In The Name of the King: Mk 2

[Mumby]

Liking the references in the chapter titles, and also the way *Romanticism is happening, becoming explicitly intertwined with conservatism. Austrasia continues to interest me a lot, perhaps because it's so different from OTL's Belgium.

Denmark's sale seems to indicate ambitions of becoming a great land power in Northern Europe, which is an interesting path for Denmark to take. But I'd think that the North German Confederacy might well be interested in Danish Pomerania, which sounds like a recipe for trouble in the future.

Swedish colonialism is an ominous sign. I suspect that they, like other European powers, might start off with a few strategically placed colonies for profit and end up colonising vast amounts of the world for ideology and prestige. My only real objection is on that point—that it seems odd for Russia to be so obliging to Sweden, in particular to give up a long-fought Russian land in exchange for Courland but also to give any accommodation at all to a declining power rather than take whatever it could—but that's a minor thing really.

Looking at South Africa, the surviving Zulus are a good sign, though I fear that they won't last if a major European power—even the likes of Portugal, let alone France or the mega-British Empire—gets greedy, as they probably will in time (an awful lot of diamonds and gold there for the taking). The Boers, North Germans and Britons make up an interesting dynamic, though I fear that North Germany and/or Britain will be tempted to use the presence of their people as an excuse to do some land-grabbing within the next century or so.

In any case, thanks for the updates.

Thanks. I wanted to have more than the straight left-right economic divide we seem to have in politics these days.

Things will definitely kick off in Scandinavia in future. I doubt the Swedes will build an empire of any colossal size. I envisage them more like OTL's Italians. As for Sweden and Russia trading territory, the capitol has been moved back to Moscow due to the Romantic undercurrent, and its less neceaary to build a large Baltic empire when their strength is concentrated around the Black Sea.

Africans or at least a few of them are going to rather better in this TL.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Thanks. I wanted to have more than the straight left-right economic divide we seem to have in politics these days.

You're welcome, and I think you succeeded.

Things will definitely kick off in Scandinavia in future. I doubt the Swedes will build an empire of any colossal size. I envisage them more like OTL's Italians.

Oh sure, but I didn't mean colossal on the scale of the huge British or French empires, I merely meant in comparison to the pre-late-19th-century tendency (outside the mainland Americas, that is) to usually colonise a few trading outposts as opposed to the mass colonisation of the 19th century; I meant to suggest that Sweden would be one of the powers doing the mass colonisation of the late 19th century, though of course not remotely on the same scale as the likes of France.

As for Sweden and Russia trading territory, the capitol has been moved back to Moscow due to the Romantic undercurrent, and its less neceaary to build a large Baltic empire when their strength is concentrated around the Black Sea.

But Russia doesn't need to play nice with Sweden when the other powers of the world are conveniently exhausted and there's no-one to force it to do so. I get the idea of a more southerly focus (presumably looking towards the ultimate goal of Constantinople and the Turkish Straits, because this is, after all, the Russian Empire that we're talking about here) but IOTL conflicting foci of interest in Russian foreign policy merely caused it to place more weight on one or the other at a time, never to abandon one focus of interest entirely.

Africans or at least a few of them are going to rather better in this TL.

I often find myself sceptical of attempts to give ATLs more optimistic outcomes than OTL in regard to colonisation, but it is of course your call and not mine. I'll continue to read in any case.

 

[Mumby]

#48: Manifest Destiny

With the end of the 1763 Proclamation Line, British settlers slowly moved westwards across the American continent. While in the South, certain tribes were protected and a set of Indian Nations were set up under British protection, in the North, treatment of the natives was far more hard-nosed. There were several reasons for this. First of all, the South was built on different social and economic norms. Slavery was a key component of the economy, and the economy was very stratified racially. At the top was a class of white, and occasionally Indian Planters. Beneath them were white or Indian labourers, though at his level, whites were always privileged. This class were the traders, the merchants, the overseers, the factory managers. Below them were the free poor, which didn't have any overwhelming racial connotation, and either worked as unskilled menial labour or worked subsistence farms, far from the plantations. And at the bottom were the slaves. This economy wasn't predicated on expansion, on claiming land for yourself. It was built on deference, on class, and bore more resemblance to the class system in Britain than in the more egalitarian states further north.

