Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...that high-water mark would come in the fateful summer of 1883, a fulcrum of Mexican history, as two sieges finally broke. The first, at Guadalajara, was a resounding victory for the government; in fighting on June 27th, Lozada was killed by a stray bullet that struck him beneath the left eye. His men cried out "the Tiger is slain!" and retreated in chaos; Corona quickly rode out with his cavalry and routed their retreat, killing hundreds and permanently breaking the rebellion from Nayarit. Though banditry would persist in the West of Mexico for months more, Tepic was taken shortly thereafter and Morales was forced to abandon Mazatlan and hastily move his ragtag army to join up with the Northern Alliance, a move now available to him with the volcanic Lozada's reaction no longer a concern.

Though Corona's heroism in Guadalajara and the brutal crushing of the Mayan revolt in the Yucatan by Blanquet effectively creating a pincer on Romero in Oaxaca created breathing room for Maximilian's forces, the Northern Alliance - now with the magnetic Lerdo as its head, casting the conflict not as a temper tantrum by caudillos denied special privileges but as a continuation of the Reform War and vengeance for the French intervention - managed a breakthrough. Aguascalientes collapsed at last in early August after a six month siege, with Garcia and Terrazas raising the Republican Flag in the city square. Despite the city's bloody capture, in which nearly a thousand Imperial troops were killed and thousands more wounded, it did not end with a massacre such as those at Mazatlan or Torreon; Garcia insisted on allowing forces there to retreat in an orderly fashion. When Gonzalez, still investing San Luis Potosi, heard of this he was outraged. Under cover of nightfall, Reyes finally decided to do the same, abandoning his position there are retreating to join up with the survivors of Aguascalientes at Guanajuato, the site of a key rail link in the Altiplano. If Guanaojuato fell, the pathways to Queretaro and Guadalajara would be wide open, and from there it was but a simple march to Mexico City. The Northern Alliance surged forward, aggressively making their way forward, with Lerdo promising "we shall celebrate the Nativity Mass at the Zocalo this winter!" in a rousing address. Considering the advances the rebels had made in the north in just the last seven months, it seemed that history was definitively on their side. Despite Cajeme and his Yaqui irregulars pulling back to defend Sonora against Marines being deployed to Guaymas, anti-rebel guerilla battles taking a substantial toll across much of the rebel-held north and the revolt in Tampico being put down violently, it seemed that the tide was definitively on Lerdo's side.

The Battle of Guanajuato is thus regarded as one of the most critical in Mexican history. Despite being outnumbered, Reyes and his men held the line bravely; they knew it would be days until they would be reinforced. Wave after wave, over the course of a week, of attacks came, with Gonzalez - in charge of the operation - choosing not to subject his men to another extended siege, not with the enemy's logistical advantage of fighting so close to their base of support. Thousands of volunteers joined the government forces, and a battalion of Corona's men arrived on the sixth day. To the southeast, Miramon arrived at Queretaro with twenty-five thousand men, the recruits he had been training and supply, the first fresh wave of reserves. He sent five thousand ahead to relieve Reyes and the remainder were fortified, building trenches and earthworks, and positioning cannons. If Guanajuato broke, and the Northern Alliance came forward, Queretaro was where Miramon would have his last stand on behalf of his Emperor..."

- The Revolt of the Caudillos

 

[KingSweden24]

"...it is still remarkable, then, that the famously cautious, forward-thinking Bismarck would take a gamble as infamous as his "Landtag Gambit." In the end, it could have been that the Iron Chancellor had been so successful maneuvering, playing rivals foreign and domestic off one another, creating alliances of convenience only to shed them, that he finally made what seemed like the right move only to find that it was the wrong one. It could be that his enemies no longer feared him, seeing him as a defanged serpent rather than a venomous one, or perhaps an old man past his prime. Another take, perhaps one less charitable to the subject of this book, is that Bismarck had for so long been shown by Frederick that any move or provocation would be met with hesitancy if not retreat; the Kaiser's proclivity was one for a stern word rather than bold action, in hoping that this time, perhaps, he would be listened to.

