It'll still have a similar feel, we just won't have 4+ updates dedicated to things like the Chicago World's Fair or long diatribes about Tesla vs. Edison, for instance, lol
Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
- Status
The Revolution Sleeps
"...violence in Paris marking the 25th anniversary of May '68 and remonstrations throughout the year seeking to honor the abortive Commune outraged conservative politicians; to Boulanger, such actions were clearly caused or inspired by a "lack of faith" in France after "the capitulations of Madrid." While one can hardly call the Courbet ministries liberal, let alone progressive or socialistic, the War Minister retreated further into his Parliamentary clique, what became known as the "Court of Boulangisme" within France and without.
The epicenter of Boulangisme revolved around a strange grouping of politicians and far-right intellectuals who traded in conspiracy and innuendo; around every corner was some enemy of France, within and without, seeking to arrest her, and every statement or pronunciation carried with it a subtextual implication of betrayal and defiance. Paul Deroulede, a nationalist poet elected under the banner of the Boulangist party Ligue des Patriotes, was perhaps the intellectual godfather of the Boulangist movement, having inherited the mantle of aggressively nationalistic French political philosophy from the late historian Henri Martin, the Ligue's co-founder shortly prior to his death. Deroulede was joined in his endeavors by Felix Faure [1], a more mainstream conservative who though not a member of the Ligue (yet) actively courted their influence, hoping to parlay it into the Presidency of the National Assembly; journalists such as Jules Guerin and Eduoard Drumont, both rabid anti-Semites who used their newspapers to traffic in Boulangist propaganda as well as fierce hatemongering towards Jews [2[; and the primary financial patron of their bloc, the Duchess of Uzes [3], an avowedly nationalist heiress who served as a go-between from the mainstream royalist faction of Napoleon IV, and Boulanger's "Court."
The thrust of Boulangisme became a burning hatred of republicanism itself and a worldview that centered upon a persecution complex; in the eyes of the Ligue des Patriotes, which by the mid-1890s had used its sponsorship of free gymnastics training and rifle marksmanship courses for members to form a small nucleus of a paramilitary wing, there was a global conspiracy to obliterate France, and that every time France seemed to be on the cusp of achieving its - in their view, rightful - status as the preeminent pole world power, it was ganged up on by a coalition of opponents. Drumont listed these antagonisms and indignities in detail - the Seven Year's War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Unification War and subsequent driving of France from Italy. All were collusions meant to deny the martial, devout and bold French people their rightful proportion of ownership of world commerce, wealth and power; the center of this conspiracy was Britain, the "eternal enemy," bolstered of course by a cabal of Jews who had, along with "an ancient order of British secret societies," created a "Saxon bloc" by uniting Germany as a new weapon to be used against Holy France. In the Boulangist imagination, the Jews who ran the world's financial system - in practical terms, banks in London - had taken the dumb, squabbling German fiefdoms and united it as a cannon aimed across the Rhine at poor, persecuted France; and, as the latest indignity, had responded to the string of French victories starting with Korea in 1869 by curtailing French ambitions with treaties in Madrid and Hamburg.
This was, of course, all nothing but hateful nonsense; the "Saxon-Semitic Syndicate," or 3S as it became known to Boulangist ideologues, was pure invention to explain away setbacks to French hegemony and consolidate around a common enemy. But it was a poisonous ideology that increasingly held sway among influential politicians, the ambitious and neurotic War Minister in particular, a man who had the ear of the Emperors of both France and Austria as well as the King of Belgium - and, perhaps more importantly, on officialdom in those three nations - on a host of matters..."
- The Revolution Sleeps
[1] Yes I have every intent of still having this man die of a blowjob from his mistress, as in OTL. Too good not to include
[2] Obviously men quite prominent in OTL's Dreyfus Affair
[3] Next time you have Veuve Clicquot, you're drinking the product that made her obscenely wealthy. Of course, surprisingly considering her far-right views and support of Boulanger/monarchist restoration OTL, she was an advocate for women's rights and political organization as well.
The epicenter of Boulangisme revolved around a strange grouping of politicians and far-right intellectuals who traded in conspiracy and innuendo; around every corner was some enemy of France, within and without, seeking to arrest her, and every statement or pronunciation carried with it a subtextual implication of betrayal and defiance. Paul Deroulede, a nationalist poet elected under the banner of the Boulangist party Ligue des Patriotes, was perhaps the intellectual godfather of the Boulangist movement, having inherited the mantle of aggressively nationalistic French political philosophy from the late historian Henri Martin, the Ligue's co-founder shortly prior to his death. Deroulede was joined in his endeavors by Felix Faure [1], a more mainstream conservative who though not a member of the Ligue (yet) actively courted their influence, hoping to parlay it into the Presidency of the National Assembly; journalists such as Jules Guerin and Eduoard Drumont, both rabid anti-Semites who used their newspapers to traffic in Boulangist propaganda as well as fierce hatemongering towards Jews [2[; and the primary financial patron of their bloc, the Duchess of Uzes [3], an avowedly nationalist heiress who served as a go-between from the mainstream royalist faction of Napoleon IV, and Boulanger's "Court."
The thrust of Boulangisme became a burning hatred of republicanism itself and a worldview that centered upon a persecution complex; in the eyes of the Ligue des Patriotes, which by the mid-1890s had used its sponsorship of free gymnastics training and rifle marksmanship courses for members to form a small nucleus of a paramilitary wing, there was a global conspiracy to obliterate France, and that every time France seemed to be on the cusp of achieving its - in their view, rightful - status as the preeminent pole world power, it was ganged up on by a coalition of opponents. Drumont listed these antagonisms and indignities in detail - the Seven Year's War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Third Unification War and subsequent driving of France from Italy. All were collusions meant to deny the martial, devout and bold French people their rightful proportion of ownership of world commerce, wealth and power; the center of this conspiracy was Britain, the "eternal enemy," bolstered of course by a cabal of Jews who had, along with "an ancient order of British secret societies," created a "Saxon bloc" by uniting Germany as a new weapon to be used against Holy France. In the Boulangist imagination, the Jews who ran the world's financial system - in practical terms, banks in London - had taken the dumb, squabbling German fiefdoms and united it as a cannon aimed across the Rhine at poor, persecuted France; and, as the latest indignity, had responded to the string of French victories starting with Korea in 1869 by curtailing French ambitions with treaties in Madrid and Hamburg.
