Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...Germany's shipbuilding industry at this point was only beginning to spread her wings, primarily in Hamburg and Kiel. Though mostly commercial in nature, by the mid-1880s there was a small and nascent naval shipbuilding industry that contracted out vessels to foreign powers. Perhaps in the most famous example was the Nanrui-Nanchen Affair, in which two steel cruisers built at Kiel for the Nanyang Fleet of China, were expected to be an early test of the engineering capabilities of Germany's naval designers. Of course, the vessels were force to circumvent Africa en route to Shanghai as France blocked any shipments meant to relieve China via the Suez, outraging European powers; the Nanrui and Nanchen, staffed entirely with Germans for the voyage to Asia, had to brave the open Indian Ocean after stopping for coal at Cape Town as there were fears of running into French vessels. The ships, after stopping in Singapore and then Cambodia, were effectively blocked from reaching China when France cabled the German resident in Kampot that any attempt to send the vessels further on to Canton would result in their seizure by France. With France's naval force considerably larger - particularly in the Far East, where they were conducting their war against China - the ships were forced to stay in harbor at Kampot until the French victory the following year. For Germany, it was an embarrassing episode, where their peaceful and neutral trade with another power was dictated to them by their French rivals. Along with the Samoan War a few years later, this overseas incident would serve as a major impetus for Germany's continued investment under Frederick in its indigenous shipbuilding industry and the creation of a colonial navy, as well as its further drift into Britain's camp when it came to skepticism of French imperialism in Africa and the Orient..."

- Frederick and Victoria: Consorts of Germany

(Lots of look-ahead mini-spoilers in this one!)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the social mores and political context of Belle Epoque France permeated the country's famed artistic scene as well; the ethos of a young, modern Emperor who was more interested in science and history than in philosophy led to a broad understanding within the elite art patronage that it was realism, not the romanticist or impressionist worldview, that was more in line with the cultural oeuvre of the Second Empire; Napoleon himself was fascinated by photography and invested tens of thousands of francs of his personal assets into the furthering of the craft, viewing the medium as the essence of the "Francais scientifique" that he sought to usher in. The intellectual Emperor took a dim view of "superfluous" art, instead preferring more naturalistic view. In this he was influenced, ironically, by the famously political Gustave Courbet, who had ushered in Realism with his paintings of the unidealized peasants of France. For the social circle that dominated the salons of the Tuileries by the mid-1880s, this was not a rejection of monarchism but the essence in understanding the need for the National Contract. Where previous French elites had been lost in the idealized romanticism of a land that did not exist, in their view, the new regime of Scientific France, the modern conservative nation state that fused nationalist liberalism with monarchist ultramontanism and earned the loyalty of the previously-rebellious working class through paternalism and loyalty to the Church, was one that would see the world for what it was, and solve the issues of the day rather than ignore them. In this sense, the politicization of art - neither reactionary nor revolutionary but "an art of facts" - was a feature rather than a quirk of the times.

Such views extended to everything from architecture to music, sometimes both - the lavish design of the Palais Garnier for the Paris Opera was dated within a decade of it being built, with a preference emerging for more rigid structures that incorporated glass and showcased modern engineering. Culture was to be innovative and forward looking; the Prix de Rome in 1884 going to the innovative, iconoclastic composer Claude Debussy who rejected the traditionalist mores of the conservative Conservatory was seen as a particularly noteworthy rejection of the "Ancien Regime des artes," even though Debussy would later be associated with more impressionistic compositions. The culture of the Empire was defined very much by the spirit of its Emperor and the optimism, scientific innovation and transformative effects of the Second Industrial Revolution..."

- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905

(Credit to @Couperin for his suggestions re: Debussy, which inspired this update)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...though persuaded by Hay not to sign any immigration policy that singled out a single country or region - explicitly East Asia in the failed acts of 1881 and 1882 - Blaine did finally relent to pressure from western Liberals and some nativist elements in New England by signing the Immigration Act of 1884, carefully constructed by Senator Aaron Cragin of New Hampshire, the Liberal President Pro Tem of the Senate. The act banned the immigration of "undesirable" people, without specifying by race or nationality. Undesirable, under the Act, was defined as "those being imported for terms of forced labor (clearly understood to mean Chinese coolies), prostitutes (enforced exclusively against Asian and Eastern European women), criminals, and the mentally insane." At Garfield's insistence, language barring those who were "destitute and likely to become a public charge" was stricken, out of fears that it would be too broadly enforced and limit the necessary laborers for burgeoning Midwestern industry. The Act also put in place a head tax of one dollar on every man [1], fifty cents on every woman and twenty-five cents per child under the age of sixteen who was brought to the United States, thus funding the new immigration bureaucracy that formed out of the Act, removing responsibility for immigration from the states and once again creating a modernizing reform towards an efficient public bureaucracy. It would be the last major achievement of Blaine's first term..."

