Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

You have robert rhett, John c Calhoun and Lindsay Graham from there..... as they say in monty python. 'Tis a silly place.

Don’t forget Strom Thurmond!

Getting a bit ahead of myself but “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman and Coleman Livingston Blease, both South Carolinians, are going to play prominent roles in about 25-30 years down the road in this TL and not in a good way

 

[SilentSpaniard]

...the press in the United States, meanwhile, flew into a rage

"They are murdering our boys!"
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that-"
"They are murdering our boys! This means WAAAR!!!"

The Chilean-American War is going to be interesting.

 

[KingSweden24]

"They are murdering our boys!"
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that-"
"They are murdering our boys! This means WAAAR!!!"

The Chilean-American War is going to be interesting.

That the US hasn’t conducted a distance war since 1803 (or any war in 20 years) is going to be a bit of a factor

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Blaine's tin ear for public opinion had finally forced his hand on a matter, despite several Liberal newspapermen suggesting he ignore it: that the inauguration was extravagant, in tandem with the grand manses in which his Cabinet, key Liberal Senators, and even Blaine for a time resided in (of course the Blaine Mansion would soon be rented to several Congressmen to share, it was still seen as unseemly). The moniker "Liberals Living Lavishly" splayed across key newspapers in the Midwest, even neutral ones without a partisan bent; as the expenses of his upcoming agenda began to build, Blaine settled on a Midwestern tour, which was immediately branded in hostile press as a "victory lap." The tour found the President in Madison, Wisconsin when he came ill and was invited to stay at the grand home of Senator Philetus Sawyer in the city of Oshkosh as he recovered from his spell of fragile health.

The events in Panama, thus, caught the administration completely by surprise and at the worst possible moment. Hay's opulent European tour, which had kicked off with a grand reception with the Queen and a self-indulgent tour of London intellectual and literary society [1], had left Washington without its chief diplomat and Blaine's brain trust on foreign matters. Compounding the crisis was that the Colombian government in Bogota learned of the Panama City Affair before the White House did; days passed before a US Navy vessel arrived in Havana, where the consular general was informed of the sinking of the Shenandoah and the horrific treatment of US Marines at Chilean hands. It took additional days for a fast relay vessel to reach Philadelphia, where the news could be telegrammed, with the Navy wanting to avoid using Confederate telegraph lines to communicate. As such, by the time the telegraph informing Navy Secretary Goff of the attack arrived across his desk - while he was on a long lunch followed by an afternoon tennis match, meaning that he would not read the missive until the next day - Chile was already aware of what the Esmeralda had carried out, long since, and was already mobilizing their Navy.

The farcical comedy of errors, one so unlike American responses to attack in the future, snowballed from there. Goff read the telegram and immediately sent a historic missive to War Secretary Robert Lincoln rather than Assistant Secretary of State Elihu Root, Hay's deputy at State (whom Hay did not entirely trust, nor did his allies Lincoln and Goff). In his handwritten note, which Lincoln thereafter transcribed incorrectly, Goff wrote, "It appears that we may be in a state of war with Chile." Lincoln immediately telegraphed to Root as well as Vice President John Logan, who was spending a few days with friends in Philadelphia, "It appears we are at war with Chile." Logan, as Vice President, returned from Philadelphia on the first train he could find, one that was unfortunately delayed due to technical issues. Only these four men at this time knew of what had happened, though rumors were spreading in Philadelphia thanks to the sailors sharing stories on the docks.

