Imperio: a Timeline

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“For the second time in only three years, the country faces a General Election. And if the polls are to be believed, this time we will actually have a Majority Government that may last us through the decade. The latest numbers released today by the polling firm of Mendoza & Brown confirm what everyone else has been saying for weeks: unless something dramatic happens between now and Election Day, the National Party will trounce the Socialists this Sunday and come out with a majority of more than two hundred seats in the Chamber of Deputees, making Marina Leclerc our youngest Prime Minister in over a century.

It certainly feels as if a generational shift is occurring. After last year’ s coronation of Emperor Federico II and this upcoming election, it may be the case starting next month that the pitter-patter of little feet will be heard in both the Palace of Chapultepec and the National Palace for the first time since the Guadalupan Era. In fact, Mrs. Leclerc’s oldest son is just three weeks older than the Princess of Quebec, so perhaps a few playdates may be scheduled during their parents’ weekly meetings. Following almost two decades of consecutive Socialist Prime Ministers in their 70s and an aging Sovereign, this new state of affairs will certainly be a breath of fresh air.

Now, whether Mrs. Leclerc will be able to curtail the growing deficit and address the recent corruption scandals involving Cabinet Ministers and Union Officials as she has promised in her campaign, that is another matter…”

– Translation of an excerpt from the article “Vientos de cambio” by Javier Kreutzberg, published in El Heraldo de Nueva Amsterdam on July 1st, 2016.




“Five years ago, the world was shocked when the private letters that Prince Eugene of Savoy wrote to his brother Louis Thomas, which were thought to be irrevocably lost, suddenly surfaced in London. After sending a group of experts to establish their authenticity, the set of over two hundred letters was purchased by the Crown and handed over to a team of historians headed by Dr. Manuel Whitmore of the National University and Dr. Julio Rosas of Harvard University. Their work has been long and arduous, but finally the first volume is ready to be published under the title “The letters of Prince Eugenio: Birth of an Empire (1700-1705)”.

These letters are an enthralling read, as they give us a new vision of this crucial time in our history, which up to now had been poorly documented, forcing historians to rely on a mix of third-party accounts, rumor and legend. Of course, most of the interest has been centered on Prince Eugene’s portrayal of our first Emperor, Carlos I, as he was probably the man closest to him during the early years of the Empire. So as not to spoil it for our readers, lets just say that the picture presented is not at all flattering, but it does serve to humanize Carlos and counterbalance the near-mythological status that he has traditionally been given by historians. Definitely a must-read.

The original letters will be permanently placed and exhibited at the Imperial Library in Mexico City starting November 7.”

– Translation of an excerpt from the column “Libros” by Anabel Li, published in El Universal, Mexico City, on November 5, 2015.




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Mexico succeding in becoming North America's Spacefilling royalistic Empire? could be interesting
 

Deleted member 67076

We rarely get Mexican timelines there, much less on the empire. I look forward to this. :D
 
And we continue:


Semanario
: Did you realize from the beginning how controversial these letters would be?
Julio Rosas: Well, I mean, we did figure it would ruffle some feathers, but…
S: Ruffle some feathers? Carlos I, the Founding Father of the Empire, is portrayed as a bumbling superstitious fool whose only merits are being in the right place at the right time and taking credit for the achievements of others.
Manuel Whitmore: I think that is overstating it. This is why it is important to contextualize things, and we have made a great effort to do so in the book. We must remember that when they embarked on their transatlantic voyage, Eugene was a full grown man, with a great deal of military experience, but Carlos was still a boy.
JR: And a boy who felt deeply betrayed by both his father and his brother. This was not an easy situation for him. It was not his choice, not what he had imagined his life would be. He was being sent into the unknown, against his will and alone.
MW: Well, to be accurate, he did have Eugene with him, but it is not as if they were friends. For the first weeks of the voyage they barely spoke to one another.
S: The theme of betrayal seems to dominate the first letters.
MW: Yes, indeed. Eugene also felt betrayed. He considered that his years of service to Emperor Leopold deserved better than to be sent to what he called a “desolate swamp”.
S: Which, considering his later years, is kind of ironic.
JR: Yes, yes it is. But he had no way of predicting the future. And I think he felt more betrayed by Joseph than by Leopold. The Emperor was his employer, but he thought that Joseph was his friend and was sure that he would stand up for him.
MW: And then he thought that his cousin Victor Amadeus would come to his aid. After all, he had just traded Savoy Proper for Milan and Sardinia, and was now King.
S: But he also turned his back on Eugene…
MW: Again, I think context is everything here. We have to remember this had been a very complex and delicate political and diplomatic deal. No one wanted to rock the boat. If the price was to put Carlos and Eugene on a ship by themselves and send them across the ocean, so be it.
S: By themselves, with ten thousand Prussian troops…
JR: Well, it’s not as if they were on the same boat… Literally or figuratively.

