UPDATE TIME!
The War of 1869
The War of 1869, officially beginning with the skirmish dubbed the First Battle of Alsace on the 1st of November, was among the bloodiest and most revolutionary conflicts in history. Battles raged on between nearly every major power of Europe and all of the major Factions in North America. When the dust settled in the year 1877, the old order was gone. The mighty Hapsburg Crown was driven from holy Austria, with the foundations for German Unification standing proudly in the ash-filled breeze. The United States emerged from the War deeply divided and in turmoil, while the lands of the Sovereign States stood barren and battle-scarred. New Spain was forced to bear the shame of failing to restore the Spanish Crown in Madrid, and most of Morocco was lost to the hated French. Portugal was again a Kingdom in exile, cowering in its African colonies for the loss of its continental land to the newly-formed United Republic of Iberia. Russia found herself trounced at nearly every moment, losing her entire European fleet to the might of the British Royal Navy. The Treaty of Geneva that ended the conflict saw the birth of the United Kingdom of Southern Germany, the new Habsburg Realm centered in Budapest, and the previously mentioned Iberian Republic. It also oversaw the rebirth of the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Gran Floridia. Great Britain and France found themselves largely intact for their part. The war will, for simplicity’s sake, be categorized into two Theatres of War (American and European) and each of the eight years of the conflict.
The First Year (November 1869-November 1870)
The American Theatre
The War began in America with the invasion of the S.S.A. by the U.S. General Robert Edward Lee and his Army of the Chesapeake. Once again, Lee made outstanding gains in the North, trouncing Sovereign and Canadian forces in the Battles of Buffalo (New York) and Albany. Lee ended the first year in effective control of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Lee fared much better with guerilla resistance in this conflict than in the North’s War of Succession, and his actions bisected the territory of the Sovereign States, worsening their already troubled supply issues. The U.S. Army of Kentucky under the command of General William T. Sherman, drove west through New Spanish territory in a clever ‘March to the Pacific’. Sherman was tasked with keeping New Spanish forces tied down in the Western frontier so as to improve their chances of success against the S.S.A. and Britain. In this effort he was largely successful. Despite Sherman’s antics in the west, a New Spanish army (El Ejercito del Rio) under the command of Commandante Rodrigo Ruiz de Vera Cruz besieged New Orleans (occupied by the U.S. Army of Williamsburg under the command of General Thomas Jackson) with great success. Ruiz was forced to retreat when disease catastrophically spread through the New Spanish camp, leaving New Orleans in the hands of the United States. General Jackson, for his stalwart defense against great odds, earned the famous moniker ‘Stonewall’ from his troops and became a centerpiece of U.S. Propaganda. Upon hearing of the New Spanish retreat during a meeting of the War Ministry with the King, Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck is famously recorded to have said with much frustration that “Luck, it seems, always favors the drunk, the miscreant, and the United States of America.” It is a sad fact that the Map of North America had changed quite little in the first year of conflict, despite the deaths of nearly fifty-thousand soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians.
The European Theatre
In Europe, the first action of the War was the rapid invasion and conquest of Portugal by the armies of the newborn Spanish Republic with some minor assistance from the French. When Lisbon fell, the Republic declared to the world that the Kingdom was disestablished and incorporated Portugal as a province of the newly-declared United Republic of Iberia. Many Portuguese openly embraced the Republic, which promised them low taxes and representation in government, but others fled to Africa or worked openly resisted the new govenrment. Austria and her German allies set out against their archrival Prussia with the assistance of the French. Despite a sizeable numerical advantage, the Franco-Austrian forces’ outdated long-rifles (largely still muzzle-loading and less accurate than rifles based on the Dreyse design) and outdated tactics resulted in a series of brutal defeats at the hands of the mighty Prussian army. British troops landed in Prussian territory on the 15th of November, and rapidly set about reinforcing their allies. The Anglo-Prussian forces produced extensive fortifications along the frontline against their French, Dutch, and Austrian enemies, Trench Warfare having been put to great use by the S.S.A. in their Revolution. By April of 1870, rudimentary trench systems stretched along the Anglo-Prussian portion of the Front Line. The Russians, facing the true extent of their military system’s inefficiency and regretfully taking note of their lack of rail systems and underdeveloped infrastructure, spend the vast majority of the first year simply mobilizing their armies. The Tsar, desperate to aid in the war effort, ordered an assault on Prussian Waters by his Baltic Fleet. The Baltic Fleet is succinctly routed by the British Royal Navy and fledgling Prussian Kriegsmarine. A combined Franco-Dutch invasion results in the fall of Belgium and the abdication of the King. Plans are already made for France to annex Wallonia and the Netherlands to annex Flanders after the end of the War. The Battle of Hohenzollern, wherein twenty-thousand British soldiers and fifty-thousand Prussian soldiers won a decisive victory over an Franco-Austrian force numbering between one-hundred and twenty (according to the Silent Coalition) and two-hundred thousand (according to the September Pact) troops. The Battle of Hohenzollern becomes a byword for the triumph of modern discipline and technology over the older Napoleonic systems. After the first year, nearly eighty-thousand European soldiers had lost their lives. Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl, son of King Wilhelm I, proves to be a great leader of men and is praised for his chivalrous behavior towards his men and his enemies alike. ‘Papa Fritz’ as he is known by his men, will emerge from the War with a deep hatred of battle and bloodshed despite his skill. Historians end the First Year with the Winter Truce, a period of diplomacy and relative peace lasting from the tenth of November until the twenty-sixth of December.
Casualties: Approximately 120,000 soldiers killed, captured, and missing.
The Great Vow
Among the more striking documents to come out of the war is the conclusion to a speech by the Spanish King Carlos Fernando to his subjects guaranteeing the restoration of the crown and praising their loyalty. Standing on the balcony of the Palacio de la Corona (dubbed the ‘Palacio del Rey for the duration of the King’s exile) the fiery speech ended with a bold claim:
“Mis hijos. Mis hermanos. Of all the words that I speak today, I pray that you remember these the most: I swear by Our Lord God that Madrid will be restored to Our great nation. I will not rest, nor will my family in Prussia or our British Allies, until Our throne is restored to Us. The traitorous republic will fall before our steel, as will her dastardly allies. It is said that the Sun never sets on the Spanish Empire, and I tell you now that our time is not yet over! The Sun has not yet set on us, for as long as there is a single loyal Spaniard, God Himself is with us. The trials of this War are merely the foundations of a new dawn for Our glorious Empire, one that will make Us feel as if We are seeing light for the first time. We will pray, We will suffer, We will bleed, and when Our time has finally come, We will stand before our fallen foe and shout in triumph:Este es el nuevo amanecer del Imperio Español, y Dios está con nosotros!”*
*This is the new dawn of the Spanish Empire, and God is with us!