This was, of course, all nothing but hateful nonsense; the "Saxon-Semitic Syndicate," or 3S as it became known to Boulangist ideologues, was pure invention to explain away setbacks to French hegemony and consolidate around a common enemy. But it was a poisonous ideology that increasingly held sway among influential politicians, the ambitious and neurotic War Minister in particular, a man who had the ear of the Emperors of both France and Austria as well as the King of Belgium - and, perhaps more importantly, on officialdom in those three nations - on a host of matters..."
- The Revolution Sleeps
[1] Yes I have every intent of still having this man die of a blowjob from his mistress, as in OTL. Too good not to include
[2] Obviously men quite prominent in OTL's Dreyfus Affair
[3] Next time you have Veuve Clicquot, you're drinking the product that made her obscenely wealthy. Of course, surprisingly considering her far-right views and support of Boulanger/monarchist restoration OTL, she was an advocate for women's rights and political organization as well.
Destiny Beckons: Rise of the German Reich
"...Heinrich's first - and, as historians would later acknowledge - most important move was to continue the policy of realpolitik towards Russia. Already boxed in by the Iron Triangle of France, Austria and Denmark, it was critical that Russia remain if not an ally then a true neutral party, and so Germany's offer of renewing the Reinsurance Treaty with St. Petersburg was surprisingly conciliatory - 10 years, rather than 3. It was met with relief in Russia, which had no conflict of interest with Germany and indeed shared a mutual desire to suppress Polish nationalism; the 1894 renewal of the treaty led not just to an acknowledgement in both governments that they had secured another decade of predictable relations but for the first time a large expansion of trade, even with Germany's high grain tariffs in place. Germany, which had maneuvered the Panic of 1890 better than nearly another other nation and was undergoing considerable growth, was able to make small but targeted investments in Russia as Britain and France recovered more slowly; the Berenberg Bank's holdings in Russia grew tenfold, with healthy profit, by the end of the century. To Chancellor Hohenlohe, a liberal who personally detested Russian autocracy, there were more pragmatic reasons for flattering the Tsar, Alexander III; he was married to a Dane, Maria Feodorovna (born Dagmar) who had her husband's ear and was an aunt of Britain's George V and more importantly sister to Denmark's fiercely anti-German Crown Prince, Frederick. Alexander, for his part, was happiest and most himself at annual family gatherings in Denmark, far from the strict security and "gilded prison" of the Russian monarchy. With a favorable persuasion toward the Danish nobility already, the worry at the German foreign office was of a Franco-Danish influence campaign seeking to persuade Alexander to stand against Germany, potentially even in a full alliance.
Russia, for her part, had its own reasons for wanting peace; the Narodnaya Volya attempted to assassinate Alexander shortly before Christmas in 1893, and though they were unsuccessful (one of the bombs exploded in the hands of the would-be assassin, alerting the Tsar's entourage and allowing him to narrowly escape a second package bomb thrown and avoid the grievous injuries that had nearly killed his father in 1881 and contributed to his death five years later), it triggered a wave of political unrest across the country, most prominently with a vast crackdown against Narodniks, most prominently with the hanging of thirty at once in central Moscow on Red Square, and the Great Pogrom of 1894, possibly the worst in Russian history, which killed upwards of 4,000 Jews and Poles and displaced as many as 75,000 people over the next few years, most of whom eventually settled in the United States, Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. 1893 also marked an important year in Russian geostrategy - the sunset clause of the Treaty of Berlin came into effect, ending the prohibition of it maintaining a fleet in the Black Sea. Alexander III, who had viewed the imposition of the original prohibitive clauses at the end of the Crimean War as a national disgrace, immediately endeavored to modify the "turn from Europe" that had moved Russian ambitions towards its vast Central Asian and Oriental frontiers and command massive amounts of treasure expended instead on a crash naval expansion program, with the vast majority concentrated in Odessa, Sevastopol and the Kuban. With exorbitant sums - and consequential exorbitant debt, much of it German - Russia could not afford army expansion or a hostile neighbor to its east.
The only sticking point between Heinrich and Alexander - who though very different men got along moderately well and did not have the same quiet personal animosity as Friedrich had had - was Romania, which had a Hohenzollern sovereign and heir, and had quickly abandoned the Russian line in 1878 after the debacle against Turkey to align instead with King Carol's Protestant cousins (Carol and his heir, his nephew Ferdinand, son of King Leopoldo of Spain, were of the Catholic Hohenzollern line) against Austria-Hungary, which had within its borders a substantial Romanian minority towards whom Bucharest's liberal intelligentsia harbored irredentist interests. Russia had never quite forgiven Romania's sudden about face after they had fought side by side, and though appreciative of German support at Berlin had long suspected family ties of winning out. For Heinrich, the solution seemed clear - while Romania remained a valuable friend to produce a check on Austrian interests from the east, he came to regard the small Balkan state as a potential shared sphere of influence, as a partner for Germany against Vienna and a partner for Russia to command the Black Sea..."
- Destiny Beckons: Rise of the German Reich
Russia, for her part, had its own reasons for wanting peace; the Narodnaya Volya attempted to assassinate Alexander shortly before Christmas in 1893, and though they were unsuccessful (one of the bombs exploded in the hands of the would-be assassin, alerting the Tsar's entourage and allowing him to narrowly escape a second package bomb thrown and avoid the grievous injuries that had nearly killed his father in 1881 and contributed to his death five years later), it triggered a wave of political unrest across the country, most prominently with a vast crackdown against Narodniks, most prominently with the hanging of thirty at once in central Moscow on Red Square, and the Great Pogrom of 1894, possibly the worst in Russian history, which killed upwards of 4,000 Jews and Poles and displaced as many as 75,000 people over the next few years, most of whom eventually settled in the United States, Mexico, Brazil or Argentina. 1893 also marked an important year in Russian geostrategy - the sunset clause of the Treaty of Berlin came into effect, ending the prohibition of it maintaining a fleet in the Black Sea. Alexander III, who had viewed the imposition of the original prohibitive clauses at the end of the Crimean War as a national disgrace, immediately endeavored to modify the "turn from Europe" that had moved Russian ambitions towards its vast Central Asian and Oriental frontiers and command massive amounts of treasure expended instead on a crash naval expansion program, with the vast majority concentrated in Odessa, Sevastopol and the Kuban. With exorbitant sums - and consequential exorbitant debt, much of it German - Russia could not afford army expansion or a hostile neighbor to its east.