The Goff-Lincoln correspondence would become critical both in the delayed response as well as the political controversy that would explode in the following months (and a matter of debate when both men were eventually confirmed to the Supreme Court) [2]. Logan met privately with Goff, Lincoln and Root at the White House, a substantial move seeing as the executive mansion did not in any way belong to the Vice President. Having heard that the President was recovering from a severe illness (doctors have for decades debated Blaine's "Wisconsin affliction" - theories abound on the nature of the sickness, and lamented on how untimely it was), Logan immediately sprang to action, suggesting that he was the Acting President until Blaine returned to Washington, an extra-constitutional declaration. Lincoln demurred on this point, but Goff and Root both pointed out that no such designation existed; nevertheless, they both agreed that the Vice Presidency existed for such occasions, and that until the Commander in Chief returned to good health or could respond with countervailing orders, they would take direction from Logan. Goff in a memorandum he wrote himself stated that he described such direction as "Informal"; Root made no such distinction, merely accepting Logan's request that he immediately telegraph for Hay to suspend his trip and return from Europe. Goff thereafter concurred with Lincoln's verbal assertion of fighting with Chile, not realizing that his telegraphed missive had implied a full declaration of war from Chile, rather than the appearance of an armed conflict. Lincoln's omission was critical in Logan's aggressive response suggesting the full mobilization of the Pacific Fleet's squadrons in record time, as well as bringing Atlantic Fleet vessels in harbor ready to sail for Cape Horn within a week; had Goff's message been transcribed properly, it has been suggested that the response would have been more muted, and Root may have sought a diplomatic solution first.

Hay was unreachable for days, having moved on to Paris and soon Biarritz where he was a privileged guest of Emperor Napoleon IV, attempting to persuade the young French sovereign in person to be lenient in terms with China, to no avail. [3] By the time word reached him, the Union was already on war footing, and it would take him two weeks to return to Washington even with a hurried effort to come back. Blaine received a cryptic telegram in Oshkosh two days after Logan's White House meeting, stating only, "Return with haste, crisis in Panama." Blaine, rather than hurrying at the notice, asked Sawyer to find out what the matter was; he would not leave for another two days. Despite a furious press reaction, and the immediate mobilization of the American Navy, there was still no formal declaration of war; in another moment of hesitation, Speaker Warren raised the question of whether Congress needed to declare war in a "matter of national defense." The controversy over the specific definition of war raged in Congress, continuing even after ships sailed out of San Francisco and San Diego to meet the Chileans at sea. Blaine returned to Washington and declined to comment on the matter, stating that only Congress may declare war, but then stating offhand to Goff as they lunched, "But we will conduct the defense of the Union and her Navy regardless of what is passed." The controversy could easily have passed, had in this case Blaine - who was otherwise generally a Congressional supremacist on matters of separation of powers - simply asked Warren to introduce such debate on the floor of the House.

And so, despite "Punishment for Panama!" becoming a rallying cry politically, Blaine managed to turn a war of reciprocity into a political anvil and gift to the Democratic opposition..."

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

[1] I may have some personal affinity for John Hay as a historical figure, but he's not flawless
[2] Going a different direction than "President Robert Todd Lincoln," instead we'll one day have a "Justice Robert Todd Lincoln"
[3] Next update

 

[KingSweden24]

"...it would be hard to describe the Treaty of Tientsin that ended the war as anything but disastrous for China. France was given a formal protectorate over all of Vietnam, allowing her Emperor to stay on the throne but controlling all her foreign and defense policy and with exclusive economic rights and privileges over the land. Tonkin would be part of a greater French Indochina which included also the island of Hainan, ceded to French control; the island of Formosa and the Pescadores were ceded to France as well, to be a separately-administered colony of the French East Indies. In both, locals would receiver semi-formal appointments to rule in France's name; effectively, however, they were just as much part of the French Empire as Algeria or Polynesia. France made the Five Bays on Hainan its capital there, founding the city of Port-Napoleon; Keelung would serve as the administrative heart of the new French East Indies. Both would earn major new staging bases for the Marine Imperiale.

The treaty also outlined concessions beyond territorial conquests. In addition to relatively mild but larger-than-expected war reparations to be paid, Chinese hegemony over Korea was ended, and the "neutrality" of the Korean peninsula was guaranteed, formalizing the status quo ante pre-Imo Mutiny. However, it was broadly understood by all parties - including a fuming Japan - that "neutrality" would be enforced by France and as such was a cover over a softer form of vassalization of Korea, rather than the outright seizure of Tonking, Hainan and Formosa. France also secured exclusive economic rights in the provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, which it would vigorously pursue from its new territories..."