The Northern Colonies could be split into an aristocratic East, even closer to Britain in its social structure, around New England, and a more egalitarian West. Slavery was steadily abolished here from the 1790s onwards, with the specialisation of the southern slave economy into cotton contributing to this. The lack of a powerful Planter class was a major factor in the differing northern economy. The Planters of the South had cousins in the islands of the British West Indies, whereas the Northern colonies had only the West to expand into. Because of this, the North-Western colonies lacked as much of a commercial spirit, and without a stratified class system became a more individualistic, or at least family/community based culture as opposed to colony wide organisation of the South or North-East.

By 1830, the south no longer had any remaining colonies, Vandalia, Transylvania and Rockinghamshire having been consolidated as counties in the preceding years. They thus presented a more developed block of votes in Parliament than the Northerners. North and South Charlottania had been split but not yet developed enough to be admitted as counties. Ohio had been integrated, but thanks to Virginian immigration was more like a Southern county than a Northern one.

But as settlers slowly moved westwards, new colonies were carved out. There was the Missouri Colony that consisted of former Northern Louisiana. And north of that was the Red River Colony. This was unusual as it was deliberately planted with settlers from Britain. Red River would become a centre of British colonisation of North America. The Red River colony was mostly settled by Scotsmen which would have a substantial impact on regional culture.

Due to the expanding area of settlement, there were two major areas of conflict with natives. The first, and more immediately important were with the Sioux in Missouri. These fierce horsemen were proud warriors. A few short battles with little loss, and they agreed to certain pathways and areas of settlement for whites. These remained small, and relations were peaceable for now. The other was with the Seminole in Florida. This was a brutal conflict, in which Indians fought Indians. Eventually, they were forced to surrender and a treaty forced on them. The Seminole were to be removed from their territory. They were to be sent to one of two new colonies in West Africa. One was for free blacks, and was to become known as Freedonia. The Seminole were to be sent to the other, New Florida. The belief was they would survive well in the swampy climate and serve as a useful buffer against hostile native Africans. This was a poor summisation but New Florida would in time become a thriving colony.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Wow, I don't think I've come accross a "deport Native Americans to Africa" plan in a TL before.

You do realise that you will need to produce some new maps, don't you?

 

[Mumby]

I should have some more updates done over the next week. There are interesting times ahead as we go into the 1830s in more detail. Just remember, some parts I am still coming up with almost as I find things out, other parts are very developed already with plans for what will be happening over seventy years down the line.

 

[Mumby]

Wow, I don't think I've come accross a "deport Native Americans to Africa" plan in a TL before.

You do realise that you will need to produce some new maps, don't you?

I'll produce some new maps when the next major round of wars is over. Which should be titillating enough to put off some desire for an immediate map?

 

[Mumby]

#49: Lisboa Constrictor

Since the Revolutionary Wars, the Portuguese royal family had resided in Brazil. Originally intended as a temporary solution to the major issue of Revolutionary France trying to conquer half of Europe, it soon turned into a worryingly permanent situation. And until the 1830s, the Portuguese Empire was effectively run from Rio de Janeiro. Portugal had done pretty well for herself since the the end of the Revolutionary Wars. She had made a killing from trading slaves out of Central Africa, she had reclaimed her position as a major player in the East Indies, Brazil had expanded at the Spanish' expense. But with such wealth came an increasingly assertive middle class. The people of Portugal proper felt abandoned and neglected. The current King, John VII, had focussed the country's foreign policy around his experience in Brazil. And in Brazil itself, there were calls to introduce a more direct form of democracy.