The only sticking point between Heinrich and Alexander - who though very different men got along moderately well and did not have the same quiet personal animosity as Friedrich had had - was Romania, which had a Hohenzollern sovereign and heir, and had quickly abandoned the Russian line in 1878 after the debacle against Turkey to align instead with King Carol's Protestant cousins (Carol and his heir, his nephew Ferdinand, son of King Leopoldo of Spain, were of the Catholic Hohenzollern line) against Austria-Hungary, which had within its borders a substantial Romanian minority towards whom Bucharest's liberal intelligentsia harbored irredentist interests. Russia had never quite forgiven Romania's sudden about face after they had fought side by side, and though appreciative of German support at Berlin had long suspected family ties of winning out. For Heinrich, the solution seemed clear - while Romania remained a valuable friend to produce a check on Austrian interests from the east, he came to regard the small Balkan state as a potential shared sphere of influence, as a partner for Germany against Vienna and a partner for Russia to command the Black Sea..."
- Destiny Beckons: Rise of the German Reich
For those concerned that three of the last four updates were about anti-Semitism, fear not! Our next textbook snippet will instead feature a brief cameo by John Wilkes Booth
Oh boy, a storm is coming in terms of nutty reactionary ideologues vs leftist revolutionaries. At least Germany got it out of her system early...
Yuppppppp
And don’t forget the distinct brands of nuttery currently germinating on the other side of the Atlantic…
As do strategic decisions based on a monarch’s sense of wounded pride!
Consorts of the Republic: American History Through Her First Ladies
"...Washington's social scene was certainly reinvigorated by the return of the Hays to its center, now with the Executive Mansion as the venue for their grand parties rather than their house on Lafayette Square but a stone's throw away from the bedroom where the President and Clara slept. For Clara, serving as the hostess-in-chief of Washington society came naturally; she had already done so a decade prior when the fiercely private Harriet Blaine had refused to do so. The Washington of 1893, thanks in large part to the Liberal ascendance, was also much more culturally fulfilling to the ever-restless John; the libraries were fuller, a National Zoo had been approved in the Rock Creek premises, and poetry readings had become a staple of cocktail parties and banquets thrown by partisans of both persuasions. The Ford's Theatre, but a short walk away, hosted all the most popular plays; John and Clara in particular enjoyed that the famous John Wilkes Booth, the first true celebrity actor of the modern age (and politically influential among Democrats and Liberals alike thanks to his marriage to Lucy Lambert Hale and extensive philanthropy) [1] made frequent appearances there, indulging his muse in his middle age and even graciously calling upon the President in his private box after every performance.
Of course, the Hays would find their stay in what would soon be known as "the White House" short; the building, it turned out, was decrepit and starting to show its age. On top of that, it was increasingly too small for the large Hay family and their frequent visitors; the childless Custers had made do with a minimal household staff (partially from preference), but the Hills and now the Hays required a more robust domestic presence, in addition to the increasing needs of the office of the Presidency. It was not just the civil service that was growing in professionalization and manpower; the nature of government and the executive office had changed dramatically since the days when Hay was one of two secretaries (one more than typical) brought by Lincoln to Washington in the early hours of the War of Secession. Ever the inveterate writer, Hay did as he had thirty years ago on Lincoln's behalf and tried to answer as many letters as he could by his own hand, witty and charming as he responded to both favorable and hostile constituents. But there was now an informal press office, scheduler, and small staff around him, to say nothing of the small platoon of Ohioans brought to Washington by Vice President Foraker - the Executive Mansion was simply not big enough.
Clara, frustrated by the long shadow of Libby Custer, Widow of the Republic, found her own cause to pursue - the renovation, expansion and reconstruction of the White House to a proper residence and workspace for the President of the United States. The Hays dusted off architectural plans [2] drafted at the request of Harriet Blaine that had been filed away after her husband's death and the disinterest of both Custer and Hill in the project; with some minor updates, Clara began to present the idea herself to Senators and Congressmen at dinners and even offered to head to Capitol Hill herself to do so. The Liberal majority in Congress was open to the idea but was leery of earmarking the substantial funds it would require, especially in light of the poor economy of the time; Clara presented over tea to Speaker Reed the idea of the Hays contributing a third of the funding themselves as a "gift to the Republic," with her emphasizing how special the building was to Hay after his substantial time spent there as private secretary to Lincoln and then head of the State Department and now President. "It has been his home in many ways," she said in her diary, recollecting her persuasive appeal. "He loves it, and wishes to see it restored properly after years of neglect." Reed agreed that Congress would match a third of the cost if the final third could be driven by private donations; Clara Hay would be one of the most publicly prominent First Ladies as she led a fundraising campaign, targeted mainly at wealthy Liberal donors and philanthropists, that generated the funds. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould - but a few of the Gilded Age notables who wrote checks to the general fund the Hays established for the purpose [3]. And so, just less than a year after they moved in, with the funds effectively secured, the Hays found themselves moving out of the Executive Mansion, but this time it would be a short jaunt - back across Lafayette Square to their personal mansion, where they would reside for the rest of John's Presidency..."
- Consorts of the Republic: American History Through Her First Ladies
[1] Think of him as a racist, Southern-sympathizing Gilded Age George Clooney!
[2] Something along these lines
[3] Can't see anything potentially going wrong with this idea, no sir
Of course, the Hays would find their stay in what would soon be known as "the White House" short; the building, it turned out, was decrepit and starting to show its age. On top of that, it was increasingly too small for the large Hay family and their frequent visitors; the childless Custers had made do with a minimal household staff (partially from preference), but the Hills and now the Hays required a more robust domestic presence, in addition to the increasing needs of the office of the Presidency. It was not just the civil service that was growing in professionalization and manpower; the nature of government and the executive office had changed dramatically since the days when Hay was one of two secretaries (one more than typical) brought by Lincoln to Washington in the early hours of the War of Secession. Ever the inveterate writer, Hay did as he had thirty years ago on Lincoln's behalf and tried to answer as many letters as he could by his own hand, witty and charming as he responded to both favorable and hostile constituents. But there was now an informal press office, scheduler, and small staff around him, to say nothing of the small platoon of Ohioans brought to Washington by Vice President Foraker - the Executive Mansion was simply not big enough.