Though there was nothing plainly illegal, or even wrong, with Bismarck's decision to maneuver around the Reichstag by passing an even harsher package of Anti-Socialist Laws through the Prussian Landtag after his defeat at the national level, it was so plainly a thumbed nose at the sovereign that the move could not go unanswered. Bismarck introduced the package into the lower house, which was indirectly elected under a three-class system and so packed with his conservative supporters; the package was passed with little debate only two days later. Bismarck timed the passage of the package for Frederick's state visit in September to Umberto in Italy, a move that only underlined the insult. Frederick was informed of the gambit as he returned from Rome by train; outraged, he demanded that the train stop at the nearest town, in this case Innsbruck in Austria, so he could telegraph ahead to demand answers. By the time he arrived in Munich, where he disembarked, the House of Lords in Prussia had begun debate. The Junker class passing their ally Bismarck's plan was a fait accompli; Frederick's stop in Munich to be briefed by alarmed aides who had rode down to meet him as soon as they caught wind of Bismarck's plot was only for a few hours before he was on the move again, returning to Berlin.

It was Victoria, withdrawn from political matters out of grief for her son William and her fear of the German press, who spoke to Frederick first upon his arrival in Potsdam. As he stewed over dinner, fuming, she bluntly asked him, "Does he wear the crown, or do you?" The Kaiser had a new resolve that he had often lacked before; as the House of Lords passed the package that evening, he demanded an audience with Bismarck the next day.

Historians debate whether Bismarck knew he was going to be sacked when he traveled to to the Stadtschloss; based on his contemporary correspondence, it is broadly thought that the Iron Chancellor genuinely believed that yet another gamble and staredown with his enemies would work to his advantage. Frederick had barely pushed back on him in the past; even in the high-profile defeat at the Reichstag earlier that year, von Bennigsen had led the charge and acted as Frederick's catspaw. It would have been reasonable for him to assume that he would get a frustrated talking to but that the indecisive Kaiser would fold like he usually did. For once, however, Bismarck had misread his opposition. Frederick, a man dependent on his wife for his confidence, had been given just that by the person he needed it from the most. The meeting was not long, and neither man ever expounded particularly on what was said; by all accounts it was cordial, with Frederick keeping his temper in check. It lasted no longer than ten minutes. When Bismarck left the palace, he had been dismissed from all his offices; that of Chancellor of Germany, Prime Minister of Prussia and Foreign Minister of both. Frederick's staff telegrammed the news out within minutes, before the Iron Chancellor could confer with his allies; in the shocking announcement of Bismarck's sacking, Frederick declined to disclose the reason, even though anyone with a modicum of understanding of the political conditions of the Hot Summer could understand. Conservative protestors angrily marched in the streets of several German cities but even there, there was little energy for opposition as the stunned nation reconciled itself to a world in which the man who had steered policy in Berlin for two decades had been unceremoniously pensioned.

At the end of the day, Frederick announced that he would appoint Chlodwig, the Prince of Hohenlohe - a prominent antimontane Catholic liberal from Hesse who had served a number of roles in Germany including that of Prime Minister of Bavaria and as Foreign Secretary of Germany during Bismarck's brief illness in 1880, having previously been a diplomat of high regard. Hohenlohe's key role in reconciling Bavaria to a union with Prussia had made him one of the most important German statesmen, even out of office, and he had long been considered the natural choice for Frederick to appoint as his Chancellor. As Prime Minister of Prussia, largely seen as a sop to conservatives in the Landtag and Bismarck's base, he appointed Botho zu Eulenberg, a capable Prussian administrator most famous for implementing the original Anti-Socialist Laws as Prussia's Interior Minister and for the last two years President of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. Many were surprised that Frederick chose not to give one man the dual roles once again; however, as the Kaiser next invited the Prince of Hohenlohe to consider whom to include in a new cabinet and instructed Eulenberg to do the same, it became clear what the throne's plan was - the permanent sovereignty of the German state over the Prussian one..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

- Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine

The partnership between Blaine and Garfield was at its strongest in other ways;

Man I love this Blaine and Garfield. So awesome, given that they were rather close in OTL as well.

 

[KingSweden24]

Man I love this Blaine and Garfield. So awesome, given that they were rather close in OTL as well.

