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The Scramble for Asia: Colonialism in the Far East in the 19th Century
"...the victories of the Tonkin Expeditionary Corps over the poorly-coordinate Guangxi Army in the Luc Nam Valley were hailed in Paris, but European public opinion was shocked by reports of French atrocities including massacres of Tonkinese villages, summary executions of Chinese soldiers, and other deprivations including mass rape, torture and the impressment into pseudo-slavery of civilians and captives alike. The Kep Massacre in particular roused British public opinion against France when it emerged that exhausted and frustrated French soldiers, having suffered heavy casualties taking the fortified village, bayoneted every wounded Chinese they could find. The French street, for its part, steeled its resolve upon hearing of Chinese bounties for French heads, and volunteers for further battalions to be sent overseas spiked after the discovery of a cache of French heads in a captured Chinese camp.

The Guangxi Army pulled back towards Dong Song and Bac Le, both meant to defend the paths towards their main base at Lang Son, which would be the primary target of General de Negrier as autumn approached. Pressure from the Black Flags and the Yunnan Army against French positions in western Tonkin, particularly Hung Hoa, led to a debate about whether it was best to push northeast and drive the Chinese out or consolidate positions; Boulanger eventually won the argument for aggressiveness, stating, "My great wish is for our brave soldiers to have Christmas dinner on Chinese soil!" Preparations began to be made then, with new conscripts and new supplies, to push ahead to Lang Son within two weeks, with de Negrier receiving a signal that the Far East Squadron was ready to redeploy from Cam Ranh and break the Chinese sea threat..."

- The Scramble for Asia: Colonialism in the Far East in the 19th Century
 
The Sino-French War
"...Courbet's victory in the Taiwan Strait over the Fujian Fleet was not as decisive as he had hoped but it effectively drove the fleet north. Courbet pursued the "stragglers" into the mouth of Fuzhou Harbor and sank the ships as they prepared for repairs, also destroying the Fuzhou shipyards, while the rest of the Fujian Fleet regrouped at Shanghai with the Nanyang Fleet. A corps of Marines was dispatched to Formosa, beginning the Formosa Campaign, and Courbet settled his fleet into strategic positions blockading the ports of Amoy, Fuzhou and Shantou, waiting for further instructions on whether to push ahead with campaigns on the Chinese mainland. The decision from Paris that eventually arrived was to prevent any movement of Chinese material by sea from Shanghai to Canton, and to hold a distant blockade of Canton - a pioneering concept - in case the Guangdong Fleet attempted to exit into the South China Sea once again, while resupplying French forces fighting on Formosa. China would have to conduct all operations between Korea to Annam by land, on outdated rural infrastructure, while France would rapidly move against any of the broken four remaining fleets that tried to move against her naval superiority..."

- The Sino-French War
 
Queen Min
"...messages that the Chinese force in Korea was needed elsewhere appalled Yuan, who eventually decided only to dispatch 2,000 of his 5,000 remaining men in Seoul. Angered that he had not received reinforcements after the French victories to his south, Yuan only agreed to send any of his men away because of fears of his execution if he refused a direct order from Peking. The Chinese position in Korea rapidly collapsing, Gojong's court began to feel out both France and Japan for what a settlement could look like; in a clandestine meeting in Wonsan, Japanese spies agreed to support a "fully neutral" Korea in the event of a predicted Chinese defeat.

The 2,000 of Yuan's men were intercepted at Sariwon while trying to march back to the Annok; in the ensuing battle between Foreign Legionnaires and native Christian Korean battalions, the Chinese suffered casualties as high as 50%, were scattered across the landscape and only 77 men made it to China without being killed, wounded or captured. The Franco-Korean coalition, after cleaning up the Sariwon environs for a few days, then marched on Seoul just as the Korean Expeditionary Corps from Busan finally reached the capital's southern outskirts. The northern detachment reached the bank of the Han on October 7 - the undefended northern flank of the city, which Yuan had not anticipated needing to defend, having placed all his artillery and earthworks to his south and west. More French legionnaires, most of them African recruits from Algeria and Egypt, were dropped on Ganghwa Island on October 8th and rapidly marched on Inchon, seizing the port and linking up with the KEC.