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

[1] OTL Act was $0.50 per person regardless of age or gender. We've also packaged some components of the OTL 1875 Page Act into this act since there were no Chinese Exclusion Acts passed (yet) in TTL

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Britain's position east of India was always tenuous, and the Sino-French War underlined its needs to amplify her position lest she be outmaneuvered even further by France in Asia. Several cruisers were dispatched to Singapore by early summer as fighting in Tonkin and Korea raged; the Admiralty signaled to Prime Minister Harcourt substantial concerns about the viability of Hongkong after massive riots broke out in the city when neutral Britain allowed the French Far East Squadron to conduct repairs there. French successes at sea and Chinese inability to secure victory on land despite numerous tactical draws led to deep concerns at the Foreign Office about "China becoming the French India" and British diplomats furiously scurried around European capitals hoping to find a coalition that would force a negotiated peace in the Orient. Events accelerated, however, and in the late summer the French Navy sent its Suez Squadron to Cam Ranh, where Courbet's forces were nearly done licking their wounds from Ha Long Bay's epic battle. Their presence now nearly doubled in the South China Sea, the push to annihilate the remaining Qing Navy was at hand for the French Tonkin Corps, with orders from War Minister Boulanger in Paris to establish naval supremacy followed by a blockade..."

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

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Liberal convention in Chicago was nothing less than a coronation for James Blaine, with the incumbent President renominated unanimously by the delegates, an unprecedented show of support and unity in the fractious party politics of the Gilded Age. The Democrats who gathered in St. Louis's Exposition Building could not have been more the opposite; out of power for four years, with the economy booming and the Liberals having passed nearly the entirety of their partisan agenda, the debate on what direction to take the party back into power grew acrimonious.

The frontrunners were those nudged out of the way by the barreling train of Samuel Cox four years before, a pair of familiar faces who had dominated the party's conservative flank for a decade. It was widely seen among Eastern delegates as being Bayard's turn, with the Delaware Senator commanding the loyalty of every state delegation from east of Ohio, with the expectation being that he would reward the New York delegation's decision not to draft a favorite son in Francis Kernan with giving the Vice Presidential nomination to a man from that state. The situation in the Midwest and West was more complex; George Pendleton, former Vice President and recently-deposed leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus for the sin of passing civil service reform (a cause that had already ensured an impending defeat for renomination before the now-Liberal Ohio legislature) saw the Presidency as a career capstone, one he promised to serve in for only one term if nominated. Pendleton was the opposite of Bayard in many respects. Though both had been Copperheads in the war, Pendleton had grown pragmatic with age, particularly in the Blaine years as he had sought rapprochement with the Liberal Party. He was not an ideological, doctrinaire conservative but rather an Old Jacksonian who sought new and innovative ways to appeal to the common man. For the aristocratic, Southern-tinged Delawarean, that was definitively not the approach he sought to take. The two remained at loggerheads, with the Western delegates - few in number despite the growing number of states - firmly in Pendleton's camp (though the California delegation pressed for native son William Rosecrans) due to his support of inflationary currency and Bayard's firm support for the gold standard, a position not even mentioned (strategically) by the Liberal platform. Compromise candidates were sought out - Rosecrans was proffered more than once, and some New York delegates of Irish background were intrigued, but it was seen as suicidal to run a Catholic, and an adult convert no less, atop a national ticket. Custer, who was not in attendance, had his name put into nomination by Ohio's Levi Lamborn, and some put up Ohio Senator George Hoadly as another potential candidate amenable to both factions. Even California's George Hearst was floated at one point, in no small part thanks to his vast personal fortune.

