 2017

 

[KingSweden24]

Sorry about the recent delays in content everyone! Just recently moved and so I've been super busy with that. We'll have regular daily updates again here soon.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...critical to Lozada's inability to move effectively against the massing armies under Corona at Guadalajara was his unprotected flank at Mazatlan, then a small Sinaloan seaside town that was primarily populated by German immigrants who were fiercely loyal to Maximilian and the centralists. As the revolt in the west deepened, and neighbors turned on one another, the Germans of Mazatlan turned their breweries into armories, and became a critical point for a potential relief operation from Acapulco or Salina Cruz, which had ably held out against attacks by Oaxacan rebels. So long as Mazatlan sat at his rear, Lozada was at risk of being trapped between opposing forces and having government units operating in Nayarit. The Tiger demanded that Morales and Cajeme from Sonora move rapidly down the coast after taking Guaymas in order to secure the entire shore of the Sea of Cortez, so that he could march uninterrupted against the Altiplano. Guaymas held out considerably longer than expected, though, and eventually Morales abandoned the effort and left it under siege by Cajeme and his Yaqui Indians to move down the coast towards Mazatlan and help end the siege there.

The "voluntarios allemanes," as the men and women who held Mazatlan against constant bombardment and raids were known, with naval vessels shipping them food and supplies by nightfall along with re-enforcements, achieved asymmetrical casualties against the rebels who surrounded them, and even after Morales fought his way through several regime-loyal towns in Sinaloa - often conducting massacres that poisoned neutral locals against the rebels - to reach the city, the fighting continued unheeded. Still, with Morales now at Mazatlan's doorstep, Lozada yanked his fighters from Sinaloa and began his march on Guadalajara, aiming to besiege it by Christmas. The Rurales of Jalisco, loyal to the regime, conducted irregular warfare as devastating as what rebels and bandits in the north did against government forces, and Lozada himself was wounded severely enough that he had to call a halt to the march and even considered retreating to Tepic before finally pressing ahead.

As for the "German ulcer" that had attracted so much of his attention - it would not be until New Years Eve that Mazatlan finally collapsed, with dozens fleeing onto the Mexican Navy vessels in the harbor as many stayed behind in a last stand. Morales ordered nearly two hundred men, women and children executed in what came to be known as the New Year's Day Massacre, coming on the heels of a bloody night of fighting, looting, arson and rape. Native Mexicans were lined up and shot by firing squad - the Germans, after all manner of savagery had been conducted against them, were stabbed or cut and then thrown in the sea, their blood staining the beach red as they drowned and were eaten by sharks.

The affair was a colossal mistake carried out by a frustrated Morales against a people far from his home in Sonora. The Rape of Mazatlan, as the loyalist press called it, outraged whatever citizenry - particularly European immigrants - who had yet to volunteer and boosted the numbers of the Imperial Army, which would be critical as the war turned against the centralists in early 1883. Lozada found a Guadalajara galvanized and ready to fend his forces off when he arrived shortly afterwards. With the conduct of Morales both en route to Mazatlan and once victorious, Maximilian finally had his villain to rally the people against. If such butchery could happen there, it could certainly happen anywhere in Mexico..."

- The Revolt of the Caudillos

 

[SilentSpaniard]

- The Revolt of the Caudillos

Well, from an extremely pragmatic point of view... That kind of tragic event can be quite useful too, in order to develop some "us versus them" mentality.

"This conflict is nothing like centralists against federalists, or unionists against secessionists... It's civilization against barbarism. Are you actively supporting your Emperor? Or are you on the side of savages that enjoy butchering women and children?"

When you paint "the others" as godless heathens who bathe in the blood of their victims... There's not much of a choice nor more fence-sitting, really.

 

[KingSweden24]

Well, from an extremely pragmatic point of view... That kind of tragic event can be quite useful too, in order to develop some "us versus them" mentality.

"This conflict is nothing like centralists against federalists, or unionists against secessionists... It's civilization against barbarism. Are you actively supporting your Emperor? Or are you on the side of savages that enjoy butchering women and children?"

When you paint "the others" as godless heathens who bathe in the blood of their victims... There's not much of a choice nor more fence-sitting, really.

Well said. Of course there's plenty of war to go, but yeah, Morales really turned this from a sort of opaque struggle of varied grievances into a matter of life or death for many middle class Mexicans and really polarized opinion against the rebels in much of the country. The atrocities of the Rurales or Miramon's thugs were bad, but "acceptable" within the auspices of the 19th century; what he did to Mazatlan was unspeakable and crosses a major line.

