Cinco de Mayo

[KingSweden24]

"...Britain still viewed itself as the lender of choice to industrial and infrastructure projects in the New World, and no project earned its attention quite like the Tehuantepec Railway in Mexico. Though sharing a common interest in Maximilian's continued rule from the Chapultepec Palace with France, Parliament was famously skeptical of Napoleon III's political acumen and reliability and were well aware that the French, much like in Suez, wanted to build yet another canal somewhere on the American Land Bridge. The solution, as proposed by Maximilian to British investors over a lavish dinner to discuss his ambitious Plan Nacional, was instead to find a meeting of interests on Mexican soil. An American company had mulled building a rail line in southern Mexico to connect the Gulf to the Pacific before the War of Southern Independence had broken out, and the concern went insolvent. But rail transport was Maximilian's obsession, imported from Europe where he had seen the impact the nascent Industrial Revolution had made and well aware from missives from his family in Vienna about how Prussia had used its rail system to rapidly mobilize and grind down Austrian forces over the Ten Week War. The core of Plan Nacional was not government reform or an expanded navy, though those were benefits within - no, the spine of Maximilian's plan to make Mexico a regional power that could compete with the United States the way France and Austria could compete was a network of railroads, with the recently-finished Veracruz-Mexico City line but the first stone laid. In this context, the Plan Nacional - spoken of romantically as "the Empire's founding document" was less of a Declaration of Independence and more of a business proposal, meant to attract European investors, especially the eager British. Maximilian knew his audience well; with his new Premier Vibaurri at his side, every pitch he made, first to British and then to French, German and even American businessmen, he laid out the advantages of a route through Mexico against one in Nicaragua or even further south - and further from Europe and North America - in Colombia's isolated Panama isthmus..."

- The Lion in Latin America: Britain's Role in the Spanish New World (University of Illinois, 1977)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...with the newer, narrower majority in the House of Representatives during the 40th Congress - where Democrats could only lose one vote, due to a majority of 89 to 87 - the choice for Speaker was not in fact Samuel Cox, but rather Samuel S. Marshall of Illinois. Lacking Cox's reputation for oratory, parliamentary acumen and honesty, Marshall was instead chosen solely for his hailing from a Midwestern state dominated by Republicans (indeed it was Lincoln's old home state) and his friendship with a number of moderate Republicans who would be needed to sustain any motions in the House, with the majority so precariously narrow and many members often missing.

Indeed, the 40th Congress can be seen as the last high-water mark for the antebellum party system - like the Whigs before them, the Republicans were teetering on the edge of dissolution despite their substantial Senate majority and comfortable control of many states, for the issue that had brought them together - slavery - was effectively decided. Maryland and Delaware were the last de jure slave states in the Union, after all, and in Delaware fewer than 30% of all blacks were in bondage. "The world has passed Stevens, Sumner and all the others by," Seymour would remark in his diary at the start of the 40th Congress, as new Senators and Representatives were sworn in. Republicans from the Midwest were already bickering with those from the Northeast about the power of the federal government, the size of tariffs, and whether to invest in the army or the navy, and Seymour was content in the fact that goals to aggressively defend the interests of free blacks would not advance far in Congress and would be unpopular moves by Republicans, and there was an unspoken agreement that the Fugitive Slave Act was a dead letter. Besides, with the departure of more than half of the Dred Scott Court during Lincoln's Presidency - either by fleeing South, retirement or death - the judiciary as now composed was not one to aggressively enforce such antebellum laws any longer, which suited Seymour just fine. Never an aggressive supporter of slavery to begin with, his eye was on continued internal improvements throughout the country, including his eagerness to complete the Transcontinental Railroad before reelection.

Would that it were so simple for the 17th President, for the party of Jackson, Van Buren and Polk was also butting against headwinds of its own. The sectional dispute that had defined American politics since Calhoun's Nullification Crisis was over, but with the departure of the South had also departed much of the backbone of the Democratic Party. On economic matters, the Democrats were split as much as the Republicans - Seymour, hailing from the mercantile capital of the Americas, opposed high tariffs, while many of his fellow partisans began to sympathize with them more and more. Though there was no Faultline emerging within the Democratic Party quite as similar as the ones already emerging within the opposition, it still remained the case that much like within the Democrats of New York in the 1850s - the famous Barnburner vs Hunker feud - Seymour's position in favor of banks, hard money, expenditures on improvements and even his relatively moderate position on Rapprochement earned him scores of enemies from Democrats ranging from easy money supporters like his Vice President, George Pendleton, who sought to pay off the national debt with greenbacks still in circulation, to old Copperheads who wanted to aggressively halt the "improvements" that they viewed monied interests in the East as supporting.