Thank you! Two really interesting men who really didn't get their due in OTL, and I'm following a pretty strict "no OTL Presidents" and "no OTL PMs" in the US, CS and UK so finding new roles and pathways for them has been a lot of fun. Garfield in particular is going to get to have a really prominent, respectable career not cut short by an assassin's bullet at the age of only 50.

 

[Couperin]

Thank you! Two really interesting men who really didn't get their due in OTL, and I'm following a pretty strict "no OTL Presidents" and "no OTL PMs" in the US, CS and UK so finding new roles and pathways for them has been a lot of fun. Garfield in particular is going to get to have a really prominent, respectable career not cut short by an assassin's bullet at the age of only 50.

Have you thought about extending that rule to other realms as well? While the information is more sparse on other countries, it might be interesting to see other alternate Chancellors and PMs. Of course, all of this TL is your choice, and I like the story either way.

 

[KingSweden24]

Have you thought about extending that rule to other realms as well? While the information is more sparse on other countries, it might be interesting to see other alternate Chancellors and PMs. Of course, all of this TL is your choice, and I like the story either way.

Where possible, absolutely! A longevitous Francisco Serrano running Spain for a decade at this point, Bazaine and MacMahon's rise in France (w/ Boulanger waiting in the wings), Bismarck now getting fired early, John Macdonald in Canada retiring in the mid-1870s... this is definitely something I'm playing with, though as an American with much of my knowledge being in US/UK history (much more so the former than the latter) using historical figures and just shifting things around a bit is probably what I'll default to. I'll probably have a bit of a looser version of this apply in Canada.

What I really look for in this are figures who were notable but in that second or third tier of notoriety IOTL and placing them in that first tier. Carnarvon and Hartington in the UK replacing Disraeli and Hartington, for instance, or Hoffman and Hendricks being the US Presidents of the 1870s after the failed administration of Salmon Chase; all three of those are men who are pretty obscure in our world even if they were quite prominent national figures of their day.

(of course "no OTL Presidents" is easy for the CSA seeing as how outside of Wilson the South didn't start consistently elevating candidates to national prominence until LBJ in the 1960s followed on by Carter, the Bushes, Clinton, etc)

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Thank you! Two really interesting men who really didn't get their due in OTL, and I'm following a pretty strict "no OTL Presidents" and "no OTL PMs" in the US, CS and UK so finding new roles and pathways for them has been a lot of fun. Garfield in particular is going to get to have a really prominent, respectable career not cut short by an assassin's bullet at the age of only 50.

Ah well. Garfield would have been a good president.

Possible president Robert Todd lincoln?

 

[KingSweden24]

Ah well. Garfield would have been a good president.

Possible president Robert Todd lincoln?

Garfield, by virtue of staring down Conkling and effectively ending senatorial courtesy and ushering in civil service reform, greatly enhanced his own office. What else he could have achieved is a tremendous what-if, but I think his Presidency is underrated solely due to its brevity. In my opinion he stands head and shoulders above his Gilded Age compatriots. He could have been a really, really good president.

That's not quite the plan, though Lincoln is going to stick around and keep playing a prominent role (his father is still alive at this point in the TL even if history has moved past him a bit and is one of the country's most lucrative, influential attorneys)

 

[SilentSpaniard]

yet another cog of the secretive, all-encompassing machine known throughout Dixie merely as "the Party"

Oh, my... So detailed, plausible and terrifying. Like a "Banana Republic" system, On Steroids!

"The Party knows everything. The Party reaches everywhere. Nothing shall exist outside the Party."

I'm getting some Orwell vibes here...

 

[Mr.Doctor]

Has there ever been a map for this timeline??

 

[KingSweden24]

[QUOTE="SilentSpaniard, post: 21197965, member: 147936"]
Oh, my... So detailed, plausible and [I]terrifying.[/I] Like a "Banana Republic" system, [I]On Steroids![/I]

"The Party knows everything. The Party reaches everywhere. [I]Nothing shall exist outside the Party.[/I]"

I'm getting some Orwell vibes here...
[/QUOTE]

It’s not a far leap from OTL’s “Solid South,” just on steroids!