 

[Couperin]

I wonder if as Mexico becomes a destination for many European immigrants, xenophobia would become a problem in the North. Regional identity in that area seems to be increasingly tying itself to republican sentiment, which could manifest itself in going against "foreign" elements in the country. Combine that anti-Hapsburg feeling with an antipathy to the CSA in the north, as well as increased poverty, and I could see the North being a center of leftist politics in the future Mexico, regardless of whether Max's dynasty is here to stay until TTL's present.

 

[KingSweden24]

I wonder if as Mexico becomes a destination for many European immigrants, xenophobia would become a problem in the North. Regional identity in that area seems to be increasingly tying itself to republican sentiment, which could manifest itself in going against "foreign" elements in the country. Combine that anti-Hapsburg feeling with an antipathy to the CSA in the north, as well as increased poverty, and I could see the North being a center of leftist politics in the future Mexico, regardless of whether Max's dynasty is here to stay until TTL's present.

I have to say - you are really good at predicting stuff I have roughly sketched out! Yes, absolutely. I think I mentioned it in a previous update (if not, it's canon now) but the biggest spate of tensions between black and Chinese immigrants and mestizo "natives" (in the native born sense) are in the same departments that are now in revolt.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...despite the pounds pouring in, it could be argued that direct rule indeed retarded Indian growth rather than accelerating it, particularly as Britain struggled through the Great Depression that consumed most of the last thirty years of the 19th century. India's growth in gross domestic product per capita can be attributed primarily to population growth, and her share of global GDP declined steadily over the course of the Raj. The rail system of India, particularly, was substantially overbuilt and expensive to maintain for its minimal freight; despite the rapid connection of Europe to Asia via the Suez, Britain often chose to direct freight via "safe passages" around the Cape instead out of concern for French hegemony in North Africa. Nevertheless, India did sustain some benefits - irrigation projects pushed by colonial administrators helped open up more land for farming, and Indian cotton became as important to the British textile industry as Egypt's cotton farming became to France's. [1] Still, even such beneficial innovations left India at London's mercy; the late 1870s were a time of tremendous famine, thanks in no small part to wheat exports continuing unabated to Britain; and it took the innovative entrepreneur Jamsetji Tata to begin to find ways to create local value for Indians in the space of textiles and steel over the next decades by using American, rather than British, technology..."

- The Raj (University of Southern California, 2004)

[1] To the chagrin of the CSA, to say the least

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Madrid in which Rizal arrived from the Philippines was the liberal and nationalist heart of Spain, full of artists, poets, and political philosophers who were ardently in favor of "El Rey Alemanio," Spain's wildly popular German-born King. Rizal, there to study medicine, was amazed at the spirit of the day that carried there, of the exchange of ideas and of the sizable community of German scientists and doctors who did much of the teaching. His poetry written during his studies in Spain reflect his admiration for the city and its people, and his dismay that Spain could not export more of this energy to the backwards land from which he originated, lamenting that here, the people were free, but in the Philippines, especially the countryside, they were "slaves of the friars." Finding other "indios," as Filipinos were called at the time, Rizal's sympathy for revolutionary ideas grew - not necessarily socialist, rather nationalist - particularly as Spain labored through the early-1880s depression that gripped much of Europe and the Americas..."

- Rizal (University of Madrid, 1998)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...it is ironically, considering his reputation as an antisocialist reactionary in the present day, that the measure that began the path to the end of Bismarck's career in public service was a paternalistic measure that went far and beyond anything passed elsewhere in the world to guarantee workers health insurance, devised through a formula of contributions and watered down to eight weeks of sick pay coverage rather than thirteen. The idea, mirroring similar measures proposed under France's "National Contract," was to wed the working class to the Junkers, and earn their loyalty, while making socialists less appealing.

As in France and Britain, the biggest opponent for such measures was not the aristocracy but rather ideological liberals, who also opposed socialism and viewed such measures as a statist encroachment on the rights of capital and the middle class. In France, where Napoleon IV had a pliant National Assembly run by his cronies and constituencies tipped towards rural districts where only God was more popular, this divide had little practical import on politics. In Britain, it was a severe divisor between the Liberal Party and their increasingly radical working class base. In Germany, it was an issue for Bismarck, who had abandoned his National Liberal allies in the Reichstag in his cold war with Emperor Friedrich and pursued a crackdown on socialists, the rapid imposition of tariffs (particularly on iron and agricultural goods), and ended the Kulturkampf, outraging anticlerical secularists. Rewarding his efforts was a Kaiser who still despised him and an ascendant liberal majority in the Reichstag that sought to check the Iron Chancellor as often as possible.