The Siege of Seoul had begun..."

- Queen Min
 
The Revolt of the Caudillos
"...as Miramon said in his letter, "The war is over, even if the fighting is not." Breaking Zacatecas in the late spring after the government elected to pursue an aggressive offensive after the securing of the southern flank and then on into Durango and Nazas was designed to cut the two halves of the north off from one another; the deployment of Marines to Guaymas, which was taken in a fierce battle, further devastated the Northern Alliance's position. Cajeme was captured after trying to fight off his attackers and summarily executed on July 30th along with 21 fellow Yaqui Indians and buried in a mass grave; Morales threw down his arms near Nogales but a week later, finally giving the government troops a land connection to the Confederacy. This connection would be important, as Confederate supplies and volunteers flowed across the border at Nogales and allowed for the planning of an aggressive move by the Confederate Army Cavalry, led by General Jeb Stuart, [1] to cross into Mexican territory on behalf of Maximilian's government to "pacify" Paso del Norte. It marked an innovative use of railroad transporting an entire cavalry regiment to a battlefield, and the shock attack essentially removed Chihuahua from the war - and gave the government control of another restive province, with Stuart's Cavalry holding the city and soldiers from Sonora moving east to sweep the enemy towards the Rio Bravo.

Miramon's main division entered Ciudad Batopilas in early September, fighting a bloody battle in her narrow valley and seizing the silver mine there, and in the process capturing Manuel Gonzalez by surprise. Miramon and Gonzalez, rivals before the war but respectful of one another as field commanders, had an amicable lunch; the rebel acquiesced to his fate and asked for the dignity of suicide, which was refused. Miramon instead informed him that out of respect for his service to the Emperor in prior years and the "misunderstanding" of the rebellion, he would join other surrendered caudillos in exile. Gonzalez was transported to Mexico City to stand trial for his rebellion, and was condemned to exile, which he took first in Havana and later in Spain, eventually settling in Madrid with his family. He would never return to Mexico, dying in 1893. His remains would be returned to be buried with honors in 1928 during Emperor Luis I Maximiliano's "Northern Reconciliation" program.

With the valorous and charismatic Caudillo of Matamoros gone, the northeastern departments descended into chaos. Lerdo, holed up in Torreon, barely evaded being seized in a putsch by officers who hoped for a generous amnesty if they turned him over to approaching government forces, and went into hiding, eventually finding himself at a monastery in Coahuila, one that his own Lerdo Laws had once tried to appropriate. He would remain there for well over six months before he was forced to go on the run again..."

- The Revolt of the Caudillos


[1] Alive since the war didn't drag into 1864
 
Maximilian of Mexico
"...the fighting in the north would not die down until the end of the year, with the Northern Alliance breaking into feuding cliques with Gonzalez on trial and Lerdo in hiding. The Comisarios and remnants of the enemy forces who could not reconcile themselves to having lost turned to banditry; crime and murder plagued Mexico north of Aguascalientes for nearly a decade even after the war ended. For Maximilian, however, the triumph was near-total; much of the country had risen up against him and had been beaten back by his "modern Mexico." Nevertheless, he fully endorsed the conciliatory path preferred by Zuloaga rather than Miramon's suggestion of tightening the grasp of Mexico City further on the restive provinces. "We won; why belabor the matter?" was Maximilian's response. His loyalists were properly installed in departmental governorships as had been intended two and a half years prior; Ignacio Mariscal in Oaxaca, Angel Trias in Chihuahua, Donato Guera in Batopilas, and Evaristo Madero in Coahuila, all rewarded with their duly appointed offices for their persistence in the war. All four became infamous for the graft, patronage and personalist regimes they would establish in the new order; in that sense, Maximilian's victory was not as modern as he had hoped. The brave Ramon Corona, for his part, refused the governorship of Tepic; beleaguered after his role in the war, he instead chose a quiet retirement until his death in 1889, after which he was honored by lying in state at the Mexico City Cathedral.