In 1832, two rebellions broke out, one in Portugal and one in Pernambuco. Considering the two had nothing to do with one another and indeed they disagreed on many obvious points, they worried the court in Rio, and John VII knew he needed to act. If either rebellion had occurred in isolation, much may have happened differently. As it was, John was convinced of the need for radical reform to prevent the collapse of the empire.

Addressing the rebellion in Pernambuco, he agreed to the creation of a form of Parliament, albeit one specifically designed with the provinces in mind. A federal constitution for the Kingdom of Brazil within the Portuguese Empire was drawn up. He then took the voyage to Portugal, where he made a similar declaration and a parliament was also set up there. This was very different to the system which Britain had adopted. The Portuguese adopted a modified version of what the Spanish had. Spain was Three Kingdoms, One Empire. Similarly, the Portuguese Empire was now composed of two kingdoms. But unlike the Spanish, John's decision was not a fait accompli forced by circumstances beyond his control. He moulded the process and the Constitution, choosing the new structure.

John modelled the division of the Empire after that of Rome. He intended to build a new city in Brazil, a Constantinople of the New World. As part of this vision he granted responsibility over certain colonies to the Brazilian government, specifically the Congo settlements, and control of Timor. This would spur on Portuguese interests in the Pacific, coming at a time that Britain was also demonstrating a much more active interest.

 

[Mumby]

#50: Some 'o' Sumatra

Beginning in the 1820s and ending in 1831, the North Germans waged a war against Wahabbi extremists in Sumatra. This war in defence of their allies soon transformed into a war of conquest with the expansion of colonial territory and vassalisation of former allies and enemies alike. As Prussian soldiers marched through Sumatra, backed by naval forces from the Netherlands, Aceh grew increasingly worried. One of the more hardline states in terms of imposing the interpretation of sharia law which had sparked the conflict.

This situation drew the attention of people much further away. And one of these people was Ali Buonaparte. His father had died only a few short months before, and he wanted to get out of his father's illustrious shadow. Looking over to desperate Aceh, he recalled the history of his father's adoptive country. A long time ago, Aceh had been a loyal vassal of the Sublime Porte, a doorway to the Far East. What better way of demonstrating the return of the Caliphate to greatness than by coming to their former vassal's aid.

In the latter months of 1831, he dispatched a fleet, constructed after the European style of sail-ships, to the East Indies. An ambassador met with the Acehnese Sultan and he agreed to Osmanid assistance. Troops occupied the cities and small holdfasts were built in the south. When the North Germans came to Aceh, they found an army waiting for them. They clashed briefly but the North Germans didn't want to risk turning a small colonial conflict into a war with a Great Power, not to mention that Osmanid troops were of an entirely different calibre to the local East Indians. Aceh maintained its independence from the 'Dutch' East Indies.

But that wasn't to say that they kept their independence entirely. When the dust settled, the Osmanid troops didn't leave. They rebuilt their holdfasts into fortresses, they constructed permanent barracks in towns or requisitioned suitable buildings. They took control of local armed forces by force of arms. The ambassador set up permanently in the Sultan's palace. The Sultan attempted to force out his guests, but the limited insurrection was put down.

Ali Buonaparte had achieved his first victory. He had demonstrated the power of Osmanid arms, and gained a vassal in the East Indies. He had walked out of his father's shadow and begun casting his own. As Grand Vizier of the Osmanid Caliphate at such a young age, he had a long time to achieve his ambitions.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

You know, I'm really naïve about these things. For a moment I genuinely thought that the Osmanids would set up some kind of web of alliances with all sorts of non-European states, protecting them from European conquerors in exchange for being vassals.

Then… oh, they're just a colonial power politer than most. The British did the same thing when "saving" small countries from the French.

Time will tell, I suppose, whether the *Iberian or the *British system of management of settler colonies is better. I lean towards the Iberian but we'll see.

Oh, and you do have the sort of writing to make Prussian armies and Dutch navies fighting Wahhabis in Sumatra sound plausible, which is worth praising in its own right.