Clara, frustrated by the long shadow of Libby Custer, Widow of the Republic, found her own cause to pursue - the renovation, expansion and reconstruction of the White House to a proper residence and workspace for the President of the United States. The Hays dusted off architectural plans [2] drafted at the request of Harriet Blaine that had been filed away after her husband's death and the disinterest of both Custer and Hill in the project; with some minor updates, Clara began to present the idea herself to Senators and Congressmen at dinners and even offered to head to Capitol Hill herself to do so. The Liberal majority in Congress was open to the idea but was leery of earmarking the substantial funds it would require, especially in light of the poor economy of the time; Clara presented over tea to Speaker Reed the idea of the Hays contributing a third of the funding themselves as a "gift to the Republic," with her emphasizing how special the building was to Hay after his substantial time spent there as private secretary to Lincoln and then head of the State Department and now President. "It has been his home in many ways," she said in her diary, recollecting her persuasive appeal. "He loves it, and wishes to see it restored properly after years of neglect." Reed agreed that Congress would match a third of the cost if the final third could be driven by private donations; Clara Hay would be one of the most publicly prominent First Ladies as she led a fundraising campaign, targeted mainly at wealthy Liberal donors and philanthropists, that generated the funds. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould - but a few of the Gilded Age notables who wrote checks to the general fund the Hays established for the purpose [3]. And so, just less than a year after they moved in, with the funds effectively secured, the Hays found themselves moving out of the Executive Mansion, but this time it would be a short jaunt - back across Lafayette Square to their personal mansion, where they would reside for the rest of John's Presidency..."
- Consorts of the Republic: American History Through Her First Ladies
[1] Think of him as a racist, Southern-sympathizing Gilded Age George Clooney!
[2] Something along these lines
[3] Can't see anything potentially going wrong with this idea, no sir
Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria
"...once it became clear that Rudolf would have no more children - the Emperor suspected gonorrhea had made both the Crown Prince and Stephanie sterile - the need for Franz Ferdinand to find a suitable wife became a matter of urgency, seeing as he was next in line for the throne. Yes, Archduke Otto had one son (and would have another the following year) but Franz Josef was adamant that there be more potential heirs, concerned as he always was for the maintenance of his ancient dynasty, worried that Rudolf would renounce his succession rights to indulge his penchant for drink and whores, and unimpressed by Otto's abilities as a father to young Archduke Charles.
Franz Ferdinand had for years refused the hand of nearly every eligible match in Europe, insulting more than a few royal houses in the process. In one of his thunderous arguments with his uncle, he finally bent after he was threatened to have his allowance revoked and be given a posting as the envoy to Persia, an assignment effectively synonymous with exile. He was matched with his second cousin, Maria Dorothea [1], daughter of the Habsburg Palatine of Hungary, Josef Karl. The marriage, conducted in Prague (where Franz Ferdinand was stationed), was a relatively private affair, and made Franz Ferdinand brother-in-law by marriage to his second cousin Margarita Clementina, the wife of his first cousin, Louis Maximilian, Crown Prince of Mexico. [2] Both groom and bride shared an enthusiastic love for Mexico and their relatives within it, and would visit often.
The marriage was, from the beginning, a thoroughly unhappy one, even despite the birth of a daughter, Dorothea Elisabeth, the following year and three sons over the course of the remaining decade. In Prague shortly after the wedding, the future Emperor of Austria met a lady-in-waiting of a minor Habsburg archduchess named Sophie Chotek, whom he fell madly in love with [3]; they would pursue a secretive affair for the rest of their lives, fathering numerous children together, with their dalliance an open secret. Archduchess Maria, for her part, had a number of lovers whom she gleefully cuckolded her husband with, primarily Honved officers, and after the 1900 birth of their fourth child, Josef Ferdinand, she spent most of her time in Alcsut with her father the Palatine..."
[1] OTL married to Philippe of Orleans, who here never returns to France to forge his own path
[2] And thus the cousin-marrying incest carousel of the Habsburgs spins on!
[3] Whoops!
(I was originally going to have FF marry a progeny of Archduke Ludwig Salvator and Archduchess Mathilde, but decided that didn't work as Mathilde was promised to Umberto of Italy and OTL set herself on fire trying to hide a cigarette from her dad, which is too insane to not include in this TL, and then I figured that the daughter of the Hungarian Palatine would be a good match since their unhappy marriage only continues to poison FF's already fiercely Magyarphobic views of Hungary)
Franz Ferdinand had for years refused the hand of nearly every eligible match in Europe, insulting more than a few royal houses in the process. In one of his thunderous arguments with his uncle, he finally bent after he was threatened to have his allowance revoked and be given a posting as the envoy to Persia, an assignment effectively synonymous with exile. He was matched with his second cousin, Maria Dorothea [1], daughter of the Habsburg Palatine of Hungary, Josef Karl. The marriage, conducted in Prague (where Franz Ferdinand was stationed), was a relatively private affair, and made Franz Ferdinand brother-in-law by marriage to his second cousin Margarita Clementina, the wife of his first cousin, Louis Maximilian, Crown Prince of Mexico. [2] Both groom and bride shared an enthusiastic love for Mexico and their relatives within it, and would visit often.
The marriage was, from the beginning, a thoroughly unhappy one, even despite the birth of a daughter, Dorothea Elisabeth, the following year and three sons over the course of the remaining decade. In Prague shortly after the wedding, the future Emperor of Austria met a lady-in-waiting of a minor Habsburg archduchess named Sophie Chotek, whom he fell madly in love with [3]; they would pursue a secretive affair for the rest of their lives, fathering numerous children together, with their dalliance an open secret. Archduchess Maria, for her part, had a number of lovers whom she gleefully cuckolded her husband with, primarily Honved officers, and after the 1900 birth of their fourth child, Josef Ferdinand, she spent most of her time in Alcsut with her father the Palatine..."
[1] OTL married to Philippe of Orleans, who here never returns to France to forge his own path
[2] And thus the cousin-marrying incest carousel of the Habsburgs spins on!
[3] Whoops!
(I was originally going to have FF marry a progeny of Archduke Ludwig Salvator and Archduchess Mathilde, but decided that didn't work as Mathilde was promised to Umberto of Italy and OTL set herself on fire trying to hide a cigarette from her dad, which is too insane to not include in this TL, and then I figured that the daughter of the Hungarian Palatine would be a good match since their unhappy marriage only continues to poison FF's already fiercely Magyarphobic views of Hungary)
The Fourth Branch: A Comprehensive History of the United States Navy
"...the tortured, long-delayed and expensive construction processes for both Maine and Delaware [1] left the two pre-dreadnought battleships obsolete by the time they were launched within months of one another; particularly, their en echelon staggered gun layout had fallen out of favor with other navies and more advanced ships were entering service across the Atlantic and in the Southern Cone. Frustrating as this may have been to the Office of Development and Engineering, the two vessels nevertheless represented a revolution in American warmaking capability - they were entirely indigenous designs, built by American shipyards in New York and Philadelphia, respectively, and using entirely domestic materials. The ships were both placed into service in 1894, with Delaware making the long trek around the Horn to serve as the flagship of the Pacific Squadron out of San Francisco; the frustrated commanding admiral Austin M. Knight, who was appalled by the long journey and the conditions of the naval shipyard at Union Iron Works and Mare Island where the C-class protected cruisers were built, soon became a major advocate for a trans-oceanic canal.
