Dreams of Liberty: A Failure at Princeton
- Thread starter ETGalaxy
- Start date
The focus for the next few chapters will be on the Equatorial Revolutionary War, so aside from Southeast Asia, none of those regions will be the focus of an update anytime soon. With that being said, however, I plan to hop over to Russia after I’m done with the ERW, so Scandinavia and Central Asia may get get some attention in that chapter.
There are some minor border changes (most notably, OTL Guatemala is a part of Mexico), but the borders will eventually change there. The Kingdom of New Granada isn’t done expanding its sphere of influence just yet.
Good question. Last time I shed some light on Jamaica, it was an independent republic formed via a slave revolt against Concordia. Since then, the country has been doing well for itself and is especially close to New Africa, however, the country remains highly agrarian and has yet to meaningfully industrialize.
God damn it Breckinridge, even in this ATL you break stuff in the name of racial supremacy.
I'm surprised none of the protectorate kingdoms sided with Tuinstra, given how the north seems to hate the native africans.
How powerful is the southern navy? Without one, the north can never be reconquered. Speaking of which, how much industry does each side have?
I'm surprised none of the protectorate kingdoms sided with Tuinstra, given how the north seems to hate the native africans.
How powerful is the southern navy? Without one, the north can never be reconquered. Speaking of which, how much industry does each side have?
Even in a TL where they are born in a completely different country, some people never change.
The main reasoning for this is that there is a significant factions of Revolutionary Burrites who support the abolition of the Native African absolute monarchies in favor of various replacement structures, be that provincehood, autonomous constitutional monarchies, or something else entirely, so aligning with Tuinstra is viewed as a potential risk by the protectorates with regards to maintaining their government structures. With that being said, all of the protectorates will have to sooner or later join a side in the Equatorial Revolutionary War, whether by choice or not.
In terms of naval strength, the south currently has the upper hand given that the provinces it has inherited are more industrialized and well established ports were significant naval forces are concentrated. The pro-Breckinridge territories with significant naval capacities are currently Austropolis, Edwardland, and New Hanover, and while this shouldn't be discounted, combined naval forces in Liberia, Zomerland, Indiana, Zululand, Fort Jaager, and even the Timor Territory give Tuinstra the advantage. As for industry, the disparity in terms of industry between the two sides is more or less comparable to the American Civil War, with the more developed and urbanized southern provinces being comparable to the Union and the more agrarian and sparsely populated northern provinces being comparable to the Confederacy, although it should be noted that both Edwardland and New Hanover have industrial capacities more comparable with the south.
Because the Cape Colony is never annexed by the British ITTL, no, the Boers as we know them never existed. With that being said, the Dutch-descended residents of the Cape and later independent United Dominion of Riebeeckia are culturally very similar to the Boers of OTL, and a number of OTL leaders of the Boer republics are prominent politicians within Riebeeckia. I'd recommend reading chapters 17 and 18 if you're interested on what the people who would've been the Boers in OTL are up to ITTL.
Deleted member 147978
For a moment, I thought this TL was dead, but alright then I'm happy that it's still alive.
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Shot Heard Around the World
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Shot Heard Around the World
“We’ll fight in the name of Father Burr, hurrah, hurrah!
We'll fight in the name of Father Burr, hurrah, hurrah!
Fight for Father Burr’s democracy, fight for the rights of you and me!
In the name of Father Burr!”
-Excerpt from “Fight in the Name of Father Burr”, a wartime song popularized in the United Provinces of Azania during the Equatorial Revolutionary War.
To this very day, it remains ambiguous who fired the very first shot at the Battle of Melkbosstrand. Regiments loyal to Hannibal Tuinstra insisted that they merely returned fire to men under Paul Kruger’s command out of self-defense, whereas regiments loyal to Samuel Breckinridge asserted that the more disorganized militias led by General Wilhelm Rosecrans got trigger-happy at the sight of their enemy approaching. Regardless of whoever fired the first shot, however, hundreds more followed from both sides of the frontlines drawn up at Melkbosstrand on September 28th, 1859, and as news of the first battle in Riebeeckia’s civil war frantically spread throughout the divided provinces of what had once been regarded as one of the most stable liberal democracies in the world at the time, hundreds of thousands more gunshots rang out between the two rival governments that had partitioned the Riebeeckian state, marking the beginning of one of the most important conflicts in modern human history. It was unbeknownst at the time, but within the coming years, the Riebeeckian Civil War would escalate into a vast regional conflict that was to give rise to a global superpower and in large part define the geopolitical dynamics of the upcoming 20th Century.
The Equatorial Revolutionary War had begun.
Paul Kruger’s easy victory at the Battle of Melkbosstrand was an immediate morale boost for the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, however, success for Breckinridge’s forces in the territory surrounding Austropolis soon proved to be short-lived. Encircled on all sides by provinces that had pledged their loyalty to Hannibal Tuinstra, it was seemingly inevitable that the Riebeeckian capital and largest city would sooner or later be pried from the hands of Breckinridge. The task of liberating Austropolis fell upon Otto Bismarck, the Iron General himself, who was initially appointed as Tuinstra’s Minister of War prior to the March on Austropolis and had subsequently been ordered to preside over a garrison of Tuinstra forces in southern Zomerland following the province’s recognition of Breckinridge’s regime as illegitimate in preparation for an offensive to retake what had been lost in the Crusaders of Riebeeckia’s putsch. Once news of the engagement at Melkbosstrand reached General Bismarck, Hannibal Tuinstra had given the go ahead to push into Austropolis.
Bismarck’s army arrived near the outskirts near midnight of September 28th. The Crusaders of Riebeeckia were well aware that the Battle of Austropolis was almost inevitably a lost cause, and Samuel Breckinridge would board a ship headed for Edwardston the subsequent afternoon to evade capture, however, pro-Breckinridge forces nonetheless held out to defend their control over a city that they had seized no more than two weeks earlier. Barricades were erected throughout the streets of Austropolis while Riebeeckian National Army armories scattered throughout the city provided the fighting force primarily consisting of reactionary militias with the equipment necessary to take on the trained and well-organized military regiments commanded by Otto Bismarck. The Battle of Austropolis therefore soon turned into a lengthy siege, with the goal of pro-Tuinstra forces becoming to encircle their enemy from all sides in order to gradually deplete its capability to effectively wage war. To accelerate the process, General Bismarck ordered the blockade of Austropolis from the sea, meaning that no reinforcements or supplies could enter the city’s ports, and oversaw aerial bombardment efforts by airships, which primarily targeted troop positions and enemy-held armories.
All of this is to say that the Battle of Austropolis was a very gruesome introduction to the Equatorial Revolutionary War. The center of Cape politics, commerce, and culture, even from before the formation of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, was set ablaze by bombs and shot apart by organ guns. The sight of one of the world’s most pivotal trading hubs, once regarded as the heart of strong democracy, being transformed into a vicious warzone was harrowing to both domestic and foreign observers alike. To make matters worse, the two factions of the Riebeeckian Civil War had yet to differentiate themselves in terms of uniforms, symbolism, or even terminology, which meant that two forces calling themselves the Riebeeckian National Army were fighting each other under the same banners or uniforms, which understandably made the engagement logistically difficult and friendly fire commonplace. The belligerents gradually coalesced around hoisting the banners of their forces’ home provinces and bearing armbands of white and bright blue to represent combatants loyal to Breckinridge and Tuinstra respectively, however, chaos nonetheless persisted.
Ruins of the New Amsterdam borough of Austropolis, circa October 1859.
More so than the Battle Melkbosstrand, which was little more than a quick engagement at a mostly unknown town, the lengthy Battle of Austropolis was a harsh wakeup call to the cruel reality of the civil war that awaited all of Riebeeckia and the struggle for regional dominance that awaited the great powers of the Indian Ocean. Photographs of various landmarks, from Aaron Burr Memorial University to the Executive Mansion of the chancellery, being occupied by soldiers of both sides of the civil war circulated throughout the warring provinces, revealing to the Riebeeckian people that not even their grandest cities were free from the brutality of the newly-forged conflict. The Battle of Austropolis also inflicted a devastating, if not predictable, toll on the civilian residents of the capital city, who were stuck in the middle of brutal urban warfare. On top of the inherent destruction brought upon by industrialized warfare, the blockade and aerial bombardment of Austropolis harmed civilians about as much as pro-Breckinridge soldiers, and despite the city’s political progressivism, a handful of civilians grew to be spiteful of General Otto Bismarck and Hannibal Tuinstra’s government in large part thanks to the campaign.
Realizing that his campaign was having a negative impact on popular support for the Tuinstra government within Austropolis, Otto Bismarck utilized his position as the Minister of War to allocate provisional income and humanitarian aid to civilians left without a home as a consequence of the Battle of Austopolis. The aid provided by the program was limited, however, it nonetheless helped revitalize support for Tuinstra’s government amongst the people of Austropolis, which in turn caused General Bismarck to correspond with his chancellor, arguing that a program of social relief to those left without a home as a consequence of the Riebeeckian Civil War was necessary to appease civilians from both sides of the conflict and ensure long-term stability for whatever regime Tuinstra sought to construct in the aftermath of a hypothetical victory. Taking the advice of his Minister of War, Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra would propose Reconstruction Insurance Act to his government’s makeshift Congress of South Africa, which had assembled in New Richmond in the immediate aftermath of the March on Austropolis, as a piece of legislation that was to establish a welfare program intended to guarantee housing to civilians that had lost their homes during the Riebeeckian Civil War and to provide subsidies to municipal governments in order to rebuild destroyed infrastructure. With the backing of the chancellor and the Revolutionary Burrite Party, the Reconstruction Insurance Act almost unanimously passed through the New Richmond Congress on October 10th, 1859, becoming the first building block of the welfare state that Hannibal Tuinstra was committed to constructing.
As congressmen debated welfare programs in New Richmond, Otto Bismarck’s push through Austropolis continued to advance towards total control of the city. General Paul Kruger was ordered to retreat from his northward offensive along the western coastline of Zomerland in order to focus on the defense of Austropolis, thus abandoning Melkbosstrand without a fight on October 4th, 1859. Naval and aerial forces under the command of pro-Breckinridge officers occasionally broke through Bismarck’s blockade to provide supplies, however, no reinforcements were provided to Kruger’s men given the simple fact that the Battle of Austropolis was a lost cause for the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, and by the time the Reconstruction Insurance Act was passed, the primary purpose of blockade runners was to evacuate pro-Breckinridge forces. Day after day, Bismarck’s army pushed deeper towards the heart of Austropolis, ultimately reaching Table Bay on October 15th and subsequently beginning the push towards the city center to the southwest, where the Executive Mansion, the House of Congress, and various other government buildings were located.
A sense of pride over holding onto the administrative center of the Riebeeckian government compelled General Paul Kruger to hold onto the Austropolis city center for as long as possible, however, his forces were already weary from days of warfare and rations were beginning to wear thin, not to mention that it was becoming increasingly difficult for his forces to be evacuated by blockade runners as the pro-Tuinstra grip on the waters and sky encircling Austropolis tightened. After two grueling days of combat, the city center fell completely into the hands of Otto Bismarck, who proudly toured the office of the Minister of War that he had resided in merely a month prior. Meanwhile, Paul Kruger finally recognized that there was no use wasting lives in the fight for Austropolis now that the city center had been wrestled away and thus led a rapid retreat towards Hout Bay in the south, one of the few areas still accessible to blockade runners, and evacuated the vast majority of his troops from the Ribeeckian capital by the time the sun had set on October 17th, 1859, the closing day of the Battle of Austropolis.
The Battle of Austropolis may have been a blatant defeat for pro-Breckinridge forces, however, the situation of the Riebeeckian Civil War on other frontlines was far from clearly in favor of one belligerent or another. The rapid dissolution of the United Dominion into warring factions had flung the entire national political structure into chaos, perhaps no more so than the armed forces. The bulk of military officers and regiments proclaimed their loyalty to the chancellor recognized by their home province, which both splintered the military chain of command and oftentimes left garrisons stationed in foreign provinces disillusioned with the regime they were ordered to fight for. Desertion was commonplace in the onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War as foot soldiers on both sides protested the makeshift governments commanding them. To make matters even more convoluted, the heavy involvement of militias in the civil war meant that both Riebeeckian Armies were fighting alongside what were effectively independent armed forces. The size and influence of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia in particular made for an awkward balance of power amongst forces fighting for Samuel Breckinridge.
For Breckinridge, the crisis of a disorganized military force was addressed by effectively integrating units of the Riebeeckian National Army loyal to him into the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, which was large enough to rival the size of a conventional military and already possessed a chain of command that had more or less unanimously aligned itself with Breckinridge, which meant that a reorganization of the paramilitary’s leadership was unnecessary. Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge would therefore use his position as the unquestioned leader of the National Cross Party to quickly pass the National Security Act, which adopted the Crusaders of Riebeeckia as the official ground force of his government and placed former forces of the Riebeeckian National Army under the control of the aforementioned Crusaders, on October 15th, 1859. Naval and aerial forces, which were not annexed by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, remained relatively disorganized, however, Samuel Breckinridge would rebuild these military wings over time, and in the immediate onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War, the National Security Act gave Breckinridge an advantage, at least in terms of military organization.
Even while the Battle of Austropolis raged on, Edward J Jackson, Samuel Breckinridge’s Minister of War and the commanding officer of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, began drafting plans for a general strategy of attack. Jackson ultimately determined that the best course of action was a rapid offensive, given that the predominantly agrarian provinces that forged the pro-Breckinridge government were more sparsely populated than those loyal to Tuinstra, and decided that dividing the pro-Tuinstra provinces in half via an offensive into Zomerland with the goal of capturing the coastal Victoria City was the best shot the Crusaders of Riebeeckia had at dealing a quick and crippling blow to pro-Tuinstra forces that would give the Crusaders the opportunity to no longer fight one large united front. Recognizing the economic importance of foreign trade to the southern provinces, Jackson also advised a blockade of the western coastline, hoping to shatter the Liberian and Zomerlander economies in particular. Simply put, Jackson sought to suffocate the pro-Tuinstra provinces as though his armed forces were a python snake encroaching upon its prey, hence why his strategy earned the nickname “Python Plan'' amongst the commanding officers of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia.
The Python Plan was launched from South Holland into Zomerland by General James John Floyd III, a prominent member of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia due to his tenure as a congressman from Binnenland, which made Floyd the few public officials of the national government to be an active member of the paramilitary (Floyd subsequently resigned from his seat in Congress upon being appointed a commanding officer of the Crusaders). This meant that James John Floyd III was a well-known and oftentimes deeply popular military officer amongst the general public, not to mention one with considerable political influence, however, he actually lacked any military experience despite having participated in Crusader training and often commanding the militia as a private security force. Edward J Jackson hoped that General Floyd would listen to his more experienced lower-ranking officers in the Zomerland Offensive, however, this soon proved to not be the case. Floyd’s advance into northeastern Zomerland was much slower than advised, and upon coming into contact with pro-Tuinstra forces at the town of Stinkkuil on October 20th, 1859, General Floyd’s immediate reaction was to set up entrenchments in order to deter an enemy counter-offensive.
The local pro-Tuinstra regiment had prepared for a quick and heavy offensive by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, but Floyd’s concentration on developing trenches and barricades prevented this from being the case, which in turn allowed for pro-Tuinstra forces under the command of Wilhelm Rosecrans, having recently arrived from the Battle of Austropolis, to go on an offensive that, while ultimately more bloody for his soldiers than Floyd’s, nonetheless uprooted the Crusaders from Stinkkuil by the time the sun had set. Going on the retreat into the Karoo semi-desert, James John Floyd III ordered the construction of a long line of trenches to hold back Rosecrans’ army a few miles to the east of Stinkkuil, which ultimately prevented pro-Tuinstra forces from advancing for the time being as a war of attrition broke out and both sides dug trenches, however, the hope of a rapid offensive to Victoria City had been dashed thanks to Floyd’s incompetence, and Edward J Jackson began to recalculate the Python Plan as a strategy that could succeed in the relative long-term as opposed to remaining a quick offensive. As for Floyd, the general’s popularity prevented him from being removed from the chain of command, however, he was placed in control of the substantially less important Bloemfontein Front whereas the Karoo Front, and therefore ground operations of the Python Plan, were placed into the more capable hands of General Braxton Bragg.
Crusaders of Riebeeckia soldiers under the command of General Braxton Bragg inspecting a trench to the east of Stinkkuil, circa November 1859.
In Edwardsland, the offensive into northern Liberia was led by General Robrecht Young, a resident of northeastern Edwardsland who had converted to Calvinism in the early 1820s and spent much of his youth preaching the gospel throughout the predominantly Episcopalian Edwardsland and Liberia. Having gradually been drawn towards ideas of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, Young was attracted to the platform of the National Cross Party and ultimately winded up becoming an early general of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, using his position to enforce the nullification of the Fourth Amendment in NCP-controlled provinces, violently expelling the indigenous Namaqua people of eastern Edwardsland out of their primarily pastoralist communities, and harassing Catholics and non-Christians as a means of intimidation. Young’s brutal militancy combined with his intense religiosity earned him the nickname the “Lion of the Lord '' amongst both followers and opponents, and his experience in paramilitary activities made him an apparent choice for the command of troops upon the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War.
Once the United Dominion collapsed, Young was quickly appointed to command ground forces in the conflict against the ardently pro-Tuinstra and heavily populated Liberia. The Lion of the Lord began his southward campaign upon receiving news of the Battle of Melkbosstrand and managed to quickly overrun the less well-armed pro-Tuinstra regiments at the beginning of the Riebeeckian Civil War. General Young soon became an infamous figure amongst his opponents, who noted his brutal sieges that targeted poorly-defended supply lines and civilian infrastructure in order to reduce the enemy’s capability to wage war, the high civilian casualties of his Autumn Offensive, and the internment of non-white and non-Protestant citizens in makeshift prison camps alongside prisoners of war. The Lion hunted his prey with a harsh ferocity, and anyone who dared to not conform to the National Cross Party’s strict definition of the Riebeeckian national identity was designated as prey.
Robrecht Young’s Autumn Offensive was effective in inflicting heavy casualties, however, its territorial progress was short-lived. After raiding several border settlements, Young arrived at the mouth of the Orange River, which the large port city of Gariepsburgh had been constructed around. The Battle of Gariepsburgh would begin on October 2nd, 1859 as General Young laid siege to the northern boroughs of the city, utilizing fleets of airships to set Gariepsburgh ablaze in what is regarded as history’s first pyrobombardment campaign. Young’s campaign of raining fire down upon Gariepsburgh was brutal, however, the general’s goal was to rob pro-Tuinstra forces of a critical port city, and in this sense, pyrobombardment got the job done. The bulk of Young’s enemies were forced to evacuate a burning city for Gariepsburgh’s surviving boroughs to the south of the Orange River, and those that did remain to fend off against the onslaught of Robrecht Young found themselves dying for a ruined city. Pro-Tuinstra forces had completely retreated from northern Gariepsburgh by October 5th, 1859, at which point General Young reached the shoreline of the Orange River as much of one of Riebeeckia’s largest cities stood scorched behind him.
A depiction of a fire brought about by pyrobombing during the Battle of Gariepsburgh, circa October 1859.
For the time being, however, Young would not progress across the Orange River, which soon became a natural barrier between his own army and that of General Thomas Francis Meagher of New Ireland, a former journalist and veteran of the War of Malacca who had risen through the ranks of the Riebeeckian armed forces since his days fighting against the Kingdom of Mranma. Determined to prevent the establishment of a foothold south of the Orange River by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, General Meagher ordered the destruction of all bridges connecting northern and southern Gariepsburgh, including the famed John Quincy Adams Bridge that had become a famous landmark of the city since its construction in the mid-1840s, on October 6th in a last-ditch effort to contain Robrecht Young’s Autumn Offensive. By making the only means of crossing the Orange River via a boat, Meagher bought precious time to reinforce pro-Tuinstra defenses and created a war of attrition on the Western Front of the Riebeeckian Civil War, however, Young’s campaign of destruction had nonetheless achieved the objective of rendering Gariepsburgh of being incapable of serving as a useful port city and safe entryway to the Orange River, thus inflicting a harsh blow on the economic capacity of pro-Tuinstra provinces.
By the conclusion of October 1859, the Riebeeckian Civil War was largely a stalemate. The Karoo Front remained stagnant as Braxton Bragg continuously attempted to break Wilhelm Rosecrans’ defenses and put the Python Plan into effect whilst Robrecht Young relentlessly laid siege to Thomas Francis Meagher’s forces in southern Gariepsburgh. Naval combat between the two rival Riebeeckian governments was similarly at a standstill, with both sides more or less evenly matched in terms of naval capabilities. Ironically enough, the only frontline that was fluid and in favor of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia was the Bloemfontein Front overseen by the disgraced General James John Floyd III, whose enemy was isolated from the bulk of pro-Tuinstra provinces thanks to Bloemfontein exclusively sharing a border with pro-Breckinridge territory and the neutral Native African kingdoms. Bloemfontein held out for the time being, but General Floyd lurched closer and closer to the capital city, which was the province’s namesake, every week and a small flow of resources to Bloemfontein from Indiana and Zululand meant that the conquest of the home province of Hannibal Tuinstra was seemingly inevitable unless a bordering Native African state intervened soon.
The Riebeeckian Civil War raged on alongside a radically changing political landscape within both belligerent regimes, for neither Breckinridge nor Tuinstra and their respective allies would throw away the opportunity to implement their policy goals within the provinces they governed now that they didn’t have to deal with public officials from each other’s parties getting in the way. While Hannibal Tuinstra found himself dealing with a legislature composed entirely of Revolutionary Burrite congressmen with the exception of merely one moderate Unionist from Indiana, Samuel Breckinridge’s National Cross Party barely held a majority within the Edwardston Congress, with the Unionist Party controlling ten seats compared to the NCP’s thirteen, and the Revolutionary Burrite Party even having one congressman elected from Edwardsland. This presented a challenge for Chancellor Breckinridge, whose fringe goals would have to be navigated through what was still a pluralistic political system. Of course, the power Breckinridge wielded over both the Crusaders of Riebeeckia and the National Cross Party meant that he had all the tools necessary to become the de facto autocrat of his regime.
Very early into the Riebeeckian Civil War, the Edwardston Congress passed three key bills, retroactively titled the Consolidation Acts, which paved the way towards Samuel Breckinridge’s authoritarian rule. The first of the Consolidation Acts banned the Revolutionary Burrite Party and mandated the arrest of its party leadership and elected officials for its “acts of treason against the institutions and provinces of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia”, being voted on and put into effect on October 1st, 1828, thus resulting in the bizarre and sudden arrest of Revolutionary Burrite Congressman Edmund Sturge of Edwardston at his home just after voting against the legislation that criminalized his party. Two days later, labor unions, which had long been affiliated with the Revolutionary Burrites and the Federalists before them, were declared illegal by the Industrial Security Act. On October 6th, the Sedition Act, the final and arguably most pivotal of the Consolidation Acts was passed, which criminalized criticism of the Riebeeckian government, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which had been upheld by the common law of the United Dominion as a product of its introduction in South Africa by the judiciary of Liberia, and gave the chancellery the unilateral authority to enforce the Sedition Act, be it through directing the Ministry of Policing and local police services or by utilizing the armed forces domestically.
The Sedition Act had been especially controversial in its passage, receiving few votes from Unionists, who feared that the powers the bill conceded to the chancellor would be abused against their own party, but nonetheless making its way through the Edwardston Congress on the basis that a strong executive with the power to purge dissent was necessary during wartime and the more general process of bringing about the Riebeeckian state envisioned in Samuel Breckinridge’s “The Crusade''. After the passage of the Sedition Act, opponents of the bill were soon proven to be correct in their fears. Publications and media critical of the Breckinridge regime were censored and their writers were imprisoned without a trial, those who behaved in contradiction to the puritanical social views of the National Cross Party were often arrested, and local Unionist and independent politicians opposed to the doctrine of the NCP were eventually arrested. The birth of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy was well underway as the liberal democracy forged by Aaron Burr and his compatriots was gradually crushed in northern Riebeeckia and replaced by de facto martial law.
Not even national officials were safe from the wrath of Samuel Breckinridge. The arrest of Congressman Jacobus Groenendal, the leader of the Unionist Party in the Edwardston Congress, on October 17th, 1859 due to his public criticism of the Sedition Act and the integration of pro-Breckinridge military regiments into the Crusaders of Riebeeckia proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the Unionist Party as Breckinridge used the arrest of Groenendal and the subsequent backlash from Unionist officials as an excuse to target the party’s apparatus. In what became nicknamed the Week of the Quiet Coup by media in pro-Tuinstra provinces, Samuel Breckinridge dispatched police services to arrest several Unionist congressmen and provincial government officials with a record of critiquing his most reactionary policies while Unionist ministers in his cabinet were dismissed in favor of loyal National Cross politicians. While all pro-Breckinridge provinces excluding Edwardsland and Antarctica were led by NCP-majority governments, which ensured regional collaboration in the Week of the Quiet Coup, the Unionist Party nonetheless continued boast decent public support, which led Breckinridge to largely censor media coverage of his mass detainment and promote the publication of papers decrying the Unionist Party, often including fabricated scandals and criminal activities conducted by arrested congressmen.
Of the nine Unionist congressmen serving in the Edwardston Congress when the Riebeeckian Civil War began, only four still held office by the end of October 1859 and party leadership had been crippled, therefore transforming the Unionist Party into little more than a token opposition to the National Cross Party. More importantly in terms of the ambitions of Samuel Breckinridge, the National Cross Party had now achieved the two-thirds majority necessary to pass constitutional amendments. Unsurprisingly, this power was quickly exercised by Chancellor Breckenridge, who finally had the opportunity to bring about the Christian theocratic state he had envisioned in “The Crusade'' years prior. Breckinridge introduced a slew of constitutional amendments to the Edwardston Congress throughout November 1859, titling his proposals the Scriptural Amendments. Given Samuel Breckinridge’s resounding authority over the National Cross Party, his Scriptural Amendments gradually passed with ease, being unanimously supported by all NCP congressmen.
While much of the Riebeeckian constitution was technically kept intact, the Scriptural Amendments effectively created a new system of governance and struck out a large chunk of the original constitutional articles, going as far as to rename the pro-Breckinridge United Dominion pretender government to the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation (HDRC), emphasizing with this new name that Riebeeckian state existed for the purpose of enforcing a Protestant theocracy upon its autonomous constituent provinces. The first of Scriptural Amendments stated their goals best with the declaration that the new regime “shall be obligated to defend, enforce, and proliferate the interests of God as outlined by the Protestant denominations of the Christian religion amongst her constituent provinces and inhabitants”. The second of the amendments clarified citizenship and voting rights, affording the former exclusively to native-born Protestants of European descent, thus institutionalizing the ethnic nationalism of the National Cross Party by stripping those who did not fit its narrow definition of a Riebeeckian citizen of basic rights and effectively leaving their fates up to the whim of the state and private interests, whereas the latter category was even more restrictive by only permitting property-owning men to vote.
Flag of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, officially adopted circa January 1860.
On top of repealing various amendments contradictory to the vision of the National Cross Party, the Scriptural Amendments generally focused on the development of a nationalist theocracy ardently committed to the interests of the white economic elite. A legislative and judicial chamber independent of Congress, named the High Court of South Africa in reference to the Medieval High Court of Jerusalem, was established with the purpose of vetoing any legislation on the national or local level incompatible with either the constitution or Protestantism, passing legislation for chancellery approval without consulting Congress, the disqualifying the political candidacy of any individual deemed subversive to the interests of the Holy Dominion, and serving as the highest court in all civil, criminal, and constitutional cases. All members of the High Court were required to be Protestant clergymen who were appointed and recalled by the chancellorship, a position in and of itself automatically reserved one of the fifteen total seats in the assembly. In effect, the High Court of South Africa served as the vanguard of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy through which his reactionary regime would be enforced.
The chancellorship itself was also considerably altered by the Scriptural Amendments, with the position being vested unilateral control over the armed forces and law enforcement, becoming a lifetime position, and being elected by the Congress of South Africa rather than the people. In effect, the chancellorship was transformed into an authoritarian elective monarch whose will faced no checks thanks to the sweeping power of the High Court. Outside of the structure of the national government, the Scriptural Amendments prohibited the government seizure of private property owned by citizens and prohibited the state from owning land beyond what was seized from non-citizens and necessary to carry out government functions (largely interpreted to refer to military bases and government offices). Simply put, the Scriptural Amendments and the establishment of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation amounted to a counter-revolution in the name of the conservative landowning elite against decades of national Riebeeckian policies favoring economic regulation and egalitarianism, and Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge, now a de facto dictator in all but name, was the head of this counter-revolution, a synthesis of extreme laissez-faire economics, white supremacy, and theocratic nationalism.
Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, circa December 1859.
Every counter-revolution needs a revolution to counter, and for the Holy Dominion, this came in the form of the pro-Tuinstra government’s very own dramatic institutional changes. Given the New Richmond Congress’ near-total Revolutionary Burrite composition, Hannibal Tuinstra had no trouble with accomplishing a goal of the RBP since its formation, that being the calling of a new constitutional convention. Some congressmen had feared that such a convention immediately after the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War would prove to be divisive and provide the pro-Breckinridge regime with an excuse to decry its opponent as an illegitimate government, however, the ratification of the Scriptural Amendments and the adoption of a new name altogether Breckinridge’s state largely rendered such fears unwarranted as calls echoed through the halls of the New Richmond Congress to seize the opportunity presented by the rejection of the United Dominion’s institutions. At the behest of Chancellor Tuinstra, the New Richmond Congress would therefore almost unanimously vote on December 2nd, 1859 in favor of assembling a constitutional convention, which was to first convene in the subsequent January.
The pro-Tuinstra government was far from new to reform by the time the Scriptural Amendments had been passed. The Sixth Amendment was repealed on October 20th by the passage of the Seventh Amendment, which both eliminated the restriction on the national government with regards to expanding voting rights and automatically secured inalienable voting rights for all naturally born Riebeeckian adults upon turning twenty-one years of age and for all immigrants to Riebeeckia who had lived in the country for at least seven years, regardless of race, gender, or religion. The Eighth Amendment, which prohibited state institutions from favoring any religious denomination or financing religious organizations, passed shortly thereafter, thus securing accomplishing significant social goals of the RBP with relative ease. The welfare state later championed by Hannibal Tuinstra that began with the passage of the Reconstruction Insurance Act would likewise be expanded within the early months of the Riebeeckian Civil War via the Industrial Mobilization Act of November 3rd, 1859, which established the National Works Administration (NWA) as a public works program intended to rapidly construct wartime resources and equipment while simultaneously serving as a jobs guarantee.
All of these reforms, however, would ultimately be eclipsed by the revolution brought upon by the Austropolis Constitutional Convention. Assembling in the ruined capital of Riebeeckia in an action intended to remind the Holy Dominion that the Tuinstra regime remained in control of the national seat of power, the convention consisted of all twenty-two congressmen in the New Richmond Congress, additional delegates appointed by provincial governments to make their delegations proportional to their percentage of the national population, and, notably, representatives of various Native African tribes scattered throughout pro-Tuinstra provinces. This latter category was particularly important due to the historical exclusion of natives from national and provincial administrations largely dominated by white Ribeeckians, who had forced Native Africans off of their land over decades both through direct conflict (particularly during the colonial history of the Cape of Good Hope) and legislation that often failed to recognize tribal sovereignty over their ancestral territory.
Conventions of representatives from Native African-majority municipal and county governments, effectively the only means of Native African self-governance without the legal recognition of tribes themselves as political entities, were organized along tribal lines and elected delegates to the Austropolis Constitutional Convention throughout December 1859. Upon first convening on January 3rd, 1860, the convention was therefore unprecedented in the history of the Cape of Good Hope in that it was the first of any such body to be made up of both the descendents of settlers and Native Africans. The message being conveyed by the assembly was clear: the new government being conceived by this diverse array of delegates was not merely a continuation of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, a nation that was ultimately an amalgamation of colonial regimes that had achieved sovereignty. It was instead to be a synthesis of various cultures, ethnicities, and regions, under a single federation, in many ways a rejection of the colonial hierarchy that had been perpetuated since the establishment of the Cape Colony in 1652.
A delegate representing the Zulu nation speaking at the Austropolis Constitutional Convention, circa January 1860.
Some elements of the new constitution were easy to determine. The country’s status as a dominion of the Germanic Empire and recognition of Empress Victoria as its head of state, for example, was politically impossible to eliminate due to the establishment of a republic being borderline inevitable suicide for the Tuinstra goverrnment by being interpreted as treason by Her Majesty and prompting a military response by the Hanoverian Realms on behalf of the Holy Dominion. Therefore, despite some grumblings from a handful of idealists who would’ve liked to do away with Germania’s sway over Riebeeckian foreign affairs and defense commitments to a distant monarch in favor of completely republican system, the convention concluded that their state was to remain a constitutional monarchy under the protection of the House of Hanover.
The structure of the legislature was likewise relatively straightforward to design. A founding principle of the Revolutionary Burrite Party had been the replacement of Ribeeckia’s apportionment system that capped Congressional representation at three seats per province with a method of proportional representation. It was therefore determined that each province would be represented in the New Richmond Congress as a multi-member district whose proportion within the national legislature would be determined by each respective province’s proportion of the national population and whose congressmen would be elected by assigning seats based on the proportion of votes won by each competing party. A new mechanism of recall elections was likewise introduced to not just Congress, but all public offices, by mandating such elections when a third of constituents approved of a recall petition, and in the case of provincial governors and delegations to the national Congress, when a simple majority of a respective province’s local legislature voted in favor of a recall election.