- The Sino-French War

 

[Couperin]

Ah, and I thought that the Blaine administration was going to be a model of boring competence ... I really liked these chapters. The scrambling nature of the desperate Cabinet when both Blaine and Hays were indisposed reminds me of something out of a Victorian-era Veep. In other news, I hope that Korea keeps some degree of sovereignty. The French are really monopolizing the Far East, though Japan is lurking for when the Eaglet makes a blunder.

 

[KingSweden24]

Ah, and I thought that the Blaine administration was going to be a model of boring competence ... I really liked these chapters. The scrambling nature of the desperate Cabinet when both Blaine and Hays were indisposed reminds me of something out of a Victorian-era Veep. In other news, I hope that Korea keeps some degree of sovereignty. The French are really monopolizing the Far East, though Japan is lurking for when the Eaglet makes a blunder.

I like to think of TTL James Blaine as someone who’s first term was so brilliant that anything that came after it would pale in comparison.

Victorian Veep is now something I want to see! Haha

 

[SilentSpaniard]

I like to think of TTL James Blaine as someone who’s first term was so brilliant that anything that came after it would pale in comparison.

All along, the only one who could defeat Blaine was... Blaine himself! *Plot twist dance*

On the other hand, a bit more seriously... Why do I have the feeling that TTL!USA is increasingly resembling OTL!Russia in 1905 on the naval side of things? Maybe TTL!Chile has a bit of OTL!Japan too.

On the other-other hand...

The farcical comedy of errors, one so unlike American responses to attack in the future(...)

"Never again! Vote Custer to prevent this!"

It would be interesting, seeing him more involved in the Navy.

 

[KingSweden24]

All along, the only one who could defeat Blaine was... Blaine himself! *Plot twist dance*

On the other hand, a bit more seriously... Why do I have the feeling that TTL!USA is increasingly resembling OTL!Russia in 1905 on the naval side of things? Maybe TTL!Chile has a bit of OTL!Japan too.

On the other-other hand...

"Never again! Vote Custer to prevent this!"

It would be interesting, seeing him more involved in the Navy.

No spoilers, but you’re more or less mapping out one of the themes/planks that will propel George A. Custer to the White House in a few short years (I believe it’s long-since canon/foreshadowed that he wins in 1888)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Salisbury's meeting with Hay went better than any such meeting between a British Foreign Secretary and an American Secretary of State in the previous twenty years, possibly in history. Though both men represented the aristocracies of their home countries, their differences were typical of Britain and America; Salisbury was of the landed and ancient British gentry, whereas Hay had the most typically American story, that of a boy from a small town with hardworking parents who through grit, and a fair bit of luck and connections to the right people and the right time, vaulted into positions of promise that he could then leverage even further. Salisbury was a literal noble; with the wealth inherited from his father in law and his longtime serving at the feet of Presidents, Hay lived nearly like one, though often on the knife's edge of bankruptcy. Their meeting was amicable, and indeed constructive; Salisbury even agreed to push the stubborn Tory government of Canada, for which he was in the end responsible, somewhat harder on the issues of fishing in the North Atlantic and in Alaskan waters, disputes that had sullied Anglo-American relations for a quarter century.

The meeting was unfortunately overshadowed soon thereafter by the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Chile, hostilities that Britain in the end helped resolve as a neutral party along with Spain in the arbitration that had been agreed to at the First Pan-American Conference, in no small part thanks to the rapport established between Salisbury and Hay in their London meetings. That Britain's Armstrong [1] had sold Chile much of its advanced naval technology - most notably the cutting-edge, "unsinkable" Esmeralda that had triggered the war - was not lost on anyone in Washington, and Britain's Three Capes policy would represent a sticking point in Anglo-American relations for years to come.