It was the Saratoga [2], also launched in 1894, that was perhaps more impactful - it was an armored cruiser, more advanced and lethal than the classes inaugurated by the ABC ships of a decade before, and which unlike its lumbering pre-dreadnought peers was in fact a cutting-edge vessel in terms of armor design, gun size and relative speed for its substantial tonnage. The Saratoga-class soon spawned a number of sisters, most famously the Brooklyn, which solidified the naming convention of major American cities for the ACR-classification and the protected cruisers, which had considerable design flexibility from mere gunboats to modern vessels, would begin drawing the names of smaller municipalities.
As for the battleships, they still had some use; Delaware, for all its curious and superstitious bad luck, was still as advanced as anything that Chile, the United States' premier Pacific rival, could put to sea, which served its purpose. It was the Indiana-class, with her three ships - Indiana, Massachusetts, and Oregon - that truly served as an announcement of the Navy's intentions, with all three vessels innovative, packing considerable firepower for their limited displacements, and peer vessels of most European fleets of that time. The Delaware may have been snorted at when she sailed around the Horn, but the navies of the world - particularly those of Brazil and Chile - paid attention when they saw schematics and photographs of the Indiana for the first time, and scrambled to order something of like quality. The naval arms race just now beginning in Europe was spreading west..."
- The Fourth Branch: A Comprehensive History of the United States Navy
[1] Compare to OTL's USS Texas
[2] Compare to OTL's USS New York
(Not really germane to the narrative, but its in my hyper OCD notes (seriously y'all should see how much doesn't make it to page), the Maine soon enough gets renamed the Portland after its determined that her specifications align more with the ACRs being produced)
It was the Saratoga [2], also launched in 1894, that was perhaps more impactful - it was an armored cruiser, more advanced and lethal than the classes inaugurated by the ABC ships of a decade before, and which unlike its lumbering pre-dreadnought peers was in fact a cutting-edge vessel in terms of armor design, gun size and relative speed for its substantial tonnage. The Saratoga-class soon spawned a number of sisters, most famously the Brooklyn, which solidified the naming convention of major American cities for the ACR-classification and the protected cruisers, which had considerable design flexibility from mere gunboats to modern vessels, would begin drawing the names of smaller municipalities.
As for the battleships, they still had some use; Delaware, for all its curious and superstitious bad luck, was still as advanced as anything that Chile, the United States' premier Pacific rival, could put to sea, which served its purpose. It was the Indiana-class, with her three ships - Indiana, Massachusetts, and Oregon - that truly served as an announcement of the Navy's intentions, with all three vessels innovative, packing considerable firepower for their limited displacements, and peer vessels of most European fleets of that time. The Delaware may have been snorted at when she sailed around the Horn, but the navies of the world - particularly those of Brazil and Chile - paid attention when they saw schematics and photographs of the Indiana for the first time, and scrambled to order something of like quality. The naval arms race just now beginning in Europe was spreading west..."
- The Fourth Branch: A Comprehensive History of the United States Navy
[1] Compare to OTL's USS Texas
[2] Compare to OTL's USS New York
(Not really germane to the narrative, but its in my hyper OCD notes (seriously y'all should see how much doesn't make it to page), the Maine soon enough gets renamed the Portland after its determined that her specifications align more with the ACRs being produced)
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Umberto's Italy
"...Italian access to the Suez, and thus Massawa, was threatened by the belligerent language in the wake of the Tunis Riots; it was the first genuine international test of Crispi's premiership. It helped little that a nationalist Italian public steeped in the ideology of irredenta viewed the Italian community of Tunis that had been attacked by the Muslim mobs following the rumored vandalism of a mosque and alleged kidnapping of two Arab girls. The crisis was so severe that the Regia Marina was mobilized; only the Royal Navy's Malta contingent intercepting the squadron inbound for Tunis, and Ottoman ships entering Tunis harbor, made clear that potential war was on the horizon if Italy forged ahead. Nevertheless, this now-forgotten incident was a major event to Crispi and his contemporaries which substantially raised tensions in the Mediterranean and committed Italy to a furthering of its shipbuilding program and commitment to influence in Tunis..."
- Umberto's Italy
- Umberto's Italy
The Land of Plenty: Southern Africa in the 19th Century
"...the rapid growth of Oostburg, and its surrounding extremities in the Republic of Oosterland, occurred in tandem with the remarkable Witwatersrand gold rush; indeed, the two were connected. Just south of Lourenco Marques, Oostburg granted the Free Republics, of which it was the youngest member, direct sea access - the train from Pretoria built by Dutch engineers forked just to the west to both ports, as there was some advantage in using Portuguese-flagged vessels that British ships would not interdict. The twin ports grew rapidly as the preferred port of entry for adventure seekers and migrant workers looking to strike a fortune in the heart of the Transvaal, with Oostburg's advantage being that it was the sole Boer state to allow "uitlanders" to apply for citizenship and did not operate as a theocracy, and its free-trading nature earned it the nickname "the Rotterdam of Africa." Lenient property rights in Oostburg was key; only citizens or members of the Dutch Reformed Church were allowed to own land in the Free Republics, leading to a curious caste system with White Afrikaner burghers at the top, White uitlanders in the middle, and the illiterate Native underclass at the bottom. But in Oostburg, Zulu and Swati Reformed converts spoke fluent Afrikaans and manned mineral brokerages just like their white peers; Joubert remarked that it was perhaps more racially integrated than Cape Town. Indians worked alongside Chinese, and one could hear French, German and Spanish as much as one heard English, Portuguese or Dutch on the city's dusty, sweltering streets.
The gold rush transformed the Transvaal from an impoverished frontier to one of the world's great boomtowns, especially with rail lines to the Cape, to Natal and to the Delagoa twin ports. Tens of thousands descended upon the republic, with the city of Johannesburg one of the fastest growing in the world in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Dormitories sprung up on new streets seemingly overnight, alongside saloons, barbers, general stores, all manner of work that was available to those ineligible to own property. Once among the poorest, most hardscrabble people in the world, the Boer burghers sat now on some of the greatest stores of mineral wealth ever found, and through Oostburg and other ports monetized it into substantial material gains, taking the bounty as a gift from God - and a holy sign of their status as a chosen people.