The executive branch of the new Cape government was a bit more contentious to design. The descent of the pro-Breckinridge provinces into autocracy had left a bad taste in the mouth of many delegates to the Austropolis Convention when it came to strong executives, therefore resulting in a wing of the convention pushing for a parliamentary system on the basis that the significant power previously under the control of the chancellery, primarily that of the armed forces, should not be under the control of a single individual for the sake of upholding a democratic system. Conversely, more moderate delegates argued that the presidential system of Riebeeckia ought to be preserved in order to maintain a separation of powers and that a centralized executive branch would ensure a more efficient government, particularly during the current civil war. After much deliberation, however, it was agreed upon, with the blessing of Hannibal Tuinstra, that the executive branch would convert to a parliamentary system where the chancellorship was appointed by the legislature, albeit a parliamentary system with an executive empowered with the position of commander-in-chief of the armed forces as an appeasement to moderate delegates.
In terms of judicial reform, proposals by a coalition of Federalists and a small handful of Revolutionary Burrites for the centralization of the judiciary under a national supreme court were quickly shot down by a strong majority of delegates in favor of preserving the decentralized common law structure of the United Dominion. Judges were, however, required to be democratically elected by the people encompassed by the authority of their courts as a means of ensuring that the judicial process was accountable to public interest as opposed to regional governments. Beyond the structure of the legislature, executive, and judiciary, the outlining of the broad political system of the new constitution came down to some minor additions, such as prohibiting local governments from nullifying the laws of higher administrations so as to prevent a repeat of the Nullification Troubles and the constitutional right for the national government to impose conscription during wartime in a controversial reaffirmation of the Third Amendment of the Riebeeckian constitution, the ratification of which by the Austopolis Convention was largely informed by the present circumstances of Hannibal Tuinstra’s government making conscription incredibly tantalizing.
The Austropolis Convention likewise reiterated the egalitarian amendments upheld by the Revolutionary Burrites and the Federalists before them, simply restating the second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eight amendments to the Riebeeckian constitution, thereby enshrining equal voting rights for all South African adults, campaign finance limits, the right to a free public education, and the separation of church and state within the new document. Riding off of anti-corporate sentiments that were fueled by opposition to the laissez-faire economic doctrine of the Holy Dominion, the Austropolis Convention would actually go a step further than the original Fourth Amendment by outright abolishing the financing of political campaigns by individual contributions and instead established a mechanism of public campaign finance for all political offices, the first of such a system in the world. Under the new constitution, all voting age citizens were allocated a sum of money (determined by national and local legislatures) each year that they could only spend on political campaigns and parties, and it was exclusively through these vouchers that campaigns and parties could accumulate funding for their endeavors.
The most significant elements of the document written and ratified by the Austropolis Convention were undeniably its socio-economic reforms. Unbeknownst to the delegates assembled in the ruined capital city, it was these policies in particular that would ultimately lay the groundwork for much of the Equatorial Commonwealth and go onto define the concept of the modern welfare state up until the Cold War and the radicalization of the world of the early 20th Century. The establishment of strong welfare programs had long been a core tenant of the Revolutionary Burrite platform due to the party’s populistic and working class origins, and as such the convention set about developing a political structure that prioritized the economic well-being of those who it governed. After much debate, the Austropolis Convention passed one of its most significant reforms by constitutionally enshrining the right to healthcare services and nationalizing the entirety of the healthcare industry, which was subsequently placed under the management of the newfound Ministry of Health Services following the ratification of the Austropolis Convention’s constitution.
Largely ratified at the behest of social reformers and military commanders such as Otto Bismarck, who perceived universal healthcare was as an efficient means of both providing for a population devastated by warfare and ensuring national loyalty to the Tuinstra government, the nationalization of health services was merely the beginning of an economic and political system that Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra characterized as Burrite democracy in his writings regarding the Austopolis Convention. Defined as a socially and economically progressive form of liberal democracy that could trace its roots back to the ideology of Aaron Burr (linking the values of the Tuinstra government to those of the Father of Riebeeckia was a blatant move for ideological legitimacy in the civil war), Burrite democracy as an ideology believed that representative administrations were responsible for providing for the well-being, equality, and general social justice of their constituents through economic regulation, the provision of large welfare programs, a mixed economy, and wealth redistribution. This definition of the general views of the Austropolis Convention stuck, and by the time the new constitution was ratified, the pro-Tuinstra provinces would have their own revolutionary ideals to rally behind.
Soon, much of the Indian Ocean would follow suit in the revolution for Burrite democracy.
Beyond universal healthcare, further economic reforms were pursued by the Austropolis Convention that upheld the ideals of Burrtie democracy. The new constitution notably gave public administrations the ability to redistribute wealth and assets, nationalize privately-held assets and industries, and significantly regulate and oversee production within the private sector to a degree that permitted limited economic planning. In terms of labor rights, private sector workers were guaranteed the constitutional right to unionize, participate in striking activities so long as the union’s actions were “lawful and peaceful”, and undergo collective bargaining arrangements with their employer. Two final economic reforms of significance that were implemented by the Austropolis Convention included the constitutional right to social insurance intended to aid the disabled and elderly and a guaranteed minimum income of equal wealth distributed to every adult citizen once every six months, thus accomplishing two policy goals of more radical social progressives since the days of the Age of Enlightenment.
Once the Burrite economic system of the pro-Tuinstra provinces was fully developed, the Austropolis Convention turned to one last issue before ratification, that being the autonomy of Native African nations. Delegate Adam Kok III of the Griqua people would propose an article to the convention that sought to establish the right for each Native African nationality within Riebeeckia to autonomously govern itself as a province within the wider apparatus of state. While provincehood for each tribe within South Africa failed to find support within the halls of the Austropolis Convention, the controversial notion of establishing provinces for Native African communities gradually began to catch on amongst delegates. In the eyes of the socially progressive convention, the introduction of Native African provinces ultimately became critical to casting aside the colonial hierarchies that had persisted in southern Africa since the arrival of Jan Van Riebeeck himself. As such, while the establishment of new provinces was deemed outside of the jurisdiction of the Austropolis Convention, delegates nonetheless crafted a collection of legislation that would see the provinces of Khoikhoi, Griqualand, West Zululand, and Molopo be admitted into the pro-Tuinstra government by the legislators present at the convention and extended the invitation of provincehood to any tribe within pro-Breckinridge territory that aligned itself with the New Richmond Congress during the Riebeeckian Civil War.
To symbolize this transition of the pro-Tuinstra government away from the historical domination of the Cape of Good Hope by settler colonial regimes and towards a federation of settler and native communities, the Austropolis Convention concluded their work by deciding that a new name was needed, given that the identity of Riebeeckia as a direct descendent of the preceding Dutch colonial regime was to be abandoned. After much deliberation, the Austropolis Convention determined that the name of their new Burrite democracy was to be the United Provinces of Azania, and this new nation was officially brought into existence upon the ratification of her constitution by the Austropolis Convention on February 8th, 1860. The United Provinces of Azania now stood in direct contrast to the ideals of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, with both states being determined to bring about their vision of a new South African government to the entirety of the now-dead United Dominion. In the north, the banner of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy flew, whilst in the south, Burrites hoisted the banner of their new union of Azania.
Flag of the United Provinces of Azania, officially adopted circa March 1860.
Following the formation of the United Provinces, the New Richmond Congress quickly set about re-electing Hannibal Tuinstra to the chancellorship under the new parliamentary system of their regime while the politicians of the Holy Dominion decried the Azanian state as a betrayal and fundamental threat against the Riebeeckian way of life. Watching from afar in the chambers of Hanover, the Germanic Empire maintained a position of neutrality throughout the Riebeeckian Civil War, recognizing that both factions were openly loyal to the crown of Her Majesty Empress Victoria and regarding intervention on the Cape of Good Hope as bad for commercial interests in the region, although this wasn’t to say that there were not those in Germania who favored one belligerent over the other. Speaker of the House of Commons Heinrich von Gagern, while not advocating for military intervention on behalf of one faction or the other, decried the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation as a vile backlash against the liberalization that had swept both Europe and the wider world for the past century and futilely attempted to get the Germanian state to recognize Azania as the legitimate South African domain of Victoria in the face of backlash from the conservative Imperial Union Party and nobility.
In what was both a compromise between supporters of Tuinstra and Breckinridge and a means to protect Germania’s economic interests in South Africa, the Bundesrat passed the Neutrality Act on November 1st, 1859, which stated that the Germanic Empire would not officially favor one South African government over the other so long as both regimes upheld the United Dominion of Riebeeckia’s commitments to the House of Hanover and did not interfere in the Hanoverian Realms trading with either government. The legislation also notably allowed for Germanian citizens to finance and fight on behalf of factions in the Riebeeckian Civil War as volunteers, an element of the bill that revolutionaries and reactionaries alike took advantage of. Facing the prospect of a world power, her colonies, and the mighty dominion of the Kingdom of India intervening on behalf of their enemy, both Tuinstra and Breckinridge had little choice but to respect the Neutrality Act, and an awkward situation emerged where merchants from Amsterdam found themselves trading with businesses in Edwardston only to sail south past a warzone to trade with the Edwardston capitalist’s enemy down in Zomerstadt.
Going into the winter and subsequent spring of 1860, the frontline between Azanian and Confederate forces began to become fluid yet again. 1859 was closed out with the Battle of Moses City, a brutal siege that lasted several weeks. Encircled on all sides by the pro-Breckinridge province of Noordelijk, the Moses City Territory had nonetheless remained loyal to Hannibal Tuinstra due to its history as a bastion of progressivism and racial equality despite its location in an otherwise socially conservative stronghold of Riebeeckia. Moses’ isolation from other territory under the control of the Revolutionary Burrite Party meant that its occupation was inevitable, however, the city’s ethnic makeup being primarily of Gullahs and other freedmen from the Americas meant that capitulation to the reactionary Breckinridge regime was an impossibility. With limited defenses, the Moses City Territory would live on borrowed time, hoping that the emerging Riebeeckian Civil War would be a brief conflict.
An army of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia under the command of General Stephanus Schoeman, a War of Malacca veteran-turned-fiery statesman who had served in the Noordelijk provincial legislature before resigning to return to military service upon the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War began besieging the outermost defenses of Moses City on October 19th, 1859, a little over a month following the outbreak of the wider conflict once it became clear that naval blockades weren’t enough to bring Moses to its knees. Given that the Battle of Moses City was far from a priority of a government waging a much larger conflict in its south, General Schoeman’s army was considerably smaller than anything Tuinstra regimes were facing on the main frontlines of the Riebeeckian Civil War were forcing, but even so, Moses City’s ability to hold out for several months against a relentless invading force boasting much greater manpower was an impressive feat. Much of Moses City was burning by the end of October alone, however, the guardians of the ruined City of Emancipation continued to hold out for another two months.
Having earned a reputation as a destination for freed slaves throughout the world since its establishment in 1837, Moses City and its struggle against the Crusaders of Riebeeckia particularly resonated with the global community, and abolitionist groups in the Americas were especially keen on raising funds to aid in the defense of Moses. Prime Minister Benjamin Lloyd Garrison of the Federated Republic of Albionora, already a vocal critic of the political reaction of Samuel Breckinridge and the National Cross Party, decried the indiscriminate carnage of the Crusaders in the Battle of Moses City as a “blatant confirmation to the world of the Edwardston regime’s fondness for the most evil institution known to man, a manifesto transcribed in blood and fire”, and not only officially recognized Hannibal Tuinstra’s government as the legitimate regime in Riebeeckia, but also passed the so-called South Africa Act through the Parliament of Albionora circa late November 1859, which lended resources, military equipment, and humanitarian aid to the pro-Tuinstra government. Meanwhile, various privateer fleets mostly assembled by Albionorians and Columbians but also notably consisting of Germanians, Brazilians, Peruvians, and Kongolese fought against the blockade of Moses City upon the waves of the Atlantic Ocean whereas volunteer militias rode aboard these fleets with the hope that they would step foot in the burning city to fend off its destruction.
Even a coalition of sympathetic movements throughout the Western world could not, however, protect Moses City from its ultimate defeat. Supplies to and within the urban center would eventually run thin, the Crusaders made progress into Moses’ interior day by day, and pyrobombing was introduced to the Battle of Moses City by Stephanus Schoeman’s forces in late November 1859, all indicating that Jack Pritchard’s dream of a city for the freed Gullah people was coming to a brutal end. It was within these closing days of the Battle of Moses City that Araminta Ross, a former slave from Virginia who had been freed during the purchase and subsequent emancipation of North American slaves by Jack Pritchard and his colleagues in the 1830s, rose to prominence as a soldier within the army defending Moses City. Having taken up arms in the Riebeeckian Civil War upon the beginning of the battle for her home city, Ross had endured the entirety of the brutal siege and had risen through the ranks of local forces due to her tactical insight, being a lieutenant by the dawn of December 1859.
After the Crusaders of Riebeeckia broke through the final line of defenses in the city on December 9th, 1859, Governor-General David Hunter ordered the complete withdrawal and evacuation of pro-Tuinstra forces from the northernmost battlefield in the Riebeeckian Civil War. Citizens and soldiers alike quickly rushed to warships over the coming week in a desperate scramble to flee the Holy Dominion’s wrath, with many of these ships ultimately sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at the hands of Confederate cannons, however, Lieutenant Ross made it clear to her superiors that she refused to leave Moses City until the last evacuating ship carrying civilians had escaped the ports of northern Riebeeckia. On December 12th, 1859, in a last ditch effort to buy the evacuation some extra time, Lieutenant Araminta Ross led a raid on a Crusader battalion to the north of Moses’ port, and despite her forces sustaining heavy casualties in the face of her enemy’s organ guns, Ross nonetheless managed to not only deter the encroaching offensive to her north, but ultimately push it back a handful of ruined city blocks, thus temporarily halting Schoeman’s offensive for a few days. The story of a successful counter-offensive by a former slave in Moses City, a manuever that was credited for critically keeping the territory’s port in pro-Tuinstra hands for two additional weeks as the last civilian ships fled the scene, was widely circulated throughout southern Riebeeckia and Araminta Ross was greeted as a national hero upon arriving in New Richmond on December 26th with a pivotal career in the coming war ahead of her.
A sketch of Araminta Ross following the Battle of Moses City, circa January 1860.
Of course, not even the bold actions of Ross could save Moses City from its conquest, and mere hours after the last pro-Tuinstra warship left the metropolis’ harbors, General Schoeman finally declared victory in the Battle of Moses City on December 24th, 1859. Under decree from Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge, the occupied Moses City Territory was subsequently absorbed into the province of Noordelijk, undoing what the National Cross Party largely regarded as an unjust theft of land from white Noordelijk landowners back in 1837. Under the supervision of General Schoeman, the Noordelijk provincial government would undertake a campaign of brutal ethnic cleansing in the occupied Moses City, hoping to wipe out a northern stronghold of egalitarian thought in Riebeeckia and arguably a physical symbol of the Revolutionary Burrite Party’s ideals. Black civilians unable to escape Moses City were forcibly removed from their homes, and the vast majority of these civilians were relocated to prisoner of war camps due to the Holy Dominion lacking any alternative institution for such a large population, where conditions were remarkably inhumane. In the aftermath of what southern newspapers condemned as the “Eradication of Moses City'', the municipality was renamed to Samuelston in honor of the Confederate chancellor and was opened to settlement by white Protestant families.
The aftermath of the Battle of Moses City was marked by more strategically significant advancements by the Holy Dominion on various frontlines, with January and February seeing the continued defeat of pro-Tuinstra forces in Bloemfontein (and later Griqualand following the formation of said province), who remained the victims of isolation from allied territories. The newly-founded Griqualand administration fell prior to Bloemfontein itself, and while establishment of sovereignty for the Griqua people created a brief setback for James John Floyd III’s advance by allowing for better self-management of local defenses, the fact of the matter was that much of Griqualand’s recognized territory had already been occupied by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia well before the province’s creation. The Battle of Philippolis on February 17th, 1860, only a little more than a week following the official formation of the United Provinces of Azania, marked the last stand for Griqualand as the Azanian National Army (ANA) held out in the province’s besieged capital. It was, however, seemingly an inevitability that the Crusaders would emerge victorious in the Battle of Philippolis, given that the Azanian forces were outnumbered, running short on military equipment, and on the brink of starvation. It was therefore no surprise when the Confederate flag of crimson, white, and black was flying over a burning Philippolis by the end of the day while provisional Governor Adam Kok III of Griqualand had fled to the city of Bloemfontein to administer a provincial government-in-exile.
It would not be much long after Kok’s evacuation that Bloemfontein itself fell under Confederate occupation. Having been unable to adequately resupply itself since the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War, the home province of Hannibal Tuinstra was living on borrowed time. Demoralized ANA regiments had become dependent on constant conscription and collaboration with local paramilitaries in order to keep their operations afloat whereas civilians had grown disgruntled with a collapsing war economy, where basic needs for working-class Bloemfonteinians were increasingly difficult to come by. The Azanians managed to put up a strong fight against General Floyd’s army at the Battle of Bloemfontein, which started with a small raid on the city’s outskirts on February 26th, 1860, however, much like at Philippolis, a Confederate victory was inevitable. The infamously slow and cautious tactics of James John Floyd III meant that the Battle of Bloemfontein was an engagement much more protracted than necessary, however, after three days of combat, the Crusaders of Riebeeckia had decisively uprooted the ANA from the last major city within the Bloemfontein and Griqualand provinces on February 29th, 1860.
With their significant settlements completely lost to the Holy Dominion, the defense of Bloemfontein and Griqualand was regarded to be a lost cause by the Azanian high command going into March 1860, and the vast majority of ANA soldiers on the Bloemfontein Front were forced into capitulation and became prisoners of war. Other regiments managed to awkwardly sneak their way through the Native African kingdoms of southern Africa to other Azanian territory whilst a handful of bold forces stayed behind, hiding in the wilderness and rural landscape of Bloemfontein and Griqualand to operate as a patchwork of guerrilla militias, who media ultimately nicknamed Bushwhackers. With activities ranging from the sabotage of Crusader supply lines to rapid, and oftentimes brutal, raids on settlements occupied by Confederate forces, the Bushwhackers soon gained the reputation of terrorists amongst the citizenry of the Holy Dominion and a cloud of controversy as to whether or not they were outlaws to be feared or heroes to be adored amongst the citizenry of Azania.
Three Bushwhackers who were active in Confederate-occupied Bloemfontein, circa May 1860.
The conquest of Bloemfontein and Griqualand in turn provided for the reallocation of the Bloemfontein Front’s resources to the much more pivotal Western and Karoo frontlines. These reinforcements were not substantial, and Azanian defenses in Gariepsburgh were too substantial to give Robrecht Young an opportunity to advance over the Orange River, however, they were enough to give way to a brief gain in territory into Zomerland by General Braxton Bragg. The so-called April Offensive saw Bragg lead a rapid assault against Wilhelm Rosecrans through the Great Karoo, bringing the agrarian half of the Zomerland under Confederate rule by the end of the month, however, this quick success was not to last. General Bragg, for all of the admiration he won from Samuel Breckinridge and Edward J Jackson for his progress in pursuing the Python Plan, lacked in his post-battle follow-up strategies and imaginative combat tactics. This left Confederate occupied territory in the Great Karoo vulnerable to its north and south while supply lines increasingly ran thin as Bragg’s army encompassed a larger and larger swath of land.
More importantly, the odds were beginning to be stacked against the Holy Dominion in general. The simple fact of the matter was that the United Provinces of Azania boasted a larger population and industrial capacity than the more agrarian Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, and while pro-Tuinstra armed forces had been relatively disorganized at the onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War thanks to the lack of any equivalent to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia for its military apparatus to be integrated within, these issues had long since been resolved, especially with the formation of the United Provinces. This, combined with the conscription of thousands of young Azanian men into the ANA meant that the Burrite revolution had the capacity to defeat its reactionary opponent through demographic advantages alone. The window for the quick victory the HDRC required to emerge victorious in the Riebeeckian Civil War had arguably elapsed by April 1860, and the tacticians in New Richmond insisted to Chancellor Tuinstra that, so long as the Azanian state continued to relentlessly focus on defeating the Holy Dominion, victory was only a matter of time.
In the short term, this meant the complete undoing of the April Offensive’s victories. While smaller armies chipped away at Confederate territory from the north and southeast, a growing force commanded by General Rosecrans took it upon itself to lead a counteroffensive towards South Holland in May 1860. Over the span of said month, Bragg saw the conquests he had become so famed for throughout the Holy Dominion undone by the organ guns of Rosecrans’ increasingly large army while his own forces found it increasingly difficult to make up for losses. Rosecrans would first enter South Holland on May 25th, 1860 upon emerging victorious in conquering the small border town of Williamstadt in the southwestern reaches of the province, thus marking the first incursion of the ANA into a Confederate province. Going into the subsequent June, the roles of Rosecrans and Bragg had clearly reversed from where they were just two months prior, with the former leading a rapid offensive into a province defended by the latter, and without a significant shift in the situation of the wider Riebeeckian Civil War, this would be where their roles would remain situated.
To make matters worse for the Holy Dominion, as Wilhelm Rosecrans led his invasion into South Holland, the Iron General prepared to make his next move during the dawn of the summer of 1860. Having mainly served as an armchair general since his victory at the Battle of Austropolis who divided his time between overseeing the overall tactics on the various frontlines of the Riebeeckian Civil War and serving as an indispensable advisor to Chancellor Tuinstra’s government as its Minister of War, the famed Otto Bismarck gradually took notice of an exposed underbelly in Confederate defenses along the border of New Hanover and Binnenland. Both provinces’ boundary with Azania was primarily sparsely-populated rural territory, and as the Holy Dominion focused on its push along the western coastline and into Zomerland in accordance with the Python Plan while pro-Tuinstra forces had concentrated their efforts on defending against these advances, the agrarian region had been ignored. But now that the Crusaders were on the run, General Bismarck wagered that a well-armed offensive by Azanian forces along the Nossob River would at least divert significant resources away from Robrecht Young’s efforts on the Western Front and, at best, provide a long term launching pad for an Azanian invasion into the heart of Confederate territory.
Therefore, with permission from Hannibal Tuinstra, the Azanian Minister of War left from New Richmond to the newly-established Molopo province of the Nama people with an army equipped with road locomotives and steam-powered elephas to push along the coastline of the Nossob River into southeastern New Hanover. Bismarck’s calculation that local battalions guarding the rural outskirts of the Holy Dominion would be greatly overwhelmed by his mechanized force of armored infantry proved to be precisely correct, and starting on June 10th, 1860 with the Battle of Bokspits, the Nossob Offensive proved to be a resounding success. The Azanian National Army rapidly covered a considerable chunk of territory as its metal beasts of the Industrial Revolution rampaged over Confederate farmland, with Bismarck arriving at the confluence of the Auob River and the Nossob River on June 22nd, within a little less than two weeks since the start of his groundbreaking offensive.
General Otto Bismarck mounted on a horse outside of a farmhouse seized by the Azanian National Army, circa June 1860.
The Nossob Offensive was sure to be the kick in the Confederate stomach needed by the United Provinces to bring a swift conclusion to the Riebeeckian Civil War. Wilhelm Rosecrans continued his campaign into South Holland, slowly but surely chipping away at the defenses of General Braxton Bragg, while Thomas Francis Meagher held his own on the Western Front against Robrecht Young, who was being pressured by his superiors to reallocate forces to Bismarck’s Molopo Front, in turn weakening the Crusaders’ holdout in northern Gariepsburgh. Day by day, the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation was being pushed ever closer to the brink of a total collapse in its defenses at the hands of her enemy. Word began to spread through the streets of New Richmond and Edwardston alike that all of Riebeeckia would be brought under the banner of the United Provinces by the end of the year, and while military officers generally refrained from making such bold predictions, not even they could avoid the whispers that the arsenal of Burrite democracy would soon be parading through the streets of Edwardston.
Of course, the Riebeeckian Civil War was not to be such a simple conflict. This was not merely a typical civil war, but rather the prelude to a wider conflict spanning the entirety of the Indian Ocean and the great powers of her waves. Unbeknownst at the time, the Austropolis Convention and its development of Burrite ideals had fermented the seeds of revolution well beyond the borders of the fallen United Dominion. In the Kingdom of India, elites and the masses alike debated both the militaristic and philosophical developments emerging from their fellow Hanoverian Realm, bolstering a fledgling movement for liberalization within a mighty empire in its own right. In the Native African kingdoms, once protectorates of Riebeeckia that had since clung onto a policy of neutrality during their former guardian’s civil war, radicals latched onto the ideology of Burrite democracy in protest of the absolutist rule of their various monarchs in a hope to export Hannibal Tuinstra’s revolution abroad. And in the Mutapa Empire, Mwene Changamire Chatunga watched the Azanian revolutionary tide in abject fear of international proliferation while cozying up to the idea of collaboration with the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, a fellow Protestant theocracy.
No, the Riebeeckian Civil War was not destined to conclude in 1860. On both the battlefield and in the chambers of politicking, the heirs to the throne of Aaron Burr’s federation had unleashed what would ultimately develop into the wider Equatorial Revolutionary War as the various monarchies of the Indian Ocean watched in anticipation. Burrite democracy and Samuel Breckinridge’s had already been quietly consolidating allies throughout the wider world, and it was unknowingly only a matter of time until the first domino was toppled in a chain of events that were to pull the entire region into the fiery conflict between revolutionary progressivism and counterrevolutionary theocracy. Soon, the Riebeeckian Civil War was to be overshadowed by a much more grand and important Equatorial Revolutionary War that was to encompass hundreds of millions of lives and permanently define the course of human history. And where, you may inquire, was this first domino to descend? It subtly began to fall in the streets of Nxuba, the capital of the Xhosa Federation.
“We’ll fight in the name of Father Burr, hurrah, hurrah!
We'll fight in the name of Father Burr, hurrah, hurrah!
Fight for Father Burr’s democracy, fight for the rights of you and me!
In the name of Father Burr!”
-Excerpt from “Fight in the Name of Father Burr”, a wartime song popularized in the United Provinces of Azania during the Equatorial Revolutionary War.
To this very day, it remains ambiguous who fired the very first shot at the Battle of Melkbosstrand. Regiments loyal to Hannibal Tuinstra insisted that they merely returned fire to men under Paul Kruger’s command out of self-defense, whereas regiments loyal to Samuel Breckinridge asserted that the more disorganized militias led by General Wilhelm Rosecrans got trigger-happy at the sight of their enemy approaching. Regardless of whoever fired the first shot, however, hundreds more followed from both sides of the frontlines drawn up at Melkbosstrand on September 28th, 1859, and as news of the first battle in Riebeeckia’s civil war frantically spread throughout the divided provinces of what had once been regarded as one of the most stable liberal democracies in the world at the time, hundreds of thousands more gunshots rang out between the two rival governments that had partitioned the Riebeeckian state, marking the beginning of one of the most important conflicts in modern human history. It was unbeknownst at the time, but within the coming years, the Riebeeckian Civil War would escalate into a vast regional conflict that was to give rise to a global superpower and in large part define the geopolitical dynamics of the upcoming 20th Century.
The Equatorial Revolutionary War had begun.
Paul Kruger’s easy victory at the Battle of Melkbosstrand was an immediate morale boost for the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, however, success for Breckinridge’s forces in the territory surrounding Austropolis soon proved to be short-lived. Encircled on all sides by provinces that had pledged their loyalty to Hannibal Tuinstra, it was seemingly inevitable that the Riebeeckian capital and largest city would sooner or later be pried from the hands of Breckinridge. The task of liberating Austropolis fell upon Otto Bismarck, the Iron General himself, who was initially appointed as Tuinstra’s Minister of War prior to the March on Austropolis and had subsequently been ordered to preside over a garrison of Tuinstra forces in southern Zomerland following the province’s recognition of Breckinridge’s regime as illegitimate in preparation for an offensive to retake what had been lost in the Crusaders of Riebeeckia’s putsch. Once news of the engagement at Melkbosstrand reached General Bismarck, Hannibal Tuinstra had given the go ahead to push into Austropolis.
Bismarck’s army arrived near the outskirts near midnight of September 28th. The Crusaders of Riebeeckia were well aware that the Battle of Austropolis was almost inevitably a lost cause, and Samuel Breckinridge would board a ship headed for Edwardston the subsequent afternoon to evade capture, however, pro-Breckinridge forces nonetheless held out to defend their control over a city that they had seized no more than two weeks earlier. Barricades were erected throughout the streets of Austropolis while Riebeeckian National Army armories scattered throughout the city provided the fighting force primarily consisting of reactionary militias with the equipment necessary to take on the trained and well-organized military regiments commanded by Otto Bismarck. The Battle of Austropolis therefore soon turned into a lengthy siege, with the goal of pro-Tuinstra forces becoming to encircle their enemy from all sides in order to gradually deplete its capability to effectively wage war. To accelerate the process, General Bismarck ordered the blockade of Austropolis from the sea, meaning that no reinforcements or supplies could enter the city’s ports, and oversaw aerial bombardment efforts by airships, which primarily targeted troop positions and enemy-held armories.
All of this is to say that the Battle of Austropolis was a very gruesome introduction to the Equatorial Revolutionary War. The center of Cape politics, commerce, and culture, even from before the formation of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, was set ablaze by bombs and shot apart by organ guns. The sight of one of the world’s most pivotal trading hubs, once regarded as the heart of strong democracy, being transformed into a vicious warzone was harrowing to both domestic and foreign observers alike. To make matters worse, the two factions of the Riebeeckian Civil War had yet to differentiate themselves in terms of uniforms, symbolism, or even terminology, which meant that two forces calling themselves the Riebeeckian National Army were fighting each other under the same banners or uniforms, which understandably made the engagement logistically difficult and friendly fire commonplace. The belligerents gradually coalesced around hoisting the banners of their forces’ home provinces and bearing armbands of white and bright blue to represent combatants loyal to Breckinridge and Tuinstra respectively, however, chaos nonetheless persisted.
Ruins of the New Amsterdam borough of Austropolis, circa October 1859.
More so than the Battle Melkbosstrand, which was little more than a quick engagement at a mostly unknown town, the lengthy Battle of Austropolis was a harsh wakeup call to the cruel reality of the civil war that awaited all of Riebeeckia and the struggle for regional dominance that awaited the great powers of the Indian Ocean. Photographs of various landmarks, from Aaron Burr Memorial University to the Executive Mansion of the chancellery, being occupied by soldiers of both sides of the civil war circulated throughout the warring provinces, revealing to the Riebeeckian people that not even their grandest cities were free from the brutality of the newly-forged conflict. The Battle of Austropolis also inflicted a devastating, if not predictable, toll on the civilian residents of the capital city, who were stuck in the middle of brutal urban warfare. On top of the inherent destruction brought upon by industrialized warfare, the blockade and aerial bombardment of Austropolis harmed civilians about as much as pro-Breckinridge soldiers, and despite the city’s political progressivism, a handful of civilians grew to be spiteful of General Otto Bismarck and Hannibal Tuinstra’s government in large part thanks to the campaign.
Realizing that his campaign was having a negative impact on popular support for the Tuinstra government within Austropolis, Otto Bismarck utilized his position as the Minister of War to allocate provisional income and humanitarian aid to civilians left without a home as a consequence of the Battle of Austopolis. The aid provided by the program was limited, however, it nonetheless helped revitalize support for Tuinstra’s government amongst the people of Austropolis, which in turn caused General Bismarck to correspond with his chancellor, arguing that a program of social relief to those left without a home as a consequence of the Riebeeckian Civil War was necessary to appease civilians from both sides of the conflict and ensure long-term stability for whatever regime Tuinstra sought to construct in the aftermath of a hypothetical victory. Taking the advice of his Minister of War, Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra would propose Reconstruction Insurance Act to his government’s makeshift Congress of South Africa, which had assembled in New Richmond in the immediate aftermath of the March on Austropolis, as a piece of legislation that was to establish a welfare program intended to guarantee housing to civilians that had lost their homes during the Riebeeckian Civil War and to provide subsidies to municipal governments in order to rebuild destroyed infrastructure. With the backing of the chancellor and the Revolutionary Burrite Party, the Reconstruction Insurance Act almost unanimously passed through the New Richmond Congress on October 10th, 1859, becoming the first building block of the welfare state that Hannibal Tuinstra was committed to constructing.
As congressmen debated welfare programs in New Richmond, Otto Bismarck’s push through Austropolis continued to advance towards total control of the city. General Paul Kruger was ordered to retreat from his northward offensive along the western coastline of Zomerland in order to focus on the defense of Austropolis, thus abandoning Melkbosstrand without a fight on October 4th, 1859. Naval and aerial forces under the command of pro-Breckinridge officers occasionally broke through Bismarck’s blockade to provide supplies, however, no reinforcements were provided to Kruger’s men given the simple fact that the Battle of Austropolis was a lost cause for the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, and by the time the Reconstruction Insurance Act was passed, the primary purpose of blockade runners was to evacuate pro-Breckinridge forces. Day after day, Bismarck’s army pushed deeper towards the heart of Austropolis, ultimately reaching Table Bay on October 15th and subsequently beginning the push towards the city center to the southwest, where the Executive Mansion, the House of Congress, and various other government buildings were located.