– Translation of an excerpt from the interview with Dr. Manuel Whitmore of the National University and Dr. Julio Rosas of Harvard University, published in the magazine Semanario, New Amsterdam, December 10, 2015.



“The Socialists have hindered the country with their paranoia for too many years. The time for fear mongering is over! We should not look at the Soviet Union as our enemy, but as a potential market and business partner. This is a new dawn for Mexico! We call ourselves the “Land of freedom”. Let’s exercise that freedom! We should greet the entire world with open arms, not hide from half of it behind a wall of missiles and tanks!“

– Translation of an excerpt from a campaign speech given by Marina Leclerc, leader of the National Party, to a group of prominent businesspeople in the city of Detroit on June 10, 2016.


 
What is this I am reading?

Mexico overtaking all of North America? Nueva Amsterdam and Detroit and Ciudad de México?

Now I'm both fired up and very interested. It's interesting to see this kind of Mexico blobbing up all of North America instead of these dystopic Ameriwanks that abound these days.

Subscribe button, here I go!
 
I take it this is an empire created during the colonial period by a branch of the Spanish royal family, somewhat like Brazil?

Anyway, you've got my attention.
 
I take it this is an empire created during the colonial period by a branch of the Spanish royal family, somewhat like Brazil?

Nothing quite as straightforward as Brazil. To the rest of your question, I guess it would depend on what you mean by "Spanish Royal Family". ;)

Hope my next posts make it a bit clearer.
 
...our first Emperor, Carlos I...

If I have guessed right, this is OTL's Karl Franz Joseph Wenceslau Balthasar Johann Anton Ignatius von Habsburg, 13th child and second surviving son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, later Emperor Charles VI.

He (and Eugene, and one presumes an army of sorts) have been sent to Mexico at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession. Leopold claimed the Spanish throne for the Austrian Habsburgs, and put forward Charles as the candidate. In OTL, the Bourbon claimant, Phillipe d'Anjou, quickly assumed power in Spain and its overseas possessions, leaving the Habsburgs playing catch-up.

ATL, I'm guessing that Leopold is trying to establish Habsburg control of Spain's New World cash cow by direct action. I can see why this would be attractive, but I can't see Leopold sending the "spare to the throne" and the claimant to Spain itself on such a long-range mission.
 
If I have guessed right, this is OTL's Karl Franz Joseph Wenceslau Balthasar Johann Anton Ignatius von Habsburg, 13th child and second surviving son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, later Emperor Charles VI.

Got it on the first try. :D

As to the rest, you are not that far off, but I'm afraid I'll have to play coy until after my next post.
 
Looking a bit around, I'm guessing that Eugene is Eugene of Savoy, the OTL great General who all but won the Siege of Vienna, and whom is second cousin (though a cadet line) of Victor Amadeus II
 
Aaand, we're back:


Semanario: This volume ends in 1705, when Eugene leaves for Prague with the mission of finding Carlos a wife.
Manuel Whitmore: Vienna. By 1705 the reconstruction was well under way and Joseph’s Court had moved back to Vienna.
Julio Rosas: Actually, the reconstruction still had a long way to go, but with the mess that the Imperial Election had become, Joseph thought that returning to Vienna would send a message to the Electors that the Habsburgs were back and as strong as ever.
S: Which they weren’t, really?
JR: Well, no. But for the time being, it seemed to work. Especially with the Wittelsbachs still embroiled in the messy Spanish Civil War.
S: Yes, but back to Eugene as matchmaker…
MW: (Laughter) It certainly looked like an impossible mission at the time.
JR: That it did! I mean, at the time Mexico was not even considered a backwater, and Carlos’s control of the Empire was still thought to be flimsy. What European Royals in their right mind would be willing to send their daughter on such an adventure? Eugene certainly had his work cut out for him.
MW: Fortunately for him, and for Carlos, Eugene soon found an ally in the Court.
S: You mean Wilhelmine Amalia, Joseph’s wife?
MW: Indeed. Joseph couldn’t care less, and in fact saw Carlos as a bit of a threat, but Wilhelmine was a different matter.
JR: She was quite fond of Carlos, and of Palace politics and intrigue as well. Eugene’s job turned out to consist mostly of waiting while she conducted the negotiations with Anthony Ulrich, the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, to allow the marriage of his granddaughter to Carlos.
S: How long did these negotiations take?
MW: They were surprisingly short. Anthony Ulrich was extremely ambitious, and the possibility of a Habsburg marriage was very tempting. Even though Joseph had yet to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
JR: By May of 1706, Eugene and the future Empress Isabel Cristina were heading back across the Atlantic.
S: Wasn’t it a problem that she was a Protestant?
MW: If the circumstances had been different, it would have been. But Carlos was the ruler of a half-Protestant Empire at the end of the world, so no one gave it much thought.
JR: Carlos sure wasn’t happy, and he even tried to get her to convert before the wedding, but in the end Eugene convinced him that “beggars can’t be choosers”, and that having a Protestant wife would help him in the long run to stabilize the Empire.
MW: But, of course, in the short term it caused the Church in Mexico City to throw a hissy fit. (Laughter).

– Translation of an excerpt from the interview with Dr. Manuel Whitmore of the National University and Dr. Julio Rosas of Harvard University, published in the magazine Semanario, New Amsterdam, December 10, 2015.




"Although a handful of Huguenots had settled earlier in New World, most of them working in the fur trade, 1598 is significant as it signals the start of what would become the largest mass religious migration of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1700, almost two million people made the trip across the Atlantic, often in appalling conditions, to settle in what is now Northeastern and Central Mexico. At the beginning of the century, the main population centers developed in Acadia and along the St. Lawrence River, particularly the cities of Port-Royal and Quebec, which survive to this day. But as the years passed and the population exploded due to a constant flow of immigrants and a very high birth rate, new settlements were established first around the Great Lakes, bordering the Dutch colonies, and then along the Mississippi River Valley. This period represents the height of the conflicts between the French settlers and the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited these areas, culminating in the controversial policy of “One People, One Blood”.

(…)

The importance of Dugua’s influence on the drafting of the Edict of Nantes had been mostly overlooked by historians until the appearance of Jean-Paul Rébérioux’s seminal work L’échappement. In his book, Rébérioux posits that Henri IV originally intended only two letters patent or brevets to accompany the Edict of Nantes, neither of which mentioned New France, and that it was Pierre Dugua, the King’s Champion and a substantial investor in Colonial enterprises, who convinced Henri to include the third brevet declaring the whole of New France as a permanent “Place de Sûreté” for the followers of the Reformed Church. It has to be said that Dugua’s intentions were not particularly grand: the settlements he was financing in New France were suffering from low population and, as a Huguenot himself, he wanted to encourage fellow Protestants to emigrate to the Colonies. Little did either Dugua or Henri know the massive effects this brevet would have on the history of the World."

– Translation of excerpts from “Dugua: El Héroe Invisible” by Gabriela Vasson, published in the anthology Historia Religiosa de México, University of Montreal, 1995.




