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Oh, that should be interesting. On an unrelated note, how is the other Hapsburg monarchy right now? Are they more or less unstable than OTL?
 
Oh, that should be interesting. On an unrelated note, how is the other Hapsburg monarchy right now? Are they more or less unstable than OTL?

Id say fairly similar, which is why I haven’t expended a ton of time on them. Being allies with Bonapartist France infers some economic investment advantages vs the still-developing Germany and Russia’s retreat from the Balkans has placed Obrenovic Serbia in their political sphere and even though they don’t “have” Bosnia they would enjoy a fair amount of commercial interest in the northern (and industrializing) OE. So in that regard, better. The downside is having a somewhat hostile Germany, irredentist Italy and a neutral Russia on most of your borders - there’s no formal alliance with Istanbul either. So the internal situation is prob more stable; foreign policy situation is way more precarious
 

Ficboy

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Id say fairly similar, which is why I haven’t expended a ton of time on them. Being allies with Bonapartist France infers some economic investment advantages vs the still-developing Germany and Russia’s retreat from the Balkans has placed Obrenovic Serbia in their political sphere and even though they don’t “have” Bosnia they would enjoy a fair amount of commercial interest in the northern (and industrializing) OE. So in that regard, better. The downside is having a somewhat hostile Germany, irredentist Italy and a neutral Russia on most of your borders - there’s no formal alliance with Istanbul either. So the internal situation is prob more stable; foreign policy situation is way more precarious
World War I is going to look unrecognizable given that France is under the rule of the Bonapartes.
 
The text implies that the French Empire will end at some point in time; I would not be surprised if the stated young death of Napoleon IV (1905) is part of that end.
 
The text implies that the French Empire will end at some point in time; I would not be surprised if the stated young death of Napoleon IV (1905) is part of that end.

Havent worked out the how or the why down to the fine details yet but you’re barking up the right tree
 

Ficboy

Banned
Havent worked out the how or the why down to the fine details yet but you’re barking up the right tree
If there is a World War I, my guess is that will start similar to OTL with Franz Ferdinand's assassination or a similar event thus starting the conflict. The Confederate States would stay neutral and possibly the United States. The alliances might look very different such as a Central Powers Italy depending on the butterflies.
 
The Scramble for Asia: Colonialism in the Far East in the 19th Century
"...though unsanctioned by Paris, the seizure of the Hanoi Citadel by Rivière on April 25 [1] was met with alarm in Viet Nam and outrage in the Qing court, where Li Hongzhang's concern over the expansion of European and Japanese presences in Korea began to stir conversation about a response being necessary. Though Rivière would surrender the citadel before long, Tonkinese officials went scrambling to the Black Flag Army of Liu Yongfu to help fend off the French as they had done a decade before. Experts at irregular warfare against unsuspecting forces [2], the Black Flag campaign erupted, keeping Rivière in Indochina rather than resulting in his cashiering and now attracting the attention of French ministers and the Foreign Legion..."

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


[1] As in OTL, though the chain of events set off here will be markedly different
[2] I mean this is Vietnam we're talking about
 
Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany
"...alarmed by the sudden assassination of the Kaiser and aware of his own advanced age, von Moltke had begun elevating a younger cadre of officers in the wake of Wilhelm's death and quietly notifying his longtime ally Bismarck that he intended to retire by the age of 85, if he was so blessed to live that long. A hero of the Third Unification War, Alfred von Waldersee, was in 1879 made his Quartermaster General and effective second-in-command on the General Staff, a position of tremendous prestige, signaling enormous trust by von Moltke in his young protege. Also brought into the General Staff at this time was a young major named Alfred von Schlieffen, who quickly became a key deputy to Waldersee, and Wilhelm von Hahnke, a friend to Schlieffen thought to be eyed as a potential head of the Military Cabinet.

Schlieffen and Hahnke were mainstream, doctrinaire soldiers of the Prussian aristocratic class, hungry and ambitious as they might have been. Waldersee, a magnetic personality who wielded considerable influence over both, was of a different breed - he was attracted to the fiery Stoecker sermons, referring to the rabid anti-Semite as a "Second Luther," and saw conspiracies everywhere he looked. In his view, Germany was arrayed against a vast enemy controlled by global Jewry, which in turn held sway over both Catholics, whom he detested, and liberals, who he viewed as a weak fifth column within Prussia. Waldersee's diaries, published after his death [1], reveal a man with grandiose designs on an apocalyptic "last war" against France and Austria, and perhaps even her nominal ally Russia, to secure the place of Germany forever. He detested the Kaiser first and foremost, viewing him as a "fleshy bag of a man, a puppet on strings held by the British whore," and as a bloc of liberals surged to power in the Reichstag, the lay Catholic Zentrum grew in influence and socialists still proselytized without being lined upon and shot, the man began to see his beloved Germany slipping away. His antidote was the deposition and execution of the Kaiser, the exile or death of Empress Victoria, suspension of suffrage to the Reichstag and de-emancipation, if not deportation and perhaps even liquidation, of the Jewish community. The notion of civilian control of the military and the Junkers losing their position was wholly alien to Waldersee, and the Kaiser returned his hatred.