A sense of pride over holding onto the administrative center of the Riebeeckian government compelled General Paul Kruger to hold onto the Austropolis city center for as long as possible, however, his forces were already weary from days of warfare and rations were beginning to wear thin, not to mention that it was becoming increasingly difficult for his forces to be evacuated by blockade runners as the pro-Tuinstra grip on the waters and sky encircling Austropolis tightened. After two grueling days of combat, the city center fell completely into the hands of Otto Bismarck, who proudly toured the office of the Minister of War that he had resided in merely a month prior. Meanwhile, Paul Kruger finally recognized that there was no use wasting lives in the fight for Austropolis now that the city center had been wrestled away and thus led a rapid retreat towards Hout Bay in the south, one of the few areas still accessible to blockade runners, and evacuated the vast majority of his troops from the Ribeeckian capital by the time the sun had set on October 17th, 1859, the closing day of the Battle of Austropolis.
The Battle of Austropolis may have been a blatant defeat for pro-Breckinridge forces, however, the situation of the Riebeeckian Civil War on other frontlines was far from clearly in favor of one belligerent or another. The rapid dissolution of the United Dominion into warring factions had flung the entire national political structure into chaos, perhaps no more so than the armed forces. The bulk of military officers and regiments proclaimed their loyalty to the chancellor recognized by their home province, which both splintered the military chain of command and oftentimes left garrisons stationed in foreign provinces disillusioned with the regime they were ordered to fight for. Desertion was commonplace in the onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War as foot soldiers on both sides protested the makeshift governments commanding them. To make matters even more convoluted, the heavy involvement of militias in the civil war meant that both Riebeeckian Armies were fighting alongside what were effectively independent armed forces. The size and influence of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia in particular made for an awkward balance of power amongst forces fighting for Samuel Breckinridge.
For Breckinridge, the crisis of a disorganized military force was addressed by effectively integrating units of the Riebeeckian National Army loyal to him into the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, which was large enough to rival the size of a conventional military and already possessed a chain of command that had more or less unanimously aligned itself with Breckinridge, which meant that a reorganization of the paramilitary’s leadership was unnecessary. Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge would therefore use his position as the unquestioned leader of the National Cross Party to quickly pass the National Security Act, which adopted the Crusaders of Riebeeckia as the official ground force of his government and placed former forces of the Riebeeckian National Army under the control of the aforementioned Crusaders, on October 15th, 1859. Naval and aerial forces, which were not annexed by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, remained relatively disorganized, however, Samuel Breckinridge would rebuild these military wings over time, and in the immediate onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War, the National Security Act gave Breckinridge an advantage, at least in terms of military organization.
Even while the Battle of Austropolis raged on, Edward J Jackson, Samuel Breckinridge’s Minister of War and the commanding officer of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, began drafting plans for a general strategy of attack. Jackson ultimately determined that the best course of action was a rapid offensive, given that the predominantly agrarian provinces that forged the pro-Breckinridge government were more sparsely populated than those loyal to Tuinstra, and decided that dividing the pro-Tuinstra provinces in half via an offensive into Zomerland with the goal of capturing the coastal Victoria City was the best shot the Crusaders of Riebeeckia had at dealing a quick and crippling blow to pro-Tuinstra forces that would give the Crusaders the opportunity to no longer fight one large united front. Recognizing the economic importance of foreign trade to the southern provinces, Jackson also advised a blockade of the western coastline, hoping to shatter the Liberian and Zomerlander economies in particular. Simply put, Jackson sought to suffocate the pro-Tuinstra provinces as though his armed forces were a python snake encroaching upon its prey, hence why his strategy earned the nickname “Python Plan'' amongst the commanding officers of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia.
The Python Plan was launched from South Holland into Zomerland by General James John Floyd III, a prominent member of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia due to his tenure as a congressman from Binnenland, which made Floyd the few public officials of the national government to be an active member of the paramilitary (Floyd subsequently resigned from his seat in Congress upon being appointed a commanding officer of the Crusaders). This meant that James John Floyd III was a well-known and oftentimes deeply popular military officer amongst the general public, not to mention one with considerable political influence, however, he actually lacked any military experience despite having participated in Crusader training and often commanding the militia as a private security force. Edward J Jackson hoped that General Floyd would listen to his more experienced lower-ranking officers in the Zomerland Offensive, however, this soon proved to not be the case. Floyd’s advance into northeastern Zomerland was much slower than advised, and upon coming into contact with pro-Tuinstra forces at the town of Stinkkuil on October 20th, 1859, General Floyd’s immediate reaction was to set up entrenchments in order to deter an enemy counter-offensive.
The local pro-Tuinstra regiment had prepared for a quick and heavy offensive by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, but Floyd’s concentration on developing trenches and barricades prevented this from being the case, which in turn allowed for pro-Tuinstra forces under the command of Wilhelm Rosecrans, having recently arrived from the Battle of Austropolis, to go on an offensive that, while ultimately more bloody for his soldiers than Floyd’s, nonetheless uprooted the Crusaders from Stinkkuil by the time the sun had set. Going on the retreat into the Karoo semi-desert, James John Floyd III ordered the construction of a long line of trenches to hold back Rosecrans’ army a few miles to the east of Stinkkuil, which ultimately prevented pro-Tuinstra forces from advancing for the time being as a war of attrition broke out and both sides dug trenches, however, the hope of a rapid offensive to Victoria City had been dashed thanks to Floyd’s incompetence, and Edward J Jackson began to recalculate the Python Plan as a strategy that could succeed in the relative long-term as opposed to remaining a quick offensive. As for Floyd, the general’s popularity prevented him from being removed from the chain of command, however, he was placed in control of the substantially less important Bloemfontein Front whereas the Karoo Front, and therefore ground operations of the Python Plan, were placed into the more capable hands of General Braxton Bragg.
Crusaders of Riebeeckia soldiers under the command of General Braxton Bragg inspecting a trench to the east of Stinkkuil, circa November 1859.
In Edwardsland, the offensive into northern Liberia was led by General Robrecht Young, a resident of northeastern Edwardsland who had converted to Calvinism in the early 1820s and spent much of his youth preaching the gospel throughout the predominantly Episcopalian Edwardsland and Liberia. Having gradually been drawn towards ideas of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, Young was attracted to the platform of the National Cross Party and ultimately winded up becoming an early general of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, using his position to enforce the nullification of the Fourth Amendment in NCP-controlled provinces, violently expelling the indigenous Namaqua people of eastern Edwardsland out of their primarily pastoralist communities, and harassing Catholics and non-Christians as a means of intimidation. Young’s brutal militancy combined with his intense religiosity earned him the nickname the “Lion of the Lord '' amongst both followers and opponents, and his experience in paramilitary activities made him an apparent choice for the command of troops upon the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War.
Once the United Dominion collapsed, Young was quickly appointed to command ground forces in the conflict against the ardently pro-Tuinstra and heavily populated Liberia. The Lion of the Lord began his southward campaign upon receiving news of the Battle of Melkbosstrand and managed to quickly overrun the less well-armed pro-Tuinstra regiments at the beginning of the Riebeeckian Civil War. General Young soon became an infamous figure amongst his opponents, who noted his brutal sieges that targeted poorly-defended supply lines and civilian infrastructure in order to reduce the enemy’s capability to wage war, the high civilian casualties of his Autumn Offensive, and the internment of non-white and non-Protestant citizens in makeshift prison camps alongside prisoners of war. The Lion hunted his prey with a harsh ferocity, and anyone who dared to not conform to the National Cross Party’s strict definition of the Riebeeckian national identity was designated as prey.
Robrecht Young’s Autumn Offensive was effective in inflicting heavy casualties, however, its territorial progress was short-lived. After raiding several border settlements, Young arrived at the mouth of the Orange River, which the large port city of Gariepsburgh had been constructed around. The Battle of Gariepsburgh would begin on October 2nd, 1859 as General Young laid siege to the northern boroughs of the city, utilizing fleets of airships to set Gariepsburgh ablaze in what is regarded as history’s first pyrobombardment campaign. Young’s campaign of raining fire down upon Gariepsburgh was brutal, however, the general’s goal was to rob pro-Tuinstra forces of a critical port city, and in this sense, pyrobombardment got the job done. The bulk of Young’s enemies were forced to evacuate a burning city for Gariepsburgh’s surviving boroughs to the south of the Orange River, and those that did remain to fend off against the onslaught of Robrecht Young found themselves dying for a ruined city. Pro-Tuinstra forces had completely retreated from northern Gariepsburgh by October 5th, 1859, at which point General Young reached the shoreline of the Orange River as much of one of Riebeeckia’s largest cities stood scorched behind him.
A depiction of a fire brought about by pyrobombing during the Battle of Gariepsburgh, circa October 1859.
For the time being, however, Young would not progress across the Orange River, which soon became a natural barrier between his own army and that of General Thomas Francis Meagher of New Ireland, a former journalist and veteran of the War of Malacca who had risen through the ranks of the Riebeeckian armed forces since his days fighting against the Kingdom of Mranma. Determined to prevent the establishment of a foothold south of the Orange River by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, General Meagher ordered the destruction of all bridges connecting northern and southern Gariepsburgh, including the famed John Quincy Adams Bridge that had become a famous landmark of the city since its construction in the mid-1840s, on October 6th in a last-ditch effort to contain Robrecht Young’s Autumn Offensive. By making the only means of crossing the Orange River via a boat, Meagher bought precious time to reinforce pro-Tuinstra defenses and created a war of attrition on the Western Front of the Riebeeckian Civil War, however, Young’s campaign of destruction had nonetheless achieved the objective of rendering Gariepsburgh of being incapable of serving as a useful port city and safe entryway to the Orange River, thus inflicting a harsh blow on the economic capacity of pro-Tuinstra provinces.
By the conclusion of October 1859, the Riebeeckian Civil War was largely a stalemate. The Karoo Front remained stagnant as Braxton Bragg continuously attempted to break Wilhelm Rosecrans’ defenses and put the Python Plan into effect whilst Robrecht Young relentlessly laid siege to Thomas Francis Meagher’s forces in southern Gariepsburgh. Naval combat between the two rival Riebeeckian governments was similarly at a standstill, with both sides more or less evenly matched in terms of naval capabilities. Ironically enough, the only frontline that was fluid and in favor of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia was the Bloemfontein Front overseen by the disgraced General James John Floyd III, whose enemy was isolated from the bulk of pro-Tuinstra provinces thanks to Bloemfontein exclusively sharing a border with pro-Breckinridge territory and the neutral Native African kingdoms. Bloemfontein held out for the time being, but General Floyd lurched closer and closer to the capital city, which was the province’s namesake, every week and a small flow of resources to Bloemfontein from Indiana and Zululand meant that the conquest of the home province of Hannibal Tuinstra was seemingly inevitable unless a bordering Native African state intervened soon.
The Riebeeckian Civil War raged on alongside a radically changing political landscape within both belligerent regimes, for neither Breckinridge nor Tuinstra and their respective allies would throw away the opportunity to implement their policy goals within the provinces they governed now that they didn’t have to deal with public officials from each other’s parties getting in the way. While Hannibal Tuinstra found himself dealing with a legislature composed entirely of Revolutionary Burrite congressmen with the exception of merely one moderate Unionist from Indiana, Samuel Breckinridge’s National Cross Party barely held a majority within the Edwardston Congress, with the Unionist Party controlling ten seats compared to the NCP’s thirteen, and the Revolutionary Burrite Party even having one congressman elected from Edwardsland. This presented a challenge for Chancellor Breckinridge, whose fringe goals would have to be navigated through what was still a pluralistic political system. Of course, the power Breckinridge wielded over both the Crusaders of Riebeeckia and the National Cross Party meant that he had all the tools necessary to become the de facto autocrat of his regime.
Very early into the Riebeeckian Civil War, the Edwardston Congress passed three key bills, retroactively titled the Consolidation Acts, which paved the way towards Samuel Breckinridge’s authoritarian rule. The first of the Consolidation Acts banned the Revolutionary Burrite Party and mandated the arrest of its party leadership and elected officials for its “acts of treason against the institutions and provinces of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia”, being voted on and put into effect on October 1st, 1828, thus resulting in the bizarre and sudden arrest of Revolutionary Burrite Congressman Edmund Sturge of Edwardston at his home just after voting against the legislation that criminalized his party. Two days later, labor unions, which had long been affiliated with the Revolutionary Burrites and the Federalists before them, were declared illegal by the Industrial Security Act. On October 6th, the Sedition Act, the final and arguably most pivotal of the Consolidation Acts was passed, which criminalized criticism of the Riebeeckian government, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, which had been upheld by the common law of the United Dominion as a product of its introduction in South Africa by the judiciary of Liberia, and gave the chancellery the unilateral authority to enforce the Sedition Act, be it through directing the Ministry of Policing and local police services or by utilizing the armed forces domestically.
The Sedition Act had been especially controversial in its passage, receiving few votes from Unionists, who feared that the powers the bill conceded to the chancellor would be abused against their own party, but nonetheless making its way through the Edwardston Congress on the basis that a strong executive with the power to purge dissent was necessary during wartime and the more general process of bringing about the Riebeeckian state envisioned in Samuel Breckinridge’s “The Crusade''. After the passage of the Sedition Act, opponents of the bill were soon proven to be correct in their fears. Publications and media critical of the Breckinridge regime were censored and their writers were imprisoned without a trial, those who behaved in contradiction to the puritanical social views of the National Cross Party were often arrested, and local Unionist and independent politicians opposed to the doctrine of the NCP were eventually arrested. The birth of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy was well underway as the liberal democracy forged by Aaron Burr and his compatriots was gradually crushed in northern Riebeeckia and replaced by de facto martial law.
Not even national officials were safe from the wrath of Samuel Breckinridge. The arrest of Congressman Jacobus Groenendal, the leader of the Unionist Party in the Edwardston Congress, on October 17th, 1859 due to his public criticism of the Sedition Act and the integration of pro-Breckinridge military regiments into the Crusaders of Riebeeckia proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the Unionist Party as Breckinridge used the arrest of Groenendal and the subsequent backlash from Unionist officials as an excuse to target the party’s apparatus. In what became nicknamed the Week of the Quiet Coup by media in pro-Tuinstra provinces, Samuel Breckinridge dispatched police services to arrest several Unionist congressmen and provincial government officials with a record of critiquing his most reactionary policies while Unionist ministers in his cabinet were dismissed in favor of loyal National Cross politicians. While all pro-Breckinridge provinces excluding Edwardsland and Antarctica were led by NCP-majority governments, which ensured regional collaboration in the Week of the Quiet Coup, the Unionist Party nonetheless continued boast decent public support, which led Breckinridge to largely censor media coverage of his mass detainment and promote the publication of papers decrying the Unionist Party, often including fabricated scandals and criminal activities conducted by arrested congressmen.
Of the nine Unionist congressmen serving in the Edwardston Congress when the Riebeeckian Civil War began, only four still held office by the end of October 1859 and party leadership had been crippled, therefore transforming the Unionist Party into little more than a token opposition to the National Cross Party. More importantly in terms of the ambitions of Samuel Breckinridge, the National Cross Party had now achieved the two-thirds majority necessary to pass constitutional amendments. Unsurprisingly, this power was quickly exercised by Chancellor Breckenridge, who finally had the opportunity to bring about the Christian theocratic state he had envisioned in “The Crusade'' years prior. Breckinridge introduced a slew of constitutional amendments to the Edwardston Congress throughout November 1859, titling his proposals the Scriptural Amendments. Given Samuel Breckinridge’s resounding authority over the National Cross Party, his Scriptural Amendments gradually passed with ease, being unanimously supported by all NCP congressmen.
While much of the Riebeeckian constitution was technically kept intact, the Scriptural Amendments effectively created a new system of governance and struck out a large chunk of the original constitutional articles, going as far as to rename the pro-Breckinridge United Dominion pretender government to the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation (HDRC), emphasizing with this new name that Riebeeckian state existed for the purpose of enforcing a Protestant theocracy upon its autonomous constituent provinces. The first of Scriptural Amendments stated their goals best with the declaration that the new regime “shall be obligated to defend, enforce, and proliferate the interests of God as outlined by the Protestant denominations of the Christian religion amongst her constituent provinces and inhabitants”. The second of the amendments clarified citizenship and voting rights, affording the former exclusively to native-born Protestants of European descent, thus institutionalizing the ethnic nationalism of the National Cross Party by stripping those who did not fit its narrow definition of a Riebeeckian citizen of basic rights and effectively leaving their fates up to the whim of the state and private interests, whereas the latter category was even more restrictive by only permitting property-owning men to vote.
Flag of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, officially adopted circa January 1860.
On top of repealing various amendments contradictory to the vision of the National Cross Party, the Scriptural Amendments generally focused on the development of a nationalist theocracy ardently committed to the interests of the white economic elite. A legislative and judicial chamber independent of Congress, named the High Court of South Africa in reference to the Medieval High Court of Jerusalem, was established with the purpose of vetoing any legislation on the national or local level incompatible with either the constitution or Protestantism, passing legislation for chancellery approval without consulting Congress, the disqualifying the political candidacy of any individual deemed subversive to the interests of the Holy Dominion, and serving as the highest court in all civil, criminal, and constitutional cases. All members of the High Court were required to be Protestant clergymen who were appointed and recalled by the chancellorship, a position in and of itself automatically reserved one of the fifteen total seats in the assembly. In effect, the High Court of South Africa served as the vanguard of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy through which his reactionary regime would be enforced.
The chancellorship itself was also considerably altered by the Scriptural Amendments, with the position being vested unilateral control over the armed forces and law enforcement, becoming a lifetime position, and being elected by the Congress of South Africa rather than the people. In effect, the chancellorship was transformed into an authoritarian elective monarch whose will faced no checks thanks to the sweeping power of the High Court. Outside of the structure of the national government, the Scriptural Amendments prohibited the government seizure of private property owned by citizens and prohibited the state from owning land beyond what was seized from non-citizens and necessary to carry out government functions (largely interpreted to refer to military bases and government offices). Simply put, the Scriptural Amendments and the establishment of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation amounted to a counter-revolution in the name of the conservative landowning elite against decades of national Riebeeckian policies favoring economic regulation and egalitarianism, and Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge, now a de facto dictator in all but name, was the head of this counter-revolution, a synthesis of extreme laissez-faire economics, white supremacy, and theocratic nationalism.
Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, circa December 1859.
Every counter-revolution needs a revolution to counter, and for the Holy Dominion, this came in the form of the pro-Tuinstra government’s very own dramatic institutional changes. Given the New Richmond Congress’ near-total Revolutionary Burrite composition, Hannibal Tuinstra had no trouble with accomplishing a goal of the RBP since its formation, that being the calling of a new constitutional convention. Some congressmen had feared that such a convention immediately after the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War would prove to be divisive and provide the pro-Breckinridge regime with an excuse to decry its opponent as an illegitimate government, however, the ratification of the Scriptural Amendments and the adoption of a new name altogether Breckinridge’s state largely rendered such fears unwarranted as calls echoed through the halls of the New Richmond Congress to seize the opportunity presented by the rejection of the United Dominion’s institutions. At the behest of Chancellor Tuinstra, the New Richmond Congress would therefore almost unanimously vote on December 2nd, 1859 in favor of assembling a constitutional convention, which was to first convene in the subsequent January.
The pro-Tuinstra government was far from new to reform by the time the Scriptural Amendments had been passed. The Sixth Amendment was repealed on October 20th by the passage of the Seventh Amendment, which both eliminated the restriction on the national government with regards to expanding voting rights and automatically secured inalienable voting rights for all naturally born Riebeeckian adults upon turning twenty-one years of age and for all immigrants to Riebeeckia who had lived in the country for at least seven years, regardless of race, gender, or religion. The Eighth Amendment, which prohibited state institutions from favoring any religious denomination or financing religious organizations, passed shortly thereafter, thus securing accomplishing significant social goals of the RBP with relative ease. The welfare state later championed by Hannibal Tuinstra that began with the passage of the Reconstruction Insurance Act would likewise be expanded within the early months of the Riebeeckian Civil War via the Industrial Mobilization Act of November 3rd, 1859, which established the National Works Administration (NWA) as a public works program intended to rapidly construct wartime resources and equipment while simultaneously serving as a jobs guarantee.
All of these reforms, however, would ultimately be eclipsed by the revolution brought upon by the Austropolis Constitutional Convention. Assembling in the ruined capital of Riebeeckia in an action intended to remind the Holy Dominion that the Tuinstra regime remained in control of the national seat of power, the convention consisted of all twenty-two congressmen in the New Richmond Congress, additional delegates appointed by provincial governments to make their delegations proportional to their percentage of the national population, and, notably, representatives of various Native African tribes scattered throughout pro-Tuinstra provinces. This latter category was particularly important due to the historical exclusion of natives from national and provincial administrations largely dominated by white Ribeeckians, who had forced Native Africans off of their land over decades both through direct conflict (particularly during the colonial history of the Cape of Good Hope) and legislation that often failed to recognize tribal sovereignty over their ancestral territory.
Conventions of representatives from Native African-majority municipal and county governments, effectively the only means of Native African self-governance without the legal recognition of tribes themselves as political entities, were organized along tribal lines and elected delegates to the Austropolis Constitutional Convention throughout December 1859. Upon first convening on January 3rd, 1860, the convention was therefore unprecedented in the history of the Cape of Good Hope in that it was the first of any such body to be made up of both the descendents of settlers and Native Africans. The message being conveyed by the assembly was clear: the new government being conceived by this diverse array of delegates was not merely a continuation of the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, a nation that was ultimately an amalgamation of colonial regimes that had achieved sovereignty. It was instead to be a synthesis of various cultures, ethnicities, and regions, under a single federation, in many ways a rejection of the colonial hierarchy that had been perpetuated since the establishment of the Cape Colony in 1652.
A delegate representing the Zulu nation speaking at the Austropolis Constitutional Convention, circa January 1860.
Some elements of the new constitution were easy to determine. The country’s status as a dominion of the Germanic Empire and recognition of Empress Victoria as its head of state, for example, was politically impossible to eliminate due to the establishment of a republic being borderline inevitable suicide for the Tuinstra goverrnment by being interpreted as treason by Her Majesty and prompting a military response by the Hanoverian Realms on behalf of the Holy Dominion. Therefore, despite some grumblings from a handful of idealists who would’ve liked to do away with Germania’s sway over Riebeeckian foreign affairs and defense commitments to a distant monarch in favor of completely republican system, the convention concluded that their state was to remain a constitutional monarchy under the protection of the House of Hanover.
The structure of the legislature was likewise relatively straightforward to design. A founding principle of the Revolutionary Burrite Party had been the replacement of Ribeeckia’s apportionment system that capped Congressional representation at three seats per province with a method of proportional representation. It was therefore determined that each province would be represented in the New Richmond Congress as a multi-member district whose proportion within the national legislature would be determined by each respective province’s proportion of the national population and whose congressmen would be elected by assigning seats based on the proportion of votes won by each competing party. A new mechanism of recall elections was likewise introduced to not just Congress, but all public offices, by mandating such elections when a third of constituents approved of a recall petition, and in the case of provincial governors and delegations to the national Congress, when a simple majority of a respective province’s local legislature voted in favor of a recall election.
The executive branch of the new Cape government was a bit more contentious to design. The descent of the pro-Breckinridge provinces into autocracy had left a bad taste in the mouth of many delegates to the Austropolis Convention when it came to strong executives, therefore resulting in a wing of the convention pushing for a parliamentary system on the basis that the significant power previously under the control of the chancellery, primarily that of the armed forces, should not be under the control of a single individual for the sake of upholding a democratic system. Conversely, more moderate delegates argued that the presidential system of Riebeeckia ought to be preserved in order to maintain a separation of powers and that a centralized executive branch would ensure a more efficient government, particularly during the current civil war. After much deliberation, however, it was agreed upon, with the blessing of Hannibal Tuinstra, that the executive branch would convert to a parliamentary system where the chancellorship was appointed by the legislature, albeit a parliamentary system with an executive empowered with the position of commander-in-chief of the armed forces as an appeasement to moderate delegates.
In terms of judicial reform, proposals by a coalition of Federalists and a small handful of Revolutionary Burrites for the centralization of the judiciary under a national supreme court were quickly shot down by a strong majority of delegates in favor of preserving the decentralized common law structure of the United Dominion. Judges were, however, required to be democratically elected by the people encompassed by the authority of their courts as a means of ensuring that the judicial process was accountable to public interest as opposed to regional governments. Beyond the structure of the legislature, executive, and judiciary, the outlining of the broad political system of the new constitution came down to some minor additions, such as prohibiting local governments from nullifying the laws of higher administrations so as to prevent a repeat of the Nullification Troubles and the constitutional right for the national government to impose conscription during wartime in a controversial reaffirmation of the Third Amendment of the Riebeeckian constitution, the ratification of which by the Austopolis Convention was largely informed by the present circumstances of Hannibal Tuinstra’s government making conscription incredibly tantalizing.
The Austropolis Convention likewise reiterated the egalitarian amendments upheld by the Revolutionary Burrites and the Federalists before them, simply restating the second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eight amendments to the Riebeeckian constitution, thereby enshrining equal voting rights for all South African adults, campaign finance limits, the right to a free public education, and the separation of church and state within the new document. Riding off of anti-corporate sentiments that were fueled by opposition to the laissez-faire economic doctrine of the Holy Dominion, the Austropolis Convention would actually go a step further than the original Fourth Amendment by outright abolishing the financing of political campaigns by individual contributions and instead established a mechanism of public campaign finance for all political offices, the first of such a system in the world. Under the new constitution, all voting age citizens were allocated a sum of money (determined by national and local legislatures) each year that they could only spend on political campaigns and parties, and it was exclusively through these vouchers that campaigns and parties could accumulate funding for their endeavors.
The most significant elements of the document written and ratified by the Austropolis Convention were undeniably its socio-economic reforms. Unbeknownst to the delegates assembled in the ruined capital city, it was these policies in particular that would ultimately lay the groundwork for much of the Equatorial Commonwealth and go onto define the concept of the modern welfare state up until the Cold War and the radicalization of the world of the early 20th Century. The establishment of strong welfare programs had long been a core tenant of the Revolutionary Burrite platform due to the party’s populistic and working class origins, and as such the convention set about developing a political structure that prioritized the economic well-being of those who it governed. After much debate, the Austropolis Convention passed one of its most significant reforms by constitutionally enshrining the right to healthcare services and nationalizing the entirety of the healthcare industry, which was subsequently placed under the management of the newfound Ministry of Health Services following the ratification of the Austropolis Convention’s constitution.
Largely ratified at the behest of social reformers and military commanders such as Otto Bismarck, who perceived universal healthcare was as an efficient means of both providing for a population devastated by warfare and ensuring national loyalty to the Tuinstra government, the nationalization of health services was merely the beginning of an economic and political system that Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra characterized as Burrite democracy in his writings regarding the Austopolis Convention. Defined as a socially and economically progressive form of liberal democracy that could trace its roots back to the ideology of Aaron Burr (linking the values of the Tuinstra government to those of the Father of Riebeeckia was a blatant move for ideological legitimacy in the civil war), Burrite democracy as an ideology believed that representative administrations were responsible for providing for the well-being, equality, and general social justice of their constituents through economic regulation, the provision of large welfare programs, a mixed economy, and wealth redistribution. This definition of the general views of the Austropolis Convention stuck, and by the time the new constitution was ratified, the pro-Tuinstra provinces would have their own revolutionary ideals to rally behind.
Soon, much of the Indian Ocean would follow suit in the revolution for Burrite democracy.
Beyond universal healthcare, further economic reforms were pursued by the Austropolis Convention that upheld the ideals of Burrtie democracy. The new constitution notably gave public administrations the ability to redistribute wealth and assets, nationalize privately-held assets and industries, and significantly regulate and oversee production within the private sector to a degree that permitted limited economic planning. In terms of labor rights, private sector workers were guaranteed the constitutional right to unionize, participate in striking activities so long as the union’s actions were “lawful and peaceful”, and undergo collective bargaining arrangements with their employer. Two final economic reforms of significance that were implemented by the Austropolis Convention included the constitutional right to social insurance intended to aid the disabled and elderly and a guaranteed minimum income of equal wealth distributed to every adult citizen once every six months, thus accomplishing two policy goals of more radical social progressives since the days of the Age of Enlightenment.
Once the Burrite economic system of the pro-Tuinstra provinces was fully developed, the Austropolis Convention turned to one last issue before ratification, that being the autonomy of Native African nations. Delegate Adam Kok III of the Griqua people would propose an article to the convention that sought to establish the right for each Native African nationality within Riebeeckia to autonomously govern itself as a province within the wider apparatus of state. While provincehood for each tribe within South Africa failed to find support within the halls of the Austropolis Convention, the controversial notion of establishing provinces for Native African communities gradually began to catch on amongst delegates. In the eyes of the socially progressive convention, the introduction of Native African provinces ultimately became critical to casting aside the colonial hierarchies that had persisted in southern Africa since the arrival of Jan Van Riebeeck himself. As such, while the establishment of new provinces was deemed outside of the jurisdiction of the Austropolis Convention, delegates nonetheless crafted a collection of legislation that would see the provinces of Khoikhoi, Griqualand, West Zululand, and Molopo be admitted into the pro-Tuinstra government by the legislators present at the convention and extended the invitation of provincehood to any tribe within pro-Breckinridge territory that aligned itself with the New Richmond Congress during the Riebeeckian Civil War.
To symbolize this transition of the pro-Tuinstra government away from the historical domination of the Cape of Good Hope by settler colonial regimes and towards a federation of settler and native communities, the Austropolis Convention concluded their work by deciding that a new name was needed, given that the identity of Riebeeckia as a direct descendent of the preceding Dutch colonial regime was to be abandoned. After much deliberation, the Austropolis Convention determined that the name of their new Burrite democracy was to be the United Provinces of Azania, and this new nation was officially brought into existence upon the ratification of her constitution by the Austropolis Convention on February 8th, 1860. The United Provinces of Azania now stood in direct contrast to the ideals of the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, with both states being determined to bring about their vision of a new South African government to the entirety of the now-dead United Dominion. In the north, the banner of Samuel Breckinridge’s theocracy flew, whilst in the south, Burrites hoisted the banner of their new union of Azania.
Flag of the United Provinces of Azania, officially adopted circa March 1860.
Following the formation of the United Provinces, the New Richmond Congress quickly set about re-electing Hannibal Tuinstra to the chancellorship under the new parliamentary system of their regime while the politicians of the Holy Dominion decried the Azanian state as a betrayal and fundamental threat against the Riebeeckian way of life. Watching from afar in the chambers of Hanover, the Germanic Empire maintained a position of neutrality throughout the Riebeeckian Civil War, recognizing that both factions were openly loyal to the crown of Her Majesty Empress Victoria and regarding intervention on the Cape of Good Hope as bad for commercial interests in the region, although this wasn’t to say that there were not those in Germania who favored one belligerent over the other. Speaker of the House of Commons Heinrich von Gagern, while not advocating for military intervention on behalf of one faction or the other, decried the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation as a vile backlash against the liberalization that had swept both Europe and the wider world for the past century and futilely attempted to get the Germanian state to recognize Azania as the legitimate South African domain of Victoria in the face of backlash from the conservative Imperial Union Party and nobility.
In what was both a compromise between supporters of Tuinstra and Breckinridge and a means to protect Germania’s economic interests in South Africa, the Bundesrat passed the Neutrality Act on November 1st, 1859, which stated that the Germanic Empire would not officially favor one South African government over the other so long as both regimes upheld the United Dominion of Riebeeckia’s commitments to the House of Hanover and did not interfere in the Hanoverian Realms trading with either government. The legislation also notably allowed for Germanian citizens to finance and fight on behalf of factions in the Riebeeckian Civil War as volunteers, an element of the bill that revolutionaries and reactionaries alike took advantage of. Facing the prospect of a world power, her colonies, and the mighty dominion of the Kingdom of India intervening on behalf of their enemy, both Tuinstra and Breckinridge had little choice but to respect the Neutrality Act, and an awkward situation emerged where merchants from Amsterdam found themselves trading with businesses in Edwardston only to sail south past a warzone to trade with the Edwardston capitalist’s enemy down in Zomerstadt.
Going into the winter and subsequent spring of 1860, the frontline between Azanian and Confederate forces began to become fluid yet again. 1859 was closed out with the Battle of Moses City, a brutal siege that lasted several weeks. Encircled on all sides by the pro-Breckinridge province of Noordelijk, the Moses City Territory had nonetheless remained loyal to Hannibal Tuinstra due to its history as a bastion of progressivism and racial equality despite its location in an otherwise socially conservative stronghold of Riebeeckia. Moses’ isolation from other territory under the control of the Revolutionary Burrite Party meant that its occupation was inevitable, however, the city’s ethnic makeup being primarily of Gullahs and other freedmen from the Americas meant that capitulation to the reactionary Breckinridge regime was an impossibility. With limited defenses, the Moses City Territory would live on borrowed time, hoping that the emerging Riebeeckian Civil War would be a brief conflict.
An army of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia under the command of General Stephanus Schoeman, a War of Malacca veteran-turned-fiery statesman who had served in the Noordelijk provincial legislature before resigning to return to military service upon the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War began besieging the outermost defenses of Moses City on October 19th, 1859, a little over a month following the outbreak of the wider conflict once it became clear that naval blockades weren’t enough to bring Moses to its knees. Given that the Battle of Moses City was far from a priority of a government waging a much larger conflict in its south, General Schoeman’s army was considerably smaller than anything Tuinstra regimes were facing on the main frontlines of the Riebeeckian Civil War were forcing, but even so, Moses City’s ability to hold out for several months against a relentless invading force boasting much greater manpower was an impressive feat. Much of Moses City was burning by the end of October alone, however, the guardians of the ruined City of Emancipation continued to hold out for another two months.