But the naval war between the New World powers paled in comparison to Britain's sudden strategic reversals in the Orient, where France had gone considerably further than Britain had after the Opium Wars and humiliated China on the world stage. That Europe recoiled at reports of French brutality (and conveniently ignored lurid stories of what the Chinese had done in turn in the murky battlefields of Tonkin and Guangxi) and plainly sympathized with "the poor, put-upon Chinaman" seemed to matter little to the Tuileries. Salisbury in his bilateral meetings with the Eaglet had been rebuffed, not by the Emperor, who as usual was unfailingly polite and well-spoken, but by the gruff War Minister Georges Boulanger, who seemed to be unofficially carrying France's foreign affairs portfolio now too, what with Foreign Minister Charles de Freycinet [2] conspicuously absent. Salisbury would later report to Northcote, "Paris has no Foreign Office, at least none that deserves such a name. Freycinet makes no decisions, his words carry no meaning; only the War Ministry, with that hideous Marshal in charge, and the Tuileries decide French policy. There is no one else to speak, for there is no one else to listen." British concerns over the overly punitive terms France was seeking were thus rebuffed in full; Hainan and Formosa were carved away from China, France would enjoy economic hegemony bordering on direct colonialism over not only Korea but the provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi as well, and suddenly the greatest fear of British foreign policy had arrived - of a resurgent France that could combat Britain on land, and with their navy designed to move swiftly and strike quickly rather than enforce unbreakable blockades, potentially one day at sea as well. France's influence extended across all of North Africa and into the Levant, controlled the fastest sea routes to the Orient via Suez (both the Canal and the French Soudan [3] near the Bab el-Mandeb, and now controlled the north-south sea routes in the Orient, rendering Hongkong nearly obsolete. The fear in the Foreign Office grew that France sought to turn China into "their India;" and not only that, with control of the Suez and now their Indochinese dominion and influence in China, they had "a cannon on either side of the Raj, one aimed at Bombay, one at Calcutta."

It became plain that the policy of propping up small peripheral states like Portugal, Spain and Greece would no longer be enough, certainly not with the French eagle spreading her wings across Africa and the Far East and the Russian bear poking about still in Central Asia. Britain needed to create real, substantial counterweights both in Europe and abroad, both indirectly and perhaps even directly..."

- Chessboard: The Splendid Isolation and British Foreign Policy

[1] Major 19th century shipbuilding firm that built much of the Royal Navy
[2] IOTL a moderate Republican; here, a reconciled monarchist, like so many others would have been (and a proponent of colonial expansion, perhaps most importantly to Napoleon IV, though Nap more or less dictates his own foreign policy)
[3] Djibouti

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the thought of war between Chile and the United States on its face made little sense. The Union dwarfed Chile in size both geographically and in terms of population, resources and manpower. They were on clear opposite sides of the hemisphere and shared no land border nor any historical dispute over borders, which were generally the cause of major South American conflicts. Both had amicable relations with South America's hegemon Brazil, to the point that the US Navy's South Atlantic Squadron harbored in Rio de Janeiro. Digging deeper, though, the origins of the hostilities become clearer. Chile had emerged as the continent's - perhaps the hemisphere's - pre-eminent Pacific power after the Saltpeter War. In addition to its cutting edge Esmeralda, a ship so advanced that it could sink most vessels of most foreign navies on its own with nary a scratch and could bombard foreign ports out of range of most coastal batteries, the Chilean Navy had a depth of experience from the recent combat, had captured or confiscated effectively the entire well-armed Peruvian Navy, and her officer corps had trained at the advice of the Royal Navy, whom they had an informal partnership with. Economically, Chile's control of the Southern Cone, via the Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel and Drake Passage, made her ports profoundly wealthy, and lent her tremendous prestige. The rise of a United States with a two-ocean navy, and of a trans-isthmian crossing more convenient than Mexico's isolated and expensive Tehuantepec Railway - which was largely controlled by British interests, who were also wary of other powers, particularly France either alone or in partnership with the United States having a route similar to Suez through the Americas - was thus directly anathema to Chile's vital national interests, now burgeoning thanks to their considerable stake in the world nitrates supply.