Miramon, for his part, now had to find suitable "rewards" for Huerta, Blanquet and Reyes, the young and popular heroes who had emerged in the war. Huerta was given the governorship of Jalisco, a move that the central government would later come to regret; Blanquet received his home department of Michoacan; and Reyes, the handsome and popular hero of the Guanajuato Campaign, was given the biggest prize of all - the department of Matamoros, replacing Gonzalez, and with instructions to use it as a platform to be "our man in the North," as Miramon quietly told him after the nominatin was announced..."

- Maximilian of Mexico
 
Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine
"...few campaigns in American history were as lopsided in energy and competence; the Liberals had disciplined, organized state parties that coordinated well with civil organizations, Protestant congregations, university associations, veterans' clubs, temperance societies and friendly newspapers and businesses to build a heretofore unseen political machine in the small towns and cities dotting the land, from New England to Oregon. The Democrats, despite advantages in several large cities thanks to immigrant machines, spent much of the campaign fighting one another over currency issues, naval funding, and Bayard's history of sympathy towards the South. The "Unreformed Copperhead" was portrayed as a dangerous snake in Liberal campaign literature, and Bayard's insistence on not campaigning on his behalf despite his oratorical talents wounded him deeply; instead, it was the gruff, mumbling George Hoadly sent out to criss-cross the Midwest. Assumptions about the West's Democratic streak were unfounded within the Bayard campaign as well; little attention was paid to state Democratic organizations, even after they telegrammed concern about voter apathy due to his "gold rigor" stance.

Blaine, meanwhile, did campaign publicly, much more than he had done in 1880. Aboard his "Blaine Train," which he had rented specifically for the campaign with his own money, he crisscrossed the country, even travelling so far as to make a speech in Denver, Colorado; he had a number of popular surrogates traveling on his behalf as well, from former President Abraham Lincoln, who had addressed the Liberal convention and seen a resurgence in public opinion now as an unusual elder statesman in his seventies two decades after the war, to Hay, who rallied the Northeast along with George Hoar, to Garfield, who was Blaine's most valuable advocate in Ohio. Though John Hoffman had invented much of the modern public campaign in 1872, Blaine perfected it, taking advantage of telegram lines to alert volunteers and supporters of his upcoming visits, making sure to be photographed meeting with various groups in cities he visited, and seeing to it that reports of his campaign speeches and appearances were disseminated in friendly press via a small group of campaign employees known as the "Print Boys," who lobbied the national press via telegram and telephone from sunrise to dusk. Colorful pamphlets were distributed to farmers and Westerners warning of Bayard's plan to place the country back on the gold standard, black voters suggesting that he would deport freemen to the Confederacy or allow slave catchers to operate on Union soil, and middle class voters that he would shut down the National Bank and plunge the country into depression as an unreformed Jacksonian. The Bayard campaign, rather than run on the candidates own merits against a broadly popular incumbent in a booming economy, instead spent time feuding with rival factions in the Democratic Party, such as the Western faction led by Hearst and Rosecrans or Midwesterners sympathetic to Custer or Pendleton. It is for this reason that the Bayard-Hoadly ticket is regarded as one of the worst in American history on its merits, even before the incompetence of the campaign came into play. Even before election day, cartoons emerged of the "Blaine Train" barreling towards a Bayard who had gotten his foot stuck in the railroad tracks, labelled "Democratic Factions"..."

- Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine
 
Chamberlain's Britain
"...in Churchill, Chamberlain found a sometimes-rival, sometimes-ally with whom he helped negotiate the Representation of the People Act, a dramatic expansion in the British franchise and granting the same voting rights to the countryside as to the city. With its passage in late 1884, it thus expanded suffrage to approximately 55% of British men, a percentage weighted by fairly low qualifications in Ireland and to a lesser extent Scotland. It also effectively spelled the beginning of the one-member constituency, as it reorganized borough lines and equalized populations for the next election, which came much sooner than Harcourt or Northcote expected. Chamberlain was furious that his efforts in managing the careful negotiations with the Tories went unappreciated by the Cabinet; it was the closets he came during his "exile years" to quitting politics altogether, only talked out of it by his son Austen and by Dilke..."