No issue would challenge Seymour, however, quite like the United States Navy Act of 1867..."

- Seymour: Profile of a Forgotten President

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the embarrassingly poor finances of the Netherlands made Napoleon III's offer too lucrative to William to turn down. The 6,000,000 guilders would offset the troubles his treasury was experiencing, land held by him personally separated from Dutch territory would no longer be his concern, and William was satisfied that surrendering Luxembourg to Napoleon would then satisfy the balance of powers in Europe and allow France to save face after its humiliating vacillation during the 'Ten Weeks War,' an issue that had been burning for the entirety of the fall of 1866. So on March 18th, 1867[1], William accepted the offer made by France and agreed to sell Luxembourg - and its strategic fortress - to Paris..."

- The Unification Wars of Europe 1864-1868

[1] Five days earlier than when William II of the Netherlands accepted the offer to buy Luxembourg, which of course he agreed to sell for 5,000,000 guilders in OTL

 

[KingSweden24]

"...though the Navy had grown due to the war, it was still nowhere near the force that France or Russia could put out to say, to say nothing of the Royal Navy with which Britain effectively dominated global shipping. This was a byproduct of a simpler earlier United States that adhered to the warnings of Washington's farewell address against foreign entanglements and alliances, and which believed that the Monroe Doctrine was a settled matter. The French intervention in Mexico and the Treaty of Havana put paid to such notions, however, and in a post-Havana world - one in which the French Navy regularly sailed from Marseille to Veracruz and the Confederacy's existence was understood to be underwritten by European frigates - the clamoring for a standing permanent blue water navy grew loud.

The loudest voice was of a man well familiar to Seymour, Roscoe Conkling of New York. An aggressive Republican from the party's radical wing, Conkling viewed the Treaty of Havana not as a peace document but an act of war, and to many in his circle another conflict with not just the great slave power to the south but possibly France and Britain was inevitable. Conkling's bold posture was to build not one but two blue water navies, an Atlantic Fleet and a Pacific one. The Atlantic Fleet, to be based out of Philadelphia, was to be the larger of the two, built to rapidly mobilize and be outfitted for combat both in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean if need be. The Pacific Fleet would be smaller and nimbler, to be harbored at San Francisco, as he described it "a cannon aimed at British Columbia and Acapulco." It was also to include a number of vessels well equipped to sail to icy Alaska to defend the US's new possession. Unsaid but understood was the benefits a Navy such as this would reap for New York's substantial shipyards.

Seymour, who was generally sympathetic to a larger Navy but viewed Conkling's proposals as wasteful and unwieldy, was surprised to discover that a number of Democrats were not only skeptical of Conkling's grand plans for a two-ocean Navy but openly hostile to the idea of any Naval expansion, which they viewed as a "Europeanization" of the federal government. If they had their way, the Navy should indeed be shrunk - a peacetime Union, with the slavery issue now settled thanks to secession and the peculiar institution still only in practice in two border states, had no need for such matters. Canada, a new Dominion to be ratified on July 1, was to be a friend of the United States, to eventually be guided to republicanism; the Confederacy was a potential trade partner, with cotton the textile mills of New York and New England sorely needed. A ballooning Navy was an aggressive act, one which would create a permanent officer class that would steer the decisions of the republic. And not only that, but they were horrified about how much debt such a service would create, when the Union was already debating how to settle its remaining war debts..."

- Seymour: Portrait of a Forgotten President

 

[KingSweden24]

"...by early April, enough news had trickled in from the northern departments for Maximilian to have become utterly appalled. After Chihuahua was cleared of rebels in a bloody battle in March, at the conclusion of a 1,500 kilometre march by the Imperial Army, Diaz's Republican forces were scattered. The response by Forrest's Great Posse, which had been active well to the east of Chihuahua, was to engage in a brutal campaign of intimidation. Towns were burned and those thought sympathetic to Diaz's motley army were lynched; stories of Forrest's men using children for target practice and mass rapes reached Mexican cities with alarm. Maximilian's desire to declare Forrest's posse as much criminals as Diaz's men was overruled only by the urging of Vibaurri, who knowing the ailing President Davis well was worried that such a move would be a grievous insult to the Confederate honor, for back home Forrest was considered a hero for putting down Jed Ford Rebellion and was even being spoken of as the next President. And nevertheless, in Mexico's aristocratic circles, the poor townspeople of the northern departments were collateral damage...