For Chile, then, defending Panama's much-feared "annexation" via gunboat diplomacy was thus a gamble they had to take, and once it was clear that their provocation had drawn substantial American blood, including a sloop now at the bottom of Panama City's harbor, they were, as one would say, in for a penny, in for a pound. Domingo Santa Maria's government was now committed as word rapidly traveled south; the elephant had been poked with a hot stick and it was better to press Chile's advantage, particularly on the naval technology front, than to wait. Asserting herself now, while America was recoiling, was the only way for Chile to build enough leverage for when the war inevitably ended with a conference or arbitration when one of the Great Powers - in all likelihood Britain, further to Chile's benefit - intervened after growing tired of two major Western naval powers at war.

That a small country like Chile managed the logistical and rapid mobilization that the war required is still a minor miracle, but the Chilean military had never truly left war footing. Hundreds of men of the Army were given to the Navy to serve in potential land fighting, trained by Chilean Marines on the fly. Two battle groups were formed, one led by the Esmeralda, and the other by the Huascar, the grand prize of the Saltpeter War captures. The Esmeralda by early May had escorted a small fleet of vessels to Ecuador, which officially declared neutrality but - as a longtime enemy of both Peru and Colombia, sympathized with the Chilean position - and then sailed with the steamer Itata, torpedo boats Tucapel and Colo Colo and a convoy of merchant ships to Magdalena Bay in Mexico, which was also officially neutral. Magdalena Bay, isolated at the tip of Baja California from the rest of Mexico, would be the site of an impromptu coaling station, in case the Esmeralda and Itata could not coal at neutral ports in the event of other nations being pressured by the United States to withdraw support. Within months, Confederate coal was being sold across Panama to Ecuador, which could then transfer the fuel to Chile surreptitiously. An anti-Union bloc was secretly forming as the Esmeralda and Itata embarked on their missions - interdicting American shipping in the Pacific as commerce raiders. The Itata mostly focused on commercial vessels that were within easy range of the coaling depot, while the Esmeralda, captained by Saltpeter War hero Arturo Prat [1] braved deeper waters, seizing American-flagged vessels and impressing crewmen, dumping cargo overboard, and damaging the merchant marine ships to the point that they would have to turn back to San Francisco - the only major Pacific port for the Union - for repairs. By the time the ships of the Pacific Squadron in port at Mare Island had set out in early June after receiving much delayed word from Washington, hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage had been done.

The Huascar's battle group, considerably larger and better armed, took position closer to home, in the islands of the Tierra del Fuego. Torpedo boats were set in the Beagle Channel, the Blanco Encalada and Covadonga were placed at the mouth of the Strait of Magellan, and the Huascar herself set about patrolling the Drake Passage along with the Abtao. The strategic goal was to prevent the South Atlantic Squadron of the US Navy - and, indeed, the rest of the Atlantic squadrons - from rounding Cape Horn and threatening the Chilean mainland. President Santa Maria and his war cabinet were confident in the Esmeralda's ability to intercept and sink the US Pacific Squadron, and that the US Far East Squadron was too far away, harbored in Port Hamilton and Hongkong, to be able to effectively respond across the Pacific.

Though it took well into early July for the South Atlantic Squadron to assemble and attempt to move against Cape Horn, the Esmeralda under Prat saw earlier engagements with the Pacific Squadron. As predicted by worried US Navy officers, the Esmeralda could indeed sink essentially any ship sent against it, and did so twice, and so badly damaged four others that they too had to make haste back to San Francisco. Prat tailed them and launched cannon shells into the mouth of the Golden Gate as a demonstration of the range of his ship's guns; the American artillery at the Presidio fell well short. From there, he returned to Magdalena Bay to refuel, sinking a number of merchant vessels along the way, earning him the branding "Prat the Pirate," and leading to later accusations in Washington that Chile's navy was "merely corsairs under a republic's flag." Prat was being followed, however, by a grouping of Pacific Squadron vessels led by Admiral Lewis Kimberly, who had come south from patrolling Alaskan waters for Canadian rogue fishermen, who sought to attack the Esmeralda in force, and perhaps find where she was getting her coal from..."