Nevertheless, Friedrich - always indecisive and reluctant to act, and having been dissuaded by Victoria of turning his attention away from boxing out Bismarck [2] - decided not to demand Waldersee's dismissal in 1882 as the Quartermaster elevated more friends to attache positions in foreign embassies. He was particularly leery of making a move that would seem to second-guess Moltke, who was so respected that he was referred to as the "Kaiser of the army" by some despite his advanced age and declining faculties. Bismarck, for his part, was suspicious and leery of Waldersee, but began to see the man as a useful pawn to be played, particularly as he started to turn his attention less from German matters to specifically Prussian ones and look to the Landtag as the vehicle for his political maneuvers, seeing as Prussia's army formed the core of Germany's military, the Junkers were the cream of the elite, and there were not nearly so many liberals and Catholics to muddy things up for him in the three-franchise Prussian Parliament.

And so the stage was set for one of Germany's most infamous tragedies, all thanks to three men - Friedrich, Bismarck and Moltke - who with their own cross-purposes and agendas ignored a bubbling reactionary undercurrent within the armed forces..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany


[1] This is all a little ahead of schedule, mind
[2] As I've said before, I think Freddy was less an ardent liberal hero like he's been mythologized as and more of just a wishy-washy guy who was easily bossed around by his wife
 
"...alarmed by the sudden assassination of the Kaiser and aware of his own advanced age, von Moltke had begun elevating a younger cadre of officers in the wake of Wilhelm's death and quietly notifying his longtime ally Bismarck that he intended to retire by the age of 85, if he was so blessed to live that long. A hero of the Third Unification War, Alfred von Waldersee, was in 1879 made his Quartermaster General and effective second-in-command on the General Staff, a position of tremendous prestige, signaling enormous trust by von Moltke in his young protege. Also brought into the General Staff at this time was a young major named Alfred von Schlieffen, who quickly became a key deputy to Waldersee, and Wilhelm von Hahnke, a friend to Schlieffen thought to be eyed as a potential head of the Military Cabinet.

Schlieffen and Hahnke were mainstream, doctrinaire soldiers of the Prussian aristocratic class, hungry and ambitious as they might have been. Waldersee, a magnetic personality who wielded considerable influence over both, was of a different breed - he was attracted to the fiery Stoecker sermons, referring to the rabid anti-Semite as a "Second Luther," and saw conspiracies everywhere he looked. In his view, Germany was arrayed against a vast enemy controlled by global Jewry, which in turn held sway over both Catholics, whom he detested, and liberals, who he viewed as a weak fifth column within Prussia. Waldersee's diaries, published after his death [1], reveal a man with grandiose designs on an apocalyptic "last war" against France and Austria, and perhaps even her nominal ally Russia, to secure the place of Germany forever. He detested the Kaiser first and foremost, viewing him as a "fleshy bag of a man, a puppet on strings held by the British whore," and as a bloc of liberals surged to power in the Reichstag, the lay Catholic Zentrum grew in influence and socialists still proselytized without being lined upon and shot, the man began to see his beloved Germany slipping away. His antidote was the deposition and execution of the Kaiser, the exile or death of Empress Victoria, suspension of suffrage to the Reichstag and de-emancipation, if not deportation and perhaps even liquidation, of the Jewish community. The notion of civilian control of the military and the Junkers losing their position was wholly alien to Waldersee, and the Kaiser returned his hatred.

Nevertheless, Friedrich - always indecisive and reluctant to act, and having been dissuaded by Victoria of turning his attention away from boxing out Bismarck [2] - decided not to demand Waldersee's dismissal in 1882 as the Quartermaster elevated more friends to attache positions in foreign embassies. He was particularly leery of making a move that would seem to second-guess Moltke, who was so respected that he was referred to as the "Kaiser of the army" by some despite his advanced age and declining faculties. Bismarck, for his part, was suspicious and leery of Waldersee, but began to see the man as a useful pawn to be played, particularly as he started to turn his attention less from German matters to specifically Prussian ones and look to the Landtag as the vehicle for his political maneuvers, seeing as Prussia's army formed the core of Germany's military, the Junkers were the cream of the elite, and there were not nearly so many liberals and Catholics to muddy things up for him in the three-franchise Prussian Parliament.

And so the stage was set for one of Germany's most infamous tragedies, all thanks to three men - Friedrich, Bismarck and Moltke - who with their own cross-purposes and agendas ignored a bubbling reactionary undercurrent within the armed forces..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany


[1] This is all a little ahead of schedule, mind
[2] As I've said before, I think Freddy was less an ardent liberal hero like he's been mythologized as and more of just a wishy-washy guy who was easily bossed around by his wife
Why do I have the horrible feeling that amplifying the voice of this aristocratic proto-Hitler will cause an ugly Dreyfus-style scandal in the Empire?
 