The Sierra Madre War would end on April 20th, 1867 with a fight at Ocampo, where Diaz's men were intercepted by a small Mexican cavalry unit while the Great Posse was only two miles away. Though Diaz's men made a bold last stand, one that would be immortalized by antimonarchist forces for a generation, the arrival of Forrest's small army to reinforce the outgunned Mexican cavalry officers turned the tide. The village was nearly levelled, over a hundred died, and Diaz was killed fleeing, shot seventy-four times, many of the shots at close range. Though it was the Mexican cavalrymen who had caught him and killed him, thus earning the bulk of the reward, Nathan Forrest standing beside the corpse of Porfirio Diaz with several of his lieutenants was what was photographed and circulated back home in the Confederate newspapers. The architect of the Memphis Massacre had just put an end to Mexico's long-running civil war, to hear the tales. The Wizard of the Saddle and his Tennessee Templars, already heroes at home, had just transcended legend..."

- The Wizard: The Life of Nathan Forrest (University of Mississippi, 1927)

 

[KingSweden24]

"...of course, the Great Posse would form the early backbone of the Klan. The Tennessee Templars and the assorted mercenaries who came home from Mexico, despite not being cut in on the rewards and having earned a reputation as sadistic butchers in the country they believed themselves to have saved, were now a hardened paramilitary, and returned to a Confederacy where unemployed poor veterans were looking to the rapidly multiplying knighthoods spreading among the upper class as essentially quasi-governmental social clubs and wanted their own organization to defend their interests. In a world where formal political parties were still for the time being regarded as an institution best left behind in the decadent North, these knighthoods were suddenly of massive value to both the plantocracy's interests and those of the soldier class that had actually earned the Confederacy's victory but had only grown poorer in the postwar years..."

- The Knights of the South: Secret Societies in the Confederate States

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the reaction of German newspapers, and by proxy the public, shocked Napoleon's government; the Emperor, meanwhile, was outraged at the perceived betrayal by Bismarck, whom he was convinced had reassured him at Biarritz that France would be rewarded for neutrality in the fight between Prussia and Austria. Luxembourg was a small prize, considerably smaller than what Italy or Prussia had won at Austria's expense, and France's neutral position had eroded their position in Vienna. In the German press, Napoleon III was compared to his famous uncle, looking to invade and subjugate everything west of the Rhine; France's newspapers howled in anger as well, demanding that the purchase of Luxembourg proceed to satisfy French national pride.

French military planners were more sanguine. Germany's mobilization against Austria had happened impressively quickly, even if they had become bogged down moving through the Bohemian mountains and the battle at Sadowa was a narrowly avoided disaster for the Prussians that could have effectively destroyed the kingdom's ambitions in one swoop. In the end, it was Count Walewski who persuaded Napoleon III that the time to mobilize was now, when Prussia was still recovering from its losses against Austria, and to occupy Luxembourg as per the agreement with the Netherlands. Who was Prussia to deny France their rightfully-negotiated prize? French soldiers had won in Italy in 1859 and in Mexico in 1862. A rapid strike and then holding the line against the mobilized forces of Germany was the right move. And who knows? Perhaps the angry Austrians would respond and attack Prussia as well..."

- The Unification Wars

 

[KingSweden24]

"...for Bismarck, Napoleon's declaration that he would not back down and proceed with his purchase of Luxembourg was as if he had drawn it himself. Though he had been somewhat caught off guard by the furor of the German street in reaction to the Luxembourg Purchase, the Iron Chancellor was ever the opportunist and finally had the aggressive move by France he needed to permanently bind the skeptical (and Catholic) south German states to Prussia's yoke. Napoleon III gave the May 5th Ultimatum [1] demanding that the Fortress of Luxembourg - known as the Gibraltar of the North - be immediately evacuated. The ultimatum was made before the other great powers could react, which left France more isolated than they would have otherwise. Austria, reeling from the previous war, was in the midst of negotiations between Vienna and the Hungarian nobility about the future structure of their nation, while Russia had little quarrel with Prussia but loathed Napoleon's support for Polish nationalism. Britain was alarmed, but with Belgium in no immediate threat did not make an immediate move. Willem II quickly acceded to Napoleon's demands despite the looming threat of war and the Dutch garrison at Luxembourg was evacuated on May 11th as a small French army crossed into the country. The Prussians who had held the fort jointly remained. As France and Prussia both continued to mobilize, Napoleon III sent another ultimatum, this time directly to the garrison at Luxembourg - that France was now the rightful hegemon of the small duchy and that the continued presence of Prussian men on Luxembourgish soil was an "illegal occupation." The response was silence and a riot of German-sympathetic locals on May 12th that left fourteen dead and over a hundred wounded. Comparisons were drawn with Dos de Mayo in Madrid 1808, and though Napoleon was appalled at the bloodshed, both he and Bismarck had their declarations of war.