 

[KingSweden24]

Has there ever been a map for this timeline??

Nope! I’m not great at making maps so I’ve never tried my hand at it. Info boxes are giving me enough trouble as it is 😅

 

[pathfinder]

Loving the tension of the Mexican war, though I initially found it odd that Reyes would decide to hole up in Guanajuato. The city is almost completely ringed by low mountains that would make any approach aside from the southwest incredibly difficult. Sure, it's an highly defensible position, but it also allows the rebels to simply bypass Reyes' army completely. (Not to mention, a rail junction would be better placed, in my view, in Silao, which lies near the entrance of the valley Guanajuato is located in.) But then, leaving a large force like that behind your lines is asking for trouble, so Lerdo's men would be forced to reckon with them sooner or later.
On another note, the ants nest worth of tunnels under the city would make for some interesting maneuvers by the defenders, should the attackers attempt to force entry into the city itself.

 

[KingSweden24]

Loving the tension of the Mexican war, though I initially found it odd that Reyes would decide to hole up in Guanajuato. The city is almost completely ringed by low mountains that would make any approach aside from the southwest incredibly difficult. Sure, it's an highly defensible position, but it also allows the rebels to simply bypass Reyes' army completely. (Not to mention, a rail junction would be better placed, in my view, in Silao, which lies near the entrance of the valley Guanajuato is located in.) But then, leaving a large force like that behind your lines is asking for trouble, so Lerdo's men would be forced to reckon with them sooner or later.
On another note, the ants nest worth of tunnels under the city would make for some interesting maneuvers by the defenders, should the attackers attempt to force entry into the city itself.

Love this response! My sense from Wikipedia (lol) led me to imagine Guanajuato, with its beautiful colonial architecture, as more of a natural chokepoint rather than being entirely ringed, and a place the rebels would have no choice but to eventually address.

Loving the idea of the tunnels under the city, though. I'm for sure going to do something with that...

 

[KingSweden24]

The Waldersee Putsch
(wikipedia.en)​

The Waldersee Putsch was a failed coup d'etat attempted on November 7th, 1883 in Berlin, Germany, by General Quartermaster of the German General Staff Alfred von Waldersee and forces of the Prussian Army loyal to him against the German government, most prominently Kaiser Frederick III, Germany's Chancellor the Prince Hohenlohe, and Vice Chancellor, and leader of the National Liberals, Rudolf von Bennigsen. On November 7 the putschists managed to seize much of central Berlin, taking control of the Prussian Landtag and forcing recently installed Prime Minister Botho zu Eulenberg and much of his Cabinet to flee, and besieging the Reichstag and City Palace, which were defended through the night and next day by government-aligned troops. The coup began to collapse the next day when Frederick III returned to Potsdam from Hanover, where Waldersee had expected sympathizers to arrest the Emperor, and when Otto von Bismarck, the recently dismissed Chancellor, gave a thunderous address against the violence in Berlin from the steps of the War Ministry, held by Field Marshal von Moltke and his own men against a siege of police officers who flipped to Waldersee's cause.

The fighting in central Berlin ended the next day with the arrival of Paul von Hindenburg and his Kreiskorps, a young infantry officer who's men broke through the forces of Alfred von Schlieffen encircling the Reichstag, allowing von Bennigsen and other officials to flee the city safely. Additional infantry units being raised in the proximity of the capital to move against the plotters, and the surrender of several insurgents in the late evening, led to Waldersee's suicide by pistol in the Herrenhaus Chamber of the Prussian Landtag.

The attempted putsch came at the conclusion of a politically tense summer in which street violence and social polarization spiked over fears of socialist upheavals, the renewals of anti-socialist laws, and the political rivalry between the moderately liberal Frederick and Bismarck, who was aligned with conservatives in both the Prussian government and military. Waldersee had expected considerably more of the Prussian elite to support him in his effort to oust Frederick and serve as a dictatorial Chancellor, perhaps with a new monarch such as Crown Prince Henry, in place. The support failed to materialize, the surviving plotters were shunned, and the event served as an impetus for Frederick to pursue substantial constitutional reforms that minimized the powers of individual states and centralized much of the authority of the Empire in his hands as well as the imperial bureaucracy.