In the end, Rosecrans' opportunity to act as kingmaker evaporated when Bayard's supporters agreed to put Hoadly on the ticket as Bayard's running mate, pulling a swath of Midwestern delegates icy on Pendleton to the Bayard camp on the sixteenth ballot, cutting off Custer's momentum just hours before Rosecrans was prepared to throw his support behind the Michigan Senator. Hoadly, muddled on the currency issue, was seen as betraying his Ohio colleague Pendleton; Pendleton delegates from Illinois brawled with other Midwestern delegations as well as Bayard partisans from Maryland on the convention floor. New York's powerful Tammany machine was outraged as well - for a second straight election, the Democratic ticket would lack a New Yorker. Despite former President John Hoffman, in attendance at the convention and making a well-regarded address at it, attempting to cool the passions erupting on the floor of the Exhibition Building, it was to no avail - though Bayard was not in attendance, as the Bayard-Hoadly ticket was declared, angry opposition delegates stormed out, with many Pendleton supporters getting in drunken barfights with German immigrants later that night at various St. Louis beer gardens. It was the ugliest fracas at a Democratic convention since 1860..."

- The Shadow of the Hickory Tree: The Reinvention of the Postbellum Democratic Party

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

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

 

[KingSweden24]

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

- The Sino-French War

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

The Siege of Seoul had begun..."

- Queen Min

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

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

- The Revolt of the Caudillos

[1] Alive since the war didn't drag into 1864

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

- Maximilian of Mexico

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

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

 

[KingSweden24]

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

- Chamberlain's Britain (St. Andrew's University, 1998)

 

[KingSweden24]

1884 Presidential Election

190 Electoral votes needed to win (out of 379)

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

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

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

Maryland - 11
West Virginia - 8
Delaware - 3

Third Parties:

United Labor - 5.1%, 0 Electoral Votes

Granger Union - 1.1%, 0 Electoral Votes

Prohibition Party - 0.9%, 0 Electoral Votes

1884 Senate Elections

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

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

1884 House Elections

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

49th Congress

48th United States Congress

Senate: 33L-21D

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

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

Colorado

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Mexico

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[1] Fun fact - Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate by the legislature in OTL 1880 but never took his seat because, well, he became President instead

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Blaine thus achieved the distinction of being the first President to be elected to a second term since Andrew Jackson, and for the first time since the age of James Monroe, a party other than Jackson's Democrats would hold the White House for two consecutive terms. The commanding popular vote win carried with it all but three border states, and Bayard only carried West Virginia by a narrow two thousand vote margin. Liberals expanded their House majority and earned two Senate seats with new legislative victories and positioned themselves for more potential seats in the future; beyond that, they earned numerous Gubernatorial offices, including the white whale of Indiana, which they finally took from Democratic hands with the election of Benjamin Harrison.

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

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

 

[KingSweden24]

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

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

- Queen Min

[1] Yuan Shikai, that is

 

[KingSweden24]

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

- The Eaglet Takes Flight: The Reign of Napoleon IV 1874-1905

 

[KingSweden24]

"...Courbet was frustrated that France lacked the troops to push further than Keelung or Tamsui on Formosa without overextending themselves, and so, despite lacking explicit authorization from Paris, elected to deploy fresh troops on a new front closer to their supply lines - Hainan. Securing Hainan would effectively open up a weak point for China in Guangxi, towards which French soldiers were already pushing from northeastern Tonkin, having taken Lang Son in late December. Courbet gave the order shortly after the new year and shelled Kiungchow before landing a force of 1,000 men at the city, seizing the port in a surprise attack while blockading the island. The sparsely populated island made for a much easier target than Formosa, and despite ugly fighting through much of the early year, the Hainan Campaign became a surprise bright spot, not requiring a blockade like Formosa did..."

- The Sino-French War

 

[KingSweden24]

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

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

- Chamberlain's Britain

[1] Remember - Disraeli was never PM

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the victory in the Lang Son Valley, and holding serve at Tuyen Quang in a ferocious siege, freed up the French to press ahead towards the Chinese border, with a resounding victory against a force more than ten times their size at Bang Bo. Courbet took the opportunity to escalate his naval campaign - when several ships of the Nanyang Fleet re-emerged from Shanghai to break the blockade and occupation of Formosa, they were ambushed by the weight of Courbet's reinforced fleet near Ningbo, and all but one ship was sunk in the most devastating loss to China in the war. With only the remains of the Beiyang and Guangdong Fleets effectively blockaded in the harbors of Tientsin and Canton, respectively, France began blockades of Amoy and Shanghai to prevent rice shipments and further naval engagements from occurring, and sent further reinforcements to Formosa and Hainan now that they were sure they would be unmolested. Word reached Peking from Korea that the French were training a Korean Royal Army to march on the Yalu River by summer; chaos was starting to mount, and France getting ever closer to the most feared contingency in the Qing Court - of an attack on the Chinese mainland..."

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