- Chamberlain's Britain (St. Andrew's University, 1998)
 
1884 United States Elections
1884 Presidential Election

190 Electoral votes needed to win (out of 379)

James G. Blaine of Maine/John A. Logan of Illinois (Liberal) - 54.7%, 357 Electoral Votes

New York - 50
Pennsylvania - 42
Illinois - 31
Ohio - 30
Missouri - 21
Indiana - 20
Massachusetts - 17
Michigan - 17
Iowa - 17
Wisconsin - 15
New Jersey - 14
Kansas - 11
California - 11
Maine - 9
Connecticut - 8
Minnesota - 8
Nebraska - 6
New Hampshire -5
Vermont - 5
Rhode Island - 5
Oregon - 4
Colorado - 4
New Mexico - 3
Nevada - 3

Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware/George Hoadly of Ohio (Democrat) - 38.3%, 22 Electoral Votes

Maryland - 11
West Virginia - 8
Delaware - 3

Third Parties:

United Labor - 5.1%, 0 Electoral Votes

Granger Union - 1.1%, 0 Electoral Votes

Prohibition Party - 0.9%, 0 Electoral Votes

1884 Senate Elections

Due to many elections being held with legislatures elected in 1882/83, only Colorado and Ohio see seats change hands; nevertheless, three prominent new Senators enter the body. Garfield of course, the former Speaker, expected to be a titan of the Senate, while Rosecrans enters as a Democrat from California on his way to prominence. Peckham, a leader on civil service reform, leaves due to dislike of the body and illness; Warner Miller, another reform champion Liberal, replaces him, narrowly defeating the more conservative Levi Morton on a secret Liberal ballot before the legislature gathers.

CA: John S. Hager (D) Retired; William Rosecrans (D) ELECTED
CO: Nathaniel Hill (D) Not Re-Nominated; Thomas M. Bowen (L) ELECTED (L+1)
CT: Orville Platt (L) Re-Elected
IL: Richard Oglesby (R) Re-Elected
IN: Daniel Voorhees (D) Re-Elected
IA: William Allison (L) Re-Elected
KS: John Ingalls (R) Re-Elected as Liberal (L Gain)
MD: James Black Groome (D) Not Re-Elected; Ephraim Wilson (D) ELECTED
MO: David H. Armstrong (D) Re-Elected
NV: John P. Jones (D) Re-Elected
NH: Henry Blair (L) Re-Elected
NY: Wheeler Hazard Peckham (L) Retired; Warner Miller (L) ELECTED
OH: George Pendleton (D) Not Renominated; James A. Garfield (L) ELECTED (L+2) [1]
OR: James H. Slater (D) Re-Elected
PA: J. Donald Cameron (L) Re-Elected
VT: Justin Morrill (L) Re-Elected
WI: Thaddeus Pound (L) Re-Elected

1884 House Elections

Liberals pick up 17 seats, all from Democrats, to enjoy a majority of 183 seats; however, Democrats snag back two seats in urban districts from United Labor. All in all, it could have been a much worse result considering the blowout loss of Bayard

49th Congress

48th United States Congress

Senate: 33L-21D

President of the Senate: John A. Logan (L)
Senate President pro tempore: Aaron Cragin (L-NH)
Chairman of the Senate Liberal Conference: Henry B. Anthony (L-RI)
Chairman of the Senate Democratic Conference: Daniel Voorhees (D-IN)

California
1. George Hearst (D) (1881-)
3. William Rosecrans (D) (1885-)

Colorado

2. Henry M. Teller (L) (1876-)
3. Thomas M. Bowen (L) (1885-)

Connecticut
1. Joseph R. Hawley (L) (1881-)
3. Orville Platt (L) (1879-)