Author's Note: Huge, huge shoutout to @TheHedgehog for helping me figure out how to do infoboxes properly!

 

[KingSweden24]

"...that a strike in the coal mines of Silesia, and sympathy strikes in the Ruhr, nearly toppled the German government remains difficult to believe, but the fear of a "Belgian Uprising in Germany," as the nationalist press put it, was the catalyst for Waldersee moving forward his plans to finally usurp the Emperor and supplant the upstart National Liberals who he felt were forgetting their place in the German order. For maximum effect, he waited for when Frederick would not be in Berlin, and when he knew that the Crown Prince would be on sea drills. The civilian government would be the easiest to sweep away, was the belief, despite Schlieffen's skepticism of moving forward with an outright coup rather than organizing a political bloc for the military to use as a political pressure point in the Reichstag. Waldersee's desire to serve as Chancellor in his 'Restored Germany' also rankled many of his sympathizers, despite the enthusiasm many footsoldiers had for the idea, and the lack of enthusiasm Schlieffen had for the endeavor could explain its eventual failure..."

"...Frederick's return on the morning of the 8th, not long before "Der Held Hindenburg" made his gallant attack with his men into the heart of the siege zone, was what forever endeared him to the German public in a way that he had never been able to earn their trust before. Despite the conservatism of 1880s Germany it was still an increasingly liberal, educated society that believed in laws and not settling internal disputes via violence; the German street reacted with shock to the Belgian strikes earlier that year for their ugliness, and had the same reaction when the hard right behaved that way in Berlin over three days that November. Waldersee was doomed to fail not just because of logistics but because he fundamentally misunderstood the people he sought to rule..."

"...the Waldersee Putsch in the end did little more than set back the cause of violent reactionary politics in Germany. Bismarck, despite his calls for peace, was blamed by liberals, progressives and socialists for fostering the enmity by playing political parties off one another to stay in power over the previous 15 years. The Iron Chancellor, revered on the German right to this day for his role in uniting the Reich via iron and blood and still a national hero, was to his contemporaries a sad old disgrace who stayed past his prime. A generation of rising military talents were humiliated; Schlieffen and Hahnke's acquiescence to Waldersee's self-serving plot had their careers ended before they had had a chance to truly begin. The octogenarian von Moltke retired shortly thereafter, embarrassed that he had "allowed such a cancer to grow under my nose," though his reputation was substantially rehabilitated in future years. Caprivi would replace Moltke, largely in thanks for his brave efforts managing the siege from the War Ministry. Hindenburg, now a popular hero, was only at the very start of his own glittering career. And yet, the military was always viewed askance by the civilian government from then on, and its fundamental role in German society would reach an ebb until the next great European war broke out. [1] The Junkers would keep their economic influence for decades more - Frederick's antipathy towards socialism and land reform, and his successor's similar attitudes, helped stave off attempts to break up their massive and uneconomic estates. Despite this, the aristocratic Landtag, with its three-class electorate, would decline in influence as Frederick positioned himself first and foremost as Germany's Emperor and pursued his New Course..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany

[1] Ruh-roh!

 

[KingSweden24]

"...sorry, ASB. Waldersee was completely and utterly delusional and he cost five hundred Germans their lives, including his own, proving it. There was no universe in which the Prussian Army would have turned en masse against the Kaiser; he couldn't get his own gang of idiots to be fully bought in! (Germans have debated since 1883 whether or not Schlieffen basically phoned in his role during the battle in Berlin against his peers, and the very lenient treatment he got suggests that Caprivi certainly suspected as much). The Prussian Army may have bristled every now and then at Friedrich's liberalism and quiet opposition to the Unification Wars, or thought it was untoward how much his *gasp* British wife dominated him, but he had acquitted himself well as a soldier, had never once denied a military budget increase, and supported the right of the Kaiser to dissolve any legislature that tried to cut the Army's privileges or expenditures. Put bluntly, whatever tensions existed between the Kaiser and his former Chancellor's conservative, landed aristocratic base, were of the normal political kind. Waldersee wanting to purge the German state because it was insufficiently anti-Semitic and anti-Socialist was purely his own madness. It's honestly remarkable he found anybody willing to go along with him; had the Great Coal Strike not broken out in the German coal mines, and Frederick's response not been exceedingly lenient in view of how poorly the public had reacted to a similarly inauspicious start to general strikes in Belgium only six months earlier, its doubtful that Schlieffen or Hahnke join in, and without them, and the fear of socialism permeating the Prussian Army's staff corps, then there's no Putsch.