Thanks for the updates.

 

[Mumby]

You know, I'm really naïve about these things. For a moment I genuinely thought that the Osmanids would set up some kind of web of alliances with all sorts of non-European states, protecting them from European conquerors in exchange for being vassals.

Then… oh, they're just a colonial power politer than most. The British did the same thing when "saving" small countries from the French.

Time will tell, I suppose, whether the *Iberian or the *British system of management of settler colonies is better. I lean towards the Iberian but we'll see.

Oh, and you do have the sort of writing to make Prussian armies and Dutch navies fighting Wahhabis in Sumatra sound plausible, which is worth praising in its own right.

Thanks for the updates.

Yeah, I'm kind of a pessimist when it comes to the human condition, so you won't be seeing much of any happy-shiny anti-European league. I believe that the potential for colonial brutality, monstrous racism and overweening superiority complexes exist within all mankind, regardless of race, colour or creed.

Well this war in Sumatra is not enormously different from actual wars IOTL. The difference here obviously that isn't just the Dutch here. As a member of the North German Confederacy, she can call on her partners to help her out.

I doubt many places will want (or be able) to directly imitate the "British model" ITTL. The Spanish have had their system forced on them, as the New Spanish otherwise threatened independence and they were in exile. In Portugal, he also had to make a Dominion-y arrangement because otherwise the Portuguese would try to break away. ITTL, independence was never really mooted in British America. So that never happened, and culturally the two were far more similar than was the case for the Iberians and their respective colonies. A country that could possibly follow the British model could be France. But we shall see.

Things will be hotting up considerably in the next update.

 

[Mumby]

#51: Fill Your Pipe

After the Revolutionary Wars, France had found herself with much of her empire lost. With the Caribbean colonies under their own rule, and slavery abolished, avenues for expansion were limited. But Southeast Asia and Nouvelle-Belgie had proved bountiful. The great opium farms of Nouvelle-Belgie exported into China, bringing silver and priceless artefacts to France. But the Chinese were growing angry. Their economy was degenerating, her people were suffering, rebellions were growing larger and more frequent.

In 1832, the Chinese tried to bar French opium traders from her ports. While other nations, such as Britain, also partook in the trade it was the French who were by far the biggest player and who also had the most to lose. The Chinese attempt drew recriminations, which led to posturing, which finally led to war.

The Chinese were not prepared for the onslaught to come. Decades of entropy and stagnation had left them woefully far behind Europeans in terms of technology and tactics. The French were also not alone, joined by contingents from other European nations who stood to lose out if China grew too assertive.

The one advantage that China held was the France intended to use the chaos to secure Southeast Asia under her rule. A doorway to this would be the attempts by the Viet to expel French missionaries. This could be tied into their war in China. The French planned to turn Viet Nam into their answer to what the British had in Bengal.

Over the next six years, France would crush the Chinese opposition, occupying much of Canton. They also dismembered Viet Nam, turning it into easily digestable chunks. With the seizure of the tax barges, the finances of the Chinese were crippled. With their armies humiliated and their economy going into freefall, the Chinese sought terms. France opened up treaty ports for trade, and annexed a port of her own. A terrible indemnity was imposed, which would in time pay back the cost of the war to the French exchequer. France was acknowledged as China's equal and the opium trade was allowed unopposed. This was put a temporary situation, but the stage had been set for French domination of Southeast Asia.

France now had two secure ports in Southeast Asia, a vassal in the form of Viet Nam, and an increasingly populous settler colony in Nouvelle-Belgie. France's ambitions in the East Indies would only continue to grow, and while it appeared after the Revolutionary Wars that France had suffered a fatal loss of prestige, it would prove that in the East she found her calling. As for China, the defeat was humiliating and the problems underlying the Qing Dynasty's rule would only get worse over time.