Having earned a reputation as a destination for freed slaves throughout the world since its establishment in 1837, Moses City and its struggle against the Crusaders of Riebeeckia particularly resonated with the global community, and abolitionist groups in the Americas were especially keen on raising funds to aid in the defense of Moses. Prime Minister Benjamin Lloyd Garrison of the Federated Republic of Albionora, already a vocal critic of the political reaction of Samuel Breckinridge and the National Cross Party, decried the indiscriminate carnage of the Crusaders in the Battle of Moses City as a “blatant confirmation to the world of the Edwardston regime’s fondness for the most evil institution known to man, a manifesto transcribed in blood and fire”, and not only officially recognized Hannibal Tuinstra’s government as the legitimate regime in Riebeeckia, but also passed the so-called South Africa Act through the Parliament of Albionora circa late November 1859, which lended resources, military equipment, and humanitarian aid to the pro-Tuinstra government. Meanwhile, various privateer fleets mostly assembled by Albionorians and Columbians but also notably consisting of Germanians, Brazilians, Peruvians, and Kongolese fought against the blockade of Moses City upon the waves of the Atlantic Ocean whereas volunteer militias rode aboard these fleets with the hope that they would step foot in the burning city to fend off its destruction.
Even a coalition of sympathetic movements throughout the Western world could not, however, protect Moses City from its ultimate defeat. Supplies to and within the urban center would eventually run thin, the Crusaders made progress into Moses’ interior day by day, and pyrobombing was introduced to the Battle of Moses City by Stephanus Schoeman’s forces in late November 1859, all indicating that Jack Pritchard’s dream of a city for the freed Gullah people was coming to a brutal end. It was within these closing days of the Battle of Moses City that Araminta Ross, a former slave from Virginia who had been freed during the purchase and subsequent emancipation of North American slaves by Jack Pritchard and his colleagues in the 1830s, rose to prominence as a soldier within the army defending Moses City. Having taken up arms in the Riebeeckian Civil War upon the beginning of the battle for her home city, Ross had endured the entirety of the brutal siege and had risen through the ranks of local forces due to her tactical insight, being a lieutenant by the dawn of December 1859.
After the Crusaders of Riebeeckia broke through the final line of defenses in the city on December 9th, 1859, Governor-General David Hunter ordered the complete withdrawal and evacuation of pro-Tuinstra forces from the northernmost battlefield in the Riebeeckian Civil War. Citizens and soldiers alike quickly rushed to warships over the coming week in a desperate scramble to flee the Holy Dominion’s wrath, with many of these ships ultimately sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at the hands of Confederate cannons, however, Lieutenant Ross made it clear to her superiors that she refused to leave Moses City until the last evacuating ship carrying civilians had escaped the ports of northern Riebeeckia. On December 12th, 1859, in a last ditch effort to buy the evacuation some extra time, Lieutenant Araminta Ross led a raid on a Crusader battalion to the north of Moses’ port, and despite her forces sustaining heavy casualties in the face of her enemy’s organ guns, Ross nonetheless managed to not only deter the encroaching offensive to her north, but ultimately push it back a handful of ruined city blocks, thus temporarily halting Schoeman’s offensive for a few days. The story of a successful counter-offensive by a former slave in Moses City, a manuever that was credited for critically keeping the territory’s port in pro-Tuinstra hands for two additional weeks as the last civilian ships fled the scene, was widely circulated throughout southern Riebeeckia and Araminta Ross was greeted as a national hero upon arriving in New Richmond on December 26th with a pivotal career in the coming war ahead of her.
A sketch of Araminta Ross following the Battle of Moses City, circa January 1860.
Of course, not even the bold actions of Ross could save Moses City from its conquest, and mere hours after the last pro-Tuinstra warship left the metropolis’ harbors, General Schoeman finally declared victory in the Battle of Moses City on December 24th, 1859. Under decree from Chancellor Samuel Breckinridge, the occupied Moses City Territory was subsequently absorbed into the province of Noordelijk, undoing what the National Cross Party largely regarded as an unjust theft of land from white Noordelijk landowners back in 1837. Under the supervision of General Schoeman, the Noordelijk provincial government would undertake a campaign of brutal ethnic cleansing in the occupied Moses City, hoping to wipe out a northern stronghold of egalitarian thought in Riebeeckia and arguably a physical symbol of the Revolutionary Burrite Party’s ideals. Black civilians unable to escape Moses City were forcibly removed from their homes, and the vast majority of these civilians were relocated to prisoner of war camps due to the Holy Dominion lacking any alternative institution for such a large population, where conditions were remarkably inhumane. In the aftermath of what southern newspapers condemned as the “Eradication of Moses City'', the municipality was renamed to Samuelston in honor of the Confederate chancellor and was opened to settlement by white Protestant families.
The aftermath of the Battle of Moses City was marked by more strategically significant advancements by the Holy Dominion on various frontlines, with January and February seeing the continued defeat of pro-Tuinstra forces in Bloemfontein (and later Griqualand following the formation of said province), who remained the victims of isolation from allied territories. The newly-founded Griqualand administration fell prior to Bloemfontein itself, and while establishment of sovereignty for the Griqua people created a brief setback for James John Floyd III’s advance by allowing for better self-management of local defenses, the fact of the matter was that much of Griqualand’s recognized territory had already been occupied by the Crusaders of Riebeeckia well before the province’s creation. The Battle of Philippolis on February 17th, 1860, only a little more than a week following the official formation of the United Provinces of Azania, marked the last stand for Griqualand as the Azanian National Army (ANA) held out in the province’s besieged capital. It was, however, seemingly an inevitability that the Crusaders would emerge victorious in the Battle of Philippolis, given that the Azanian forces were outnumbered, running short on military equipment, and on the brink of starvation. It was therefore no surprise when the Confederate flag of crimson, white, and black was flying over a burning Philippolis by the end of the day while provisional Governor Adam Kok III of Griqualand had fled to the city of Bloemfontein to administer a provincial government-in-exile.
It would not be much long after Kok’s evacuation that Bloemfontein itself fell under Confederate occupation. Having been unable to adequately resupply itself since the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War, the home province of Hannibal Tuinstra was living on borrowed time. Demoralized ANA regiments had become dependent on constant conscription and collaboration with local paramilitaries in order to keep their operations afloat whereas civilians had grown disgruntled with a collapsing war economy, where basic needs for working-class Bloemfonteinians were increasingly difficult to come by. The Azanians managed to put up a strong fight against General Floyd’s army at the Battle of Bloemfontein, which started with a small raid on the city’s outskirts on February 26th, 1860, however, much like at Philippolis, a Confederate victory was inevitable. The infamously slow and cautious tactics of James John Floyd III meant that the Battle of Bloemfontein was an engagement much more protracted than necessary, however, after three days of combat, the Crusaders of Riebeeckia had decisively uprooted the ANA from the last major city within the Bloemfontein and Griqualand provinces on February 29th, 1860.
With their significant settlements completely lost to the Holy Dominion, the defense of Bloemfontein and Griqualand was regarded to be a lost cause by the Azanian high command going into March 1860, and the vast majority of ANA soldiers on the Bloemfontein Front were forced into capitulation and became prisoners of war. Other regiments managed to awkwardly sneak their way through the Native African kingdoms of southern Africa to other Azanian territory whilst a handful of bold forces stayed behind, hiding in the wilderness and rural landscape of Bloemfontein and Griqualand to operate as a patchwork of guerrilla militias, who media ultimately nicknamed Bushwhackers. With activities ranging from the sabotage of Crusader supply lines to rapid, and oftentimes brutal, raids on settlements occupied by Confederate forces, the Bushwhackers soon gained the reputation of terrorists amongst the citizenry of the Holy Dominion and a cloud of controversy as to whether or not they were outlaws to be feared or heroes to be adored amongst the citizenry of Azania.
Three Bushwhackers who were active in Confederate-occupied Bloemfontein, circa May 1860.
The conquest of Bloemfontein and Griqualand in turn provided for the reallocation of the Bloemfontein Front’s resources to the much more pivotal Western and Karoo frontlines. These reinforcements were not substantial, and Azanian defenses in Gariepsburgh were too substantial to give Robrecht Young an opportunity to advance over the Orange River, however, they were enough to give way to a brief gain in territory into Zomerland by General Braxton Bragg. The so-called April Offensive saw Bragg lead a rapid assault against Wilhelm Rosecrans through the Great Karoo, bringing the agrarian half of the Zomerland under Confederate rule by the end of the month, however, this quick success was not to last. General Bragg, for all of the admiration he won from Samuel Breckinridge and Edward J Jackson for his progress in pursuing the Python Plan, lacked in his post-battle follow-up strategies and imaginative combat tactics. This left Confederate occupied territory in the Great Karoo vulnerable to its north and south while supply lines increasingly ran thin as Bragg’s army encompassed a larger and larger swath of land.
More importantly, the odds were beginning to be stacked against the Holy Dominion in general. The simple fact of the matter was that the United Provinces of Azania boasted a larger population and industrial capacity than the more agrarian Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, and while pro-Tuinstra armed forces had been relatively disorganized at the onset of the Riebeeckian Civil War thanks to the lack of any equivalent to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia for its military apparatus to be integrated within, these issues had long since been resolved, especially with the formation of the United Provinces. This, combined with the conscription of thousands of young Azanian men into the ANA meant that the Burrite revolution had the capacity to defeat its reactionary opponent through demographic advantages alone. The window for the quick victory the HDRC required to emerge victorious in the Riebeeckian Civil War had arguably elapsed by April 1860, and the tacticians in New Richmond insisted to Chancellor Tuinstra that, so long as the Azanian state continued to relentlessly focus on defeating the Holy Dominion, victory was only a matter of time.
In the short term, this meant the complete undoing of the April Offensive’s victories. While smaller armies chipped away at Confederate territory from the north and southeast, a growing force commanded by General Rosecrans took it upon itself to lead a counteroffensive towards South Holland in May 1860. Over the span of said month, Bragg saw the conquests he had become so famed for throughout the Holy Dominion undone by the organ guns of Rosecrans’ increasingly large army while his own forces found it increasingly difficult to make up for losses. Rosecrans would first enter South Holland on May 25th, 1860 upon emerging victorious in conquering the small border town of Williamstadt in the southwestern reaches of the province, thus marking the first incursion of the ANA into a Confederate province. Going into the subsequent June, the roles of Rosecrans and Bragg had clearly reversed from where they were just two months prior, with the former leading a rapid offensive into a province defended by the latter, and without a significant shift in the situation of the wider Riebeeckian Civil War, this would be where their roles would remain situated.
To make matters worse for the Holy Dominion, as Wilhelm Rosecrans led his invasion into South Holland, the Iron General prepared to make his next move during the dawn of the summer of 1860. Having mainly served as an armchair general since his victory at the Battle of Austropolis who divided his time between overseeing the overall tactics on the various frontlines of the Riebeeckian Civil War and serving as an indispensable advisor to Chancellor Tuinstra’s government as its Minister of War, the famed Otto Bismarck gradually took notice of an exposed underbelly in Confederate defenses along the border of New Hanover and Binnenland. Both provinces’ boundary with Azania was primarily sparsely-populated rural territory, and as the Holy Dominion focused on its push along the western coastline and into Zomerland in accordance with the Python Plan while pro-Tuinstra forces had concentrated their efforts on defending against these advances, the agrarian region had been ignored. But now that the Crusaders were on the run, General Bismarck wagered that a well-armed offensive by Azanian forces along the Nossob River would at least divert significant resources away from Robrecht Young’s efforts on the Western Front and, at best, provide a long term launching pad for an Azanian invasion into the heart of Confederate territory.
Therefore, with permission from Hannibal Tuinstra, the Azanian Minister of War left from New Richmond to the newly-established Molopo province of the Nama people with an army equipped with road locomotives and steam-powered elephas to push along the coastline of the Nossob River into southeastern New Hanover. Bismarck’s calculation that local battalions guarding the rural outskirts of the Holy Dominion would be greatly overwhelmed by his mechanized force of armored infantry proved to be precisely correct, and starting on June 10th, 1860 with the Battle of Bokspits, the Nossob Offensive proved to be a resounding success. The Azanian National Army rapidly covered a considerable chunk of territory as its metal beasts of the Industrial Revolution rampaged over Confederate farmland, with Bismarck arriving at the confluence of the Auob River and the Nossob River on June 22nd, within a little less than two weeks since the start of his groundbreaking offensive.
General Otto Bismarck mounted on a horse outside of a farmhouse seized by the Azanian National Army, circa June 1860.
The Nossob Offensive was sure to be the kick in the Confederate stomach needed by the United Provinces to bring a swift conclusion to the Riebeeckian Civil War. Wilhelm Rosecrans continued his campaign into South Holland, slowly but surely chipping away at the defenses of General Braxton Bragg, while Thomas Francis Meagher held his own on the Western Front against Robrecht Young, who was being pressured by his superiors to reallocate forces to Bismarck’s Molopo Front, in turn weakening the Crusaders’ holdout in northern Gariepsburgh. Day by day, the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation was being pushed ever closer to the brink of a total collapse in its defenses at the hands of her enemy. Word began to spread through the streets of New Richmond and Edwardston alike that all of Riebeeckia would be brought under the banner of the United Provinces by the end of the year, and while military officers generally refrained from making such bold predictions, not even they could avoid the whispers that the arsenal of Burrite democracy would soon be parading through the streets of Edwardston.
Of course, the Riebeeckian Civil War was not to be such a simple conflict. This was not merely a typical civil war, but rather the prelude to a wider conflict spanning the entirety of the Indian Ocean and the great powers of her waves. Unbeknownst at the time, the Austropolis Convention and its development of Burrite ideals had fermented the seeds of revolution well beyond the borders of the fallen United Dominion. In the Kingdom of India, elites and the masses alike debated both the militaristic and philosophical developments emerging from their fellow Hanoverian Realm, bolstering a fledgling movement for liberalization within a mighty empire in its own right. In the Native African kingdoms, once protectorates of Riebeeckia that had since clung onto a policy of neutrality during their former guardian’s civil war, radicals latched onto the ideology of Burrite democracy in protest of the absolutist rule of their various monarchs in a hope to export Hannibal Tuinstra’s revolution abroad. And in the Mutapa Empire, Mwene Changamire Chatunga watched the Azanian revolutionary tide in abject fear of international proliferation while cozying up to the idea of collaboration with the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, a fellow Protestant theocracy.
No, the Riebeeckian Civil War was not destined to conclude in 1860. On both the battlefield and in the chambers of politicking, the heirs to the throne of Aaron Burr’s federation had unleashed what would ultimately develop into the wider Equatorial Revolutionary War as the various monarchies of the Indian Ocean watched in anticipation. Burrite democracy and Samuel Breckinridge’s had already been quietly consolidating allies throughout the wider world, and it was unknowingly only a matter of time until the first domino was toppled in a chain of events that were to pull the entire region into the fiery conflict between revolutionary progressivism and counterrevolutionary theocracy. Soon, the Riebeeckian Civil War was to be overshadowed by a much more grand and important Equatorial Revolutionary War that was to encompass hundreds of millions of lives and permanently define the course of human history. And where, you may inquire, was this first domino to descend? It subtly began to fall in the streets of Nxuba, the capital of the Xhosa Federation.
Hey everyone! After managing to squeeze in work on this chapter between my job, schoolwork, and college applications, I'm really excited to finally bring you the latest update to Dreams of Liberty, this time delving into a conflict I've been looking forward to writing about for years! The Equatorial Revolutionary War has been a concept I've been playing around with and hinting at almost since the beginning of this TL, and it's certainly rewarding to finally put share its concepts with you all. This first chapter in the war's arc mainly focuses on the instigating conflict and ideologies, but my hope is that the ERW will expand into an ever-more interesting war to read about.
Either way, thank you so much for your patience as I spent the last few months on this chapter, and I hope you'll join reading about the Equatorial Revolutionary War as much as I've enjoyed developing it.
Either way, thank you so much for your patience as I spent the last few months on this chapter, and I hope you'll join reading about the Equatorial Revolutionary War as much as I've enjoyed developing it.
Azania and the Holy Dominion just speed-ran WW1 doctrine developemt by fighting an ACW-equivalent in the jungles and deserts of Africa, with all the brutality that implies, and it is only the beginning? This is going to be a bloody timeline alright. But Burrite Democracy seems it is indeed a blessed thing, and if its light will truly shine across the equator at the end of all this fighting, it will be worth it. I am looking forwards to seeing just how the war escalates.
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Chapter Thirty-Four: Revolution and Reaction
Chapter Thirty-Four: Revolution and Reaction
How did a civil war confined to the southernmost empire of the African continent escalate into a revolution whose fires would burn throughout the Indian Ocean? The answer layed not upon the battlefields of the Karoo Front, nor in the halls of Mwene Changamire Chatunga’s palace, nor in the streets of Mysore. These were all crucial stages upon which the epic of the Equatorial Revolutionary War was to be performed, however, the embers of the Riebeeckian Civil War were first proliferated internationally via the much smaller Xhosa Federation. The largest and wealthiest of the Native African protectorates of the United Dominion, the Xhosa had, like Austropolis’ four other protectorates, declared their neutrality in the Riebeeckian Civil War upon the outbreak of the conflict, thereby becoming a de facto independent state. Both Breckinridge and Tuinstra were frustrated by the loss of the five protectorates, however, it would be foolhardy to wage a military campaign with the goal of reasserting control over the protectorates and open up yet another frontline of the Riebeeckian Civil War in the process.
Of the five Native African protectorates, it was perhaps Xhosa that was the most unique. A de facto successor to the previous Xhosa Kingdom, the Federation, formed in 1820, was the sole protectorate to possess a constitution and had roughly modeled itself off of the system of governance of the Dutch Republic. Under the 1820 constitution, the Xhosa state was effectively a confederacy of constituent kingdoms and chiefdoms who were each assigned a single vote within the States-General, the national legislature that was responsible for maintaining foreign affairs (after becoming a protectorate of the Dutch and later Riebeeckians, this meant little beyond overseeing diplomacy with their protectors), the armed forces, taxation and economic regulation, and the subsidization of internal improvements. This meant that, unlike its contemporaries, the Xhosa Federation was clearly not a unitary state and left the bulk of day to day governance to its constituent kingdoms while the national States-General largely confined its responsibilities to infrastructure program and commercial interests as its protectors took over the oversight of the military and foreign affairs.
On paper, the constituent kingdoms of the Xhosa Federation were equal in terms of representation and power within the States-General. In practice, however, power was clearly concentrated within the reigning monarch of the Xhosa Kingdom, the most influential constituent kingdom, who wielded the de facto capability of appointing twelve delegations to the States-General due to both the Xhosa Kingdom itself and its eleven sub-chieftaincies all being awarded separate representation. This gave the Xhosa nearly double the amount of votes of the other six kingdoms of the Federation put together, and as such, King Hintsa kaKhawuta of the Xhosa was elected to be the first stadtholder, the head of the Federation who held their position for life, in 1820 by a bloc of representatives in the States-General accountable directly to himself. After the death of Hintsa in 1849, the stadtholderate was again filled by the Xhosa king, Sarili kaHintsa, who would rule over the Xhosa Federation by the time of the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War in September 1859.
Stadtholder Sarili kaHintsa of the Xhosa Federation.
A skilled diplomat and fierce Xhosa nationalist, Sarili was interested in taking advantage of the circumstances brought forth by the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War. While the other Native African protectorates merely declared their neutrality in the conflict, insisting that they would recognize the legitimacy of the victorious faction and presumably return to the status of protection following its conclusion, Stadtholder Sarili declared the Xhosa Federation an independent nation on October 6th, 1859, knowing that neither Tuinstra nor Breckenridge would be willing to attack the Xhosa whilst facing tenuous circumstances on the frontline of the Riebeeckian Civil War, and began an immediate military buildup of the Xhosa States Army (XSA), which had largely been a miniscule force since the conclusion of the Cape Revolutionary War. Within the early months of the Riebeeckian Civil War, hundreds of young Xhosa men were conscripted into the armed forces, ensuring that an invasion of the Xhosa Federation was an even more ridiculous idea.
In terms of foreign affairs, Sarili was keen on maintaining the mercantile strength of his confederacy. Since the Treaty of Dananombe’s ratification in 1821, the Xhosa Federation had benefited considerably in terms of economic growth from its relationship with the Hanoverian Realms by serving as the site of a key port city, eMonti, where many of the regulations of the United Dominion did not apply, thereby making its services generally cheaper. For similar reasons, the Xhosa Federation served as a haven for many wealthy Riebeeckian industrialists due to the worker protections of the UDR largely not applying to the Native African protectorates outside of taxation, and given that the Xhosa were the most economically successful and interconnected of the protectorates, it was the obvious choice for entrepreneurs seeking cheap and exploitable labor. The Federation was still largely an agrarian state by 1859, however, plenty of factories had sprouted up in its largest cities, and the exportation of manufactured goods to Riebeeckia had become a crucial source of economic growth, so much so that many nobles, including Sarili himself, had purchased factories of their own. Therefore, content with its economic status, the Xhosa Federation under Sarili did not impose any protectionist measures on trade with either Riebeeckian government despite its declaration of independence, serving as a neutral dealer with both regimes.
Of course, while the Xhosa Federation’s lack of worker protections had brought considerable profit to the hands of its aristocratic elite and the wealthy white plutocrats of Riebeeckia who had set up shop within the country to take advantage of its more laissez-faire economic approach, it was a miserable place to reside for its working class. By the 1850s, the capital city of Nxuba was filled with shanty corporate towns, where workers and their families seeking the opportunities of industrial production were crammed into horrifically unsanitary conditions and wasted their lives away in deadly factories for disgustingly low wages. The laissez-faire economy of the Xhosa Federation and the other Native African protectorates, for that matter, was the dark underbelly of the relatively egalitarian economic standards (at least for the time) of the United Dominion, serving as one of the country’s economic drivers where the wealthy elite could escape the defense of the working class and have their interests be protected by unaccountable absolute monarchs. This economic exploitation was not escaped by the agricultural workforce of Xhosaland, who still made up a majority of the country’s population, due to wealthy Riebeeckian interests purchasing several acres of farmland and forcing most farmers into feudalistic sharecropping arrangements with Riebeeckian landowners by 1859.
The heightened socioeconomic inequality and worsening working conditions throughout the Xhosa Federation understandably spurred frustration amongst the national populace, an outrage that was further fueled by the Great Panic of 1852 plunging Xhosaland into a recession and the arrival of radical political ideals in the country. Despite being criminalized, labor unions were first sporadically organized by the Xhosa working class in the early 1850s, largely in response to mass layoffs and collapsing wages during the Decade of Despair, and calls for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, if not an outright republic, increasingly echoed throughout the streets of Nxuba during this time period. There was no advocate for social reform more vocal than Jongumsobomvu Moqoma, the famed general of the Xhosa States Army. Having been born to Chief Ngqika of the Rharhabe in 1798 and later becoming the cousin of Sarili kaHintsa, Maqoma’s military career was older than the United Dominion, having first served as an officer of the Xhosa Federation in the Zulu War of the early 1820s. By the time the Cape Revolutionary War broke out, Maqoma had risen through the ranks of the XSA to be its most senior general, second in command only to Stadtholder Hintsa himself.
Maqoma made a name for himself, both within the Xhosa Federation and the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, during the Cape Revolutionary War as a cunning and fierce commander, not to mention a critical force in the Riebeeckian conquest of United East India Company holdings along the Cape of Good Hope. General Maqoma returned home to Xhosaland as a national hero of both his own country and Riebeeckia, his name being celebrated alongside the likes of Wilfried Harrison, at least amongst less Eurocentric crowds. Going into the 1830s, however, Maqoma became increasingly disturbed with the takeover of the Xhosa economy by Riebeeckian elites, decrying the practice as the cession of economic sovereignty to a foreign imperialist power, and abdicated from the Right Hand House of the Xhosa Kingdom circa 1833 in protest while still remaining as the commanding officer of the Xhosa States Army.
Over the coming decades, General Maqoma came to perceive the Xhosa aristocracy as not just incapable of resisting Riebeeckian economic imperialism, but actively collaborating with it to advance their own personal financial interests. Maqoma considered the Xhosa elite to be willingly selling out national sovereignty to the United Dominion, and to the nationalistic general, this was paramount to treason and fueled anti-monarchist sentiments within him. As both a deeply popular war hero and advocate for progressive land reform and democratization, Maqoma became more popular amongst the Xhosa masses than the stadtholder himself, earning the image as a champion for the country’s emerging working class. The Xhosa Federation was brought into the War of Malacca in May 1844 following the Mranmese attack on Hanoverian East India Company holdings in Southeast Asia, and with the outbreak of conflict, General Maqoma went out to fight yet again, this time in the Malay Archipelago. His criticisms of Xhosaland’s relationship with Riebeeckia over the past decade prevented Chancellor Andries Potgieger from assigning Maqoma the command of anything beyond the meager Xhosa presence in the War of Malacca, however, Maqoma nonetheless performed well and returned home with even more popularity and resentment towards his country’s relationship with the United Dominion.
Maqoma’s reformist stances meant that he was not considered by the States General as a candidate in the 1849 stadtholderate election, and the new Xhosa head of state, Sarili kaHintsa, perceived the general (perhaps correctly) as a threat to his control over the Federation. Maqoma’s popularity amongst the public and loyalty within the XSA meant that removing him from his command post was risky for Sarili, but this didn’t stop him from appointing more lower-ranking officers loyal to him and his political views, being more publicly critical of Maqoma, and exercising more control over the armed forces than his father in an attempt to curb the general’s influence. The rivalry between Sarili and Maqoma for the loyalty of the XSA was a delicate game, and one that only made the two most powerful men within the Xhosa Federation increasingly adversarial, dividing the country in the process. Sarili was viewed as a more assertive stadtholder than Hintsa by the Xhosa aristocracy whereas Maqoma was viewed ever increasingly as a vanguard of the masses against a corrupt nobility by the Xhosa people.
The Great Panic of 1852 and the ensuing economic calamity in the Xhosa Federation was what ultimately pushed General Maqoma into radicalism. The unwillingness of Sarili and the States General to relieve the economic suffering of their people mixed with a seemingly greater interest amongst elites to protect their own financial interests via cutting taxes for Xhosaland’s wealthiest was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Maqoma. He no longer viewed the country’s aristocracy as merely unaccountable to the interests of the public, but deeply corrupt and working against the interests of the Xhosa nation, which led the general, once an aristocrat himself, to declare himself committed to the ideals of liberal republicanism in an impassioned speech to a crowd of thousands of workers and farmers alike in Nxuba circa August 1853. Maqoma would go on to attend the founding Zomerstadt Convention of the Revolutionary Burrite Party in the following fall, advocating to no avail for the party to adopt the position of granting the Native African protectorates independence as Burrite republics, and nonetheless returned to Xhosaland as a vocal proponent of the political ideology of Burrite democracy.
By this point, removing Maqoma from the armed forces on Stadtholder Sarili’s part would risk instigating a civil war between the Xhosa aristocratic ruling class and the general’s following of embittered populistic republicans, which meant that the Xhosa military was divided between absolute monarchists on one side and Burrite republicans on the other, with no clear resolution to the internal strife. While the United Dominion was waltzing towards its civil war throughout the 1850s, so too was the Xhosa Federation unknowingly descending towards armed confrontation. The Riebeeckian Civil War was in and of itself the spark that would ignite the flames of revolution within Xhosaland, for the declaration of the United Provinces of Azania in February 1860 was viewed by General Maqoma and his fellow republicans as a Burrtie revolution, one that ought to be replicated domestically.
Taking advantage of the groundswell in enthusiasm for the establishment of a Burrite republic in Xhosaland, particularly amongst the urban working class, following the ratification of the constitution of the UPA, Maqoma publicly called upon the workers of the Xhosa Federation via widely distributed pamphlets on March 20th, 1860 to initiate a nationwide general strike with the objective of grinding the national economy to a halt until the States General would capitulate the apparatus of state to the Xhosa States Army. Within a matter of days, independent workers and criminalized unions alike took to Maqoma’s call to action and hundreds of thousands of laborers refused to show up to work until the States General and stadtholder abdicated their rule to the military. In many instances, strikes turned violent due to local police and private security forces attacking protesting workers, however, with the armed forces largely under the control of Maqoma, the military did not interfere outside of a handful of regiments under the command of officers loyal to Sarili kaHintsa, and more often than not, rank and file soldiers actually joined the protesting working class.
The instigation of such internal instability and subsequent refusal to combat the strike was the straw that broke the camel’s back regarding the relationship between Sarili and Maqoma. On April 1st, 1860, Stadtholder Sarili dismissed General Maqoma from service within the Xhosa States Army, however, Maqoma publicly refused to step down from his position, decrying Sarili’s as illegitimate in the eyes of the people. Sarili never had the opportunity to arrest Maqoma for his disobedience. On April 3rd, 1860, General Maqoma, still recognized as the rightful commander of the Xhosa States Army by the bulk of his officers, converged the army upon Nxuba and marched through the capital city towards the stadtholder’s palace and Inner Court, the chamber of assembly for the States General, with the intent of deposing the confederal elective monarchy of the Xhosa Federation. Much of Nxuba’s own workforce enthusiastically joined Maqoma’s putsch upon realizing what was occurring. With the city encircled, there was no escape for the Xhosa regime, and within hours, both Sarili kaHintsa and the entirety of the States General had been arrested by the XSA. On the morning of the following day, to a crowd of citizens, Sarili announced his abdication from both the Xhosa Federation stadtholderate of the and Xhosa Kingdom monarchy, placing both institutions under the administration of Maqoma and the Xhosa States Army.
Reigning as the de facto military autocrat of the Xhosa Federation, Maqoma spent the following weeks leading the XSA to the capitals of the Federation’s constituent kingdoms and chieftaincies with the goal of bringing the entirety of Xhosaland under his direct rule before local nobility could amass the force necessary to wage a civil war against his provisional government. With the vast majority of the armed forces loyal to Maqoma, the general experienced little resistance in his campaigns, with the Bhaca Kingdom being the last constituent nation to submit to his rule on April 19th, 1860 after its King Diko kaNcapayi fled to exile in Basutoland. With the Xhosa Federation completely under his rule at this point, Maqoma returned to Nxuba victorious in eliminating the many Xhosa monarchies without a civil war ever being fought. On April 23rd, 1860, Maqoma proclaimed the establishment of the Xhosa Burrite Republic (XBR) and appointed himself the chancellor of its provisional stratocratic government until a constitution upholding the ideology of Burrite democracy as it was practiced in the neighboring United Provinces of Azania could be ratified.The Xhosa Revolution had succeeded, and had unknowingly ignited the fires of international Burrite revolution in the process.
Chancellor Jongumsobomvu Maqoma of the Xhosa Burrite Republic.
The subsequent months were tense for the fledgling Burrite Republic. While boasting strong public support internally, the state was automatically a pariah in the eyes of neighboring Native African protectorates, which suffered from repressive socioeconomic conditions similar to those of Xhosaland and were therefore vulnerable to revolutions of their own, and still faced the challenge of consolidating control domestically, even with the masses largely on Chancellor Maqoma’s side. Hundreds of Xhosa Federation officials, nobles, plutocrats, and military officers were rounded up and arrested throughout April and May 1860 and, despite Maqoma’s self-proclaimed commitment to eventually installing a Burrite democracy, for the time being, monarchist public dissent, particularly in the press, was heavily censored and penalized by the ruling military junta under what Maqoma renamed to the Xhosa National Republican Army (XNRA).
Despite his authoritarian tendencies, Maqoma nonetheless made moves towards transitioning towards popular rule. A provisional Congress of the Xhosa Burrite Republic was elected by universal suffrage for all adults of at least twenty-one years of age on May 14th, 1860, with each district being a continuation of the borders of the Xhosa kingdoms and chieftaincies, to serve as an assembly of advisors to Maqoma, who nonetheless had the final and unilateral say in the affairs of state (it would also be worth mentioning that all candidates for the provisional Congress had to be approved by Maqoma’s junta beforehand, thereby meaning that the legislature was filled with loyal adherents to his ideology and rule). Upon assembling, the Xhosa Congress was tasked with writing a constitution in coordination with Maqoma himself, a process that would take several months.
In the meantime, Chancellor Maqoma continued the military buildup first initiated by Stadtholder Sarili, however, focused on amassing forces along the borders with Basutoland and Fenguland rather than Azania, viewing the defense of Xhosa sovereignty from neighboring states as a continued priority, regardless of the regime change. In terms of more domestically-focused policy, Maqoma legalized labor unions and “lawful and peaceable” strike, nationalized all land owned by aristocracy and foreigners with the intent of selling the vast majority of land and industry to working class Xhosa at affordable prices, banned child labor, and implemented a nationwide guaranteed minimum income, all within May 1860 alone and with approval from the Xhosa Congress. Each of these decrees not only made Maqoma deeply popular in Xhosaland but made the general-turned benevolent dictator a hero of the Burrite revolution in Azania as well, albeit one that more socially libertarian circles were willing to criticize the authoritarian tendencies of. There was a perception amongst the Azanian populace that the ideals they were fighting for in the Riebeeckian Civil War were being exported internationally and sparking a regional crusade for liberty and equality, and it was not much of a surprise when the United Provinces became the first government in the world to internationally recognize the Xhosa Burrite Republic on April 30th, 1860.