Even beyond that, though, let's say a butterfly flaps its wings and the gang of idiots who couldn't even take the Reichstag after seizing the Prussian Diet manage to actually do it. What then? Do they start executing political enemies? Waldersee wanted to line Bennigsen up against a wall and shoot him, along with the Kaiser. Do you think Schlieffen is onboard with that? How do the other German states respond to the head of the Reichstag and the Emperor being murdered by renegade Prussian officers who are now charging to establish a dictatorship of the Prussian elite? Remember, the German Imperial Army was as convoluted and chaotic a mess as its general government at this time. Saxony's army would have been mustered within hours; indeed, King Albert had orders ready to mobilize his forces. What about Bavaria, which had always bristled a bit at Prussian hubris? Luitpold - who let's be real, was running the show in Munich even at this stage - would not have stood for that despite his support for the unified German state. If Hindenburg and Caprivi hadn't pacified Berlin, a mob would have, outraged at the murder of the Emperor. And if they hadn't, well, then, Germany is teetering towards civil war. And Waldersee has nowhere near enough support to win street fighting in the capital, let alone take on a Bavaria and Saxony that, combined with much of the Prussian mainstream, will want revenge and has the perfectly acceptable Heinrich ready to go. There's a reason Heinrich was so popular on the throne in OTL - nobody had any reason not to like him, they even called him "the Most Amiable."

So no, the Waldersee Putsch is a bizarre episode in history, a culmination of tensions that Bismarck cynically let spiral out of control until a gang of idiots took matters into their own hands and started shooting. Only in Waldersee's deranged mind (seriously read his diaries sometime. There's a reason the German far-right still worships him) could this have ended with anything other than him eating a bullet, which he did once he could hear Hindenburg's men coming down the halls of the Landtag. He was a coward, a moron, he got hundreds of people killed and he got what he deserved."

- AHC: Make the Waldersee Putsch Successful

 

[Couperin]

The mentions of the "next great European war" give rise to many questions. I find it interesting that while Bismarck in both OTL and TTL was an arch-conservative despite (or perhaps because of) his realpolitik, the ascension of a more liberal Kaiser and Waldersee's own crazed gambit has shed more light on the conservatism rather than his impressive role in unifying Germany. Napoleon IV's own social reforms to subvert socialist sentiment also probably did not help this reputation, as here Bismarck ITTL is just another rightist enacting popular laws to counter the revolutionaries rather than a singular visionary who established one of the first welfare states in the world.

 

[SilentSpaniard]

Very interesting chapters! And nice infobox, by the way.

So, we get a triple point of view for Waldersee's Putsch: its entry in Wikipedia, a historical source and some AHC/ASB in TTL's Alternate History. Quite complete and well rounded! I did enjoy the experience.

The support failed to materialize, the surviving plotters were shunned, and the event served as an impetus for Frederick to pursue substantial constitutional reforms that minimized the powers of individual states and centralized much of the authority of the Empire in his hands as well as the imperial bureaucracy.

And yet, the military was always viewed askance by the civilian government from then on, and its fundamental role in German society would reach an ebb until the next great European war broke out.

This makes quite a difference! I'm guessing other countries won't tend to identify so readily Germany with "Prussian militarism" in TTL.

 

[KingSweden24]

Very interesting chapters! And nice infobox, by the way.

So, we get a triple point of view for Waldersee's Putsch: its entry in Wikipedia, a historical source and some AHC/ASB in TTL's Alternate History. Quite complete and well rounded! I did enjoy the experience.



This makes quite a difference! I'm guessing other countries won't tend to identify so readily Germany with "Prussian militarism" in TTL.

Thanks! Now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I think I’ll be including more media in this TL, since just paragraphs of my rambling presumably gets old haha