 

[Mumby]

#52: West Meets East

The British colonies in Australia continued to grow throughout the 1820s and 1830s. While New South Wales continued as a series of penal colonies for some time, New Zealand soon became a Crown Colony in its own right. It had never been as important as Australia in terms of penal settlement. And with a growing British colony in the South Pacific, British colonies on the Pacific coast of North America became far more critical. West of the Missouri Colony and the territory of the Hudsons Bay Company, a new colony was proclaimed with a nebulous charter, as the Colony of New Albion. British settlers found themselves once again competing ferociously over land claimed by many different powers, making the situation very familiar to those that had existed seventy years before.

As British colonies cropped up on the Pacific coast, so trade began between the British American colonies, and their Pacific colonies. Under the Hamiltonian economic plan, this was precisely how things were supposed to work. And as traders made their way across the Pacific to New Zealand and Australia, they found themselves in strange islands previously only explored by the French under La Perouse or Captain Cook. Shaky treaties were established by explorers, often acting independently of the crown, creating a chain of pseudo vassals in Polynesia, and a more equal relationship was established with the Kingdom of the Sandwich Islands.

Many stories, most of them little more than myth exist about these days. Of ambitious young men from Liverpool or New York sailing out into the Pacific, beguiling the natives with their ingenuity and carving out kingdoms of their own amongst the island. There one or two individuals like this, but they won their kingdoms not through the fair ingenuity of the British race, but because they turned up with guns, disease and bands of brutal and equally ambitious men. These hard-eyed adventurers, latter day Pizarros, and their descendants would rule over small portions of the Pacific for quite some time, until the British eventually determined to secure their rule more directly.

The Sandwich Islands were a different case entirely. Since Cook's expedition, the Sandwichers had united under a single, modernising ruler. They would not fall to one band of would-be Corteses. They agreed to play host to a Royal Navy base, and it was from here that Britain projected her power in North America into the Pacific and ultimately into New Zealand and Australia.

But as Britain became ever more involved with the Pacific, so traders began looking further afield. From the Pacific, and from Australia, they get project trade into East Asia. Britain was slightly involved in the opium trade, with some small scale opium plantations in New South Wales, and even a few in New Albion, which drew a few slave owners despite the inclement climate. Britain even sent a small contingent of troops to help the French in their war with the Chinese. But their real interest was in Japan, which had been somewhat neglected by Europeans ever since the Revolutionary Wars. While in the 1830s, the Japanese still aggressively turned away foreigners with force of arms, the Pacific trade was driving Britain towards Japan. What the result of that was at the time, unknown.

The Pacific linked Britain, North America, Australia and East Asia. This trade, as well as the continuing trade with West Africa, even after the abolition of the slave trade, left India increasingly be the wayside. Britain had few if any ports around the Indian Ocean, and allowed Portugal and North Germany to increasingly take up the slack, and gave carte blanche to her vassals in India to run the show so long as money kept coming in. The meeting of West and East in the Pacific would directly contribute to the withering of British power in South Asia.

 

[Mumby]

#53: It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day

Tensions had been building between the Osmanid Caliphate and the Persian Empire, ever since the Buonapartes had reformed and reforged the Ottomans into a modern power. The two re-energised ancient kingdoms had been posturing for years. Now, the moment for the great confrontation had come. But it came from a direction few expected.

In 1836, Georgia agreed to place itself under Russian protection. Mighty Imperial Russia had been modernising, and with the money that came from the sales of land to Sweden, and from the Baltic trade, they had won over many Georgian dignitaries. Both the Osmanids and the Persians declared Georgia to be in their sphere of influence. And both immediately began arguing over the problems. As Russian troops moved southwards and occupied Georgian castles, the powers to the south also mobilised their troops. But when each side got to the Georgian border, arguments broke out. Who was the true suzerain of Georgia? It was very unclear.

Before anyone knew what was happenings, Persia and the Caliphate were at war. The Omani-Persian alliance was now an excuse for Ali Buonaparte to finish his father's work and unite all of Arabia under Baghdad and the Sublime Porte. The usual stomping ground of Mesopotamia saw Perso-Osmanid fighting once again.