- The Lion in Latin America: Britain's Role in the Spanish New World

[1] Here having successfully seized the Huascar at Iquique rather than dying, which of course is the major POD of TTL's Saltpeter War

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Battle of Tierra del Fuego, also known as the Battle of the Magellan Strait, was a series of engagements across the southern tip of the Southern Cone, conducted in the heart of the Southern Hemisphere's winter. Though perhaps ill-advised, the outrage in Washington - where Blaine finally had his declaration of war, even though such a declaration did not suspend the fuming of Democrats and even some Liberals in Congress who were angered that he had conducted armed conflict with a hostile power without proper consultation with the legislature - was such that an attack on Chile was necessary. Marines had already attacked and destroyed the small Chilean coastal outpost at Puerto Deseado [1], but engaging with the experienced Chilean Navy among the white mountains, icecaps and storm swells of the southern passage was another beast entirely, especially seeing as how few US Navy officers had much combat experience beyond fighting pirates and observing other powers engage in shelling coastal installations.

The fighting was ugly and muddled; the most success for the Union came, ironically, in the Drake Passage, where the flagship USS Lancaster managed to isolate and severely damage the Covadonga a mile off Cape Horn, forcing its retreat into the night. A severe storm that nearly capsized her prevented a pursuit; in the morning, the Lancaster and her escort gunboat the Nipsic faced the Huascar, which harried her so far south that the crews elected to retreat. Fighting in the Strait of Magellan and Beagle Channels, meanwhile, were bloodbaths; the Sacramento was sunk by the Abtao, which she managed to mortally wound to the point that the Chilean crew scuttled the vessel in the deepest point of the strait after being escorted by the Blanco Encalada under fire by the gunboat Huron, which took such damage in its pursuit that it nearly was scuttled by her own captain. In the narrow and difficult Beagle Channel, torpedo boats and gunboats engaged in such aggressive fire that nearly every vessel involved in the skirmishing had to be scrapped; in the end, with so much of the American force depleted, the Lancaster upon arriving in the mouth of the Beagle Channel had no choice but to order a retreat towards Rio with the survivors. It seemed a straightforward victory for Chile until the Huascar's commander, Vice Admiral Luis Uribe, ordered it to pursue and sink the Lancaster. The Lancaster, Nipsic and limping Huron managed to not only fend off the Huascar near the Falklands but so damage the ironclad that it began taking on water and had to retreat to the mainland to patch up and shortly thereafter slunk through the Beagle Channel to return to the safety of Chile's Pacific harbors, where it remained under repair for much of the rest of the war. The South Atlantic Squadron, meanwhile, found safe harbor in the neutral Falklands, where the Royal Navy helped with repairs and treating wounded sailors, and they elected to harbor there for the remainder of the winter as the weather grew harsher and they waited for the North Atlantic and European Squadrons to be deployed south.

So though the Lancaster and her escorts had failed to break Chile's defenses on the Horn, reinforcements were on the way - reinforcements that Chile, despite her home turf advantages and more technologically advanced fleet, would not enjoy with the losses she had taken. A tactical draw in the waters themselves, and perhaps a minor strategic win for Chile, had come at a high cost..."

- The Fourth Branch: A Comprehensive History of the United States Navy

[1] Recall Chile controls the whole of the southern cone south of the Deseado River ITTL

(I feel like the Fuegian Archipelago is really an underused setting in many alt hists (for obvious reasons!) I just really liked the idea of battles in those narrow, windy and icy channels with 19th century naval tech)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...readers of competing newspapers during the Chilean War could have been forgiven for perhaps living in two alternative realities, and as always, it was the great papers of New York City where the real battle lines were drawn. Liberal papers toed the party line loyally; the Tribune of course appealed to the ignobility of it all to its more highbrow readership, decrying Chile's breaching of diplomatic norms, painting Democrats in Congress opposed to the administration's conduct of the war as cynical partisans, and haughtily reprinting Navy propaganda that painted a much sunnier picture of the losses to the merchant marine in the Pacific. Pulitzer's World, of course, took a different tack, painting the Chileans as savages and printing political cartoons - having hired one of Puck Magazine's best illustrators [1] - portraying the Navy as fighting off caricatured pirates, with the Chilean flag displaying a jolly roger rather than a star and the Esmeralda's Captain Prat having a parrot on his shoulder [2].