The morning of May 13th, 1867, the first shells fell on the walls of Luxembourg Fortress. The Franco-Prussian War - the third and final war in the Unification of the German Empire - had begun."

- The Reign of Napoleon III 1848-1874 (Oxford University Press)

[1]

 

[KingSweden24]

"...early on, there was a substantial disagreement between Napoleon and his chief Marshal, Patrice MacMahon. With his other primary military leader, Bazaine, in Mexico and unlikely to return for months, Napoleon had only MacMahon to rely on, and indeed spar with. The Marshal's plan was to besiege Luxembourg and hold down Metz for as long as possible, effectively fighting a defensive war, well aware that the French Army was outnumbered and nowhere near as disciplined as the Prussians. His strategic plan was to continue to find conscripts for the front, holding the critical points of Luxembourg - which the war was being fought over - and the critical fortifications of Metz, without which Prussia enjoyed a path straight to Paris.

Napoleon had other ideas, though MacMahon won the day. The Emperor was concerned about his enemies back in Paris such as Thiers or Gambetta, and the French street demanding a push into the Rhineland like his uncle would have done. Indeed Luxembourg was but a consolation prize compared to the "natural borders" the Emperor genuinely desired. Debates over strategy as the Prussian garrison continued to hold out at Luxembourg sometimes turned into shouting matches. News arrived in Luxembourg in late May that the declaration of war on Prussia had resulted in a declaration of war on the south German states previously aligned with France and Austria as well, and that the Germans were already in Trier with a massive army they could comfortably split into pieces for a coming invasion..."

- The Unification Wars

 

[KingSweden24]

"...the Emperor conceded to MacMahon's insistence that it was Luxembourg that was the most important target, but viewed a preemptive attack into Prussian territory as critical to prevent Moltke's full forces from crossing into France and cutting the French Army in half. Suspecting that the Prussians would split in two to reinforce Luxembourg and then try to punch their way to Thionville to get between Metz and the fighting in the north, Napoleon made the gamble that seizing Saarbrucken would draw Prussian attention away from crossing into French territory, give his armies more time to accumulate resources and prepare, and - most importantly - perhaps allow for a negotiated surrender of Luxembourg. So Frossard took Saarbrucken on June 2, with Prussian armies rapidly advancing via rail and foot, and despite heavy casualties in taking the city Napoleon demanded it be held rather than fall back to defensive positions.

MacMahon was appalled, but nevertheless continued to forge ahead with his aggressive siege of Luxembourg while spreading two of his corps out to his south to form a defensive line to defend Thionville.

On June 5th, Moltke's army turned its attention to Saarbrucken rather than Luxembourg, having heard rumors the Emperor was there..."

- The Reign of Napoleon III 1848-1874

 

[KingSweden24]

"...von Steinmetz's 1st Army made the blunder of charging headlong into MacMahon's forces at Moutfort, getting out ahead of their supply lines, and despite a tactical draw that saw both sides concede little, the objective of breaking the French line and seizing Luxembourg Fortress to rescue the besieged garrison there did not occur. Later that afternoon, but a bird's flight away, Moltke's attempt to cross the Saar and take back Saarbrucken was initially repulsed by Frossard and Douay's aggressive posture. A German Corps would cross the Saar further upstream, however, prompting a French retreat to the Spicheren plateau, defensible from every point. Moltke debated his next move, having learned from his scouts that the Emperor was, in fact, not in Saarbrucken. As news of aging and aggressive von Steinmetz's temporary retreat in Luxembourg reached Moltke's camp, he was waiting instead for good news - and good news from Wissembourg in Alsace did indeed come but a day later..."

- Military History of Germany 1864-1913

 

[KingSweden24]

"...had the French armies at Wissembourg held in early June 1867, the whole of European history could have been changed. Alas, while their countrymen with their advanced Chassepot rifles held on nobly at Moutfort and Spicheren in those young days of summer, holding back the numerically superior Prussians, the eastern salient in Alsace was routed at Wissembourg, one of the greatest disasters in French military history. The army scattered and cut off from retreat by Prince Friedrich Karl's 3rd Army, the French survivors retreated across the Vosges, establishing small garrisons to hold down their positions, and leaving the Prussians to clean out garrisons all the way down to Strasbourg. It suddenly opened a massive hole in the French line of defense, leaving the Emperor reeling and von Moltke ambitious. Spicheren was attacked again, and this time the French pulled back, wanting to reconcentrate their forces in case Friedrich Karl came west..."