Bismarck's trump card, as it were, was that he was still Prime Minister of Prussia, and the Landtag was still governed by a coalition of his allies. The sickness insurance scheme passed there first, implemented exclusively in Prussia, meant to be a springboard to then be applied to all of Germany in 1883. Though the measure would be bogged down for most of the next year, Friedrich's acquiescence to this - the Emperor opposed other "state socialist" measures Bismarck had proposed during the year but saw the 8-week compromise as reasonable and was amenable to using Prussia as a test run for expanding the program across the Empire, a concession he would later severely regret - taught Bismarck a different lesson: that where the Reichstag frustrated his ambitions in all of Germany, the Landtag, where he was still well-liked, would generally agree to his proposals [1]. As the Anti-Socialist Laws were nearly coming due the next year for renewal, and well aware that Friedrich was skeptical of the precise package that had been passed years earlier, Bismarck began to feel out his allies among the Junkers in the upper house of Prussia while increasingly ignoring the National Liberal leaders from the Reichstag, most prominently Vice Chancellor von Bennigsen, on other matters as 1882 came to a close..."

- Bismarck Ascendant: The Era of the Iron Chancellor

[1] Looking back on it, I'm surprised nobody in Germany ever tried to outmaneuver a Kaiser with this plain loophole. The structure of the state was both too centralized and not centralized enough in this respect. Of course, Wilhelm I went along with whatever Otto suggested, but Fritz would have a different approach considering the contempt the two men had for each other (and that for all the modern "liberal Fritz" stuff, the guy was vehemently anti-Catholic, anti-Socialist and did not like many of the other German royals. The multi-tiered Germany of OTL was not really his vision, from what I've gleaned).

 

[KingSweden24]

"...though the second Hartington Ministry is celebrated by historians primarily for the Married Women's Property Act - which allowed married women to buy, sell, and own property, and keep their earnings - the most critical focus for the government in the fall of 1882 was using the Anglo-French convention that delineated the borders of Sierra Leone and French West Africa as a stepping stone to sorting out the "Egyptian Question." Granville wanted to press for a further condominium in Egypt, but found France cool to the idea, particularly after the bombardment of Alexandria. Most critically for the government, France continued to refuse an internationalization of the Suez, or any sort of international treaty governing use of the waterway. Some even began to wonder if perhaps war in the Mediterranean, triggered by a second escalation by Urabi in Egypt, was on the horizon, and Hartington belatedly agreed to start raising an expeditionary force to deploy to the Near East if it became necessary..."

- Hartington: Britain's First Modern Prime Minister

 

[kent]

took three days but was able to finish this a great read. Only problem I had was the idea you put forth that Grant was a drunk.

 

[SilentSpaniard]

Only problem I had was the idea you put forth that Grant was a drunk.

Maybe it was a biased in-universe source? Those are fun, like Ireland Unfree.

 

[KingSweden24]

took three days but was able to finish this a great read. Only problem I had was the idea you put forth that Grant was a drunk.

Forget what in-universe source that was, as SilentSpaniard said, could just be a biased one. In hindsight it’s really unlikely Grant would have been the 1864 Republican nominee in a world where the war ends in early 1863 for all intents and purposes but I’m not really interested in retconning that at this point (Chase could have been a likely pick - that said, I wanted to avoid anybody in Lincoln’s Cabinet taking the nom that soon after losing the war)

thank you for reading!

 

[SilentSpaniard]

Something else that catched my attention in a previous chapter.

and Indian cotton became as important to the British textile industry as Egypt's cotton farming became to France's. [1]

[1] To the chagrin of the CSA, to say the least

CSA: "Well, at least we can always rely on our cotton exports!"
*Everyone starts growing up cotton.*
CSA: *Angry dixiecrats noises.*

This is certainly not going to help with the Confederation's stability.

 

[KingSweden24]

Something else that catched my attention in a previous chapter.




CSA: "Well, at least we can always rely on our cotton exports!"
*Everyone starts growing up cotton.*
CSA: *Angry dixiecrats noises.*

This is certainly not going to help with the Confederation's stability.

They’re going to be in for a really fun 20th century, to say the least (I can say that without spoiling any of my ideas)