The Democratic Sun, meanwhile, ran an infamous cartoon of Chile as David and President Blaine as Goliath; had New York been a more Liberal city, the newspaper's offices could well have been burned to the ground for what appeared to many as a glorification of the enemy. More harmless illustrations showed various Cabinet officers stepping on rakes, or Chile as a cat zigzagging between the President's feet causing him to trip, or of Secretary of State John Hay being too busy reading poetry to stiff-lipped caricatures of his upper-class friends over cocktails to read urgent telegrams regarding the war. It was in war correspondence that Roosevelt first got his taste for more theatrical reporting; unlike many Democratic writers, his columns praised the Navy rather than pillory its incompetence, drawing on his experience sailing on one of the vessels as a younger man and his own research on the history of the US Navy to paint the fleet as brave men being let down by scurrilous politicians. It was Roosevelt who is widely credited with coining the term "guano diplomacy," in which he accused Blaine of antagonizing Chile for years due to interests he held in guano and nitrate exploitation in Peru that had been threatened by Chile's annexation of Tarapaca and Iquique in the Saltpeter War; it was Roosevelt who also learned from a friend from Columbia now connected to Democrats in Washington of the farcical attempts to reach Blaine during the immediate days of the crisis, and the delays in mobilizing from Logan and Goff, decrying them as "the boldest band of buffoons ever birthed."

News media thus colored coverage for constituents and thus politicians; while reality was of course more complex - Tierra del Fuego was a tactical draw that came at a heavy price to both nations, and despite the heavy losses inflicted upon Admiral Kimberly's fleet at Magdalena Bay the destruction of the Chilean coal depot there [3] and the subsequent diplomatic embarrassment to Mexico spelled the beginning of the end of the war - to the elected officials who had to respond over the summer recess, when they left Washington, to a curious public only hearing about obscure battles in far off places, without the general populace touched much by the distant gunboat war, it influenced how they would respond. That many of Blaine's Cabinet officials left Washington during the summer, while the nation was at war, also caused outrage in Democratic papers; in Liberal ones, it received almost nary a mention..."

- The Sword Draws Ink: Circulation Wars, Newsman Rivalries and the Rise of the Modern Media in the 19th Century

[1] Puck had a bunch of really great OTL political cartoons and caricatures from the late 19th century; they're really fun to poke through if you ever have a chance
[2] I really don't know if these silly pirate stereotypes were in vogue in 1885 but for the purposes of this TL lets say they are.
[3] Next update

 

[KingSweden24]

Battle of Magdalena Bay
​

The Battle of Magdalena Bay (Spanish: Batalla de Bahia Magdalena) was a naval engagement on August 17, 1885, during the Chilean-American War, in which the United States Navy's Pacific Squadron under Admiral Lewis Kimberly ambushed the Chilean I Squadron in Magdalena Bay, Baja California, Mexico. The Chilean protected cruiser Esmeralda - the most advanced warship in the world, built in Britain as a demonstration and then sold to a neutral power to entice more contracts - was using the bay as a base from which to conduct commerce raiding against American shipping from California to South America and Asia. In its campaign that started in late May, the Esmeralda had effectively on its own interdicted, destroyed, or created enough fear to suspend nearly 80% of American transpacific trade, making it the most successful commerce raiding operation in human history by a single vessel, in addition to sinking or crippling the seven most modern vessels in the US Navy's Pacific Squadron. After threatening San Francisco, the Esmeralda was followed to Magdalena Bay by Kimberly aboard the USS Trenton, a steamer, as well as three wooden sloops of war from the War of Secession era - the Astoria, the Housatonic, and the Mohican - to discover where she operated out of. Upon seeing that the Chilean ship Itata was in the bay as well, Kimberly elected to blockade the harbor and put Marines ashore to find and destroy the suspected coaling station.