The view that Burrite democracy was bringing about an international revolution was not confined to allies of Maqoma. As previously mentioned, the reigning absolute monarchies of the remaining four Native African protectorates were mortally terrified at the prospect that they would share the fate of Sarili kaHintsa and the States General, and in the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, propagandists were quick to depict Maqoma as a violently barbaric brute, one who was an easy boogeyman for the white supremacist regime to capitalize on in media decrying the international proliferation of “Tuinstraian radicalism”. In the eyes of Samuel Breckinridge, the Xhosa Burrite Republic posed a simultaneous strategic threat and opportunity. In the sense of the former, Xhosaland, while meager in both size and population compared to the UPA and HDRC, could nonetheless become a source of manpower in the fight against the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, not to mention that Maqoma’s tactical brilliance arguably exceeded that of nearly every commanding officer in the Riebeeckian Civil War and the potential replication of the Xhosa Revolution would bring about Burrite states along the Confederate border and thus overextend Breckinridge’s armed forces, which were already on the defensive on multiple critical fronts. In the sense of the latter, however, the Xhosa Revolution scared the remaining Native African protectorates enough to tilt more towards diplomatically aligning with the Holy Dominion, and there was thus potential for the formation of a counterrevolutionary alliance between the protectorates and the Breckinridge regime, one that could turn the tides of the Riebeeckian Civil War if its cards were played correctly.
The Holy Dominion was therefore quick to reach out to the protectorates in order to negotiate the formation of a coalition of some kind, with the Breckinridge administration tasking its Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the leadership of Robert Garnett Hunter with these negotiations almost immediately after the declaration of the Xhosa Burrite Republic in April 1860. This mission ultimately resulted in the ratification of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu between the Holy Dominion, Basutoland, Fenguland, Hlubiland, and Ngwaneland on May 20th, 1860, thus bringing the remaining Native African protectorates into the Confederate sphere of influence. In accordance with the treaty, all five signatories would enter into an alliance of mutual defense from either internal or external armed attacks, thus meaning that any attempt at proliferating the Burrite revolution of Xhosaland by either internal or external actors would be retaliated against. The kingdoms managed to get the Holy Dominion to recognize their sovereignty as fully independent states, thus meaning that the Breckinridge regime would drop its policy of considering their protectorate status under the United Dominion to still be de jure intact, however, in return, Hunter’s ministry managed to extract its own concessions, namely the ability for the Holy Dominion to station as much of its armed forces within the territory of the Native African kingdoms as it pleased and requiring all four kingdoms to prohibit any trade barriers between themselves and the HDRC.
Fearing the so-called “Thaba Bosiu Pact” for obvious strategic reasons, the United Provinces of Azania and the Xhosa Burrite Republic responded with an alliance of their own in the form of the Treaty of Bulawayo, ratified circa May 27th, 1860, which formed a much more straightforward mutual defense pact between the two countries, albeit with the provision that Azania would be able to move military forces and supplies through Xhosaland along the Trans-Xhosa Railway in order to connect the province of Zululand to the contiguous Azanian provinces. The existence of the rival alliances only heightened tensions further between the Xhosa Burrite Republic and the Native African kingdoms, and many concluded that the expansion of the Riebeeckian Civil War to an international conflict was inevitable from this point forward. As Native African forces were amassed along borders with enemy states, the seemingly inevitable spark of regional conflict arrived on June 17th, 1860, when the young Major General Nicola Marschall of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia launched an offensive into West Zululand from eastern Basutoland, hoping to catch the limited Azanian forces in the Zululand provinces off guard by attacking through the poorly-defended Plettenberg Mountains. Emerging from a makeshift Confederate military base to the north of Thabana Ntlenyana, Marschall’s campaign initially faced little opposition, however, the mountainous terrain of West Zululand proved difficult for soldiers more accustomed to the relatively flat terrain of Bloemfontein to navigate. Progress was considerably slower than anticipated, which gave time for the Azanian National Army to deploy reinforcements in the Plettenberg Mountains.
The bogged down forces of Major General Marschall experienced their first defeat on June 30th, 1860 at the Battle of Mqatsheni, when Azanian troops under the command of the elderly West Zululander General Ndela kaSompisi ambushed Marschall within the easternmost reaches of the Plettenberg Mountains. The Battle of Mqatsheni was a crushing blow to Marschall’s men, who were both relatively limited in their numbers and lacked the experience necessary to defend against an army of similar size in mountainous terrain. The short-lived Marschall Offensive was thus decisively stopped, and its commanding officer led what remained of his army into a desperate retreat back towards Basutoland. General Ndela followed in pursuit, engaging with Marshcall’s forces in brief skirmishes from time to time, but on July 3rd, Nicola Marschall crossed back into Basutoland, believing that the Azanians would not pursue him any further out of fear of sparking a war with Basutoland and her allies.
Marschall’s analysis proved to be incorrect. General Ndela’s forces followed their enemy into the Kingdom of Basutoland, unaware that they had crossed into another country at the moment given that the area lacked any border demarcations, settlements, or encampments that would indicate where the Azanian-Basuto border was. The Azanian National Army would therefore engage with the Crusaders of Riebeeckia only a few miles southeast of Thabana Ntlenyana, expecting yet another victory. Only a little more than an hour into the battle, however, a unit of Basuto soldiers patrolling the border approached Ndela’s army from the southwest and interpreted the engagement as an Azanian pre-emptive offensive into Basutoland, thus joining the Battle of Thabana Ntlenyana on behalf of their Confederate allies by attacking the Azanians from their undefended southern flank. At first confused by the arrival of Basuto soldiers to the conflict and ordering his forces to fight them, Ndela kaSompisi soon realized his critical mistake of crossing into Basutoand and ordered an immediate retreat back into West Zululand.
It was too late, however, to turn back the ever-moving wheels of history. The foreign ministry of the United Provinces of Azania issued a formal apology to the Kingdom of Basutoland, insisting that the attack by Thabana Ntlenyana was a mistake and forcing Ndela into an early retirement in an attempt to appease the Basuto government, however, King Moshoeshoe of Basutoland was infuriated by the violation of Basuto territory and the deaths of Basuto men at the hands of Azanian soldiers. While Moshoeshoe had once earned the reputation of being a skillful diplomat, the Xhosa Revolution to his south had made him wary of further expansion of Burrite ideology into his territory and became convinced that letting the Thabana Ntlenyana border skirmish stand would be viewed by both Azania and Xhosaland as a sign of Basuto vulnerability and begin intentional incursions with the ultimate goal of overthrowing his reign. Moshoeshoe was not, however, about to simply walk into the Riebeeckian Civil War without assurance from his allies that they would support a Basuto declaration of war, and as such, the king’s diplomats made it clear to the embassies of Basutoland’s fellow Thaba Bosiu Pact members that their government saw the Battle of Thabana Ntlenyana as an act of aggression, and therefore obligated signatories of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu to intervene on behalf of the defense of Basutoland.
Samuel Breckinridge, eager to bring the Holy Dominion’s allies into the Riebeeckian Civil War on his behalf and open up a new frontline between the United Provinces and the Native African kingdoms, was quick to back Moshoeshoe’s call to invoke the mutual defense clause of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu, and with the most militarily powerful member of the pact supporting the Basuto stance, the other three member states didn’t take long to follow suit. Thus, on July 7th, 1860, the Kingdom of Basutoland mobilized its soldiers against and declared war on the United Provinces of Azania. The remaining three Native African kingdoms, upholding their obligations to the Thaba Bosiu Pact, followed Basutoland’s lead and did the same within the following twenty-four hours. The mobilization of Thaba Bosiu Pact forces in turn resulted in the Xhosa Burrite Republic upholding its obligation of mutual defense in accordance with the Treaty of Bulawayo, thus resulting in the entry of the fledgling republican government into the Riebeeckian Civil War on July 9th, 1860.
Soldier of the Xhosa National Republican Army, circa July 1860.
Of course, by this point, as the Native African states of the Cape of Good Hope marched to war on behalf of either the Burrite revolution or Samuel Breckinridge’s counterrevolution, the conflict that first began at the Battle of Melkbosstrand had expanded beyond the Riebeeckian Civil War, now simply a part of a wider and ever-expanding international conflict. It would be prominent Xhosa journalist and Christian minister Tiyo Soga who first coined the term “Second Cape Revolutionary War” to describe the expanded conflict in an article in which he argued that the shared goal of the Azanian and Xhosa states ought to be an international Burrite revolution against the remaining theocratic and absolutist institutions southern Africa. The name was soon widely adopted throughout Xhosaland, given that the “Riebeeckian Civil War” wasn’t exactly descriptive of the war the Xhosa National Republican Army was waging, however, it soon entered the public dialect throughout the United Provinces of Azania as well as officials and civilians alike enthusiastically hopped on board the bandwagon of revolutionary fervor.
Within days, the first strategies of the so-called Plettenberg Front were put into motion. For the Burrites, their initial objective was to connect Xhosaland to the Zululands by overrunning the Kingdom of Fenguland. Doing so would not only prevent the Zululands from being isolated from the rest of the United Provinces and ultimately conquered, but would, if successful, result in the decisive defeat of the Fengu state relatively quickly. With the top commanding officers of the Azanian National Army focused on frontlines in the west at the time, the Fengu Offensive was primarily the responsibility of the XNRA, and eager to return to the fields of battle yet again, this time in the name of Burrite democracy, Chancellor Maqoma appointed himself to lead the campaign, a decision that the UPA had no problem with given Maqoma’s experience, skills, and public popularity as a general.
For the Thaba Bosiu Pact, the strategy was simply to overrun the Zululands as quickly as possible by concentrating the combined force of the Native African kingdoms on the two provinces and then immediately redirect the attention of coalition forces to an offensive into Xhosaland. Unlike the Azanians, who largely left the Fengu Offensive in the hands of the Xhosa, the Holy Dominion assigned the army of General James John Floyd III from the Bloemfontein Front to the Zulu Offensive, however, it was clear that overly-cautious general would not play a leading role in the campaign, which was instead largely overseen by Native African officers, with General Masopha, the third son of King Moshoeshoe, being the most prominent and influential commander of the campaign. And so, the stage was set for the Plettenberg Front. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike marched into the mountains, hoping to bring about a quick and decisive victory for their respective factions.
The XNRA began its campaign into the neighboring Kingdom of Fenguland almost as soon as war erupted. A relatively small and poorly-armed state, Fenguland was clearly outgunned by the Xhosa in and of themselves, let alone the Xhosa invading from the west and the Zulu invading from the east. Maqoma’s army crossed the Mzimvubu River, which marked the border between the Xhosa and Fengu, mere hours after the XBR had mobilized its forces against Fenguland and proceeded to rapidly push forth towards the heart of Fengu territory, where the capital city of Lusikisiki was situated, while a smaller unit was dispatched to stage an offensive along the Fengu coastline. Azanian forces stationed in the Zululands were uninvolved in any major offenses into Fenguland due to the siege of the provinces by General Masopha, however, ANA regiments were nonetheless entrenched along the eastern bank of the Mtamvuna River and forced the Fengu armed forces to divide their attention between two fronts.
Unsurprisingly given the country’s unfortunate geography, the Kingdom of Fenguland had little hope of surviving Maqoma’s Fengu Offensive. Settlements were falling to the Xhosa every day, and the Fengu were simply outnumbered and outgunned by their opponents. With the Fengu Offensive threatening counterrevolutionary efforts to invade West Zululand, Masopha was forced to allocate considerable manpower to the defense of Fenguland starting circa mid-July 1860, thereby stalling his own advances through the Plettenberg Mountains in the process. Even these reinforcements weren’t enough to stop the Fengu Offensive, however, and merely prolonged the inevitable. Trench warfare never managed to materialize in a large enough scale in Fenguland to meaningfully slow down the Xhosa offensive due to Maqoma’s forces moving too quickly for a war of attrition to be instigated, and the Battle of Lusikisiki thus began on August 1st, 1860, only to end two days later as the last defending troops of varying nationalities fled the city alongside the Fengu monarchy. The town of Gamalakhe was conquered by the XNRA just a day later, thereby linking the Zululands to their fellow Burrite allies to their west and bringing the entirety of the Fengu Coast under Bulawayo Pact occupation, and within the next twenty-four hours, the defeated Kingdom of Fenguland capitulated to the United Provinces on August 4th, 1860 with the condition that its royal family be given safe passage to exile in Basutoland.
Soldiers of the Azanian National Army outside of occupied Lusikisiki, circa August 1860.
The fate of Fenguland upon its conquest was hotly debated by the Burrite powers. While both occupying states agreed that the XNRA’s disproportionate role in the Fengu Offensive earned Xhosaland the bulk of the spoils, Chancellor Maqoma’s advisors and highest-ranking military officers were divided on what the fate of Fenguland ought to be. Ever since their displacement during the Mfecane brought about by the Zulu War, the Fengu people had gradually assimilated into Xhosa culture (although the native language of Mfengu continued to be the primary language of a little less than half of the population) and many Xhosa therefore viewed the Fengu as a part of their nationality that had just managed to get an independent kingdom of their own. More conservative Xhosa officials and those that had adopted nationalistic ideologies from Europe and the Americas therefore eagerly advocated for the annexation of Fenguland into the Xhosa Burrite Republic.
This stance was opposed by a collection of officials who sought to establish an independent Fengu Burrite state, both from the ideological standpoint that the Fengu people were deserving of their own sovereign republic and the practical standpoint that outright annexation would only reinvigorate counterrevolutionary fears of conquest by the Burrites and sour the international community’s position regarding the Second Cape Revolution. This position was shared by both the Azanian government and, more importantly, Chancellor Maqoma, who had long been an advocate for overthrowing the Native African kingdoms and establishing free sister republics in their place, as opposed to any sort of empire-building. Given Maqoma’s autocratic rule over Xhosaland, his position ultimately became that of his country, and the Treaty of Lusikisiki established the Fengu Republic under the provisional military dictatorship of Veldtman Bikitsha, a brilliant captain of the Fengu Army who had fought against Maqoma in the invasion of his country who nonetheless held Burrite sympathies. That being said, Fenguland was placed under a joint Xhosa-Azanian military occupation and all railways in the country became property of the XNRA, thus giving the Burrite Republic direct control over transportation through the country.
With the Zululands now connected back to their allies and the Plettenberg Front no longer intersected by the Kingdom of Fenguland, the Bulawayo Pact could consolidate its forces in southeastern Africa in a counteroffensive against General Masopha’s incursions through frontline’s namesake mountain range. The Native African kingdoms had largely focused on an invasion of the Zululands during the Fengu Offensive, with Masopha being tasked with pushing through the mountains and overrunning the provinces before Fenguland could collapse and become a gateway through which an influx of enemy reinforcements could arrive. Of course, the situation on the ground was more complex than a simple charge through the mountains. The Native African kingdoms, largely landlocked with the exceptions of Fenguland and Ngwaneland, lacked any significant naval forces, and with the Holy Dominion too disconnected from the region to provide naval support of its own, the United Provinces dominated the waters off the coast of the Plettenberg Front, thereby allowing reinforcements to bypass Fenguland with essentially no resistance.
That’s not to say the Azanian National Army within the Zululands were, by any means, well-equipped relative to their counterparts on westward frontlines. The transportation of troops and supplies via ships was a more lengthy and costly endeavor than simply putting them on board railroads, and even without taking the impact of modes of transport into account, the UPA had few resources to spare to the Plettenberg Front given the situation faced on the arguably more critical fronts to the west. The Zululands were thus relying less on the hope that Azanian reinforcements would arrive through the Fengu Offensive and more on the hope that the Xhosa would reallocate the bulk of their manpower to their defense after defeating Fenguland. The early Plettenberg Front was, therefore, essentially a race between the two rival coalitions, seeing which was to fall first: Fenguland or the Zululands.
Of course, this race was ultimately won by the Burrites, who would tell you that their victory was the result of the cunning tactics of Maqoma, which was, to an extent, a significant contributing factor, however, it was far from the only one. Fenguland was, for starters, simply less well-defended than the Zululands. The small country also lacked any natural barriers along its border with Xhosaland to the same extent as the Plettenberg Mountains served as a barrier between the Zululands and the Native African kingdoms. But even putting aside these more predictable elements, there was a critical component of the Fengu Offensive that the Zulu Offensive lacked, that being cohesion within its chain of command. The bulk of the forces participating in the Fengu Offensive were from the XNRA and therefore had no question regarding who was in charge, and even the few Azanian regiments participating in the campaign revered Maqoma for his reputation as a hero of the First Cape Revolutionary War enough to accept his status as the supreme allied commander of the Fengu Offensive and thus adhering to his general strategy.
The Zulu Offensive, on the other hand, was plagued by internal division brought about by a fusion of ideology and pride. The majority of forces fighting in the campaign were from the Native African kingdoms, who agreed to but their armies under the command of the Basuto General Masopha, however, the white supremacist ideology of Samuel Breckinridge and the National Cross Party meant that the Holy Dominion refused to place any Crusaders under the command of a Native African officer. Conversely, the Native African kingdoms felt that it was unfair to put a Confederate in command of a disrproportionately Native African army, let alone a Confederate with a history of incompetence like James John Floyd III, not to mention that the fanatically racist ideology of the Holy Dominion irked Native African leadership enough to not gamble with ceding considerable authority to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia. The Thaba Bosiu Pact was not born out of common ideology but rather a common enemy, and it showed upon the very onset of the outbreak of hostilities in the Plettenberg Mountains.
The lack of centralized strategic leadership in the Zulu Offensive was a setback, however, it was one that could’ve been overcome by consistent coordination and collaboration between Confederate and Native African military leadership. In reality, this would not be the case, largely thanks to the ego of one James John Floyd III. An ardent supporter of the National Cross ideology, it was no secret that Floyd viewed himself as superior to and deserving to be in command of his Native African peers, despite the fact that many had a much more extensive military background than the ex-congressman who had been appointed to a position of command largely for political reasons. From a more personal standpoint, however, Floyd had started out in the Riebeeckian Civil War as the officer overseeing the most tactically significant campaign at the outbreak of the conflict and had since been humiliated, tarnished his reputation, and had been relegated to relatively insignificant theaters. To now be commanding an army very clearly intended to be playing a supplementary role to the coalition of Native African counterrevolutionary forces led by General Masopha was yet another setback for Floyd’s status, and one that the hardline National Crossite would not simply sit back and take.
General Floyd therefore spent much of the Zulu Offensive conducting campaigns independent of Masopha’s two-pronged attack of West Zululand from Basutoland to its west and Hlubiland to its north in subtle defiance of the Basuto general. At first, this was little more than acts of pure pettiness. Confederate soldiers often had to wait for Floyd’s approval to move in and defend land occupied by Masopha’s coalition, Floyd frequently ordered the Crusaders of Riebeeckia to lead grand charges at positions where Native African armies were waging a more prolonged and carefully calculated war of attrition. Floyd’s numerous brash acts cost both Native African and Confederate soldiers their lives and noticeably slowed down the push through the Plettenberg Mountains by costing the Thaba Bosiu Pact resources and manpower in tactically self-defeating escapades. The simple fact that the Zululands were encircled and lacked the needed reinforcements meant that the Zulu Offensive continuously gained territory for the counterrevolutionary coalition, but Floyd’s stubbornness made the already-difficult task of invading via a mountain range considerably more deadly, time-consuming, and messy than necessary.
In the end, James John Floyd III cost the Thaba Bosiu Pact much-needed time in the Zulu Offensive, not to mention that he refused to deploy any reinforcements in the defense of Fenguland, and the Burrites ultimately won the race of the Plettenberg Front. Floyd argued to his fellow officers in the Crusaders of Riebeeckia that the actual blame for the failure of the Zulu Offensive laid on Masopha and the leadership of the Native African coalition more generally for not recognizing his racial superiority and therefore falling under his command, and given that many of Floyd’s peers either agreed with his argument or believed that putting blame on him would be a bad look for the Crusaders in general, the prideful general ultimately got away without a punishment from his superiors. That being said, however, as General Maqoma reallocated the bulk of XNRA forces to the Zululands in order to launch a counteroffensive against Masopha, HDRC Minister of War Edward J Jackson recognized that Floyd continuing to fight alongside General Masopha was a liability to the Confederate war effort and thus reassigned congressman-turned-general’s army to occupied Griqualand with the goal of launching an offensive into northern Xhosaland.
With the arrival of Maqoma and the Xhosa armed forces in West Zululand, there really wasn’t much of a question regarding the outcome of the confrontation. Masopha had been prepared for fighting a small defensive force isolated from the rest of Azania, and even that had been a challenge simply due to the geography of the Zululands. A counteroffensive by a much more well-equipped and larger army, let alone an army under the command of an officer as experienced and respected as Maqoma, would be nigh impossible to halt. Ironically enough, Masopha, who had begun his military career fighting the incursions of Shaka’s campaigns in the early 19th Century, was now replicating the late Zulu king’s strategy of invading the many nations to Zululand’s west, this time in the name of the Burrite revolution rather than imperialistic expansionism. Maqoma determined that the best course of action was to concentrate his offensive on the invasion the Kingdom of Hlubiland, a larger yet far less mountainous and well-defended country than Basutoland which would in turn cut off Ngwaneland from its allies and open up Bloemfontein, Binnenland, and northern Basutoland.
Therefore, starting in mid-August 1860, General Masopha began to spearhead the dull-named “August Offensive”, focusing on invading the under-defended soft underbelly of Hlubiland in the middle of the country, situated in between the Zulu Offensive’s joint invasions from Basutoland and northeastern Hlubiland, while smaller regiments were dispatched to make quick work of the aforementioned offensives into West Zululand. Starting by crossing the Ncandu River, the August Offensive worked better than anticipated. The Xhosa National Republican Army, while far from anything to boast about, had evolved out of the Xhosa National Army, which was by far the largest military force maintained by the Native African protectorates and, more critically, was the most well-armed. Again, the XNRA wasn’t too impressive on a global scale, but it brought plenty of organ guns and even a handful of elephas to the Plettenberg Front when its enemy forces lacked more than a handful of outdated organ guns. Also importantly, the United Provinces of Azania was actually willing to partake in the mechanization of the Xhosa armed forces by providing weapons, oftentimes free of charge, whereas the Holy Dominion, in large part due to its governing racist ideology, did not supply its allies with weaponry for fear of arming Native African states with weapons that could then be used against Confederate interests following the hypothetical victory of the Thaba Bosiu Pact.
This therefore meant that Maqoma’s August Offensive could more or less just charge over the Ncandu River into Hlubiland and face little proportional resistance. Maqoma was particularly fond of the elephas loaned to his army, utilizing them as a technology that could easily overwhelm the enemy. Still powered by steam at the time, elephas at the outbreak of the Equatorial Revolutionary War weren’t much more than a rarely-used trick in warfare, in large part because the most elaborate elephas took up to two and a half hours for their engines to warm up and the payoff being a vehicle that could only travel up to about four miles per hour. Steam engines were, of course, incorporated into warfare, with road locomotives and tractors often being utilized as transportation and mobile turrets, however, these vehicles tended to be much smaller than the bulky elephas first employed by the Federation of Peru in the Amazon War, which were impractical in most situations, and on top of their slowness, often broke down in combat.
A Harrison II model steam-powered elepha, the predominant elepha in the Riebeeckian National Army upon the outbreak of the Equatorial Revolutionary War, circa 1859.
But for the XNRA, which was facing a much more poorly-equipped army, steam-powered elephas were a far more useful tool. Time wasn’t much of a concern, and Masopha’s coalition lacked sufficient weaponry for combating armored vehicles. Therefore, Maqoma could simply take his time waiting for elepha engines to warm up and then order them to crawl over to enemy encampments, slowly devastating the forces putting up a futile resistance in its path. Time and time again, this strategy was employed, and in part thanks to the usage of elephas, the August Offensive covered considerable ground within days, progressing deep into Hlubiland and approaching the Hlubi capital of Ntseleburg along the northeastern banks of the Vaal River by the dawn of September 1860. All the while, the progress of the Zulu Offensive was completely undone as joint Xhosa-Azanian counter-offensives in the Plettenberg Mountains made inroads while the Thaba Bosiu Pact was increasingly forced to allocate more and more resources to combating the August Offensive, until Masopha ordered a retreat of any remaining forces in West Zululand on September 3rd, 1860, concentrating the majority of his army in the fight in Hlubiland while a smaller portion of the Basuto Army was deployed in eastern Basutoland to defend the border from Bulawayo Pact incursions.
The collapse of Thaba Bosiu defenses on the Plettenberg Front, despite being critical to the outcome of the Second Cape Revolutionary War, had little effect on the other frontlines of the conflict due to the Plettenberg Front itself largely being fought between the Native African states while the Azanian and Confederate militaries continued to concentrated the vast majority of their forces out west. This was, in fact, the situation throughout the entirety of the initial months of the Plettenberg Front. Life in the Zululands and the Native African states changed radically with the outbreak of war circa early July 1860, however, for an Azanian soldier fighting the army of General Braxton Bragg in the Great Karoo, circumstances were mostly unchanged. Continuing his counteroffensive into South Holland, General Wilhelm Rosecrans ordered a rapid offensive towards the small town of Harmsfontein in southwestern South Holland in late June.
Meticulously planning, rehearsing, and training his men for the Harmsfontein Campaign throughout the opening weeks of June 1860, which were largely spent focusing on cavalry charges against Bragg that slowly chipped away at his holdings, General Rosecrans finally received his chance to put his grand strategy into motion on June 24th, by which point he had amassed enough forces and thoroughly prepared his army for the Harmsfontein Campaign to be enacted in its entirety. Utilizing brigades of cavalry to encroach the enemy from multiple sides, Rosecrans had trained his cavalry to conduct rapid maneuvers covering great territory in a relatively brief timespan, hoping to capture Harmsfontein itself within only a handful of weeks. While organ guns had made cavalry charges less and less effective in recent years, the area Rosecrans was fighting in had numerous lakes dotting the landscape, which served as natural barriers between his cavalry forces and Confederate positions. Cavalry forces were thus commanded to charge between different lakes, stopping behind them to keep Crusaders at a distance if they came under heavy fire. Furthermore, Rosecrans had requested a fleet of airships, particularly more recent and fully controllable electric-powered models, to be incorporated into his ranks to bombard Confederate positions and serve as a blanket of protection for the cavalry below.
The ANAS Jefferson flying above the Great Karoo during the Harmsfontein Campaign, circa July 1860.
Rosecrans’ careful planning paid off spectacularly. The specific geography of the area being invaded meant that a strategy that probably shouldn’t have worked in the age of organ guns was instead an impressive victory for the Azanian National Army. Despite sustaining higher casualties than anticipated, Rosecrans’ cavalry brigades moved through the Great Karoo at lightning speeds, dashing from lake to lake and ultimately uprooting enemy positions day after day. The airships in the sky above precisely obliterated enemy encampments to assist with the offensive on the ground, and despite facing resistance from both anti-aerial gunners on the ground and Confederate airships in the sky, the Azanian aeronaval presence in the Harmsfontein Campaign decisively outnumbered its enemy. In the words of Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra in a letter addressed to Wilhelm Rosecrans circa early July 1860, the campaign was “executed flawlessly”. The town of Harmsfontein itself was ultimately encircled by Azanian cavalry brigades on July 3rd, and with General Bragg’s army in disarray, confusedly retreating, and sustaining heavy casualties, minimal resistance was put up in the Battle of Harmsfontein, inevitably a losing fight for the Crusaders at this point, and within hours, the battle was over and General Rosecrans had won a new foothold for the United Provinces of Azania on the Karoo Front.
The Harmsfontein Campaign would soon prove to be the last great hurrah of cavalry charges. In an increasingly mechanized world where metal beasts crawled into the barrage of organ guns, cavalry was becoming increasingly obsolete, and the countless dead men lying in the sands of the Karoo due to their steed being gunned down by rapid-firing rifles already hinted that such warfare tactics were a dying art. Braxton Bragg’s entrenchment to the east of Harmsfontein almost immediately after the battle for the city had concluded made sure that a wall of gunfire would halt another daring charge by Rosecrans anytime in the near future, and a war of attrition soon began on the Karoo Front, one which would not end within the summer of 1860. But even as Rosecrans and Bragg both dug their forces into the ground to wait out the slog of gunfire in the trenches of the Great Karoo, it was clear that Azania held the advantage on the crucial frontline. The war of attrition between Robrecht Young and Thomas Francis Meagher along the shoreline of the Orange River had no sign of giving way to one side or the other anytime soon, and Young stalled indefinitely and Bragg on the retreat, the Python Plan had seemingly not only failed, but given way to an Azanian offensive into the Holy Dominion. Even with the outbreak of war in the Plettenberg Mountains, the HDRC was fighting an uphill battle.
To the north of Wilhelm Rosecrans’ campaign, the Iron General, Otto Bismarck, continued his campaign into New Hanover following the success of the Nossob Offensive throughout the summer of 1860. The Azanian minister of war had initially planned to simply divert Confederate away from besieging General Meagher’s position, he had since envisioned a bold “march to the sea” through New Hanover, whereby he would lead his forces into the heart of the province, capture its capital city of New Bremen, continue on to the arid coastline of New Hanover, and thereby encircle Edwardland and the Confederate capital of Edwardston, thereby suffocating the Holy Dominion into capitulation. After capturing the confluence of the Auob and Nossob rivers June 22nd, 1860, General Bismarck prepared for yet another offensive, this time along the Auob River, which would lead him inwards towards New Bremen. Pulverizing Confederate positions with a large quantity of organ guns and elephas, Bismarck’s army scaled its way up a river in the Kalahari Desert, where the most noticeable mark of human civilization was the combat over the gateway to central New Hanover itself. The allocation of reinforcements to the Molopo Front following the Nossob Offensive meant that Bismarck was confronted with a much larger and more well-armed army than he had back at the start of his campaign in early June 1860, thus making the Auob Offensive a far slower endeavor, but it was nonetheless apparent that the situation was going in favor of the Iron General, who inched his way out of the desert one engagement at a time.
While Maqoma was vanquishing the counterrevolutionary forces of southeastern Africa, General Otto Bismarck fought off against General Stephanus Schoeman, the man who had besieged Moses City, who was assigned to oversee Confederate defenses against Bismarck shortly after the success of the Nossob Offensive. It was, perhaps, due to General Schoeman’s assignment to the Molopo Front that General Bismarck put Lieutenant Araminta Ross, the ex-slave-turned-guerrilla fighter of Moses City, under his command and transferred the ambitious soldier from the Western Front under the leadership of General Meagher to the Kalahari Desert. Not only did Ross have considerable experience with fighting Schoeman, but from a propagandistic standpoint, having Araminta Ross, who had become somewhat of a legendary war hero in Azanian press, fighting against Schoeman yet again could prove to be a considerable morale boost throughout the ranks of the Azanian National Army. As for Ross herself, she couldn’t be happier to have a chance at avenging Moses City. For her, the fight against Schoeman was a deeply personal one, and she enthusiastically took the transfer to the Molopo Front.
Elevated to the rank of lieutenant general, something largely unprecedented for women at the time despite being technically permitted in Riebeeckia since the 1840s, Ross served closely with Bismarck, who sought to utilize her expertise regarding Schoeman as much as possible. Under the umbrella of Bismarck’s wider Auob Campaign, Lieutenant General Araminta Ross spearheaded precise attacks on Confederate supply lines. Far from any major settlement, both armies relied heavily on supplies and reinforcements being brought in along the Auob River, and Ross sought to cut this lifeline as much as possible. Attacks on the infrastructure that kept General Schoeman’s army afloat were coordinated between Bismarck and Ross, with the former commanding heavy frontal assaults that distracted manpower away from defending supply lines that were then raided by the latter. Time and time again, this strategy dealt crippling blows to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, who sustained heavy casualties on the Molopo Front and were repeatedly forced to retreat throughout the summer of 1860, until the collection of victories by Bismarck and Ross culminated in the capture of the village of Gochas, deep into New Hanoverian territory, on August 30th, 1860. Having conquered much of the Auob River, General Otto Bismarck now possessed the knife which he intended to thrust from Gochas to the coastline of New Hanover.
On top of digging deep into enemy territory the Auob Offensive accomplished the objective of weakening defenses on the Western Front enough to give way to a counteroffensive by Thomas Francis Meagher against the infamous General Robrecht Young, who had been repeatedly forced to spare manpower and resources to Schoeman’s defense in the Kalahari Desert. As the reinforcements allocated to Young gradually dwindled, the war of attrition in Gariepsburgh continued throughout the bulk of the 1860 summer, with the Orange River serving as a natural barrier between the enemy forces, especially with all bridges between the two banks of the city blown up, and thus preventing any worthwhile attempts at offensives from either side. Meagher nonetheless took note of Young’s strength decreasing, and began to prepare for a counteroffensive as Young’s defenses along the shoreline of the Orange River gradually weakened.
Robrecht Young anticipated an attempt at any amphibious invasion of northern Gariepsburgh, barricading any potential landing points and deploying garrisons well-armed with organ guns at said positions in order to make any amphibious assault more trouble than it was worth. What Young was far less prepared for, however, was an airborne assault. Despite having been first utilized as a military tactic by the infamous Admiral Frederick Bianchi during the 1834 War of Indian Unification, airborne troop landings were an uncommon occurrence in the two and a half decades since the conflict. Parachutes based of Bianchi’s initial design, which were in and of themselves inspired by the sketches of Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci, had in fact become standard issue in aeronavies throughout the world by 1860, however, such devices were typically used for efficiently dropping supplies and as a means of abandoning ship. Paratroopers were a rare phenomenon, and when they were used, it was typically by European colonial forces subjugating a territory that lacked anti-aerial defenses. It was these sorts of maneuvers that Admiral Bianchi, the so-called “Father of Airborne Forces” conducted throughout much of his later career, largely spending the latter half of the 1830s in airships over the Malay Archipelago before ultimately retiring in 1840 and passing away in 1855.