Queen Min
"...the Imo Mutiny was one of the most shocking and sudden blood-soaked incidents in Korean history up to that point, a n ugly reaction to Gojong's attempts and modernizing, and even more so than the Tonkin Crisis would set the stage for the great power clash to come but two years later. Apocryphally, the trigger for what for many years was known as the Soldier's Riot in Seoul - the name only change due to a number of other reactions over the decades by the Korean military against their rulers [1] - was apparently sand being found in the rice rations/wage substitute. Generally, though, the reaction was more about underpaid soldiers outraged at the special privileges enjoyed by Japanese military advisors to Gojong, egged on by the yangban aristocracy that detested the Queen and any and all foreign influence. As the riots spread on July 23 and the following days, foreigners were evacuated, the Japanese legation in particular, which was embarrassed that a British vessel had to help them flee down the Han to safety on Ganghwa Island. The riots soon spread to even broader segments of the Korean population and threatened to engulf the entire country in civil war - the Changdeokgung [2] was occupied, embassies and trade houses burned, and hundreds killed, including some of the Queen's chief advisors. The attempted coup briefly brought Gojong's father, the Daewongun, back to power, as the Queen had to flee the city disguised as a lady of court on a bodyguard's back [3]. The Daewongun set to work planning to suspend all of Korea's treaties with foreign powers, including the recently-negotiated pact with the United States that was on the verge of finalization.

This attracted the attention of France and China, both of whom were vying for influence in Korea and secretly were glad at the Japanese humiliation. France mobilized her Foreign Legion detachment at Pusan, where they were allowed to keep a small barracks, and loaded them onto ships to prepare to deploy to Ganghwa to "defend European refugees." As a mob of unorganized Korean soldiers and peasants marched to Ganghwa, Li Hongzhang - China's minister responsible for foreign affairs - deployed an army to quell the violence, sailing up the Han with the Beiyang Fleet and putting an end to the fighting with only 4,500 men, who would remain stationed in Seoul to "keep the peace." The Daewongun fled Seoul and evaded Chinese capture [4], and the next day the French forces at Ganghwa fought off the mob in a bloody fight best described as a massacre.

The Imo Mutiny returned Gojong and Min to the Changdeokgung, but China had reasserted her suzerainty over Korea after fifteen years of being more or less blocked out. The treaty ports of Pusan and Wonsan remained French and Japanese concessions, and Inchon remained Korea's port to the rest of the world, but China was now indelibly in control of the peninsula once again. Li, who had encouraged the US-Korean treaty, pressed for its finalization, which included the leasing of Port Hamilton [5] to the nascent US Asiatic Squadron to give them a permanent base, which he saw as an excellent way to control the Korea Straits and prevent further Japanese, French and Russian encroachment. For Korea, the mutiny had been disastrous - though Li encouraged the continuing modernization program, an unequal treaty signed that November returned Korea to tributary if not semi-colonial status, with extraterritorial rights for Chinese nationals and merchants and Korea needing the informal consent and approval of China on foreign policy decisions.

Though the United States came out of the situation please with their new military base when the treaty was done in 1883, France and Japan recoiled, the former as it had been pushed exclusively into Pusan when it regarded Korea as its sphere of influence and was embarrassed to be outflanked by China once again in Asia [6] and the latter because it showed that for all Japan's modernizing, its military advisors were driven from backwater Korea by an unruly mob and they lacked even the fleet projection to evacuate and safekeep their own people. The Imo Mutiny would have enormous consequences, thus, on not just the history of Korea's relationship with larger and stronger powers but on the military repercussions across East Asia..."

- Queen Min


[1] We're in for some good times
[2] Korean royal palace
[3] This is true, even if the riot ITTL is a bit more chaotic
[4] He was captured and confined IOTL
[5] Islands between the peninsula and Jeju with a great natural harbor, IOTL controlled by Britain for a while but apparently offered to the US
[6] Remember, there's tension between France and China over Tonkin too...
 
So some clarifying notes on the US Navy - my line of thinking on this, is that as you don’t have the 1863-65 mass production of naval vessels with the war effectively ending in late ‘62 followed by a ceasefire, the postbellum USN is even *more* decrepit in its decline. So even with the 1869 Naval Act I’ve referenced so many times, with its expansive provisions, the Great Depression and later budget cuts still probably puts the USN behind its OTL level as of 1882 despite all of its positive bullshit PR about challenging the RN hegemony (Lol). Still ahead of the Confederate Navy at this point (not hard to be ahead of a Navy that’s on the seabed of the Florida Strait!) but implications that the USN ITTL is some kind of great fighting force are probably best read as that: implications in favorable textbooks
 
Can we get some more info on what is happening in Southeast Asia? We have not heard from Deutsche Kambodia in a while, and I have heard that Ludwig II of Bavaria, the cousin of the current colonial governor there and the "Mad King" of Neuschwanstein fame, took interest in Oriental influences for his many castles. Also, some info on colonial India would be interesting. Is Russia's turn towards the east causing an intensified Great Game there?
 
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