The British attitude against Afrikaners hardened, and for many Cape Dutch, the increasing hostility of their countrymen in their longtime home was the inspiration they sought to seek a fortune in the interior, where they spoke the same language, shared the same customs and worshipped in the same pews. More beneficially, they - along with Dutch or German Calvinist immigrants - were able to apply for citizenship immediately, which the Joubert administration aggressively promoted. Another Great Trek, this one by railroad, was underway. The Afrikaner population of the Cape declined by a third between 1880 and 1900; it was one of the greatest demographic bonanzas the Free Republics could have asked for.
Rhodes and his peers made due with diamond and gold brokerages in Cape Town such as the South African Mines Company, which bought goods directly from Boer claimholders to sell in British markets without the tariff in place for goods flagged from Mozambique or the Free Republics. The debacle of the Basuto and Zulu Wars that helped bring down the Carnarvon government in the late 1870s had erased appetite in London for military action against the Boers, despite the distaste the increasingly powerful Prime Minister Chamberlain held for the indignities of the uitlanders; the ring of allied Native kingdoms around the Free Republics, which the Boers kept flush with remittance payments from migrant workers in Johannesburg and guns their trade provided, seemed to be doing their job of staying contently unmolested by the White man while keeping the British definitively out..."
- The Land of Plenty: Southern Africa in the 19th Century
The gold rush transformed the Transvaal from an impoverished frontier to one of the world's great boomtowns, especially with rail lines to the Cape, to Natal and to the Delagoa twin ports. Tens of thousands descended upon the republic, with the city of Johannesburg one of the fastest growing in the world in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Dormitories sprung up on new streets seemingly overnight, alongside saloons, barbers, general stores, all manner of work that was available to those ineligible to own property. Once among the poorest, most hardscrabble people in the world, the Boer burghers sat now on some of the greatest stores of mineral wealth ever found, and through Oostburg and other ports monetized it into substantial material gains, taking the bounty as a gift from God - and a holy sign of their status as a chosen people.
The British attitude against Afrikaners hardened, and for many Cape Dutch, the increasing hostility of their countrymen in their longtime home was the inspiration they sought to seek a fortune in the interior, where they spoke the same language, shared the same customs and worshipped in the same pews. More beneficially, they - along with Dutch or German Calvinist immigrants - were able to apply for citizenship immediately, which the Joubert administration aggressively promoted. Another Great Trek, this one by railroad, was underway. The Afrikaner population of the Cape declined by a third between 1880 and 1900; it was one of the greatest demographic bonanzas the Free Republics could have asked for.
Rhodes and his peers made due with diamond and gold brokerages in Cape Town such as the South African Mines Company, which bought goods directly from Boer claimholders to sell in British markets without the tariff in place for goods flagged from Mozambique or the Free Republics. The debacle of the Basuto and Zulu Wars that helped bring down the Carnarvon government in the late 1870s had erased appetite in London for military action against the Boers, despite the distaste the increasingly powerful Prime Minister Chamberlain held for the indignities of the uitlanders; the ring of allied Native kingdoms around the Free Republics, which the Boers kept flush with remittance payments from migrant workers in Johannesburg and guns their trade provided, seemed to be doing their job of staying contently unmolested by the White man while keeping the British definitively out..."
- The Land of Plenty: Southern Africa in the 19th Century
Liked the update especially the part about the US Navy. I'm hoping for an update on the Chilean Navy. Are they resting on their laurels from their scrap with the US or are they still preparing for a very possible fight against the USN?
Thank you!
funny you mention; the Southern Cone is right around the corner in 2-3 updates or so! It was meant to focus more on the geopolitics/recovery from the Barings Crisis but I can certainly flesh out the naval component, though perhaps not down to the technical specifications
(Technical specs on navies of this time are not my specialty, though I know Althist.com is full of people who know their stuff; as naval arms races become more common over the next few decades, any help on this front is appreciated!)
I have an idea about this great story: What about making a HOI4 mod of the story?
Melting Pot: The Immigrant Stories That America is Made Of
"...by the mid-1890s the tide was rising faster than many knew what to make of it; the steady stream of Serbs, Bulgars and Greeks (along with a smattering of Armenians and Syriac Christians) who had fled the victorious Ottoman Empire in droves after 1878 [1] were now being joined by a growing wave of Galician Poles and Ukrainians [2]; Italians from Calabria and Sicily; Germans and Irish attracted by stories told by relatives who had made the trek in decades before; and, newly and more prominently, Ashkenazim Jews from the Danube or the Pale of Settlement fleeing pogroms, poverty and discrimination. As these new immigrants arrived, they found organizations waiting for them, both indigenous and their own; the Young Men's Christian Association in particular sponsored night school courses to teach new arrivals English and other basic skills, and Catholic lay organizations and other fraternal societies sprung up within the various ethnic groups, and some generally blended, to provide services ranging from child care to grocery deliveries.
Of course, immigrants were not the only ones forming their own societies; the Orange Order's influence in Canada seeped southwards and a number of New York Orangemen in 1887 formed the American Protective Association, a mobbish group that harassed and targeted Catholic lay groups and campaigned to keep neighborhoods of the city "pure" - within ten years, it wielded considerable influence and made restricting Catholicism in the United States a major goal, engaging in a broad program of coordination with Orangemen in Toronto, a hotbed of Protestant chauvinism in the New World. Perhaps less chauvinistic but not less xenophobic was the more elite Immigration Restriction League, modeling itself after other "leagues" then popular among American Liberals, a formation of Boston Brahmins convinced that the non-WASP immigration wave was a threat to their way of life and birthright control of the United States' cultural and economic institutions. Though more of an odd "think tank" of xenophobe intellectualism in Boston [3] than anything else at the start, it would soon earn the attention of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, himself a Brahmin to the core and a skeptic of the growing tide of new hopeful Americans, and after the turn of the century was as sophisticated a lobbying organization as the prohibitionists, suffragists or neo-abolitionists.
Of course, this is not to say that the story of the 1890s was of European immigrants being mere babes in the woods under assault by a WASP hegemony they threatened. Some Italians found use in recreating the feudalistic Mafia structures that "protected" civilians in the Old Country, which American urban politicians soon came to regard as the greatest scourge in their cities, but one that could be an opportunity; Catholic lay organizations, particularly ethnically Irish ones, readily joined in the longstanding conspiracy-laced American fear of Freemasons and Odd Fellows (who themselves often feuded); and Serbian and Ukrainian church picnics often descended into drunken men roaming for Jews to assault by the end of the day. The Old World, in the great American tradition, was finding new ways to manifest itself in the New..."