- A History of France in the 19th Century

 

[KingSweden24]

"...adding to the mounting troubles for Napoleon was the matter of South German states entering the war. In shelling Luxembourg - a member of the German Zollverein customs union - and seizing Saarbrucken's old city on the south bank of the Saar, he had given Bismarck the proof he needed that France would forever harry Germany and thus triggered the entry of Baden, Wurtemburg, Hesse and Bavaria. It was the last of these four that posed the most immediate threat, as a Bavarian army crossed into Alsace and prepared to move over the Vosges as the armies to the northwest continued to form a broad crescent south of the Saar and east of Metz. France's men were not mobilizing fast enough, the Emperor realized, and on June 8th von Steinmetz assaulted MacMahon's men near Luxembourg again. This time, the French lines were broken through - MacMahon's armies needed to form nearly a full circle around the besieged fortress in order to maintain their efforts to take the fort, which they feared damaging too badly lest they need to fend off Prussian attacks against it. MacMahon barely escaped capture as a disorderly retreat southwards toward Thionville began. Von Steinmetz could have close off the French retreat as the siege collapsed that very next day, but chose not to, instead celebrating the reinforced and now-liberated Luxembourg fortress. Von Moltke was outraged, especially as Frossard's army repulsed his own at Forbach in the third engagement near Spicheren. Nevertheless, despite losing the opportunity to earn a decisive victory that would have left Napoleon's northern and western flanks completely exposed in addition to the crisis in Alsace, the breaking of the Siege of Luxembourg was a thunderous win for Prussia's forces, boosting morale and putting the French on their back foot the way they needed. The early wins at Saarbrucken, Moutfort and Spicheren had merely delayed the inevitable, much as the loss of one of Prussia's armies before Sadowa had delayed the inevitable there too: Prussia was winning, and it was just a matter of time.

It was in this diplomatic environment, upon receiving word via telegraphy a few days later, that Bismarck persuaded King Wilhelm to make the next great gamble and outflank France even further. Well aware that France could not keep her garrison in Rome there forever as her armies were harried along the frontier, and that to request the corps there would be simpler than recalling Bazaine's men from Mexico, Bismarck decided to reenter his alliance with Victor Emanuel I of Italy that had so successfully pincered Austria the year before. The reward of a declaration of war on France would be either Rome or Nissa returned to Italy - a matter to be kept secret from the bishops of the South German states, who though hostile to Pope Pius IX were nevertheless the shepherds of a flock skeptical of Italian absorption of the Papal States..."

- Military History of Germany 1864-1913

 

[KingSweden24]

"...only in its early weeks and the war was already a failure. Not only had he wasted precious treasure on purchasing Luxembourg, which Prussia had now seized, but German armies were crossing the Vosges from Alsace and his armies were in retreat from their initial favorable terrain in and around Forbach and Spicheren. From his camp at Metz, Napoleon began to consider MacMahon's suggestion - to fortify the city along with Thionville and Luneville and establish a defensive line behind the Meurthe, controlling the river's crossings and bleeding the Prussians dry until more reinforcements became available. Napoleon refused Douay's suggestion to pull seasoned professional soldiers from Rome, but eventually acceded to MacMahon's strategy and opened up space in Lorraine for Prince Friedrich Whilhelm (now solely in charge of the 2nd Army as von Moltke oversaw the entire war option) and Friedrich Karl to link up. A benefit of the plan was that if von Steinmetz attempted to outflank the French from Luxembourg, he would be even more isolated from his supply lines and reinforcements to his east.

The French were indeed lucky that von Steinmetz elected to make a rash, overzealous move shortly thereafter. Rather than join the 2nd Army marching from Forbach, where the combined forces would have had a substantial advantage on their march to Metz, the old general instead decided to attack Thionville head on, to break the French left flank. The city, held by France for 200 years, was of propagandistic value to the Germans and would have opened a considerable hole in the French lines. Though MacMahon had been hammered at Luxembourg, he held fast at Thionville, and after two days of bloody fighting von Steinmetz retreated - but not towards the relative safety of the reinforced Luxembourg, but instead northeast, back towards Germany, to draw reserves being accumulated in Trier. MacMahon now had his turn to make a bold move, pursuing the retreating Prussians out of Thionville and at the Battle of Schengen fighting out a bloody, inconclusive draw that left both sides battered and licking their wounds. As the two armies pulled back to more defensible positions, the stalemate continued to deepen into June, until Friedrich Karl's armies successfully crossed the Vosges and met up with his brother's forces near Metz..."