“To say that Marina Leclerc’s Cabinet was a shock to the political system would be the understatement of the Century. Heralded as the youngest and most diverse Cabinet in history, only time will tell whether its appointment will be considered a political revolution or a populist gimmick. All races and religions are represented, and geographically, it is true that this new Government is a reflection of the Empire: from Alaska to Panama, and from the Philippines to Iceland. But can it be true that this group of former backbenchers are the best people to turn the country around? Not one of the new Ministers has any experience, but they sure are a photogenic bunch. (…) There is one thing that Mrs. Leclerc has absolutely right, this Cabinet does send a message to the world. I just hope it’s the right one.”

– Translation of an excerpt from the article “Diversidad sin experiencia” by Javier Kreutzberg, published in the Heraldo de Nueva Amsterdam on August 5th, 2016.


 
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Looking a bit around, I'm guessing that Eugene is Eugene of Savoy...

The OP says so, explicitly.

... the OTL great General who all but won the Siege of Vienna...

Eugene was barely 20 at the Relief of Vienna, and had entered Imperial service only a month before Sobieski's attack. He was commended for bravery, but I hardly think he "all but won" the battle.
 
Aaand, we're back:


"Although a handful of Huguenots had settled earlier in New World, most of them working in the fur trade, 1598 is significant as it signals the start of what would become the largest mass religious migration of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1700, almost two million people made the trip across the Atlantic, often in appalling conditions, to settle in what is now Northeastern and Central Mexico...

And this TL was just shot in the head. .45 ACP wad-cutter, right between the eyes, splattering brains everywhere.

Leave aside the butterflies - the knock-ons from this would radically alter 16th century history. For instance, there would be no Siege of La Rochelle for the Duke of Buckingham to entangle England in (with disastrous results to England, James I, and himself).

So, a century later, the same figures as OTL are disputing over the Spanish succession in the same way?

Also - two million colonists? This is an order of magnitude more colonists than went OTL to all English, French, and Dutch colonies in the New World combined in that time, including slaves brought from Africa. It is much larger than Spanish migration to the New World. This enormous colonizing effort would displace the OTL French efforts to expand in Europe.

And how would these Protestants come to settle in territory ruled by Catholic Spain?

It's a damned shame, because it looked like this was going to be a TL with some original ideas by a knowledgeable author.
 
And this TL was just shot in the head. .45 ACP wad-cutter, right between the eyes, splattering brains everywhere.

I certainly hope not, but then again you never know with these things. :D

Leave aside the butterflies - the knock-ons from this would radically alter 16th century history. For instance, there would be no Siege of La Rochelle for the Duke of Buckingham to entangle England in (with disastrous results to England, James I, and himself).
Indeed. This is a VERY different 17th Century. Both in Europe and America.

So, a century later, the same figures as OTL are disputing over the Spanish succession in the same way?
I hate to ruin a surprise, but I think I've left enough clues not to make this much of a spoiler: ITTL, there is NO War of Spanish Succession. Spain does gets sucked into a Civil War at the start of the 18th Century, but for different reasons altogether.

Also - two million colonists? This is an order of magnitude more colonists than went OTL to all English, French, and Dutch colonies in the New World combined in that time, including slaves brought from Africa. It is much larger than Spanish migration to the New World. This enormous colonizing effort would displace the OTL French efforts to expand in Europe.
Two million is the consensus estimate for the number of Huguenots that left France throughout the 17th Century. Not all at once, of course. Some historians estimate lower numbers, but not significantly. It's just that ITTL, they have a Promised Land.

And how would these Protestants come to settle in territory ruled by Catholic Spain?
Oh, but we are far, far away from Spanish territory at this point. We're talking Acadia, Quebec and Louisianne. New Spain doesn't come into play until the 18th Century.

It's a damned shame, because it looked like this was going to be a TL with some original ideas by a knowledgeable author.
A bit of a backhanded compliment, but I'll take it. :D
 
two million colonists?

You got me thinking, so I went back to Phillip Benedict's The Huguenot Population of France, 1600-1685, and you may have a point. Doing the math, it seems that the actual number of Huguenots that emigrated from France in the 17th Century may be closer to 1.3-1.5 million than 2. I guess if we add all the converts who would've rather emigrated ITTL we might get closer, but still...

Anyway, I think I will probably let that number stand as hyperbole from an overzealous academic. Not like it would be the first time.




 
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