Had Bianchi lived for a mere five more years, he would’ve seen his contribution to warfare really flourish. Realizing that an amphibious landing at the Battle of Gariepsburgh was impractical but nonetheless desiring to take advantage of Young’s weakening defenses (not to mention craving a taste of glory), General Thomas Francis Meagher took a page from the book of Admiral Frederick Bianchi and requested an increase in airships for his forces, which Minister of War Bismarck agreed to, and put his plan into motion starting on August 21st, 1860 by ordering regiments to be parachuted in behind enemy lines via airships in the sparsely-defended desert to the north of Gariepsburgh. The strategy was not only unprecedented in the history of warfare, but was particularly risky at Gariepsburgh given the strength of the Ribeeckian Confederate Aeronavy (RCA) in the city in order to conduct General Robrecht Young’s infamous pyrobombing campaigns. Several Azanian airships were shot down by rival aerial forces in their northward push, and while flying at higher altitudes helped keep Azanian forces safer from the line of fire, the war in the sky over Gariepsburgh was nonetheless a brutal endeavor.
Nonetheless, starting on the evening of August 21st, the first platoons of paratroopers landed on the undefended northern outskirts of Gariepsburgh, and once sufficiently assembled, began their charge towards the soft back of Young’s army. The Crusaders of Riebeeckia soon picked up on what was going on and several units were ordered by Robrecht Young to engage with the paratroopers, but this was precisely the intent of General Meagher’s plan. The Confederates had essentially been encircled, thus cutting off supply lines and, more importantly, softening defenses along the Orange River enough to make amphibious landings, mostly via ironclad warships, practical at key positions. Having overseen the airship landings as an armchair general and thus still positioned in southern Gariepsburgh, General Meagher led the ironclad assaults on the encircled army to his north as Confederate defenses began to collapse just after the midnight of August 22nd.
Under the veil of a night sky illuminated by vicious explosions in all directions, Meagher led Azanian forces onto the northern coastline of the Orange River, securing several beachheads and thereby disintegrating the once-impenetrable defenses that Robrecht Young had spent months cultivating and sustaining. Casualties were remarkably heavy on both sides, but through a combination of being caught by surprise by the paratrooper landing, fighting a two-front battle, and losing access to reinforcements, the Crusaders of Riebeeckia were clearly on the losing side of the clash. Upon realizing that the Battle of Gariepsburgh was lost and reconsolidating his army after the immediate shock of encirclement had subsided, General Young ordered the bulk of his forces to concentrate on punching a hole through the Azanian units parachuted into his north through which he would lead a retreat. This desperate escape succeeded and spared the Holy Dominion a far more costly and embarrassing defeat, with the infamous Lion of the Lord retreating into Edwardland with the majority of his army intact despite taking a costly beating. Just to the north of the Liberian-Edwardlander border, Young reconsolidated his forces in the defense of the Confederate heartland, living on to fight another day.
Robrecht Young also left behind a parting gift for his victorious enemy in Gariepsburgh by continuing pyrobombing campaigns over the already-ruined city well after the Azanian victory on August 22nd. Of course, such a strategy had lost much of its effectiveness now that Azanian and Confederate aerial forces over Gariepsburgh were now comparable, and General Meagher wasn’t getting pushed back across the Orange River anytime soon without a significant change in the tides of the Second Cape Revolutionary War. For now, the grueling Battle of Gariepsburgh had concluded after months of combat for control of the city, which Meagher is said to have celebrated by drinking several pints of New Irish dry stout in a pub, one of only a handful of buildings still completely intact in the northern section of Gariepsburgh. More generally, Meagher’s victory at Gariepsburgh marked a trend throughout the summer of 1860 where the Burrite forces secured key victories against their reactionary adversaries on nearly all fronts. The Holy Dominion’s strategy had relied on a victory against its more populated and industrialized opponent via encircling New Richmond in its Python Plan in a short timeframe, and with the Python Plan in shambles and Confederate forces dwindling by the day as the United Provinces simultaneously continued its militarization, it was becoming clear that said timeframe had elapsed.
Map of the Equatorial Revolutionary War, circa September 1860.
Then came the Mutapa Empire.
Following the ascendance of Mwene Changamire Chatunga to the Mutapa throne in 1851, the greatest power in arguably all of Africa, certainly upon the eastern shores of the continent, had transitioned from a highly decentralized and feudalistic, yet notably religiously diverse and economically interconnected, confederation of tributary states tied to the House of Changamire to a de facto totalitarian theocracy whose autocrat enforced his will via the Office of the Reformed Inquisition efficiently eliminating political and religious adversaries and allowing for them to be replaced by loyal allies. By 1860, while still theoretically autonomous entities, the remaining tributary kingdoms of the Mutapa Empire did not dare disobey the edicts of Chatunga and the Mutapa Reformed Church for fear of suffering the same fate as the Sultanate of Geledi, and by utilizing the loosely-defined tributary system that held the Mutapa Empire together to seize control of land and industry throughout the tributary states as private property held by either himself or closely aligned plutocrats, Changamire Chatunga wielded considerable authority over the economic development over his domain, on top of his informal network of theocratic police state rule.
Once the dominant economic power on the African continent due to its extensive trade connections with European powers and jumpstart on regional industrialization giving way to a large manufacturing sector, Chatunga’s Mutapa Empire had opted for a mostly isolated and protectionist economy after the collapse in Mutapa-Riebeeckian relations during the trade war of the early 1850s brought about by the Mwene’s refusal to abolish his empire’s highly profitable slave trade. This withdrawal from global trade meant that Mutapa suffered only a slight economic downturn during the Great Crisis of 1852, quickly rebounding by the mid-1850s and continuing to rapidly grow domestic industrial production at an unprecedented rate as Changamire Chatunga grew determined to achieve Mutapan autarky. Thanks to the vast expanse of the Mutapa Empire, the process of developing economic self-sufficiency was relatively quick, and by the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War in 1859, Mutapa had outpaced the United Dominion as the single largest domestic industrial producer in Africa.
Danangombe, the capital of the Mutapa Empire, circa 1859.
Very little of this economic growth, of course, meaningfully improved the lives of the Mutapan working class. For starters, a majority of Mutapan subjects, albeit a rapidly decreasing one, remained farm workers, particularly within the interior of the Empire that lay far away from the great industrialized metropolises scattered along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. For those who resided within the vast working-class slums of Mutapa’s cities, the boost in industrialization under Changamire Chatunga simply meant longer hours and more brutal working conditions to bring about the growth of new factories, all the while stuck in the poverty brought about by the Mutapa Empire’s amalgamation of feudalism and laissez-faire capitalism. While the bulk of Mutapan chattel slaves were relegated to work on plantations, many were introduced to industrial work in the 1850s, namely by aristocrats and wealthy plantation owners living in urban areas who sought to utilize their already existing base of slave labor in new manufacturing enterprises, and by Changamire Chatunga himself, who personally owned a strong plurality of slaves in Mutapa by 1860 and percieved them as little more than a source of cheap and expendable labor in his industrialization efforts.
Given the reactionary political and economic structure of the Mutapa Empire, particularly under the reign of Mwene Changamire Chatunga throughout the 1850s, it is little surprise why one of the most brutal and powerful absolute monarchs in African history took great interest in the revolutionary war occuring to his south. Initially drawn to the affairs of the Riebeeckian Civil War out of geopolitical necessity, Chatunga grew more intrigued when the Austropolis Convention resulted with the establishment of Burrite democracy as an ideological movement that posed a direct threat to Mutapan theocratic absolutism, while the socially conservative Christian nationalism of the Holy Dominion led the Mutapa Empire to officially recognize the Breckinridge regime as the legitimate Riebeeckian government relatively early into the conflict. Nonetheless, so long as the Riebeeckian Civil War remained a purely internal affair, Burrism posed little threat to the Mutapa Empire, and as such, the official policy adopted by Chatunga was that of neutrality, albeit with clear favoritism towards the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation.
Then the Xhosa Revolution broke out, followed by the envelopment of the Native African kingdoms into what would eventually become the Equatorial Revolutionary War mere months later. With the transition of the Burrite revolutionary movement from being confined within Riebeeckia to an international proliferation that demanded the overthrow of conservative absolute monarchies throughout southern Africa, the ideology of Burrite democracy and the United Provinces of Azania that so aggressively upheld it suddenly posed the very real risk of spiraling into an existential threat to the very foundation of the Mutapa Empire. Whilst engaged in a grueling civil war, the United Provinces and its allies posed little threat to the Mutapa Army, by far the largest military force in Africa, but the international revolutionary spirit of Burrism risked posing long-term problems for the stability of Mutapa if it was permitted to fester. And in the very likely scenario that Azania emerged victorious? The Mutapa Empire would suddenly border a radically egalitarian great power, potentially eager to bring its revolution northwards in a far more difficult conflict to win.
After hostilities broke out on the Plettenberg Front circa early July 1860, the Mutapa nobility furiously debated the appropriate course of action regarding the Cape Revolutionary War. The most prominent voice in favor of intervention was none other than the infamous General Msiri, who asserted that the time to strike the Burrites was while they were still embroiled in a war with the Holy Dominion and a decisive victory over the Bulawayo Pact would result in extensive sphere of influence and potential expansion of Mutapan holdings well into southern Africa. Despite calls for open war with the Azanians, both out pragmatic interests in attacking an enemy while they were preoccupied whilst getting more regional authority in the process and more philosophical senses of solidarity with the Confederate cause of Protestant theocracy, Mwene Changamire Chatunga remained committed to isolation from Riebeeckian affairs, albeit with the caveat of significantly building up the Mutapa Army’s presence in its southernmost territories and increasing conscription throughout the summer of 1860.
A little less than a month after the intervention of the Xhosa Burrite Republic and the Native African kingdoms on behalf of the Azanians and Confederates respectively, the Kingdom of Fenguland capitulated to the Bulawayo Pact and the Fengu monarchy was dissolved in favor of an authoritarian republic modeled after Chancellor Maqoma’s regime in Xhosaland, which prompted a more forceful response from the Mutapa Empire now that aristocratic fears that the Burrites actually had a wartime goal of deposing absolute monarchies internationally had come into fruition. On August 11th, 1860, Mwene Changamire Chatunga issued the Edict of Zanzibar, addressed to the political leadership of Azania and Xhosaland, which threatened Mutapan military intervention within the Second Cape Revolutionary War if the Bulawayo Pact forcefully deposed any other monarchies. To be clear, Chatunga was still in favor of maintaining Mutapa isolationism and viewed the Edict of Zanzibar not as self-appointing himself to the position of policing Africa. Rather, the Mwene recognized the long-term threat that Burrite democracy could pose to the aristocracy of the Mutapa Empire and was confident that threatening intervention by the largest military force on the African continent was enough to deter the Burrites away from international revolution. That wasn’t to say that Chatunga was bluffing and unwilling to back up his words with military action, but surely things would never come to that point. After all, the United Provinces of Azania itself was a constitutional monarchy, so why would it further commit itself to an anti-aristocratic crusade?
What occurred next was, depending on which historian you ask, either one of the greatest tragedies or blessings in disguise ever wrought upon the Indian Ocean’s community of nations. The rapid August Offensive spearheaded by Maqoma had reached the outskirts of the Kingdom of Hlubiland’s capital city of Ntseleburg by the beginning of September 1860, and given that the Hlubi realistically didn’t have a chance at this point of repelling Burrite forces from conquering their capital, the moment for Azania and Xhosaland to decide the fate of a capitulated reactionary power yet again was fast approaching. In the offices of embassies, the Bulawayo Pact carefully played a quiet game of chess navigating around the restriction imposed by the Edict of Zanzibar. Hannibal Tuinstra, Maqoma, and their respective cabinets privately acknowledged that a war against the Mutapa Empire was realistically unwinnable, but to admit this publicly risked conceding considerable geopolitical leverage to the Mwene. Therefore, the Bulawayo Pact decided that it would continue to demand the unconditional surrender of its enemies, but with the private intent of installing Burrite democracies operating within a constitutional monarchy where the reigning nobility maintained only ceremonial authority, thereby technically proliferating the Burrite revolution within the confines of the Edict of Zanzibar.
Of course, establishing a constitutional monarchy in Hlubiland actually required the continuance of a Hlubi monarch. In an action that inadvertently changed the course of modern human history forever, King Langalibalele flinched. The Battle of Ntseleburg began with fighting in the towns to the southeast of the city on September 6th, 1860, and fearing for his safety, Langalibalele evacuated Hlubiland with his family for safety in the Basuto capital of Thaba Bosiu only a day later. News of the evacuation of the House of Ntsele crushed morale amongst Hlubi soldiers and civilians alike, and the Battle of Ntseleburg was therefore won by Maqoma’s Xhosa Republican Army upon the evening of September 8th, 1860. While King Langalibalele continued to maintain de jure authority over Hlubiland and its armed forces during his self-imposed exile, orders down the chain of command were inefficiently delivered, and the demoralized military saw little reason to continue fighting for a monarch who had already admitted defeat in the eyes of many. Therefore, on September 10th, against the wishes of Langalibalele, the Hlubi Army unconditionally surrendered to the Bulawayo Pact and the Kingdom of Hlubiland fell under joint Xhosa-Azanian military occupation.
Mwene Changamire Chatunga watched carefully from his palace in Danangombe, mobilizing the Mutapa Army in anticipation on September 11th.
The commanding officers of the Hlubi Army notably oversaw the initiation of peace talks with the Bulawayo Pact, as opposed to Langalibalele, who was outraged by the capitulation of his military forces without his permission and regarded the Hlubi surrender to be an illegitimate undermining of his rule. It was at these early peace talks, no later than September 13th, 1860, that Xhosa diplomats conveyed their intent to reinstate Langalibalele as the constitutional monarch of a Burrite Kingdom of Hlubiland. This offer was thus presented to the exiled king, who promptly refused to partake in any negotiations that he regarded as illegitimate, let alone sit upon the throne of an apparatus of state that he considered to be illegitimately established. Confused at how to proceed in negotiations but nonetheless desperate to not trigger military intervention by the Mutapa Empire, Xhosa and Azanian diplomats began to offer the throne to other members of the House of Ntsele, but like their patriarch, each one refused to partake in what they regarded to be an illegitimate regime.
This continued for no more than a week before Langalibalele ceased the whole matter in a fiery speech presented to the court of King Moshoeshoe of Basutoland on September 20th and quickly distributed throughout the Thaba Bosiu Pact in print over the following days. Informally deemed Langalibalele’s Manifesto, the speech decried the Hlubi Army as having disregarded the authority of its king, thus effectively overthrowing the Hlubi monarchy and seizing control of the country’s apparatus of state in negotiations with Burrite forces. Considering the Hlubi Army to now be a rouge actor, Langalibalele abdicated from the leadership of said army, and, critically, went on to declare the following:
“By extension, given that the Hlubi nation has fallen under the illegitimate republican rule of its pariah military, I hereby abdicate from my responsibilities as the King of the Kingdom of Hlubiland as it currently exists and any pretender regime that may be established in its place by occupying armies. I shall, nonetheless, continue to serve as the rightful King of the Hlubi nation from exile, carrying on the survival of the legitimate governance of the divine rule that was unjustly deposed by treasonous military leadership upon the surrender of their country to foreign mob rule.”
-Excerpt from “Langalibaele’s Manifesto”, circa September 20th, 1860
King Langalibalele of Hlubiland.
The foreign ministries of Azania and Xhosaland rushed to try and cover the damage inflicted by Langalibalele’s Manifesto, but it was too late. Upon being presented to Mwene Changamire Chatunga, the fate of the Burrite revolution was now seemingly in the hands of the reactionary autocrat of Mutapa. Once again, hawkish advisors pleaded to the Mwene to intervene, and to their pleased surprise, this time, Chatunga agreed with their sentiments. While the argument that the Bulawayo Pact had directly deposed King Langalibalele’s rule was flimsy at best, the Mwene nonetheless considered the Hlubi Army’s capitulation to Chancellor Maqoma to be the overthrow of a legitimate monarch incited by Burrite forces. More crucially, even if Langalibalele’s abdication technically didn’t constitute as a violate of the Edict of Zanzibar, Chatunga feared that letting the Burrites install yet another republican government on the basis of a geopolitical technicality would embolden them to continue their revolutionary rampage throughout southern Africa, daring the Mutapa to be called out on their bluff. No, the loss of another South African monarchy at the hands of Burrite democracy could not stand. Therefore, on September 22nd, 1860, the Mutapa Empire declared war on the United Provinces of Azania, the Xhosa Burrite Republic, and the Fengu Republic.
Military actions against the Burrite powers began minutes after the Mutapa declaration of war, as telegrams delivered orders that would forever change the course of history. In the coming days, treaties would be negotiated between Changamire Chatunga and Samuel Breckinridge regarding the coordination of strategies and troop movements, but that all laid ahead in the coming days. For now, in the heat of the moment of September 22nd, 1860, the Mutapa Empire had yet to ratify any alliance with the Thaba Bosiu Pact and therefore did not move any military forces through the reactionary Native African kingdoms to confront the Burrites on active frontlines. Instead, Mutapa only shared one border with Azania, that being the enclaved city of Fort Jaager. Founded in 1820 during the Zulu War as a trading war between the then-allied Dutch Republic and Rozvi Empire, over the past forty years, Fort Jaager had since grown into one of the largest and most financially prosperous cities on the African continent, first by serving as a gateway between European and East African markets and later developing into a hub of exchange between African, Western, and Asian civilizations. To put it mildly, Fort Jaager had grown into the mercantile capital of the Indian Ocean.
Downtown Fort Jaager, circa 1853.
Fort Jaager’s international trade-based economy meant that it was hit especially hard by the Decade of Despair, and the Riebeeckian-Mutapa trade war initiated a year before the Great Crisis cutting off a considerable source of income with the city’s biggest trading partner meant that the global recession reached Fort Jaager when it was already knocked down. By 1854, nearly one third of the city’s population was unemployed, and this understandably stoked the flames of tension within the city. Historically a stronghold for moderate Federalists who supported the social progressivism of the national Federalist Party but were more liberal fiscally, economic collapse attracted the disgruntled Fort Jaager working class to the economically left-wing platform Revolutionary Burrite Party upon its formation in 1853, and by the time the city’s municipal elections came around in 1855, it was clear that the RBP was the favored party amongst the city’s populace.
The city’s ruling moderate Federalist establishment, both blaming the Van Buuren administration’s Sanction Act for much of their economic woes and desperate to differentiate itself from the increasingly unpopular national Federalist Party leadership, formed the center-right Fort Jaager Democratic Party (FJDP) under the leadership of incumbent Mayor Daniel James as a splinter organization that maintained many of the social policies of the Federalists but advocated for reduction in protectionist policies, economic deregulation, and the subsidization of failing private sector enterprises as a solution to the woes the city suffered amidst the Decade of Despair. Unsurprisingly, the fiscally conservative FJDP, regarded as an out of touch proxy of Fort Jaager’s wealthy elite, was soundly rejected by the city’s increasingly progressive electorate in 1855, with the municipal council and mayorship both being overwhelmingly won by Revolutionary Burrite candidates. Interestingly enough, radical economist Johann Karl Rodbertus, and adherent to the fructarian cooperative socialism originally espoused by trade unionist Wilhelm Lovett, won the mayorship of Fort Jaager, thereby placing a city once defined by its role within global capitalism, under the leadership of one of the world’s first elected socialist administrations.
Mayor Johann Karl Rodbertus of Fort Jaager.
Under the Rodbertus administration, a uniquely socialistic approach was taken to recovering Fort Jaager from the Great Crisis of 1852. The bluntly-named Cooperative Act of October 1855 mandated that business owners offer to sell their enterprises to their workers prior to selling them off to a private investor, reduced taxation on cooperatives so as to incentivize their development, and chartered the Fort Jaager People’s Bank as a public bank managed by the city’s municipal council to finance the establishment of worker cooperatives, with focus particularly placed on developing cooperatives as a source of work for a highly unemployed workforce. While Fort Jaager’s economy never returned to its pre-Decade of Despair heights before the Riebeeckian Civil War broke out, the Cooperative Act did ultimately aid in gradually reducing the municipal unemployment rate to a more acceptable level throughout Rodbertus’ first term, and Fort Jaager notably boasted one of the highest recorded levels of economic equality of any industrialized city in the world by 1859.
Deeply popular amongst his populist working-class constituency in Fort Jaager and re-elected in 1859 by a landslide, Johann Karl Rodbertus was largely regarded as too radical by the national Revolutionary Burrite leadership, which was indeed backed by many fledgling socialist movements throughout Riebeeckia but nonetheless adhered to a center-left vision of a capitalistic mixed economy with a strong welfare state and public intervention in economic affairs. Rodbertus was admired by the RBP as a success story of economic progressivism, and political support from socialists in national electoral campaigns surely couldn’t hurt, but the growing cooperative socialist political machine in Fort Jaager was largely ignored by the national party. It was free to do what it wanted in its enclave port, but that was about as far as Rodbertus’ influence seriously extended. Even after the Riebeeckian Civil War broke out and the apparatus of the United Dominion was scrapped by Hannibal Tuinstra in favor of the Burrite democracy that was the United Provinces of Azania, Rodbertus’ island of cooperative socialism, far away from the frontlines of the conflict, was more or less cast aside.
Then the Mutapa Empire declared war, and the experiment in cooperative socialism that was Fort Jaager suddenly found itself at the center of a battle that gripped the world’s attention. On September 22nd, 1860, thousands of Mutapa soldiers under the command of King Mswati II, the wealthy and adventurous monarch of the Mutapa protectorate of the Kingdom of Sobhuza who sought glory and favor in the eyes of the Mwene by partaking in the opening military campaign against the Bulawayo Pact, marched into Fort Jaager. Mswati II expected an easy victory in the Battle of Fort Jaager, and rightfully so given that the city lacked much in the way of defenses beyond a single stationed regiment, and surely enough, the Mutapa Army rushed through the streets of Fort Jaager, facing little opposition beyond the occasional Azanian soldier and makeshift barricade. Mswati’s army left a trail of terror in their wake, setting fires throughout the city as a display of the force that was soon to be unleashed upon the entirety of the United Provinces of Azania. Tactically, the Battle of Fort Jaager was little more than a clean-up job to eliminate a critical Azanian enclave close to the Mutapa heartland. Symbolically, it was Mwene Changamire Chatunga’s way to reveal to his newfound enemies the merciless power of the Mutapa Empire.
To be clear, the Battle of Fort Jaager was a quick and terrifying defeat for Azania. But in the midst of the chaotic fires incinerating the city, hundreds of civilians took up arms against Mswati II’s invasion in a desperate last stand. Some of these brief guerrilla fighters were individuals simply running into the streets with whatever weapon they could muster, however, the vast majority were instead worker cooperatives collectively deciding to fight against the Mutapa Army as makeshift, and notably democratic and decentralized, militias. These “militia cooperatives” bought evacuating civilians, at most, only a handful of hours, however, they would nonetheless be celebrated as heroic martyrs by the Azanian populace, and observing socialist intellectuals throughout the world certainly took note of these decentralized and spontaneous soldiers’ councils. As for Mayor Johann Karl Rodbertus, he was no warrior, and instead spent the duration of the Battle of Fort Jaager hastily overseeing an evacuation of civilians before he himself boarded a steamship in the evening, plumes of smoke noticeably rising not so far away as the Mutapa Army progressed towards the docks of Fort Jaager, street by street. Gazing off at the fallen city that he had governed for five years, Mayor Rodbertus uttered one last phrase before boarding the ship, one that would echo throughout the propaganda of the Burrite revolution for the remainder of the war:
“I shall return.”
Soldiers of the Mutapa Army in a ruined building following the Battle of Fort Jaager, circa September 1860.
Only two hours later, guns fell silent over Fort Jaager and the city was under the complete control of the Mutapa Empire. Within less than twenty-four hours, the course of the Second Cape Revolutionary War had been irreversibly altered. Over the coming days, Mutapan and Confederate diplomats would meet in smoke-filled rooms to negotiate treaties with the goal to utterly eradicate Burrite democracy from the face of the Earth, and soon enough, one of the largest militaries of the 19th Century was to descend upon the fledgling Bulawayo Pact. The progress of the alliance over the past year was not only threatened to be undone, but for the first time in months, it looked likely that the Burrites would lose their revolutionary crusade. In the meantime, as the mighty Mutapa Empire cast its long shadow upon southern Africa, it had become clear that the scope of the Second Cape Revolutionary War that had initially begun as a civil war in Riebeeckia had expanded well beyond its original theater, and as such, a new name was required to describe the titanic conflict that had now consumed the bulk of East Africa and threatened to expand even further in due time. Journalists acted accordingly, and soon enough, that new name was uncovered and subsequently proliferated throughout the belligerent powers.
At long last, the Equatorial Revolutionary War had truly begun.
How did a civil war confined to the southernmost empire of the African continent escalate into a revolution whose fires would burn throughout the Indian Ocean? The answer layed not upon the battlefields of the Karoo Front, nor in the halls of Mwene Changamire Chatunga’s palace, nor in the streets of Mysore. These were all crucial stages upon which the epic of the Equatorial Revolutionary War was to be performed, however, the embers of the Riebeeckian Civil War were first proliferated internationally via the much smaller Xhosa Federation. The largest and wealthiest of the Native African protectorates of the United Dominion, the Xhosa had, like Austropolis’ four other protectorates, declared their neutrality in the Riebeeckian Civil War upon the outbreak of the conflict, thereby becoming a de facto independent state. Both Breckinridge and Tuinstra were frustrated by the loss of the five protectorates, however, it would be foolhardy to wage a military campaign with the goal of reasserting control over the protectorates and open up yet another frontline of the Riebeeckian Civil War in the process.
Of the five Native African protectorates, it was perhaps Xhosa that was the most unique. A de facto successor to the previous Xhosa Kingdom, the Federation, formed in 1820, was the sole protectorate to possess a constitution and had roughly modeled itself off of the system of governance of the Dutch Republic. Under the 1820 constitution, the Xhosa state was effectively a confederacy of constituent kingdoms and chiefdoms who were each assigned a single vote within the States-General, the national legislature that was responsible for maintaining foreign affairs (after becoming a protectorate of the Dutch and later Riebeeckians, this meant little beyond overseeing diplomacy with their protectors), the armed forces, taxation and economic regulation, and the subsidization of internal improvements. This meant that, unlike its contemporaries, the Xhosa Federation was clearly not a unitary state and left the bulk of day to day governance to its constituent kingdoms while the national States-General largely confined its responsibilities to infrastructure program and commercial interests as its protectors took over the oversight of the military and foreign affairs.
On paper, the constituent kingdoms of the Xhosa Federation were equal in terms of representation and power within the States-General. In practice, however, power was clearly concentrated within the reigning monarch of the Xhosa Kingdom, the most influential constituent kingdom, who wielded the de facto capability of appointing twelve delegations to the States-General due to both the Xhosa Kingdom itself and its eleven sub-chieftaincies all being awarded separate representation. This gave the Xhosa nearly double the amount of votes of the other six kingdoms of the Federation put together, and as such, King Hintsa kaKhawuta of the Xhosa was elected to be the first stadtholder, the head of the Federation who held their position for life, in 1820 by a bloc of representatives in the States-General accountable directly to himself. After the death of Hintsa in 1849, the stadtholderate was again filled by the Xhosa king, Sarili kaHintsa, who would rule over the Xhosa Federation by the time of the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War in September 1859.
Stadtholder Sarili kaHintsa of the Xhosa Federation.
A skilled diplomat and fierce Xhosa nationalist, Sarili was interested in taking advantage of the circumstances brought forth by the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War. While the other Native African protectorates merely declared their neutrality in the conflict, insisting that they would recognize the legitimacy of the victorious faction and presumably return to the status of protection following its conclusion, Stadtholder Sarili declared the Xhosa Federation an independent nation on October 6th, 1859, knowing that neither Tuinstra nor Breckenridge would be willing to attack the Xhosa whilst facing tenuous circumstances on the frontline of the Riebeeckian Civil War, and began an immediate military buildup of the Xhosa States Army (XSA), which had largely been a miniscule force since the conclusion of the Cape Revolutionary War. Within the early months of the Riebeeckian Civil War, hundreds of young Xhosa men were conscripted into the armed forces, ensuring that an invasion of the Xhosa Federation was an even more ridiculous idea.
In terms of foreign affairs, Sarili was keen on maintaining the mercantile strength of his confederacy. Since the Treaty of Dananombe’s ratification in 1821, the Xhosa Federation had benefited considerably in terms of economic growth from its relationship with the Hanoverian Realms by serving as the site of a key port city, eMonti, where many of the regulations of the United Dominion did not apply, thereby making its services generally cheaper. For similar reasons, the Xhosa Federation served as a haven for many wealthy Riebeeckian industrialists due to the worker protections of the UDR largely not applying to the Native African protectorates outside of taxation, and given that the Xhosa were the most economically successful and interconnected of the protectorates, it was the obvious choice for entrepreneurs seeking cheap and exploitable labor. The Federation was still largely an agrarian state by 1859, however, plenty of factories had sprouted up in its largest cities, and the exportation of manufactured goods to Riebeeckia had become a crucial source of economic growth, so much so that many nobles, including Sarili himself, had purchased factories of their own. Therefore, content with its economic status, the Xhosa Federation under Sarili did not impose any protectionist measures on trade with either Riebeeckian government despite its declaration of independence, serving as a neutral dealer with both regimes.
Of course, while the Xhosa Federation’s lack of worker protections had brought considerable profit to the hands of its aristocratic elite and the wealthy white plutocrats of Riebeeckia who had set up shop within the country to take advantage of its more laissez-faire economic approach, it was a miserable place to reside for its working class. By the 1850s, the capital city of Nxuba was filled with shanty corporate towns, where workers and their families seeking the opportunities of industrial production were crammed into horrifically unsanitary conditions and wasted their lives away in deadly factories for disgustingly low wages. The laissez-faire economy of the Xhosa Federation and the other Native African protectorates, for that matter, was the dark underbelly of the relatively egalitarian economic standards (at least for the time) of the United Dominion, serving as one of the country’s economic drivers where the wealthy elite could escape the defense of the working class and have their interests be protected by unaccountable absolute monarchs. This economic exploitation was not escaped by the agricultural workforce of Xhosaland, who still made up a majority of the country’s population, due to wealthy Riebeeckian interests purchasing several acres of farmland and forcing most farmers into feudalistic sharecropping arrangements with Riebeeckian landowners by 1859.
The heightened socioeconomic inequality and worsening working conditions throughout the Xhosa Federation understandably spurred frustration amongst the national populace, an outrage that was further fueled by the Great Panic of 1852 plunging Xhosaland into a recession and the arrival of radical political ideals in the country. Despite being criminalized, labor unions were first sporadically organized by the Xhosa working class in the early 1850s, largely in response to mass layoffs and collapsing wages during the Decade of Despair, and calls for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, if not an outright republic, increasingly echoed throughout the streets of Nxuba during this time period. There was no advocate for social reform more vocal than Jongumsobomvu Moqoma, the famed general of the Xhosa States Army. Having been born to Chief Ngqika of the Rharhabe in 1798 and later becoming the cousin of Sarili kaHintsa, Maqoma’s military career was older than the United Dominion, having first served as an officer of the Xhosa Federation in the Zulu War of the early 1820s. By the time the Cape Revolutionary War broke out, Maqoma had risen through the ranks of the XSA to be its most senior general, second in command only to Stadtholder Hintsa himself.
Maqoma made a name for himself, both within the Xhosa Federation and the United Dominion of Riebeeckia, during the Cape Revolutionary War as a cunning and fierce commander, not to mention a critical force in the Riebeeckian conquest of United East India Company holdings along the Cape of Good Hope. General Maqoma returned home to Xhosaland as a national hero of both his own country and Riebeeckia, his name being celebrated alongside the likes of Wilfried Harrison, at least amongst less Eurocentric crowds. Going into the 1830s, however, Maqoma became increasingly disturbed with the takeover of the Xhosa economy by Riebeeckian elites, decrying the practice as the cession of economic sovereignty to a foreign imperialist power, and abdicated from the Right Hand House of the Xhosa Kingdom circa 1833 in protest while still remaining as the commanding officer of the Xhosa States Army.
Over the coming decades, General Maqoma came to perceive the Xhosa aristocracy as not just incapable of resisting Riebeeckian economic imperialism, but actively collaborating with it to advance their own personal financial interests. Maqoma considered the Xhosa elite to be willingly selling out national sovereignty to the United Dominion, and to the nationalistic general, this was paramount to treason and fueled anti-monarchist sentiments within him. As both a deeply popular war hero and advocate for progressive land reform and democratization, Maqoma became more popular amongst the Xhosa masses than the stadtholder himself, earning the image as a champion for the country’s emerging working class. The Xhosa Federation was brought into the War of Malacca in May 1844 following the Mranmese attack on Hanoverian East India Company holdings in Southeast Asia, and with the outbreak of conflict, General Maqoma went out to fight yet again, this time in the Malay Archipelago. His criticisms of Xhosaland’s relationship with Riebeeckia over the past decade prevented Chancellor Andries Potgieger from assigning Maqoma the command of anything beyond the meager Xhosa presence in the War of Malacca, however, Maqoma nonetheless performed well and returned home with even more popularity and resentment towards his country’s relationship with the United Dominion.