- The Reign of Napoleon III 1848-1874

 

[KingSweden24]

"...for many in Richmond, it would have become easy to forget that Jefferson Davis even was President, as he had been gone from the capital for six months recovering from an undisclosed (and to this day unidentified) ailment in native Mississippi. In his stead, the oft-ill Vice President Stephens had more or less overseen the affairs of the Cabinet, with the most critical duties devolved to the competent and respected Postmaster General, John Reagan of Texas. The "Postmaster President," nicknamed so because he was essentially the locus of power in Richmond at this point and the last of Davis' original Cabinet members still serving, was plainly the most powerful man in formal power in the Confederacy. Stephens, who had come to loathe executive office and had little interest in seeking the Presidency for himself, began to encourage Reagan to start organizing to run for the Presidency in 1867. It would be a difficult task, though; gone were the formal party structures for such a move, and Reagan was both held in suspicion by the plantocracy due to his advocacy for a strong and competent federal government and by opponents of Davis who were leery of his continued service of the unpopular, divisive and absentee President. Reluctantly, the "Texan Cincinnatus" agreed to present himself as a candidate that fall.

Two opponents would soon emerge that Reagan had expected to face, and one he had not. Of the officer class of Virginians credited with winning the war, Robert E. Lee was the war hero the Confederate public would have swept into office, had he not chosen to stay retired on his Arlington Plantation (and unbeknownst to much of the public, his health was already in serious decline). Instead, it was made clear that the Lee Faction's preferred candidate was James Longstreet, one of his most trusted subordinates. Though viciously unpopular with the decentralists for following Davis's orders in putting down the Tar Heel Revolt, Longstreet was respected and his favorable attitude towards the CSA's northern neighbor was seen as a boon now that years had passed since the Havana Treaty. The other opponent was the one Reagan and his supporters in Congress feared the most - Nathan Forrest of Tennessee, who had returned from Mexico a swaggering conquering hero and by May of 1867 was giving speaking engagements across the Confederacy. Forrest portrayed himself as a modern day Andrew Jackson (with the benefit of hailing from the same state), a champion of white supremacy who had crushed a slave rebellion and then led the Great Posse on the Sierra Madre Expedition to end Mexico's Civil War. At his disposal was a budding political organization known as the Kuklos Klan, modelled as a poor man's version of the prestigious Kuklos Adelphon fraternity that produced many of the South's most promising educated minds at her university's, or as Forrest called it in a late May speech: "the common man's knighthood." Such an extragovernmental organization appalled Reagan's law-and-order instincts and Longstreet's dedication to reduced militarism in peacetime. Throughout June, the "Klan" held demonstrations across the Confederacy, many of its members wearing masks and robes to hide their identities as they marched through towns, symbolizing that anyone - from shopkeepers to poor farmers to still-unemployed veterans - could be part of the knighthood.

Worrying still was the open hostility the Mexican government had towards Forrest, who they claimed had massacred peaceful villagers and carried out other brutal crimes when operating in Mexico on look for a bounty rather than by their invitation. Davis ignored multiple angry letters from Minister Vibaurri, a friend of his, as he returned to Richmond and began to mull what moves behind the scenes he could make. For there was a fourth candidate now with national renown entering the contest - Davis' old bete noire, Zebulon Vance of North Carolina, who had resisted Richmond's authority both in war and peace and whom Davis blamed personally for instigating the Tar Heel Revolt that had so damaged his reputation. None of the other three candidates were a perfectly clean continuation of the Davis regime, but they were all considerably more aligned with it than Vance was, who truly believed in the cause of state's rights in the South. Davis' sympathies were torn between his loyal soldier Longstreet, his competent ally Reagan, and the popular, populist and demagogic Forrest..."

- Electoral History of the Confederate States

 

[KingSweden24]

"...from the base at Metz Fortress, as reinforcement corps began to arrive, Napoleon learned to his horror that the massed Prussian force was now headed straight for Metz and intended to besiege the city. MacMahon counseled him to hold the defensive line behind the Meurthe and Moselle rivers, of which Metz lay to the east and served as the fulcrum of the French defensive salient. Marechal Le Bouef, meanwhile, urged him to use his newly arrived corps to attempt to encircle the two Prussian armies in the field from Nancy. Two Belgian spies [1] behind Prussian lines suggested that 1st Army under von Steinmetz was receiving mobilized corps at Trier and would march on Thionville again soon. Napoleon made his fateful decision at that time - on July 1, 1867, as the vast Prussian army arrived at Metz Fortress and began shelling the large French army still based there, he gave the order to immediately begin destroying bridges across the Meurthe and Moselle and to leave only a handful in place, each garrisoned with French soldiers. MacMahon approved of the plan and also sent out missives ordering defensive trenches and temporary fortifications be engineered. For Napoleon it may as well have been pulling teeth - he had wanted a glorious march on Berlin after raising the French flag over Luxembourg Fortress, casting the Germans aside, not a defensive war of attrition on French soil. MacMahon would be sent again to Thionville, Canrobert would command at Metz with Frossard's men behind the line on the other side of the river, and Le Boeuf and Douay were sent to hold Nancy and Luneville, respectively. Throughout the nights of July 2 and 3, explosions thundered throughout the Moselle valley as one bridge after another was destroyed to prevent Prussian encirclement..."