- Melting Pot: The Immigrant Stories That America is Made Of
[1] Already a marked demographic shift from OTL
[2] Canada's less hospitable immigration climes for Catholics makes the US more appealing for many of the Ukrainians who moved to Canada IOTL, another big demographic change
[3] For all its legacy as a hotbed of civil rights activism in the abolition era and the center of today's progressive Massachusetts, Boston can be a really really racist city
Of course, immigrants were not the only ones forming their own societies; the Orange Order's influence in Canada seeped southwards and a number of New York Orangemen in 1887 formed the American Protective Association, a mobbish group that harassed and targeted Catholic lay groups and campaigned to keep neighborhoods of the city "pure" - within ten years, it wielded considerable influence and made restricting Catholicism in the United States a major goal, engaging in a broad program of coordination with Orangemen in Toronto, a hotbed of Protestant chauvinism in the New World. Perhaps less chauvinistic but not less xenophobic was the more elite Immigration Restriction League, modeling itself after other "leagues" then popular among American Liberals, a formation of Boston Brahmins convinced that the non-WASP immigration wave was a threat to their way of life and birthright control of the United States' cultural and economic institutions. Though more of an odd "think tank" of xenophobe intellectualism in Boston [3] than anything else at the start, it would soon earn the attention of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, himself a Brahmin to the core and a skeptic of the growing tide of new hopeful Americans, and after the turn of the century was as sophisticated a lobbying organization as the prohibitionists, suffragists or neo-abolitionists.
Of course, this is not to say that the story of the 1890s was of European immigrants being mere babes in the woods under assault by a WASP hegemony they threatened. Some Italians found use in recreating the feudalistic Mafia structures that "protected" civilians in the Old Country, which American urban politicians soon came to regard as the greatest scourge in their cities, but one that could be an opportunity; Catholic lay organizations, particularly ethnically Irish ones, readily joined in the longstanding conspiracy-laced American fear of Freemasons and Odd Fellows (who themselves often feuded); and Serbian and Ukrainian church picnics often descended into drunken men roaming for Jews to assault by the end of the day. The Old World, in the great American tradition, was finding new ways to manifest itself in the New..."
- Melting Pot: The Immigrant Stories That America is Made Of
[1] Already a marked demographic shift from OTL
[2] Canada's less hospitable immigration climes for Catholics makes the US more appealing for many of the Ukrainians who moved to Canada IOTL, another big demographic change
[3] For all its legacy as a hotbed of civil rights activism in the abolition era and the center of today's progressive Massachusetts, Boston can be a really really racist city
The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905
"...the Emperor was dismayed by the Treasury's dour report on tax revenues and that, for the first time since the war scare with Spain fifteen years earlier, he would have to make a choice between incrementally boosting funding for the Navy or the Army. Boulanger suggested sacking the Minister of the Treasury in order to find a better report, or perhaps cut the subsidies to the public, non-Catholic schools he regarded as responsible for fomenting anti-Bonapartism; in a remarkably candid outburst for the staid, colorless tenor of Cabinet meetings that Napoleon preferred, Courbet - in between violent coughs, a recent turn of events - suggested that Boulanger attend one of those schools and retake maths, as he apparently had little recolelction of appreciation for the value of either. It was enough to leave Boulanger speechless, a rare occurrence for the fiery Marshal, and enough to draw a sly smile from the Emperor.
That 1894's navy bill in 1894 was substantially smaller than any since the war with China (the Army's requests won out; even Courbet was concerned by the Bangkok Crisis and how it could have triggered the Iron Triangle) did not earn much attention outside of the halls of the Tuileries and the Navy Ministry; but within them, it caused gritted teeth and yet another sinking feeling of France falling behind her rivals, especially as Britain and Germany endeavored on major naval building programs and Russia remade her Black Sea Fleet. It seemed to Napoleon's advisors that the other overseas powers made every move reactively to check French ambitions; the Emperor pondered the description he recalled from fifteen years earlier, when the British Foreign Secretary, the Earl of Granville, had described geopolitics as a giant chessboard where no player ever succeeded at checkmate. France's absorption of the Ivory Coast into its West African dominion was met with Britain's immediate provision of Ibadan as a protectorate, and the Colonial Ministry was chagrined at a minor Spanish expedition extending their equatorial Guinean colony further east and south, land France had hoped to incorporate into the Gabon. Napoleon had heard that the Ripon had described French Africa as a "Big Blue Blot," referencing the color Britain typically used for French holdings on their maps; it incensed him to feel like Britain was conspiring to keep that "blot" from seeping further across their precious blank map of Africa.
Worse, though, was a French sense that moves to counter them in Asia were afoot. Britain and Germany teaming up against them at Madrid, and Britain maneuvering to secure Germany their concession in Amoy, was a "Silent Alliance," a name that would stick in French parlance for decades to describe Anglo-German relations, that even if Perfidious Albion wouldn't deign to enter a formal protective alliance in its splendid isolation, it would use any state - Germany, Spain, Italy, whoever - as a block on its eternal foe's ambitions. France, of course, had its own strategic skullduggery in mind, maneuvering to support Russian ambitions in the Orient, particularly being more lenient about Russian merchants, diplomats and missionaries operating in their concessions in Korea (and outside of them, in provincial areas they had influence).
If only it were so simple - Russia, as always, was more than happy to accept assistance from France in Asia as it was from Germany in Europe, but the Romanovs had a fundamental distrust of the Bonapartes, and partnership in the Orient was never anything other than a marriage of convenience to them..."
- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905
That 1894's navy bill in 1894 was substantially smaller than any since the war with China (the Army's requests won out; even Courbet was concerned by the Bangkok Crisis and how it could have triggered the Iron Triangle) did not earn much attention outside of the halls of the Tuileries and the Navy Ministry; but within them, it caused gritted teeth and yet another sinking feeling of France falling behind her rivals, especially as Britain and Germany endeavored on major naval building programs and Russia remade her Black Sea Fleet. It seemed to Napoleon's advisors that the other overseas powers made every move reactively to check French ambitions; the Emperor pondered the description he recalled from fifteen years earlier, when the British Foreign Secretary, the Earl of Granville, had described geopolitics as a giant chessboard where no player ever succeeded at checkmate. France's absorption of the Ivory Coast into its West African dominion was met with Britain's immediate provision of Ibadan as a protectorate, and the Colonial Ministry was chagrined at a minor Spanish expedition extending their equatorial Guinean colony further east and south, land France had hoped to incorporate into the Gabon. Napoleon had heard that the Ripon had described French Africa as a "Big Blue Blot," referencing the color Britain typically used for French holdings on their maps; it incensed him to feel like Britain was conspiring to keep that "blot" from seeping further across their precious blank map of Africa.