Delaware
1. Thomas Bayard (D) (1869-)
2. Eli Saulsbury (D) (1871-)

Illinois
2. Shelby Moore Collum [7] (1881-)
3. Richard J. Oglesby (L) (1873-)

Indiana
1. Joseph E. McDonald (D) (1875-)
3. Daniel Voorhees (D) (1873-)

Iowa
2. Samuel Kirkwood (L) (1877-)
3. William Allison (L) (1873-)

Kansas
2. John St. John (L) (1883-)
3. John Ingalls (L) (1873-)

Maine
1. Eugene Hale (L) (1881-)
2. William P. Frye (L) (1881-) [7]

Maryland
1. William Pinkney Whyte (D) (1869-)
3. Ephraim Wilson (D) (1885-)

Massachusetts
1. Henry Dawes (L) (1875-)
2. George Frisbie Hoar (L) (1877-)

Michigan
1. George Armstrong Custer (D) (1881-)
2. Byron G. Stout (D) (1865-)

Minnesota
1. Samuel J.R. McMillan (L) (1881-)
2. Dwight Sabin (L) (1883-)

Missouri
1. Francis Cockrell (D) (1875-)
3. David H. Armstrong (D) (1877-)

Nebraska
1. Charles Van Wyck (L) (1881-)
2. Charles Manderson (L) (1883-)

Nevada
1. James Graham Fair (D) (1881-)
3. John P. Jones (D) (1873-)

New Hampshire
2. Aaron Cragin (L) (1865-)
3. Henry Blair (L) (1873-)

New Jersey
1. William Joyce Sewell (L) (1881-)
2. John R. McPherson (D) (1871-)

New Mexico

1. William A. Pile (L) (1875-)
2. Samuel Beach Axtell (D) (1875-)

New York
1. Richard Crowley (L) (1881-)
3. Warner Miller (L) (1885-)

Ohio
1. George Hoadly (D) (1878 - )
3. James A. Garfield (L) (1885-)

Oregon
2. La Fayette Grover (D) (1871-)
3. James H. Slater (D) (1879-)

Pennsylvania
1. John I. Mitchell (L) (1881-)
3. J. Donald Cameron (L) (1879-)

Rhode Island
1. William Sprague (L) (1863-)
2. Henry B. Anthony (L) (1859-)

Vermont
1. Redfield Procter (L) (1881-)
3. Justin Morrill (L) (1867-)

West Virginia
1. Joseph Sprigg (D) (1869-)
2. John E. Kenna (D) (1883-)

Wisconsin
1. Philetus Sawyer (L) (1881-)
3. Thaddeus Pound (L) (1881-)

House: 183L-128D-14UL (new total - 325 vs old total of 280)

Speaker of the House: Joseph Warren Keifer (L-OH)
Democratic Caucus Chair (Minority Leader): Samuel J. Randall (D-PA)

[1] Fun fact - Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate by the legislature in OTL 1880 but never took his seat because, well, he became President instead
 
Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine
"...Blaine thus achieved the distinction of being the first President to be elected to a second term since Andrew Jackson, and for the first time since the age of James Monroe, a party other than Jackson's Democrats would hold the White House for two consecutive terms. The commanding popular vote win carried with it all but three border states, and Bayard only carried West Virginia by a narrow two thousand vote margin. Liberals expanded their House majority and earned two Senate seats with new legislative victories and positioned themselves for more potential seats in the future; beyond that, they earned numerous Gubernatorial offices, including the white whale of Indiana, which they finally took from Democratic hands with the election of Benjamin Harrison.

For Democrats, it was an ugly affair, made worse by now truly being in the wilderness for the first time in decades, in their worst position since 1869. Blaine had ridden the middle class ascendancy and strong economic growth coming out of the early 1880s recession, a strong legislative agenda on both foreign and domestic policy, and a lack of "tarring" from the numerous personal scandals swirling around him to cement himself as the most impactful President since Andrew Jackson, the previous two-termer. The "Blaine Train" had pulled into the White House for another four years, and with an eye towards the inauguration in March, Blaine sat down with Senator-elect Garfield, his most critical ally on the Hill and whom he expected to become his great champion in the Senate, to begin to design a robust legislative agenda for the second term..."