- The Unification Wars

[1] complete fictional addition on my part

 

[KingSweden24]

"...fighting over the Naval Act continued deep into the summer, and the issue had fully engulfed Washington. Seymour's rivalry with his own Vice President only deepened due to the dispute, with Pendleton leading the charge of anti-Navy Democrats. The expanded Navy was increasingly seen as just as much of a ploy of the eastern interests as the hard currency and vast new railroads, and Pendleton even charged that it was those same eastern interests that had led the Union into the disastrous war rather than negotiate with the South. The unreformed Copperhead was now causing as much headache for Seymour as he had for Lincoln.

The Republicans, however, now finally had an issue that united them. Despite some lingering disagreements around civil service reform, tariff and the rights of freedmen - with slavery all but gone, the animating issue of the Republican Party had begun to fade to all but the most resolute Radicals - no figure who sought any influence in the Republican Party of 1867 resisted the idea of a Navy. The Republicans also enjoyed the support of the public on this matter, as the humiliation of Havana and the increased presence of European warships in North American waters made the notion of a larger, professionalized Navy ever more popular. And so, perhaps the crucial moment of Horatio Seymour's Presidency, came when the House passed the unamended Naval Act as envisioned by Conkling - with all Republicans in favor and six Democrats, all from New York or Pennsylvania, getting it over the cusp - and the Senate's large Republican majority sent it to his desk after breaking a filibuster. Despite favoring an enlarged Navy, Seymour nevertheless vetoed the Naval Act of 1867, declaring in an interview with the New York Times shortly thereafter that he preferred to help craft a different bill, one in which "all Americans in all corners of government can agree is appropriate in size and scope; one in which the War Department has input, in which I, as commander in chief, give my thoughts; an Act which gives us, rather than Republican Navy, instead a United States Navy." Seymour had quieted his opposition for now, though it earned him the enmity of his allies at home in New York, who would have benefitted from spoils that would have flown from a Navy built under a Democratic administration..."

- Seymour: Portrait of a Forgotten President

 

[KingSweden24]

"...with the French garrison from Rome recalled as the Siege of Metz deepened and the battle of Luneville a bloody affair in which an outmanned French corps managed to repulse three Prussian offensives, Victor Emanuel II sent a gently worded missive to Pope Pius IX. Against a backdrop of mass demonstrations by the Italian public demanding the capture of Rome and the Italian government being seated there, and now the French soldiers defending the Pope's temporal powers gone, the final piece of Italian unification was nearly at hand. An outright alliance between Prussia and Italy was out of the question; the delicate balance in Germany required that Prussia not appear to be opposed to the Holy See. And so Victor Emanuel designed his outreach appealing to the pontiff as an effort to protect the papacy against anticlerical radicals, reminding him that it was Italian soldiers who had blocked Garibaldi's march at Aspromonte and indeed shed the blood of their own national hero. Implicit in Victor Emanuel's missive was also a reminder that his Prime Minister, Urbano Rattazzi [1], was hostile to the temporal powers of the Holy See and that this was the best deal the stubborn pontiff was going to get. Though the September Convention was still in effect, Victor Emanuel hoped desperately that Napoleon was too otherwise occupied to press aggressively for a settlement favorable to the Holy See.

Pius IX rejected the offers made by Victor Emanuel and prayed fervently that Napoleon's armies would eventually repulse the Prussian forces. As for Victor Emanuel, he looked northwards and waited for a sign; Bismarck had suggested to him in secret that Italy could merely retake Nissa, but the Italian King was reluctant to declare war on France directly, and the Italian public's view on unredeemed Rome - ROME - versus a distant border port spun off to the French were not nearly the same in the imagination. As for Rattazzi, he was just as opposed to the cession of Nissa and the influence of clericalism in Italy as he had been seven years earlier, and now his moment was at hand to atone for being the man who had led to the death of Garibaldi.