Worse, though, was a French sense that moves to counter them in Asia were afoot. Britain and Germany teaming up against them at Madrid, and Britain maneuvering to secure Germany their concession in Amoy, was a "Silent Alliance," a name that would stick in French parlance for decades to describe Anglo-German relations, that even if Perfidious Albion wouldn't deign to enter a formal protective alliance in its splendid isolation, it would use any state - Germany, Spain, Italy, whoever - as a block on its eternal foe's ambitions. France, of course, had its own strategic skullduggery in mind, maneuvering to support Russian ambitions in the Orient, particularly being more lenient about Russian merchants, diplomats and missionaries operating in their concessions in Korea (and outside of them, in provincial areas they had influence).
If only it were so simple - Russia, as always, was more than happy to accept assistance from France in Asia as it was from Germany in Europe, but the Romanovs had a fundamental distrust of the Bonapartes, and partnership in the Orient was never anything other than a marriage of convenience to them..."
- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905
Eyes Across the Andes: Understanding the Chile-Argentina Rivalry
"...the shocking success of Argentina's post-crisis revolution - the return of former statesman Bartolome Mitre to power, and the election in 1892 of radical leader Leandro Alem to the Presidency on a ticket with more conservative figure Bernardo Irigoyen - stunned the Chilean ruling class. Argentina of course had, institutionally, not had the same stability as their neighbor, nor the same successes in wars on land or at sea. Where Argentina had struggled to move south into Patagonia, Chile had daringly seized the entire tip of the continent around Tierra del Fuego and defeated not just Peru and Bolivia while doing so but fighting the mighty United States to a draw shortly thereafter; where Argentina had an ossified, paramount single party system that encouraged electoral fraud and corruption (at least until the so-called Revolucion del Parque), Chile's "turno pacifico" allowed the Liberals and Conservatives to trade the Presidency in rotating five-year increments in a mutual understanding while broad compromises were hashed out in the more supreme Congress. Chilean leaders believed that the superiority of their system was plain; Chile's nitrate and copper exports had made the country profoundly wealthy, much more so than hardscrabble Argentina, and a nascent industrialization had even begun right before the Panic of 1890 dried up foreign investments for years.
Nevertheless, the twin crises of the financial crash and the subsequent ascent of the Civic Union, and its campaign for political reform just across the Andes, changed Chilean perceptions dramatically, and the establishment responded with what it knew best - lavish spending on the universally popular Navy. Not to be outdone by Brazil, Chile by the mid-1890s had ordered two battleships to keep pace with the larger Imperial neighbor; Argentina, busy spending to eradicate poverty and recover its export markets, would put its Independencia and Libertad into service but then largely hold off on escalating the arms race until the early part of the 1900s. While "the Prussia of the West" lived up to its name and reserved army commands for the sons of prominent oligarchs (thus its popularity with the rural, landowner-based Conservative Party), the Navy was, also like its German counterpart, meritocratic, professional and highly regarded. Naval officers were regarded as some of the most capable in the world; former Navy Commander, national hero and successful Conservative candidate for the Presidency in 1896, Arturo Prat, took enormous pride that Chile's former colonial master Spain sent a cadre of cadets and officers to observe Chilean doctrine, rather than the other way around. Though the battleships received in that first order were offloaded, increasingly obsolete vessels the Royal Navy no longer wanted - early battleships Devastation and Thunderer [1], rechristened Tierra del Fuego and Iquique - paired with the unique Vitoria designed specifically for Chilean use in 1890 and a host of technologically advanced British-built cruisers meant to continue the Navy's advantages in speed and range. Though few knew it yet, the naval arms race of the Americas had truly begun...
...stirring Chilean nationalism only did the Balmaceda and subsequent Prat governments so much good, however; all the paeans to Chilean mastery of the seas and national glory did nothing but stir further resentment at the Americans who controlled the "vampire concern," PATCO, which still took royalties from saltpeter mining and had extended its influences into other corners of the Chilean economy, including the critical coaling port in Valparaiso, to say nothing of rumors and hearsay that the hated Peruvians had the ear of the American government..."
- Eyes Across the Andes: Understanding the Chile-Argentina Rivalry
[1] IOTL broken up and retired by the UK at the end of their careers
Nevertheless, the twin crises of the financial crash and the subsequent ascent of the Civic Union, and its campaign for political reform just across the Andes, changed Chilean perceptions dramatically, and the establishment responded with what it knew best - lavish spending on the universally popular Navy. Not to be outdone by Brazil, Chile by the mid-1890s had ordered two battleships to keep pace with the larger Imperial neighbor; Argentina, busy spending to eradicate poverty and recover its export markets, would put its Independencia and Libertad into service but then largely hold off on escalating the arms race until the early part of the 1900s. While "the Prussia of the West" lived up to its name and reserved army commands for the sons of prominent oligarchs (thus its popularity with the rural, landowner-based Conservative Party), the Navy was, also like its German counterpart, meritocratic, professional and highly regarded. Naval officers were regarded as some of the most capable in the world; former Navy Commander, national hero and successful Conservative candidate for the Presidency in 1896, Arturo Prat, took enormous pride that Chile's former colonial master Spain sent a cadre of cadets and officers to observe Chilean doctrine, rather than the other way around. Though the battleships received in that first order were offloaded, increasingly obsolete vessels the Royal Navy no longer wanted - early battleships Devastation and Thunderer [1], rechristened Tierra del Fuego and Iquique - paired with the unique Vitoria designed specifically for Chilean use in 1890 and a host of technologically advanced British-built cruisers meant to continue the Navy's advantages in speed and range. Though few knew it yet, the naval arms race of the Americas had truly begun...
...stirring Chilean nationalism only did the Balmaceda and subsequent Prat governments so much good, however; all the paeans to Chilean mastery of the seas and national glory did nothing but stir further resentment at the Americans who controlled the "vampire concern," PATCO, which still took royalties from saltpeter mining and had extended its influences into other corners of the Chilean economy, including the critical coaling port in Valparaiso, to say nothing of rumors and hearsay that the hated Peruvians had the ear of the American government..."
- Eyes Across the Andes: Understanding the Chile-Argentina Rivalry
[1] IOTL broken up and retired by the UK at the end of their careers
- Status