Maqoma’s reformist stances meant that he was not considered by the States General as a candidate in the 1849 stadtholderate election, and the new Xhosa head of state, Sarili kaHintsa, perceived the general (perhaps correctly) as a threat to his control over the Federation. Maqoma’s popularity amongst the public and loyalty within the XSA meant that removing him from his command post was risky for Sarili, but this didn’t stop him from appointing more lower-ranking officers loyal to him and his political views, being more publicly critical of Maqoma, and exercising more control over the armed forces than his father in an attempt to curb the general’s influence. The rivalry between Sarili and Maqoma for the loyalty of the XSA was a delicate game, and one that only made the two most powerful men within the Xhosa Federation increasingly adversarial, dividing the country in the process. Sarili was viewed as a more assertive stadtholder than Hintsa by the Xhosa aristocracy whereas Maqoma was viewed ever increasingly as a vanguard of the masses against a corrupt nobility by the Xhosa people.
The Great Panic of 1852 and the ensuing economic calamity in the Xhosa Federation was what ultimately pushed General Maqoma into radicalism. The unwillingness of Sarili and the States General to relieve the economic suffering of their people mixed with a seemingly greater interest amongst elites to protect their own financial interests via cutting taxes for Xhosaland’s wealthiest was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Maqoma. He no longer viewed the country’s aristocracy as merely unaccountable to the interests of the public, but deeply corrupt and working against the interests of the Xhosa nation, which led the general, once an aristocrat himself, to declare himself committed to the ideals of liberal republicanism in an impassioned speech to a crowd of thousands of workers and farmers alike in Nxuba circa August 1853. Maqoma would go on to attend the founding Zomerstadt Convention of the Revolutionary Burrite Party in the following fall, advocating to no avail for the party to adopt the position of granting the Native African protectorates independence as Burrite republics, and nonetheless returned to Xhosaland as a vocal proponent of the political ideology of Burrite democracy.
By this point, removing Maqoma from the armed forces on Stadtholder Sarili’s part would risk instigating a civil war between the Xhosa aristocratic ruling class and the general’s following of embittered populistic republicans, which meant that the Xhosa military was divided between absolute monarchists on one side and Burrite republicans on the other, with no clear resolution to the internal strife. While the United Dominion was waltzing towards its civil war throughout the 1850s, so too was the Xhosa Federation unknowingly descending towards armed confrontation. The Riebeeckian Civil War was in and of itself the spark that would ignite the flames of revolution within Xhosaland, for the declaration of the United Provinces of Azania in February 1860 was viewed by General Maqoma and his fellow republicans as a Burrtie revolution, one that ought to be replicated domestically.
Taking advantage of the groundswell in enthusiasm for the establishment of a Burrite republic in Xhosaland, particularly amongst the urban working class, following the ratification of the constitution of the UPA, Maqoma publicly called upon the workers of the Xhosa Federation via widely distributed pamphlets on March 20th, 1860 to initiate a nationwide general strike with the objective of grinding the national economy to a halt until the States General would capitulate the apparatus of state to the Xhosa States Army. Within a matter of days, independent workers and criminalized unions alike took to Maqoma’s call to action and hundreds of thousands of laborers refused to show up to work until the States General and stadtholder abdicated their rule to the military. In many instances, strikes turned violent due to local police and private security forces attacking protesting workers, however, with the armed forces largely under the control of Maqoma, the military did not interfere outside of a handful of regiments under the command of officers loyal to Sarili kaHintsa, and more often than not, rank and file soldiers actually joined the protesting working class.
The instigation of such internal instability and subsequent refusal to combat the strike was the straw that broke the camel’s back regarding the relationship between Sarili and Maqoma. On April 1st, 1860, Stadtholder Sarili dismissed General Maqoma from service within the Xhosa States Army, however, Maqoma publicly refused to step down from his position, decrying Sarili’s as illegitimate in the eyes of the people. Sarili never had the opportunity to arrest Maqoma for his disobedience. On April 3rd, 1860, General Maqoma, still recognized as the rightful commander of the Xhosa States Army by the bulk of his officers, converged the army upon Nxuba and marched through the capital city towards the stadtholder’s palace and Inner Court, the chamber of assembly for the States General, with the intent of deposing the confederal elective monarchy of the Xhosa Federation. Much of Nxuba’s own workforce enthusiastically joined Maqoma’s putsch upon realizing what was occurring. With the city encircled, there was no escape for the Xhosa regime, and within hours, both Sarili kaHintsa and the entirety of the States General had been arrested by the XSA. On the morning of the following day, to a crowd of citizens, Sarili announced his abdication from both the Xhosa Federation stadtholderate of the and Xhosa Kingdom monarchy, placing both institutions under the administration of Maqoma and the Xhosa States Army.
Reigning as the de facto military autocrat of the Xhosa Federation, Maqoma spent the following weeks leading the XSA to the capitals of the Federation’s constituent kingdoms and chieftaincies with the goal of bringing the entirety of Xhosaland under his direct rule before local nobility could amass the force necessary to wage a civil war against his provisional government. With the vast majority of the armed forces loyal to Maqoma, the general experienced little resistance in his campaigns, with the Bhaca Kingdom being the last constituent nation to submit to his rule on April 19th, 1860 after its King Diko kaNcapayi fled to exile in Basutoland. With the Xhosa Federation completely under his rule at this point, Maqoma returned to Nxuba victorious in eliminating the many Xhosa monarchies without a civil war ever being fought. On April 23rd, 1860, Maqoma proclaimed the establishment of the Xhosa Burrite Republic (XBR) and appointed himself the chancellor of its provisional stratocratic government until a constitution upholding the ideology of Burrite democracy as it was practiced in the neighboring United Provinces of Azania could be ratified.The Xhosa Revolution had succeeded, and had unknowingly ignited the fires of international Burrite revolution in the process.
Chancellor Jongumsobomvu Maqoma of the Xhosa Burrite Republic.
The subsequent months were tense for the fledgling Burrite Republic. While boasting strong public support internally, the state was automatically a pariah in the eyes of neighboring Native African protectorates, which suffered from repressive socioeconomic conditions similar to those of Xhosaland and were therefore vulnerable to revolutions of their own, and still faced the challenge of consolidating control domestically, even with the masses largely on Chancellor Maqoma’s side. Hundreds of Xhosa Federation officials, nobles, plutocrats, and military officers were rounded up and arrested throughout April and May 1860 and, despite Maqoma’s self-proclaimed commitment to eventually installing a Burrite democracy, for the time being, monarchist public dissent, particularly in the press, was heavily censored and penalized by the ruling military junta under what Maqoma renamed to the Xhosa National Republican Army (XNRA).
Despite his authoritarian tendencies, Maqoma nonetheless made moves towards transitioning towards popular rule. A provisional Congress of the Xhosa Burrite Republic was elected by universal suffrage for all adults of at least twenty-one years of age on May 14th, 1860, with each district being a continuation of the borders of the Xhosa kingdoms and chieftaincies, to serve as an assembly of advisors to Maqoma, who nonetheless had the final and unilateral say in the affairs of state (it would also be worth mentioning that all candidates for the provisional Congress had to be approved by Maqoma’s junta beforehand, thereby meaning that the legislature was filled with loyal adherents to his ideology and rule). Upon assembling, the Xhosa Congress was tasked with writing a constitution in coordination with Maqoma himself, a process that would take several months.
In the meantime, Chancellor Maqoma continued the military buildup first initiated by Stadtholder Sarili, however, focused on amassing forces along the borders with Basutoland and Fenguland rather than Azania, viewing the defense of Xhosa sovereignty from neighboring states as a continued priority, regardless of the regime change. In terms of more domestically-focused policy, Maqoma legalized labor unions and “lawful and peaceable” strike, nationalized all land owned by aristocracy and foreigners with the intent of selling the vast majority of land and industry to working class Xhosa at affordable prices, banned child labor, and implemented a nationwide guaranteed minimum income, all within May 1860 alone and with approval from the Xhosa Congress. Each of these decrees not only made Maqoma deeply popular in Xhosaland but made the general-turned benevolent dictator a hero of the Burrite revolution in Azania as well, albeit one that more socially libertarian circles were willing to criticize the authoritarian tendencies of. There was a perception amongst the Azanian populace that the ideals they were fighting for in the Riebeeckian Civil War were being exported internationally and sparking a regional crusade for liberty and equality, and it was not much of a surprise when the United Provinces became the first government in the world to internationally recognize the Xhosa Burrite Republic on April 30th, 1860.
The view that Burrite democracy was bringing about an international revolution was not confined to allies of Maqoma. As previously mentioned, the reigning absolute monarchies of the remaining four Native African protectorates were mortally terrified at the prospect that they would share the fate of Sarili kaHintsa and the States General, and in the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation, propagandists were quick to depict Maqoma as a violently barbaric brute, one who was an easy boogeyman for the white supremacist regime to capitalize on in media decrying the international proliferation of “Tuinstraian radicalism”. In the eyes of Samuel Breckinridge, the Xhosa Burrite Republic posed a simultaneous strategic threat and opportunity. In the sense of the former, Xhosaland, while meager in both size and population compared to the UPA and HDRC, could nonetheless become a source of manpower in the fight against the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, not to mention that Maqoma’s tactical brilliance arguably exceeded that of nearly every commanding officer in the Riebeeckian Civil War and the potential replication of the Xhosa Revolution would bring about Burrite states along the Confederate border and thus overextend Breckinridge’s armed forces, which were already on the defensive on multiple critical fronts. In the sense of the latter, however, the Xhosa Revolution scared the remaining Native African protectorates enough to tilt more towards diplomatically aligning with the Holy Dominion, and there was thus potential for the formation of a counterrevolutionary alliance between the protectorates and the Breckinridge regime, one that could turn the tides of the Riebeeckian Civil War if its cards were played correctly.
The Holy Dominion was therefore quick to reach out to the protectorates in order to negotiate the formation of a coalition of some kind, with the Breckinridge administration tasking its Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the leadership of Robert Garnett Hunter with these negotiations almost immediately after the declaration of the Xhosa Burrite Republic in April 1860. This mission ultimately resulted in the ratification of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu between the Holy Dominion, Basutoland, Fenguland, Hlubiland, and Ngwaneland on May 20th, 1860, thus bringing the remaining Native African protectorates into the Confederate sphere of influence. In accordance with the treaty, all five signatories would enter into an alliance of mutual defense from either internal or external armed attacks, thus meaning that any attempt at proliferating the Burrite revolution of Xhosaland by either internal or external actors would be retaliated against. The kingdoms managed to get the Holy Dominion to recognize their sovereignty as fully independent states, thus meaning that the Breckinridge regime would drop its policy of considering their protectorate status under the United Dominion to still be de jure intact, however, in return, Hunter’s ministry managed to extract its own concessions, namely the ability for the Holy Dominion to station as much of its armed forces within the territory of the Native African kingdoms as it pleased and requiring all four kingdoms to prohibit any trade barriers between themselves and the HDRC.
Fearing the so-called “Thaba Bosiu Pact” for obvious strategic reasons, the United Provinces of Azania and the Xhosa Burrite Republic responded with an alliance of their own in the form of the Treaty of Bulawayo, ratified circa May 27th, 1860, which formed a much more straightforward mutual defense pact between the two countries, albeit with the provision that Azania would be able to move military forces and supplies through Xhosaland along the Trans-Xhosa Railway in order to connect the province of Zululand to the contiguous Azanian provinces. The existence of the rival alliances only heightened tensions further between the Xhosa Burrite Republic and the Native African kingdoms, and many concluded that the expansion of the Riebeeckian Civil War to an international conflict was inevitable from this point forward. As Native African forces were amassed along borders with enemy states, the seemingly inevitable spark of regional conflict arrived on June 17th, 1860, when the young Major General Nicola Marschall of the Crusaders of Riebeeckia launched an offensive into West Zululand from eastern Basutoland, hoping to catch the limited Azanian forces in the Zululand provinces off guard by attacking through the poorly-defended Plettenberg Mountains. Emerging from a makeshift Confederate military base to the north of Thabana Ntlenyana, Marschall’s campaign initially faced little opposition, however, the mountainous terrain of West Zululand proved difficult for soldiers more accustomed to the relatively flat terrain of Bloemfontein to navigate. Progress was considerably slower than anticipated, which gave time for the Azanian National Army to deploy reinforcements in the Plettenberg Mountains.
The bogged down forces of Major General Marschall experienced their first defeat on June 30th, 1860 at the Battle of Mqatsheni, when Azanian troops under the command of the elderly West Zululander General Ndela kaSompisi ambushed Marschall within the easternmost reaches of the Plettenberg Mountains. The Battle of Mqatsheni was a crushing blow to Marschall’s men, who were both relatively limited in their numbers and lacked the experience necessary to defend against an army of similar size in mountainous terrain. The short-lived Marschall Offensive was thus decisively stopped, and its commanding officer led what remained of his army into a desperate retreat back towards Basutoland. General Ndela followed in pursuit, engaging with Marshcall’s forces in brief skirmishes from time to time, but on July 3rd, Nicola Marschall crossed back into Basutoland, believing that the Azanians would not pursue him any further out of fear of sparking a war with Basutoland and her allies.
Marschall’s analysis proved to be incorrect. General Ndela’s forces followed their enemy into the Kingdom of Basutoland, unaware that they had crossed into another country at the moment given that the area lacked any border demarcations, settlements, or encampments that would indicate where the Azanian-Basuto border was. The Azanian National Army would therefore engage with the Crusaders of Riebeeckia only a few miles southeast of Thabana Ntlenyana, expecting yet another victory. Only a little more than an hour into the battle, however, a unit of Basuto soldiers patrolling the border approached Ndela’s army from the southwest and interpreted the engagement as an Azanian pre-emptive offensive into Basutoland, thus joining the Battle of Thabana Ntlenyana on behalf of their Confederate allies by attacking the Azanians from their undefended southern flank. At first confused by the arrival of Basuto soldiers to the conflict and ordering his forces to fight them, Ndela kaSompisi soon realized his critical mistake of crossing into Basutoand and ordered an immediate retreat back into West Zululand.
It was too late, however, to turn back the ever-moving wheels of history. The foreign ministry of the United Provinces of Azania issued a formal apology to the Kingdom of Basutoland, insisting that the attack by Thabana Ntlenyana was a mistake and forcing Ndela into an early retirement in an attempt to appease the Basuto government, however, King Moshoeshoe of Basutoland was infuriated by the violation of Basuto territory and the deaths of Basuto men at the hands of Azanian soldiers. While Moshoeshoe had once earned the reputation of being a skillful diplomat, the Xhosa Revolution to his south had made him wary of further expansion of Burrite ideology into his territory and became convinced that letting the Thabana Ntlenyana border skirmish stand would be viewed by both Azania and Xhosaland as a sign of Basuto vulnerability and begin intentional incursions with the ultimate goal of overthrowing his reign. Moshoeshoe was not, however, about to simply walk into the Riebeeckian Civil War without assurance from his allies that they would support a Basuto declaration of war, and as such, the king’s diplomats made it clear to the embassies of Basutoland’s fellow Thaba Bosiu Pact members that their government saw the Battle of Thabana Ntlenyana as an act of aggression, and therefore obligated signatories of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu to intervene on behalf of the defense of Basutoland.
Samuel Breckinridge, eager to bring the Holy Dominion’s allies into the Riebeeckian Civil War on his behalf and open up a new frontline between the United Provinces and the Native African kingdoms, was quick to back Moshoeshoe’s call to invoke the mutual defense clause of the Treaty of Thaba Bosiu, and with the most militarily powerful member of the pact supporting the Basuto stance, the other three member states didn’t take long to follow suit. Thus, on July 7th, 1860, the Kingdom of Basutoland mobilized its soldiers against and declared war on the United Provinces of Azania. The remaining three Native African kingdoms, upholding their obligations to the Thaba Bosiu Pact, followed Basutoland’s lead and did the same within the following twenty-four hours. The mobilization of Thaba Bosiu Pact forces in turn resulted in the Xhosa Burrite Republic upholding its obligation of mutual defense in accordance with the Treaty of Bulawayo, thus resulting in the entry of the fledgling republican government into the Riebeeckian Civil War on July 9th, 1860.
Soldier of the Xhosa National Republican Army, circa July 1860.
Of course, by this point, as the Native African states of the Cape of Good Hope marched to war on behalf of either the Burrite revolution or Samuel Breckinridge’s counterrevolution, the conflict that first began at the Battle of Melkbosstrand had expanded beyond the Riebeeckian Civil War, now simply a part of a wider and ever-expanding international conflict. It would be prominent Xhosa journalist and Christian minister Tiyo Soga who first coined the term “Second Cape Revolutionary War” to describe the expanded conflict in an article in which he argued that the shared goal of the Azanian and Xhosa states ought to be an international Burrite revolution against the remaining theocratic and absolutist institutions southern Africa. The name was soon widely adopted throughout Xhosaland, given that the “Riebeeckian Civil War” wasn’t exactly descriptive of the war the Xhosa National Republican Army was waging, however, it soon entered the public dialect throughout the United Provinces of Azania as well as officials and civilians alike enthusiastically hopped on board the bandwagon of revolutionary fervor.
Within days, the first strategies of the so-called Plettenberg Front were put into motion. For the Burrites, their initial objective was to connect Xhosaland to the Zululands by overrunning the Kingdom of Fenguland. Doing so would not only prevent the Zululands from being isolated from the rest of the United Provinces and ultimately conquered, but would, if successful, result in the decisive defeat of the Fengu state relatively quickly. With the top commanding officers of the Azanian National Army focused on frontlines in the west at the time, the Fengu Offensive was primarily the responsibility of the XNRA, and eager to return to the fields of battle yet again, this time in the name of Burrite democracy, Chancellor Maqoma appointed himself to lead the campaign, a decision that the UPA had no problem with given Maqoma’s experience, skills, and public popularity as a general.
For the Thaba Bosiu Pact, the strategy was simply to overrun the Zululands as quickly as possible by concentrating the combined force of the Native African kingdoms on the two provinces and then immediately redirect the attention of coalition forces to an offensive into Xhosaland. Unlike the Azanians, who largely left the Fengu Offensive in the hands of the Xhosa, the Holy Dominion assigned the army of General James John Floyd III from the Bloemfontein Front to the Zulu Offensive, however, it was clear that overly-cautious general would not play a leading role in the campaign, which was instead largely overseen by Native African officers, with General Masopha, the third son of King Moshoeshoe, being the most prominent and influential commander of the campaign. And so, the stage was set for the Plettenberg Front. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike marched into the mountains, hoping to bring about a quick and decisive victory for their respective factions.
The XNRA began its campaign into the neighboring Kingdom of Fenguland almost as soon as war erupted. A relatively small and poorly-armed state, Fenguland was clearly outgunned by the Xhosa in and of themselves, let alone the Xhosa invading from the west and the Zulu invading from the east. Maqoma’s army crossed the Mzimvubu River, which marked the border between the Xhosa and Fengu, mere hours after the XBR had mobilized its forces against Fenguland and proceeded to rapidly push forth towards the heart of Fengu territory, where the capital city of Lusikisiki was situated, while a smaller unit was dispatched to stage an offensive along the Fengu coastline. Azanian forces stationed in the Zululands were uninvolved in any major offenses into Fenguland due to the siege of the provinces by General Masopha, however, ANA regiments were nonetheless entrenched along the eastern bank of the Mtamvuna River and forced the Fengu armed forces to divide their attention between two fronts.
Unsurprisingly given the country’s unfortunate geography, the Kingdom of Fenguland had little hope of surviving Maqoma’s Fengu Offensive. Settlements were falling to the Xhosa every day, and the Fengu were simply outnumbered and outgunned by their opponents. With the Fengu Offensive threatening counterrevolutionary efforts to invade West Zululand, Masopha was forced to allocate considerable manpower to the defense of Fenguland starting circa mid-July 1860, thereby stalling his own advances through the Plettenberg Mountains in the process. Even these reinforcements weren’t enough to stop the Fengu Offensive, however, and merely prolonged the inevitable. Trench warfare never managed to materialize in a large enough scale in Fenguland to meaningfully slow down the Xhosa offensive due to Maqoma’s forces moving too quickly for a war of attrition to be instigated, and the Battle of Lusikisiki thus began on August 1st, 1860, only to end two days later as the last defending troops of varying nationalities fled the city alongside the Fengu monarchy. The town of Gamalakhe was conquered by the XNRA just a day later, thereby linking the Zululands to their fellow Burrite allies to their west and bringing the entirety of the Fengu Coast under Bulawayo Pact occupation, and within the next twenty-four hours, the defeated Kingdom of Fenguland capitulated to the United Provinces on August 4th, 1860 with the condition that its royal family be given safe passage to exile in Basutoland.
Soldiers of the Azanian National Army outside of occupied Lusikisiki, circa August 1860.
The fate of Fenguland upon its conquest was hotly debated by the Burrite powers. While both occupying states agreed that the XNRA’s disproportionate role in the Fengu Offensive earned Xhosaland the bulk of the spoils, Chancellor Maqoma’s advisors and highest-ranking military officers were divided on what the fate of Fenguland ought to be. Ever since their displacement during the Mfecane brought about by the Zulu War, the Fengu people had gradually assimilated into Xhosa culture (although the native language of Mfengu continued to be the primary language of a little less than half of the population) and many Xhosa therefore viewed the Fengu as a part of their nationality that had just managed to get an independent kingdom of their own. More conservative Xhosa officials and those that had adopted nationalistic ideologies from Europe and the Americas therefore eagerly advocated for the annexation of Fenguland into the Xhosa Burrite Republic.
This stance was opposed by a collection of officials who sought to establish an independent Fengu Burrite state, both from the ideological standpoint that the Fengu people were deserving of their own sovereign republic and the practical standpoint that outright annexation would only reinvigorate counterrevolutionary fears of conquest by the Burrites and sour the international community’s position regarding the Second Cape Revolution. This position was shared by both the Azanian government and, more importantly, Chancellor Maqoma, who had long been an advocate for overthrowing the Native African kingdoms and establishing free sister republics in their place, as opposed to any sort of empire-building. Given Maqoma’s autocratic rule over Xhosaland, his position ultimately became that of his country, and the Treaty of Lusikisiki established the Fengu Republic under the provisional military dictatorship of Veldtman Bikitsha, a brilliant captain of the Fengu Army who had fought against Maqoma in the invasion of his country who nonetheless held Burrite sympathies. That being said, Fenguland was placed under a joint Xhosa-Azanian military occupation and all railways in the country became property of the XNRA, thus giving the Burrite Republic direct control over transportation through the country.
With the Zululands now connected back to their allies and the Plettenberg Front no longer intersected by the Kingdom of Fenguland, the Bulawayo Pact could consolidate its forces in southeastern Africa in a counteroffensive against General Masopha’s incursions through frontline’s namesake mountain range. The Native African kingdoms had largely focused on an invasion of the Zululands during the Fengu Offensive, with Masopha being tasked with pushing through the mountains and overrunning the provinces before Fenguland could collapse and become a gateway through which an influx of enemy reinforcements could arrive. Of course, the situation on the ground was more complex than a simple charge through the mountains. The Native African kingdoms, largely landlocked with the exceptions of Fenguland and Ngwaneland, lacked any significant naval forces, and with the Holy Dominion too disconnected from the region to provide naval support of its own, the United Provinces dominated the waters off the coast of the Plettenberg Front, thereby allowing reinforcements to bypass Fenguland with essentially no resistance.
That’s not to say the Azanian National Army within the Zululands were, by any means, well-equipped relative to their counterparts on westward frontlines. The transportation of troops and supplies via ships was a more lengthy and costly endeavor than simply putting them on board railroads, and even without taking the impact of modes of transport into account, the UPA had few resources to spare to the Plettenberg Front given the situation faced on the arguably more critical fronts to the west. The Zululands were thus relying less on the hope that Azanian reinforcements would arrive through the Fengu Offensive and more on the hope that the Xhosa would reallocate the bulk of their manpower to their defense after defeating Fenguland. The early Plettenberg Front was, therefore, essentially a race between the two rival coalitions, seeing which was to fall first: Fenguland or the Zululands.
Of course, this race was ultimately won by the Burrites, who would tell you that their victory was the result of the cunning tactics of Maqoma, which was, to an extent, a significant contributing factor, however, it was far from the only one. Fenguland was, for starters, simply less well-defended than the Zululands. The small country also lacked any natural barriers along its border with Xhosaland to the same extent as the Plettenberg Mountains served as a barrier between the Zululands and the Native African kingdoms. But even putting aside these more predictable elements, there was a critical component of the Fengu Offensive that the Zulu Offensive lacked, that being cohesion within its chain of command. The bulk of the forces participating in the Fengu Offensive were from the XNRA and therefore had no question regarding who was in charge, and even the few Azanian regiments participating in the campaign revered Maqoma for his reputation as a hero of the First Cape Revolutionary War enough to accept his status as the supreme allied commander of the Fengu Offensive and thus adhering to his general strategy.
The Zulu Offensive, on the other hand, was plagued by internal division brought about by a fusion of ideology and pride. The majority of forces fighting in the campaign were from the Native African kingdoms, who agreed to but their armies under the command of the Basuto General Masopha, however, the white supremacist ideology of Samuel Breckinridge and the National Cross Party meant that the Holy Dominion refused to place any Crusaders under the command of a Native African officer. Conversely, the Native African kingdoms felt that it was unfair to put a Confederate in command of a disrproportionately Native African army, let alone a Confederate with a history of incompetence like James John Floyd III, not to mention that the fanatically racist ideology of the Holy Dominion irked Native African leadership enough to not gamble with ceding considerable authority to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia. The Thaba Bosiu Pact was not born out of common ideology but rather a common enemy, and it showed upon the very onset of the outbreak of hostilities in the Plettenberg Mountains.
The lack of centralized strategic leadership in the Zulu Offensive was a setback, however, it was one that could’ve been overcome by consistent coordination and collaboration between Confederate and Native African military leadership. In reality, this would not be the case, largely thanks to the ego of one James John Floyd III. An ardent supporter of the National Cross ideology, it was no secret that Floyd viewed himself as superior to and deserving to be in command of his Native African peers, despite the fact that many had a much more extensive military background than the ex-congressman who had been appointed to a position of command largely for political reasons. From a more personal standpoint, however, Floyd had started out in the Riebeeckian Civil War as the officer overseeing the most tactically significant campaign at the outbreak of the conflict and had since been humiliated, tarnished his reputation, and had been relegated to relatively insignificant theaters. To now be commanding an army very clearly intended to be playing a supplementary role to the coalition of Native African counterrevolutionary forces led by General Masopha was yet another setback for Floyd’s status, and one that the hardline National Crossite would not simply sit back and take.
General Floyd therefore spent much of the Zulu Offensive conducting campaigns independent of Masopha’s two-pronged attack of West Zululand from Basutoland to its west and Hlubiland to its north in subtle defiance of the Basuto general. At first, this was little more than acts of pure pettiness. Confederate soldiers often had to wait for Floyd’s approval to move in and defend land occupied by Masopha’s coalition, Floyd frequently ordered the Crusaders of Riebeeckia to lead grand charges at positions where Native African armies were waging a more prolonged and carefully calculated war of attrition. Floyd’s numerous brash acts cost both Native African and Confederate soldiers their lives and noticeably slowed down the push through the Plettenberg Mountains by costing the Thaba Bosiu Pact resources and manpower in tactically self-defeating escapades. The simple fact that the Zululands were encircled and lacked the needed reinforcements meant that the Zulu Offensive continuously gained territory for the counterrevolutionary coalition, but Floyd’s stubbornness made the already-difficult task of invading via a mountain range considerably more deadly, time-consuming, and messy than necessary.
In the end, James John Floyd III cost the Thaba Bosiu Pact much-needed time in the Zulu Offensive, not to mention that he refused to deploy any reinforcements in the defense of Fenguland, and the Burrites ultimately won the race of the Plettenberg Front. Floyd argued to his fellow officers in the Crusaders of Riebeeckia that the actual blame for the failure of the Zulu Offensive laid on Masopha and the leadership of the Native African coalition more generally for not recognizing his racial superiority and therefore falling under his command, and given that many of Floyd’s peers either agreed with his argument or believed that putting blame on him would be a bad look for the Crusaders in general, the prideful general ultimately got away without a punishment from his superiors. That being said, however, as General Maqoma reallocated the bulk of XNRA forces to the Zululands in order to launch a counteroffensive against Masopha, HDRC Minister of War Edward J Jackson recognized that Floyd continuing to fight alongside General Masopha was a liability to the Confederate war effort and thus reassigned congressman-turned-general’s army to occupied Griqualand with the goal of launching an offensive into northern Xhosaland.
With the arrival of Maqoma and the Xhosa armed forces in West Zululand, there really wasn’t much of a question regarding the outcome of the confrontation. Masopha had been prepared for fighting a small defensive force isolated from the rest of Azania, and even that had been a challenge simply due to the geography of the Zululands. A counteroffensive by a much more well-equipped and larger army, let alone an army under the command of an officer as experienced and respected as Maqoma, would be nigh impossible to halt. Ironically enough, Masopha, who had begun his military career fighting the incursions of Shaka’s campaigns in the early 19th Century, was now replicating the late Zulu king’s strategy of invading the many nations to Zululand’s west, this time in the name of the Burrite revolution rather than imperialistic expansionism. Maqoma determined that the best course of action was to concentrate his offensive on the invasion the Kingdom of Hlubiland, a larger yet far less mountainous and well-defended country than Basutoland which would in turn cut off Ngwaneland from its allies and open up Bloemfontein, Binnenland, and northern Basutoland.
Therefore, starting in mid-August 1860, General Masopha began to spearhead the dull-named “August Offensive”, focusing on invading the under-defended soft underbelly of Hlubiland in the middle of the country, situated in between the Zulu Offensive’s joint invasions from Basutoland and northeastern Hlubiland, while smaller regiments were dispatched to make quick work of the aforementioned offensives into West Zululand. Starting by crossing the Ncandu River, the August Offensive worked better than anticipated. The Xhosa National Republican Army, while far from anything to boast about, had evolved out of the Xhosa National Army, which was by far the largest military force maintained by the Native African protectorates and, more critically, was the most well-armed. Again, the XNRA wasn’t too impressive on a global scale, but it brought plenty of organ guns and even a handful of elephas to the Plettenberg Front when its enemy forces lacked more than a handful of outdated organ guns. Also importantly, the United Provinces of Azania was actually willing to partake in the mechanization of the Xhosa armed forces by providing weapons, oftentimes free of charge, whereas the Holy Dominion, in large part due to its governing racist ideology, did not supply its allies with weaponry for fear of arming Native African states with weapons that could then be used against Confederate interests following the hypothetical victory of the Thaba Bosiu Pact.
This therefore meant that Maqoma’s August Offensive could more or less just charge over the Ncandu River into Hlubiland and face little proportional resistance. Maqoma was particularly fond of the elephas loaned to his army, utilizing them as a technology that could easily overwhelm the enemy. Still powered by steam at the time, elephas at the outbreak of the Equatorial Revolutionary War weren’t much more than a rarely-used trick in warfare, in large part because the most elaborate elephas took up to two and a half hours for their engines to warm up and the payoff being a vehicle that could only travel up to about four miles per hour. Steam engines were, of course, incorporated into warfare, with road locomotives and tractors often being utilized as transportation and mobile turrets, however, these vehicles tended to be much smaller than the bulky elephas first employed by the Federation of Peru in the Amazon War, which were impractical in most situations, and on top of their slowness, often broke down in combat.
A Harrison II model steam-powered elepha, the predominant elepha in the Riebeeckian National Army upon the outbreak of the Equatorial Revolutionary War, circa 1859.
But for the XNRA, which was facing a much more poorly-equipped army, steam-powered elephas were a far more useful tool. Time wasn’t much of a concern, and Masopha’s coalition lacked sufficient weaponry for combating armored vehicles. Therefore, Maqoma could simply take his time waiting for elepha engines to warm up and then order them to crawl over to enemy encampments, slowly devastating the forces putting up a futile resistance in its path. Time and time again, this strategy was employed, and in part thanks to the usage of elephas, the August Offensive covered considerable ground within days, progressing deep into Hlubiland and approaching the Hlubi capital of Ntseleburg along the northeastern banks of the Vaal River by the dawn of September 1860. All the while, the progress of the Zulu Offensive was completely undone as joint Xhosa-Azanian counter-offensives in the Plettenberg Mountains made inroads while the Thaba Bosiu Pact was increasingly forced to allocate more and more resources to combating the August Offensive, until Masopha ordered a retreat of any remaining forces in West Zululand on September 3rd, 1860, concentrating the majority of his army in the fight in Hlubiland while a smaller portion of the Basuto Army was deployed in eastern Basutoland to defend the border from Bulawayo Pact incursions.
The collapse of Thaba Bosiu defenses on the Plettenberg Front, despite being critical to the outcome of the Second Cape Revolutionary War, had little effect on the other frontlines of the conflict due to the Plettenberg Front itself largely being fought between the Native African states while the Azanian and Confederate militaries continued to concentrated the vast majority of their forces out west. This was, in fact, the situation throughout the entirety of the initial months of the Plettenberg Front. Life in the Zululands and the Native African states changed radically with the outbreak of war circa early July 1860, however, for an Azanian soldier fighting the army of General Braxton Bragg in the Great Karoo, circumstances were mostly unchanged. Continuing his counteroffensive into South Holland, General Wilhelm Rosecrans ordered a rapid offensive towards the small town of Harmsfontein in southwestern South Holland in late June.