Though still nervous about Austrian involvement, the King eventually was persuaded by Rattazzi's encouragement and announced that he would protect the pope from the demonstrating populace whether the Pope acquiesced or not. Like so much else in his life, this was two-sided nonsense[2]; the demonstrations were egged on by his government and much of the government, including his Prime Minister, were nakedly hostile to the Papacy. Spinning his own desire to be the King who unified Italy as a preemptive maneuver was the most audacious move in a career full of them. On July 10, 1867, the Italian Army slowly crossed into the Papal State, marching as gradually as they could, hoping that Pius IX would yield before it was too late..."

- A Century of United Italy (Yale University, 1967)

[1] With the Roman Question flaring up once more in 1867, we see the effects of Rattazzi being PM here already in Victor Emanuel's implicit threat
[2] Victor Emanuel II was a legendary bullshit artist, and this really is how he pitched his plans to take Rome to the Pope

I'll add that with the Italian army actually taking Veneto on its own rather than having to be handed it by France, and that conflict being less than a year previous, the position of Italy is much more cocksure. Also, there hasn't been a Mentana since Garibaldi died at Aspromonte - so the September Convention is still more or less in effect and France's position is that Italy and the Papacy need to hash this out.

 

[KingSweden24]

"...stragglers and deserters depleted the French armies even more so than the Prussian attacks. Plans for a naval invasion of northern Germany by the French Navy ran aground due to depleted coal reserves as they tried to chase blockade runners. The 1st Army's recomposition, occurring more rapidly than Napoleon had anticipated, led to Thionville to fall under siege too as MacMahon had to spread his corps out to not only prevent attempts by Prussian forces to cross the Moselle at shallow fords but also against forces able to move via Luxembourg, allow operations potentially to the west of the defensive line. And it was indeed at the weakest flank, the left flank, that the French defenses finally crumbled and were routed, on July 26, 1867.

Longwy, near the Belgian border - indeed, mobilized Belgian forces were but miles away - was where the Franco-Prussian War was effectively ended. Von Steinmetz, the old fool who had been embarrassed at Moutfort before his rash moves at Thionville and Schengen had nearly had him pulled from the field, routed two French corps protecting the back of MacMahon's main force at Thionville and cut off their escape, capturing nearly 40,000 men. Suddenly, not only was MacMahon exposed but Prussian were operating behind French lines. Von Steinmetz tacked east immediately and Thionville was surrounded, leading to MacMahon's surrender of his position after a day of bloody fighting in the Second Battle of Thionville. By August 1, the entire left flank of the French Army had collapsed and now Metz was at risk of being surrounded, too [1].

Napoleon III's next army of reinforcements responded to the alarm but as many as a third of them fell back, stragglers and deserters most, and few of them professional soldiers. Le Bouef estimated that it would be but a few days until Metz was surrounded and the garrison there besieged in full, rather than merely standing with their backs to the river. Prussia now had routes over the Moselle and a straight path to Verdun, Reims and then Paris - their maneuverability on open French territory rather than being hemmed in within Lorraine would give them a sudden new advantage in the war.

The path forward was obvious. Fearing the complete collapse or capture of his professional army, Napoleon ordered Metz and Nancy evacuated and the Army of the Rhine reorganized to the west. All three of the main Prussian Armies regrouped and then marched out across the Moselle-Meurthe line, patiently in pursuit of the retreating French as Napoleon debated his next move..."

- The Unification Wars

[1] Recall that in OTL basically the entire professional French army was surrounded and cut off in Metz even before Sedan. Here we have the war going the same way - disastrously - for France, albeit with other circumstances and much more drawn out. While they aren't suffering the same battlefield embarassments, the strategic advantage of Prussia is still overwhelming

 

[KingSweden24]

"...one of the leading factors in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise was the desire of Ferdinand Beust and the Emperor Francis Joseph to seek revenge against Prussia. It was a profound irony, then, that nearly as soon as the Compromise was sorted out with Deak and the other Hungarian intelligentsia, the war between Prussia and France had broken out. The Hungarian Diet ratified the Compromise in the midst of the fighting in eastern France and the Austrian leaders were eager to turn their guns on Prussia once more. But the crippling debt of the war they had just lost the year before and the plain need for reform, let alone giving the Compromise a chance to be swallowed by Hungarian nationalists disappointed in its terms, denied France what would have been their one crucial ally...[1]"

- Austria in the Age of Francis Joseph

[1] And good thing too, since that would have triggered Prussia and Russia's reinsurance treaty and really boned Austria even harder than the previous war