Regarded as the definitive battle of the conflict along with the Battle of Tierra del Fuego a month earlier, all four American ships in the battle were sunk or so damaged they had to be scuttled - including Kimberly's flagship - but in landing a company of Marines on the beach, the Americans were able to keep the Esmeralda in harbor long enough to prevent her escape and the Marines succeeded after two days of bloody fighting to take the coal depot and either light the fuel ablaze or dump it in the harbor. The Itata and the torpedo boat Tucapel were also destroyed in the battle. The Esmeralda eventually disengaged after her captain, Arturo Prat, was satisfied that the American fleet could not pursue it out of the southern entrance to the bay, but with the coaling station destroyed it had only enough fuel to return to Chile, which it did, steaming to Iquique.

The Mexican government was embarrassed that Chile had been operating out of its sovereign waters without its knowledge and immediately mobilized its own Pacific Squadron, with Emperor Maximilian's adoptive son Admiral Salvador de Iturbide leading the 1860s-era Texcoco to secure the bay in the battle's aftermath. Though the Esmeralda would raid whaling ships and some commercial vessels west of the South American coast in the remaining months of the war, losing her coaling base near American waters effectively eliminated her efficacy, and the war was resolved with British arbitration shortly thereafter. Both commanders - Kimberly and Prat - were hailed as heroes in their home countries, which both nations claimed as a victory; a strategic one for the United States, despite it being a clear tactical victory for Chile.

 

[Couperin]

This Chilean-American War is really fun to read. Given that the US rarely faces competition within the Western Hemisphere for hegemony, seeing Chile, the "Prussia of the Americas," punch well above her weight class and fight the much larger country to a draw is really interesting. However, the Mexican government is probably having to put out several fires at once, what with the Central American boondoggle to its south, the Magdelena Bay embarrassment, the devastation from the War of the Caudillos, and the ominous threat to the Tehuantepec Railway that any canal would pose. The British seem to be having a rare foreign policy success though. Their Chilean ally has increased its prestige, and by arbitrating a US-Chilean peace, they look like the adults in the room. Could we be seeing a much more western-facing Albion?

 

[KingSweden24]

This Chilean-American War is really fun to read. Given that the US rarely faces competition within the Western Hemisphere for hegemony, seeing Chile, the "Prussia of the Americas," punch well above her weight class and fight the much larger country to a draw is really interesting. However, the Mexican government is probably having to put out several fires at once, what with the Central American boondoggle to its south, the Magdelena Bay embarrassment, the devastation from the War of the Caudillos, and the ominous threat to the Tehuantepec Railway that any canal would pose. The British seem to be having a rare foreign policy success though. Their Chilean ally has increased its prestige, and by arbitrating a US-Chilean peace, they look like the adults in the room. Could we be seeing a much more western-facing Albion?

Thank you so much! It was a lot of fun to write, brief as it in the end was

 

[KingSweden24]

Also I have to say I really like the moniker “Prussia of the Americas.” May have to use that for a textbook on Chile in this TL!

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

This is definitely one of the strangest wars ever.

And by strange I mean really unexpected. And somehow fascinating.

 

[KingSweden24]

This is definitely one of the strangest wars ever.

And by strange I mean really unexpected. And somehow fascinating.

Believe it or not but it’s basically just the OTL Panama Crisis turning hot! The US and Chile almost went to war a second time in 1891 because some US sailors spit on a painting of Chile’s President in Valparaiso and were stabbed over it.

If anything the US fighting to a draw considering the state of their navy is probably overly charitable; in OTL they’d have been wrecked in ‘85

 

[LordVorKon]

(I feel like the Fuegian Archipelago is really an underused setting in many alt hists (for obvious reasons!) I just really liked the idea of battles in those narrow, windy and icy channels with 19th century naval tech)

Yes, I think fighting a naval battle in the Drake Passage in July would be a lovely experience.

Not.