Meticulously planning, rehearsing, and training his men for the Harmsfontein Campaign throughout the opening weeks of June 1860, which were largely spent focusing on cavalry charges against Bragg that slowly chipped away at his holdings, General Rosecrans finally received his chance to put his grand strategy into motion on June 24th, by which point he had amassed enough forces and thoroughly prepared his army for the Harmsfontein Campaign to be enacted in its entirety. Utilizing brigades of cavalry to encroach the enemy from multiple sides, Rosecrans had trained his cavalry to conduct rapid maneuvers covering great territory in a relatively brief timespan, hoping to capture Harmsfontein itself within only a handful of weeks. While organ guns had made cavalry charges less and less effective in recent years, the area Rosecrans was fighting in had numerous lakes dotting the landscape, which served as natural barriers between his cavalry forces and Confederate positions. Cavalry forces were thus commanded to charge between different lakes, stopping behind them to keep Crusaders at a distance if they came under heavy fire. Furthermore, Rosecrans had requested a fleet of airships, particularly more recent and fully controllable electric-powered models, to be incorporated into his ranks to bombard Confederate positions and serve as a blanket of protection for the cavalry below.
The ANAS Jefferson flying above the Great Karoo during the Harmsfontein Campaign, circa July 1860.
Rosecrans’ careful planning paid off spectacularly. The specific geography of the area being invaded meant that a strategy that probably shouldn’t have worked in the age of organ guns was instead an impressive victory for the Azanian National Army. Despite sustaining higher casualties than anticipated, Rosecrans’ cavalry brigades moved through the Great Karoo at lightning speeds, dashing from lake to lake and ultimately uprooting enemy positions day after day. The airships in the sky above precisely obliterated enemy encampments to assist with the offensive on the ground, and despite facing resistance from both anti-aerial gunners on the ground and Confederate airships in the sky, the Azanian aeronaval presence in the Harmsfontein Campaign decisively outnumbered its enemy. In the words of Chancellor Hannibal Tuinstra in a letter addressed to Wilhelm Rosecrans circa early July 1860, the campaign was “executed flawlessly”. The town of Harmsfontein itself was ultimately encircled by Azanian cavalry brigades on July 3rd, and with General Bragg’s army in disarray, confusedly retreating, and sustaining heavy casualties, minimal resistance was put up in the Battle of Harmsfontein, inevitably a losing fight for the Crusaders at this point, and within hours, the battle was over and General Rosecrans had won a new foothold for the United Provinces of Azania on the Karoo Front.
The Harmsfontein Campaign would soon prove to be the last great hurrah of cavalry charges. In an increasingly mechanized world where metal beasts crawled into the barrage of organ guns, cavalry was becoming increasingly obsolete, and the countless dead men lying in the sands of the Karoo due to their steed being gunned down by rapid-firing rifles already hinted that such warfare tactics were a dying art. Braxton Bragg’s entrenchment to the east of Harmsfontein almost immediately after the battle for the city had concluded made sure that a wall of gunfire would halt another daring charge by Rosecrans anytime in the near future, and a war of attrition soon began on the Karoo Front, one which would not end within the summer of 1860. But even as Rosecrans and Bragg both dug their forces into the ground to wait out the slog of gunfire in the trenches of the Great Karoo, it was clear that Azania held the advantage on the crucial frontline. The war of attrition between Robrecht Young and Thomas Francis Meagher along the shoreline of the Orange River had no sign of giving way to one side or the other anytime soon, and Young stalled indefinitely and Bragg on the retreat, the Python Plan had seemingly not only failed, but given way to an Azanian offensive into the Holy Dominion. Even with the outbreak of war in the Plettenberg Mountains, the HDRC was fighting an uphill battle.
To the north of Wilhelm Rosecrans’ campaign, the Iron General, Otto Bismarck, continued his campaign into New Hanover following the success of the Nossob Offensive throughout the summer of 1860. The Azanian minister of war had initially planned to simply divert Confederate away from besieging General Meagher’s position, he had since envisioned a bold “march to the sea” through New Hanover, whereby he would lead his forces into the heart of the province, capture its capital city of New Bremen, continue on to the arid coastline of New Hanover, and thereby encircle Edwardland and the Confederate capital of Edwardston, thereby suffocating the Holy Dominion into capitulation. After capturing the confluence of the Auob and Nossob rivers June 22nd, 1860, General Bismarck prepared for yet another offensive, this time along the Auob River, which would lead him inwards towards New Bremen. Pulverizing Confederate positions with a large quantity of organ guns and elephas, Bismarck’s army scaled its way up a river in the Kalahari Desert, where the most noticeable mark of human civilization was the combat over the gateway to central New Hanover itself. The allocation of reinforcements to the Molopo Front following the Nossob Offensive meant that Bismarck was confronted with a much larger and more well-armed army than he had back at the start of his campaign in early June 1860, thus making the Auob Offensive a far slower endeavor, but it was nonetheless apparent that the situation was going in favor of the Iron General, who inched his way out of the desert one engagement at a time.
While Maqoma was vanquishing the counterrevolutionary forces of southeastern Africa, General Otto Bismarck fought off against General Stephanus Schoeman, the man who had besieged Moses City, who was assigned to oversee Confederate defenses against Bismarck shortly after the success of the Nossob Offensive. It was, perhaps, due to General Schoeman’s assignment to the Molopo Front that General Bismarck put Lieutenant Araminta Ross, the ex-slave-turned-guerrilla fighter of Moses City, under his command and transferred the ambitious soldier from the Western Front under the leadership of General Meagher to the Kalahari Desert. Not only did Ross have considerable experience with fighting Schoeman, but from a propagandistic standpoint, having Araminta Ross, who had become somewhat of a legendary war hero in Azanian press, fighting against Schoeman yet again could prove to be a considerable morale boost throughout the ranks of the Azanian National Army. As for Ross herself, she couldn’t be happier to have a chance at avenging Moses City. For her, the fight against Schoeman was a deeply personal one, and she enthusiastically took the transfer to the Molopo Front.
Elevated to the rank of lieutenant general, something largely unprecedented for women at the time despite being technically permitted in Riebeeckia since the 1840s, Ross served closely with Bismarck, who sought to utilize her expertise regarding Schoeman as much as possible. Under the umbrella of Bismarck’s wider Auob Campaign, Lieutenant General Araminta Ross spearheaded precise attacks on Confederate supply lines. Far from any major settlement, both armies relied heavily on supplies and reinforcements being brought in along the Auob River, and Ross sought to cut this lifeline as much as possible. Attacks on the infrastructure that kept General Schoeman’s army afloat were coordinated between Bismarck and Ross, with the former commanding heavy frontal assaults that distracted manpower away from defending supply lines that were then raided by the latter. Time and time again, this strategy dealt crippling blows to the Crusaders of Riebeeckia, who sustained heavy casualties on the Molopo Front and were repeatedly forced to retreat throughout the summer of 1860, until the collection of victories by Bismarck and Ross culminated in the capture of the village of Gochas, deep into New Hanoverian territory, on August 30th, 1860. Having conquered much of the Auob River, General Otto Bismarck now possessed the knife which he intended to thrust from Gochas to the coastline of New Hanover.
On top of digging deep into enemy territory the Auob Offensive accomplished the objective of weakening defenses on the Western Front enough to give way to a counteroffensive by Thomas Francis Meagher against the infamous General Robrecht Young, who had been repeatedly forced to spare manpower and resources to Schoeman’s defense in the Kalahari Desert. As the reinforcements allocated to Young gradually dwindled, the war of attrition in Gariepsburgh continued throughout the bulk of the 1860 summer, with the Orange River serving as a natural barrier between the enemy forces, especially with all bridges between the two banks of the city blown up, and thus preventing any worthwhile attempts at offensives from either side. Meagher nonetheless took note of Young’s strength decreasing, and began to prepare for a counteroffensive as Young’s defenses along the shoreline of the Orange River gradually weakened.
Robrecht Young anticipated an attempt at any amphibious invasion of northern Gariepsburgh, barricading any potential landing points and deploying garrisons well-armed with organ guns at said positions in order to make any amphibious assault more trouble than it was worth. What Young was far less prepared for, however, was an airborne assault. Despite having been first utilized as a military tactic by the infamous Admiral Frederick Bianchi during the 1834 War of Indian Unification, airborne troop landings were an uncommon occurrence in the two and a half decades since the conflict. Parachutes based of Bianchi’s initial design, which were in and of themselves inspired by the sketches of Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci, had in fact become standard issue in aeronavies throughout the world by 1860, however, such devices were typically used for efficiently dropping supplies and as a means of abandoning ship. Paratroopers were a rare phenomenon, and when they were used, it was typically by European colonial forces subjugating a territory that lacked anti-aerial defenses. It was these sorts of maneuvers that Admiral Bianchi, the so-called “Father of Airborne Forces” conducted throughout much of his later career, largely spending the latter half of the 1830s in airships over the Malay Archipelago before ultimately retiring in 1840 and passing away in 1855.
Had Bianchi lived for a mere five more years, he would’ve seen his contribution to warfare really flourish. Realizing that an amphibious landing at the Battle of Gariepsburgh was impractical but nonetheless desiring to take advantage of Young’s weakening defenses (not to mention craving a taste of glory), General Thomas Francis Meagher took a page from the book of Admiral Frederick Bianchi and requested an increase in airships for his forces, which Minister of War Bismarck agreed to, and put his plan into motion starting on August 21st, 1860 by ordering regiments to be parachuted in behind enemy lines via airships in the sparsely-defended desert to the north of Gariepsburgh. The strategy was not only unprecedented in the history of warfare, but was particularly risky at Gariepsburgh given the strength of the Ribeeckian Confederate Aeronavy (RCA) in the city in order to conduct General Robrecht Young’s infamous pyrobombing campaigns. Several Azanian airships were shot down by rival aerial forces in their northward push, and while flying at higher altitudes helped keep Azanian forces safer from the line of fire, the war in the sky over Gariepsburgh was nonetheless a brutal endeavor.
Nonetheless, starting on the evening of August 21st, the first platoons of paratroopers landed on the undefended northern outskirts of Gariepsburgh, and once sufficiently assembled, began their charge towards the soft back of Young’s army. The Crusaders of Riebeeckia soon picked up on what was going on and several units were ordered by Robrecht Young to engage with the paratroopers, but this was precisely the intent of General Meagher’s plan. The Confederates had essentially been encircled, thus cutting off supply lines and, more importantly, softening defenses along the Orange River enough to make amphibious landings, mostly via ironclad warships, practical at key positions. Having overseen the airship landings as an armchair general and thus still positioned in southern Gariepsburgh, General Meagher led the ironclad assaults on the encircled army to his north as Confederate defenses began to collapse just after the midnight of August 22nd.
Under the veil of a night sky illuminated by vicious explosions in all directions, Meagher led Azanian forces onto the northern coastline of the Orange River, securing several beachheads and thereby disintegrating the once-impenetrable defenses that Robrecht Young had spent months cultivating and sustaining. Casualties were remarkably heavy on both sides, but through a combination of being caught by surprise by the paratrooper landing, fighting a two-front battle, and losing access to reinforcements, the Crusaders of Riebeeckia were clearly on the losing side of the clash. Upon realizing that the Battle of Gariepsburgh was lost and reconsolidating his army after the immediate shock of encirclement had subsided, General Young ordered the bulk of his forces to concentrate on punching a hole through the Azanian units parachuted into his north through which he would lead a retreat. This desperate escape succeeded and spared the Holy Dominion a far more costly and embarrassing defeat, with the infamous Lion of the Lord retreating into Edwardland with the majority of his army intact despite taking a costly beating. Just to the north of the Liberian-Edwardlander border, Young reconsolidated his forces in the defense of the Confederate heartland, living on to fight another day.
Robrecht Young also left behind a parting gift for his victorious enemy in Gariepsburgh by continuing pyrobombing campaigns over the already-ruined city well after the Azanian victory on August 22nd. Of course, such a strategy had lost much of its effectiveness now that Azanian and Confederate aerial forces over Gariepsburgh were now comparable, and General Meagher wasn’t getting pushed back across the Orange River anytime soon without a significant change in the tides of the Second Cape Revolutionary War. For now, the grueling Battle of Gariepsburgh had concluded after months of combat for control of the city, which Meagher is said to have celebrated by drinking several pints of New Irish dry stout in a pub, one of only a handful of buildings still completely intact in the northern section of Gariepsburgh. More generally, Meagher’s victory at Gariepsburgh marked a trend throughout the summer of 1860 where the Burrite forces secured key victories against their reactionary adversaries on nearly all fronts. The Holy Dominion’s strategy had relied on a victory against its more populated and industrialized opponent via encircling New Richmond in its Python Plan in a short timeframe, and with the Python Plan in shambles and Confederate forces dwindling by the day as the United Provinces simultaneously continued its militarization, it was becoming clear that said timeframe had elapsed.
Map of the Equatorial Revolutionary War, circa September 1860.
Then came the Mutapa Empire.
Following the ascendance of Mwene Changamire Chatunga to the Mutapa throne in 1851, the greatest power in arguably all of Africa, certainly upon the eastern shores of the continent, had transitioned from a highly decentralized and feudalistic, yet notably religiously diverse and economically interconnected, confederation of tributary states tied to the House of Changamire to a de facto totalitarian theocracy whose autocrat enforced his will via the Office of the Reformed Inquisition efficiently eliminating political and religious adversaries and allowing for them to be replaced by loyal allies. By 1860, while still theoretically autonomous entities, the remaining tributary kingdoms of the Mutapa Empire did not dare disobey the edicts of Chatunga and the Mutapa Reformed Church for fear of suffering the same fate as the Sultanate of Geledi, and by utilizing the loosely-defined tributary system that held the Mutapa Empire together to seize control of land and industry throughout the tributary states as private property held by either himself or closely aligned plutocrats, Changamire Chatunga wielded considerable authority over the economic development over his domain, on top of his informal network of theocratic police state rule.
Once the dominant economic power on the African continent due to its extensive trade connections with European powers and jumpstart on regional industrialization giving way to a large manufacturing sector, Chatunga’s Mutapa Empire had opted for a mostly isolated and protectionist economy after the collapse in Mutapa-Riebeeckian relations during the trade war of the early 1850s brought about by the Mwene’s refusal to abolish his empire’s highly profitable slave trade. This withdrawal from global trade meant that Mutapa suffered only a slight economic downturn during the Great Crisis of 1852, quickly rebounding by the mid-1850s and continuing to rapidly grow domestic industrial production at an unprecedented rate as Changamire Chatunga grew determined to achieve Mutapan autarky. Thanks to the vast expanse of the Mutapa Empire, the process of developing economic self-sufficiency was relatively quick, and by the outbreak of the Riebeeckian Civil War in 1859, Mutapa had outpaced the United Dominion as the single largest domestic industrial producer in Africa.
Danangombe, the capital of the Mutapa Empire, circa 1859.
Very little of this economic growth, of course, meaningfully improved the lives of the Mutapan working class. For starters, a majority of Mutapan subjects, albeit a rapidly decreasing one, remained farm workers, particularly within the interior of the Empire that lay far away from the great industrialized metropolises scattered along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. For those who resided within the vast working-class slums of Mutapa’s cities, the boost in industrialization under Changamire Chatunga simply meant longer hours and more brutal working conditions to bring about the growth of new factories, all the while stuck in the poverty brought about by the Mutapa Empire’s amalgamation of feudalism and laissez-faire capitalism. While the bulk of Mutapan chattel slaves were relegated to work on plantations, many were introduced to industrial work in the 1850s, namely by aristocrats and wealthy plantation owners living in urban areas who sought to utilize their already existing base of slave labor in new manufacturing enterprises, and by Changamire Chatunga himself, who personally owned a strong plurality of slaves in Mutapa by 1860 and percieved them as little more than a source of cheap and expendable labor in his industrialization efforts.
Given the reactionary political and economic structure of the Mutapa Empire, particularly under the reign of Mwene Changamire Chatunga throughout the 1850s, it is little surprise why one of the most brutal and powerful absolute monarchs in African history took great interest in the revolutionary war occuring to his south. Initially drawn to the affairs of the Riebeeckian Civil War out of geopolitical necessity, Chatunga grew more intrigued when the Austropolis Convention resulted with the establishment of Burrite democracy as an ideological movement that posed a direct threat to Mutapan theocratic absolutism, while the socially conservative Christian nationalism of the Holy Dominion led the Mutapa Empire to officially recognize the Breckinridge regime as the legitimate Riebeeckian government relatively early into the conflict. Nonetheless, so long as the Riebeeckian Civil War remained a purely internal affair, Burrism posed little threat to the Mutapa Empire, and as such, the official policy adopted by Chatunga was that of neutrality, albeit with clear favoritism towards the Holy Dominion of the Riebeeckian Confederation.
Then the Xhosa Revolution broke out, followed by the envelopment of the Native African kingdoms into what would eventually become the Equatorial Revolutionary War mere months later. With the transition of the Burrite revolutionary movement from being confined within Riebeeckia to an international proliferation that demanded the overthrow of conservative absolute monarchies throughout southern Africa, the ideology of Burrite democracy and the United Provinces of Azania that so aggressively upheld it suddenly posed the very real risk of spiraling into an existential threat to the very foundation of the Mutapa Empire. Whilst engaged in a grueling civil war, the United Provinces and its allies posed little threat to the Mutapa Army, by far the largest military force in Africa, but the international revolutionary spirit of Burrism risked posing long-term problems for the stability of Mutapa if it was permitted to fester. And in the very likely scenario that Azania emerged victorious? The Mutapa Empire would suddenly border a radically egalitarian great power, potentially eager to bring its revolution northwards in a far more difficult conflict to win.
After hostilities broke out on the Plettenberg Front circa early July 1860, the Mutapa nobility furiously debated the appropriate course of action regarding the Cape Revolutionary War. The most prominent voice in favor of intervention was none other than the infamous General Msiri, who asserted that the time to strike the Burrites was while they were still embroiled in a war with the Holy Dominion and a decisive victory over the Bulawayo Pact would result in extensive sphere of influence and potential expansion of Mutapan holdings well into southern Africa. Despite calls for open war with the Azanians, both out pragmatic interests in attacking an enemy while they were preoccupied whilst getting more regional authority in the process and more philosophical senses of solidarity with the Confederate cause of Protestant theocracy, Mwene Changamire Chatunga remained committed to isolation from Riebeeckian affairs, albeit with the caveat of significantly building up the Mutapa Army’s presence in its southernmost territories and increasing conscription throughout the summer of 1860.
A little less than a month after the intervention of the Xhosa Burrite Republic and the Native African kingdoms on behalf of the Azanians and Confederates respectively, the Kingdom of Fenguland capitulated to the Bulawayo Pact and the Fengu monarchy was dissolved in favor of an authoritarian republic modeled after Chancellor Maqoma’s regime in Xhosaland, which prompted a more forceful response from the Mutapa Empire now that aristocratic fears that the Burrites actually had a wartime goal of deposing absolute monarchies internationally had come into fruition. On August 11th, 1860, Mwene Changamire Chatunga issued the Edict of Zanzibar, addressed to the political leadership of Azania and Xhosaland, which threatened Mutapan military intervention within the Second Cape Revolutionary War if the Bulawayo Pact forcefully deposed any other monarchies. To be clear, Chatunga was still in favor of maintaining Mutapa isolationism and viewed the Edict of Zanzibar not as self-appointing himself to the position of policing Africa. Rather, the Mwene recognized the long-term threat that Burrite democracy could pose to the aristocracy of the Mutapa Empire and was confident that threatening intervention by the largest military force on the African continent was enough to deter the Burrites away from international revolution. That wasn’t to say that Chatunga was bluffing and unwilling to back up his words with military action, but surely things would never come to that point. After all, the United Provinces of Azania itself was a constitutional monarchy, so why would it further commit itself to an anti-aristocratic crusade?
What occurred next was, depending on which historian you ask, either one of the greatest tragedies or blessings in disguise ever wrought upon the Indian Ocean’s community of nations. The rapid August Offensive spearheaded by Maqoma had reached the outskirts of the Kingdom of Hlubiland’s capital city of Ntseleburg by the beginning of September 1860, and given that the Hlubi realistically didn’t have a chance at this point of repelling Burrite forces from conquering their capital, the moment for Azania and Xhosaland to decide the fate of a capitulated reactionary power yet again was fast approaching. In the offices of embassies, the Bulawayo Pact carefully played a quiet game of chess navigating around the restriction imposed by the Edict of Zanzibar. Hannibal Tuinstra, Maqoma, and their respective cabinets privately acknowledged that a war against the Mutapa Empire was realistically unwinnable, but to admit this publicly risked conceding considerable geopolitical leverage to the Mwene. Therefore, the Bulawayo Pact decided that it would continue to demand the unconditional surrender of its enemies, but with the private intent of installing Burrite democracies operating within a constitutional monarchy where the reigning nobility maintained only ceremonial authority, thereby technically proliferating the Burrite revolution within the confines of the Edict of Zanzibar.
Of course, establishing a constitutional monarchy in Hlubiland actually required the continuance of a Hlubi monarch. In an action that inadvertently changed the course of modern human history forever, King Langalibalele flinched. The Battle of Ntseleburg began with fighting in the towns to the southeast of the city on September 6th, 1860, and fearing for his safety, Langalibalele evacuated Hlubiland with his family for safety in the Basuto capital of Thaba Bosiu only a day later. News of the evacuation of the House of Ntsele crushed morale amongst Hlubi soldiers and civilians alike, and the Battle of Ntseleburg was therefore won by Maqoma’s Xhosa Republican Army upon the evening of September 8th, 1860. While King Langalibalele continued to maintain de jure authority over Hlubiland and its armed forces during his self-imposed exile, orders down the chain of command were inefficiently delivered, and the demoralized military saw little reason to continue fighting for a monarch who had already admitted defeat in the eyes of many. Therefore, on September 10th, against the wishes of Langalibalele, the Hlubi Army unconditionally surrendered to the Bulawayo Pact and the Kingdom of Hlubiland fell under joint Xhosa-Azanian military occupation.
Mwene Changamire Chatunga watched carefully from his palace in Danangombe, mobilizing the Mutapa Army in anticipation on September 11th.
The commanding officers of the Hlubi Army notably oversaw the initiation of peace talks with the Bulawayo Pact, as opposed to Langalibalele, who was outraged by the capitulation of his military forces without his permission and regarded the Hlubi surrender to be an illegitimate undermining of his rule. It was at these early peace talks, no later than September 13th, 1860, that Xhosa diplomats conveyed their intent to reinstate Langalibalele as the constitutional monarch of a Burrite Kingdom of Hlubiland. This offer was thus presented to the exiled king, who promptly refused to partake in any negotiations that he regarded as illegitimate, let alone sit upon the throne of an apparatus of state that he considered to be illegitimately established. Confused at how to proceed in negotiations but nonetheless desperate to not trigger military intervention by the Mutapa Empire, Xhosa and Azanian diplomats began to offer the throne to other members of the House of Ntsele, but like their patriarch, each one refused to partake in what they regarded to be an illegitimate regime.
This continued for no more than a week before Langalibalele ceased the whole matter in a fiery speech presented to the court of King Moshoeshoe of Basutoland on September 20th and quickly distributed throughout the Thaba Bosiu Pact in print over the following days. Informally deemed Langalibalele’s Manifesto, the speech decried the Hlubi Army as having disregarded the authority of its king, thus effectively overthrowing the Hlubi monarchy and seizing control of the country’s apparatus of state in negotiations with Burrite forces. Considering the Hlubi Army to now be a rouge actor, Langalibalele abdicated from the leadership of said army, and, critically, went on to declare the following:
“By extension, given that the Hlubi nation has fallen under the illegitimate republican rule of its pariah military, I hereby abdicate from my responsibilities as the King of the Kingdom of Hlubiland as it currently exists and any pretender regime that may be established in its place by occupying armies. I shall, nonetheless, continue to serve as the rightful King of the Hlubi nation from exile, carrying on the survival of the legitimate governance of the divine rule that was unjustly deposed by treasonous military leadership upon the surrender of their country to foreign mob rule.”
-Excerpt from “Langalibaele’s Manifesto”, circa September 20th, 1860
King Langalibalele of Hlubiland.
The foreign ministries of Azania and Xhosaland rushed to try and cover the damage inflicted by Langalibalele’s Manifesto, but it was too late. Upon being presented to Mwene Changamire Chatunga, the fate of the Burrite revolution was now seemingly in the hands of the reactionary autocrat of Mutapa. Once again, hawkish advisors pleaded to the Mwene to intervene, and to their pleased surprise, this time, Chatunga agreed with their sentiments. While the argument that the Bulawayo Pact had directly deposed King Langalibalele’s rule was flimsy at best, the Mwene nonetheless considered the Hlubi Army’s capitulation to Chancellor Maqoma to be the overthrow of a legitimate monarch incited by Burrite forces. More crucially, even if Langalibalele’s abdication technically didn’t constitute as a violate of the Edict of Zanzibar, Chatunga feared that letting the Burrites install yet another republican government on the basis of a geopolitical technicality would embolden them to continue their revolutionary rampage throughout southern Africa, daring the Mutapa to be called out on their bluff. No, the loss of another South African monarchy at the hands of Burrite democracy could not stand. Therefore, on September 22nd, 1860, the Mutapa Empire declared war on the United Provinces of Azania, the Xhosa Burrite Republic, and the Fengu Republic.
Military actions against the Burrite powers began minutes after the Mutapa declaration of war, as telegrams delivered orders that would forever change the course of history. In the coming days, treaties would be negotiated between Changamire Chatunga and Samuel Breckinridge regarding the coordination of strategies and troop movements, but that all laid ahead in the coming days. For now, in the heat of the moment of September 22nd, 1860, the Mutapa Empire had yet to ratify any alliance with the Thaba Bosiu Pact and therefore did not move any military forces through the reactionary Native African kingdoms to confront the Burrites on active frontlines. Instead, Mutapa only shared one border with Azania, that being the enclaved city of Fort Jaager. Founded in 1820 during the Zulu War as a trading war between the then-allied Dutch Republic and Rozvi Empire, over the past forty years, Fort Jaager had since grown into one of the largest and most financially prosperous cities on the African continent, first by serving as a gateway between European and East African markets and later developing into a hub of exchange between African, Western, and Asian civilizations. To put it mildly, Fort Jaager had grown into the mercantile capital of the Indian Ocean.
Downtown Fort Jaager, circa 1853.
Fort Jaager’s international trade-based economy meant that it was hit especially hard by the Decade of Despair, and the Riebeeckian-Mutapa trade war initiated a year before the Great Crisis cutting off a considerable source of income with the city’s biggest trading partner meant that the global recession reached Fort Jaager when it was already knocked down. By 1854, nearly one third of the city’s population was unemployed, and this understandably stoked the flames of tension within the city. Historically a stronghold for moderate Federalists who supported the social progressivism of the national Federalist Party but were more liberal fiscally, economic collapse attracted the disgruntled Fort Jaager working class to the economically left-wing platform Revolutionary Burrite Party upon its formation in 1853, and by the time the city’s municipal elections came around in 1855, it was clear that the RBP was the favored party amongst the city’s populace.
The city’s ruling moderate Federalist establishment, both blaming the Van Buuren administration’s Sanction Act for much of their economic woes and desperate to differentiate itself from the increasingly unpopular national Federalist Party leadership, formed the center-right Fort Jaager Democratic Party (FJDP) under the leadership of incumbent Mayor Daniel James as a splinter organization that maintained many of the social policies of the Federalists but advocated for reduction in protectionist policies, economic deregulation, and the subsidization of failing private sector enterprises as a solution to the woes the city suffered amidst the Decade of Despair. Unsurprisingly, the fiscally conservative FJDP, regarded as an out of touch proxy of Fort Jaager’s wealthy elite, was soundly rejected by the city’s increasingly progressive electorate in 1855, with the municipal council and mayorship both being overwhelmingly won by Revolutionary Burrite candidates. Interestingly enough, radical economist Johann Karl Rodbertus, and adherent to the fructarian cooperative socialism originally espoused by trade unionist Wilhelm Lovett, won the mayorship of Fort Jaager, thereby placing a city once defined by its role within global capitalism, under the leadership of one of the world’s first elected socialist administrations.
Mayor Johann Karl Rodbertus of Fort Jaager.
Under the Rodbertus administration, a uniquely socialistic approach was taken to recovering Fort Jaager from the Great Crisis of 1852. The bluntly-named Cooperative Act of October 1855 mandated that business owners offer to sell their enterprises to their workers prior to selling them off to a private investor, reduced taxation on cooperatives so as to incentivize their development, and chartered the Fort Jaager People’s Bank as a public bank managed by the city’s municipal council to finance the establishment of worker cooperatives, with focus particularly placed on developing cooperatives as a source of work for a highly unemployed workforce. While Fort Jaager’s economy never returned to its pre-Decade of Despair heights before the Riebeeckian Civil War broke out, the Cooperative Act did ultimately aid in gradually reducing the municipal unemployment rate to a more acceptable level throughout Rodbertus’ first term, and Fort Jaager notably boasted one of the highest recorded levels of economic equality of any industrialized city in the world by 1859.
Deeply popular amongst his populist working-class constituency in Fort Jaager and re-elected in 1859 by a landslide, Johann Karl Rodbertus was largely regarded as too radical by the national Revolutionary Burrite leadership, which was indeed backed by many fledgling socialist movements throughout Riebeeckia but nonetheless adhered to a center-left vision of a capitalistic mixed economy with a strong welfare state and public intervention in economic affairs. Rodbertus was admired by the RBP as a success story of economic progressivism, and political support from socialists in national electoral campaigns surely couldn’t hurt, but the growing cooperative socialist political machine in Fort Jaager was largely ignored by the national party. It was free to do what it wanted in its enclave port, but that was about as far as Rodbertus’ influence seriously extended. Even after the Riebeeckian Civil War broke out and the apparatus of the United Dominion was scrapped by Hannibal Tuinstra in favor of the Burrite democracy that was the United Provinces of Azania, Rodbertus’ island of cooperative socialism, far away from the frontlines of the conflict, was more or less cast aside.
Then the Mutapa Empire declared war, and the experiment in cooperative socialism that was Fort Jaager suddenly found itself at the center of a battle that gripped the world’s attention. On September 22nd, 1860, thousands of Mutapa soldiers under the command of King Mswati II, the wealthy and adventurous monarch of the Mutapa protectorate of the Kingdom of Sobhuza who sought glory and favor in the eyes of the Mwene by partaking in the opening military campaign against the Bulawayo Pact, marched into Fort Jaager. Mswati II expected an easy victory in the Battle of Fort Jaager, and rightfully so given that the city lacked much in the way of defenses beyond a single stationed regiment, and surely enough, the Mutapa Army rushed through the streets of Fort Jaager, facing little opposition beyond the occasional Azanian soldier and makeshift barricade. Mswati’s army left a trail of terror in their wake, setting fires throughout the city as a display of the force that was soon to be unleashed upon the entirety of the United Provinces of Azania. Tactically, the Battle of Fort Jaager was little more than a clean-up job to eliminate a critical Azanian enclave close to the Mutapa heartland. Symbolically, it was Mwene Changamire Chatunga’s way to reveal to his newfound enemies the merciless power of the Mutapa Empire.
To be clear, the Battle of Fort Jaager was a quick and terrifying defeat for Azania. But in the midst of the chaotic fires incinerating the city, hundreds of civilians took up arms against Mswati II’s invasion in a desperate last stand. Some of these brief guerrilla fighters were individuals simply running into the streets with whatever weapon they could muster, however, the vast majority were instead worker cooperatives collectively deciding to fight against the Mutapa Army as makeshift, and notably democratic and decentralized, militias. These “militia cooperatives” bought evacuating civilians, at most, only a handful of hours, however, they would nonetheless be celebrated as heroic martyrs by the Azanian populace, and observing socialist intellectuals throughout the world certainly took note of these decentralized and spontaneous soldiers’ councils. As for Mayor Johann Karl Rodbertus, he was no warrior, and instead spent the duration of the Battle of Fort Jaager hastily overseeing an evacuation of civilians before he himself boarded a steamship in the evening, plumes of smoke noticeably rising not so far away as the Mutapa Army progressed towards the docks of Fort Jaager, street by street. Gazing off at the fallen city that he had governed for five years, Mayor Rodbertus uttered one last phrase before boarding the ship, one that would echo throughout the propaganda of the Burrite revolution for the remainder of the war:
“I shall return.”
Soldiers of the Mutapa Army in a ruined building following the Battle of Fort Jaager, circa September 1860.
Only two hours later, guns fell silent over Fort Jaager and the city was under the complete control of the Mutapa Empire. Within less than twenty-four hours, the course of the Second Cape Revolutionary War had been irreversibly altered. Over the coming days, Mutapan and Confederate diplomats would meet in smoke-filled rooms to negotiate treaties with the goal to utterly eradicate Burrite democracy from the face of the Earth, and soon enough, one of the largest militaries of the 19th Century was to descend upon the fledgling Bulawayo Pact. The progress of the alliance over the past year was not only threatened to be undone, but for the first time in months, it looked likely that the Burrites would lose their revolutionary crusade. In the meantime, as the mighty Mutapa Empire cast its long shadow upon southern Africa, it had become clear that the scope of the Second Cape Revolutionary War that had initially begun as a civil war in Riebeeckia had expanded well beyond its original theater, and as such, a new name was required to describe the titanic conflict that had now consumed the bulk of East Africa and threatened to expand even further in due time. Journalists acted accordingly, and soon enough, that new name was uncovered and subsequently proliferated throughout the belligerent powers.
At long last, the Equatorial Revolutionary War had truly begun.