- Titan: The Life and Presidency of James G. Blaine
 
wikipedia.en - James A. Garfield
James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 - October 4, 1911) was an American Liberal statesman and politician from Ohio who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Senator for Ohio. One of the most prominent legislators of his day, Garfield served in Congress for over three decades, making a name for himself for refusing the Liberal Party nomination for President in both 1888 and 1892, for his work on civil service reform, modernizing the Navy, expanding federal funding for education, pursuing government regulation of industry and anti-trust legislation, and for supporting the hiring of thousands of black men into the federal bureaucracy. He was the patriarch of the Garfield political dynasty in Ohio and is regarded as one of the most prominent, respected and decorated American politicians of the Gilded Age.

James Garfield Infobox.png
 
I haven't posted much lately, but it is time for some feedback...

It's amazing! So many things happening at the same time, in so many different places. All very detailed, with a great variety of sources. I really like this timeline!
 
I haven't posted much lately, but it is time for some feedback...

It's amazing! So many things happening at the same time, in so many different places. All very detailed, with a great variety of sources. I really like this timeline!

Thank you so much! Your words honor me deeply. This is a fun TL to write, I'm glad you are enjoying it :)
 
Queen Min
"...in a preview of tensions that would re-erupt three decades later, the largest obstacle to France securing an anti-Chinese alliance with Japan, a nation they had been aligned with previously, stemmed from their mutual desire for influence in Korea. It was a diplomatic sticking point that neither side could ever come off, particularly after pro-Japanese forces in Korea staged the Gapsin Coup in December of 1884, killing dozens of conservative pro-Chinese courtiers and officials in Seoul and plunging the city into chaos just as French forces pressed in from south, north and west. The Siege of Seoul was over almost as quickly as it began - Chinese soldiers were slaughtered by both Legionnaires as well as Korean rioters, entire blocks burned down, and French forces mulled whether they should storm the royal palace on the second day of the battle in order to dislodge "Japanese agents" who were said to be holding the complex. On the third day of the battle, Yuan [1] was struck by a stray bullet in the throat and killed; without their commander, Chinese discipline collapsed even further, and hundreds of soldiers fled. Much like Sariwon, it was a complete rout, destroyed the Chinese position on the Peninsula, and more than half of the survivors either starved or froze to death in the harsh Korean winter.

The Korean theater of the Sino-French War had ended; pro-Western reformists had seized Seoul and Gojong's return to the smoldering, destroyed capital in January led to him facing the reality of a constitutional monarchy and a much more formal French protectorate. But the conflict was far from over - a low-scale civil war erupted across Korea for much of 1885, as reformists with Franco-Japanese backing purged conservative, anti-Western officials, often violently, and militia attacks and counterattacks spread like wildfire. Christian militias - particularly Protestant ones - were notoriously the most ruthless, controlling much of the Taedong Valley by the end of the following year as a state-within-a-state. Within the ascendant reform bloc that earned Queen Min's support, there were rival factions - those supportive of the French, who were generally aligned with Min and satisfied with keeping Korea as a close ally, and the factions supportive of the Japanese, who wanted to mimic the Meiji Revolution ongoing across the Eastern Sea and make Korea its own power. Japan, of course, saw Korea as "a dagger aimed at the Home Islands" and her agents were instructed to do everything possibly to keep Korea yoked tightly to her, rather than to France, China or, increasingly, Russia..."

- Queen Min


[1] Yuan Shikai, that is
 
The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905
"...though it preceded his reign and had little to do with him directly, few innovations defined the Belle Epoque like the French Navy's "Jeune École", a strategic development of the fleet to focus on larger numbers of small, versatile vessels rather than larger capital ships. The speed and flexibility of vessels in the decisive naval victories of the Sino-French War validated the use of torpedo boats, gunboats and fast cruisers to strike quickly and retreat, to harry the enemy and make quick decisions in the field. The strategic design of the Jeune École led thus to the Marine Imperiale's tactical brilliance after the surprise attack at Ha Long Bay, with dominance established at sea, and allowed for the invasion of Formosa and Hainan..."

- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905
 
those supportive of the French, who were generally aligned with Min and satisfied with keeping Korea as a close ally
Do you mean the French here? Either way, I find that the French are really quite ascendant in a way that they were never quite able to reach OTL. Will French population continue to grow in patterns more similar to OTL Germany than OTL France?
 
The Sino-French War
"...Courbet was frustrated that France lacked the troops to push further than Keelung or Tamsui on Formosa without overextending themselves, and so, despite lacking explicit authorization from Paris, elected to deploy fresh troops on a new front closer to their supply lines - Hainan. Securing Hainan would effectively open up a weak point for China in Guangxi, towards which French soldiers were already pushing from northeastern Tonkin, having taken Lang Son in late December. Courbet gave the order shortly after the new year and shelled Kiungchow before landing a force of 1,000 men at the city, seizing the port in a surprise attack while blockading the island. The sparsely populated island made for a much easier target than Formosa, and despite ugly fighting through much of the early year, the Hainan Campaign became a surprise bright spot, not requiring a blockade like Formosa did..."

- The Sino-French War
 
Do you mean the French here? Either way, I find that the French are really quite ascendant in a way that they were never quite able to reach OTL. Will French population continue to grow in patterns more similar to OTL Germany than OTL France?
Whoops yes that's what I meant.

That was more or less my plan - higher birthrates than OTL France, though still not quite as high as OTL/TTL Germany. Germany will also have more slightly emigration to the USA as not all of Bismarck's state socialism plans were passed, a major factor in slowing down German outmigration (along with the massive boom in the German economy, of course).

French war brides will also drive a big part of its stronger natalism, along with the lack of laicite
 
Chamberlain's Britain
"...the 1885 Childers budget marked the long-feared point, of the whiggish and radical elements within the Liberal Party finally breaking. Though Harcourt's role was to act as a first among equals, he meddled aggressively with Childers and the Exchequer, pressing for a number of measures in the budget in order to appease the NLF, which had introduced Chamberlain at an event in Birmingham only two weeks before the budget's presentation as "the next Prime Minister." The budget that Childers instead presented was a remarkably conservative one, featuring a slash in duties both domestic and foreign, a suspension in hiring of civil servants, and increasing the tax on income and alcohol. Radicals revolted, and Conservatives responded by voting down the budget along with much of the IPP, with even Harcourt appalled by the document but voting in its favor anyways, further estranging him from the left wing of the party, to which he really belonged. Blood was in the water less than a year after Hartington's resignation, and as Harcourt stated in the years thereafter, "I always looked for a knife behind Chamberlain's back - I should have looked for more knives than one."

The rejection of the budget by Parliament led to the resignation of Harcourt's Cabinet, and a general election was called. The NLF, organized and ready, immediately began its politicking, spreading literature out and within a week making the vote not a referendum on Harcourt's brief ministry but on the idea of a Radical Cabinet headed by Chamberlain. For his part, Chamberlain stormed the country, giving three or four speeches a day, incorporating the innovation of whistle-stop campaigning from the back of a train in town after town, zigzagging Britain from Scotland to Cornwall. The Conservative point man was Churchill, head of the National Union of Conservative Associations, using the campaign as his first test run of progressive Toryism rather than the haughty, aristocratic and agrarian elitism of the Carnarvon years. Chamberlain persuaded trade union leaders not to engage in general strikes during the campaign as they had done in the previous two elections; Churchill, for his part, took the virtues of paternalist democratic conservatism straight to the union halls, the first Tory grandee to ever attempt to engage directly with the working class on their terms [1]. 1885 was a watershed year as much as 1878 had been, a turning point for British politics from which there would be no return to the old, mid-Victorian Age of lordly genteelism..."

- Chamberlain's Britain


[1] Remember - Disraeli was never PM
 
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