But Ali and the Osmanids had made a fatal error. Like the North Germans in the East Indies, they had failed to take notice of modernisation, but this time it was of their neighbours. Portuguese sailors and French soldiers had helped train and modernise the Persian military, and while the Osmanids had something of an edge in naval warfare thanks to skilled naval engineers who had been trained by Napoleone Buonaparte's Neapolitan fleet, the Persians had a mighty army, and a not inconsiderable navy of their own.

The Persians won a series of stunning victories in Mespotamia, and Ali Buonaparte was forced to call back troops from the Omani campaign to hold the Persians off from taking Baghdad. Russia quietly occupied and annexed Georgia, fortifying their holdfasts. But the original argument was now forgotten. Tensions had been building for too long, and needed release. Now they had been unleashed, neither side had any intention of backing down.

The war also expanded into the Indian Ocean. The Persians tried to seize Aceh, but it failed despite a rebellion of ardent nationalists in the interior. The involvement of Oman in the war had dragged in Zanzibar. The Osmanids wanted the East African kingdom, possibly as a vassal, forming a triangle of profitable ports around the Indian Ocean.

With stalemate emerging in Oman and Mesopotamia, the two empires struggled to find a new front to win the war. Zanzibar was to be that front. The Osmanids had seized the city and were the process of extending their grip into the interior. A combined Omani-Persian force confronted and in a setpiece battle routed the enemy fleet. Persian soldiers occupied Zanzibar and imposed military governance over the kingdom, crushing those few Osmanid troops that had escaped. With defeat of a major force, morale came crashing down in Baghdad. The Mesopotamian border had been restored to ante bellum borders. So they sought terms.

Georgia was ignored at the peace conference. The Mesopotamian border was restored to ante bellum status, while land was annexed from Oman into the Caliphate. Persian suzerainty over Oman was recognised, and Zanzibar was annexed to the Persian empire. The competition for power wasn't over, but the eyes of Baghdad and Tehran turned outwards, into competing for Asian and African trade. This would spur on the growth and modernisation of bot countries, and lead to their ascent and acceptance into the ranks of the Great Powers.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Yay Persia.

But boo Britain being less powerful in South Asia.

 

[Mumby]

Yay Persia.

But boo Britain being less powerful in South Asia.

I'm glad you're pleased by at least one development. As for the other, the British are rather making up for it in other directions.

 

[Mumby]

List of Prime Ministers of the Kingdom of Great Britain
1766: William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (Whig)
1767: Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (Whig)
1774: Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (Whig)
1781: Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (Rockinghamite Whig)
1788: Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guildford ('Tory')
1791: John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich (Northite Tory-Pittite Tory Coalition)
1795: William Pitt 'The Younger' (Pittite Tory-Burkite Whig Coalition)
1800: William Pitt 'The Younger' (Pittite Tory-Burkite Whig Coalition)
1806: Sir Alexander Hamilton, 1st Baronet (Pittite Tory-Old Whig Coalition)
1810: Sir Alexander Hamilton, 1st Baronet (Reform Whig-Tory Coalition)
1816: Sir Alexander Hamilton, 1st Baronet (Reform Whig)
1820: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (Radical Whig)
1826: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (Radical)
1831: Charles Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool (Tory-Physiocrat Coalition)
1837: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (Tory-Radical Coalition)
1840: Samuel Beresford (Reformist)

 

[Mumby]

#54: First of Her Name

In 1830, after only twelve years on the throne, King George IV died. The period of his rule had been considered miserable. His wealth and corpulence had depressed and repulsed the population. His power, unrestricted even by his father's senility, allowed him to stave off many of the Grey government's Radical reforms. The newly rebranded Radical party slipped down the charts, relying on a built in majority from her supporters in the newly enfranchised boroughs and broader electorate from the common people. But nevertheless, dissatisfaction built up. The Reform Party yelled at them from the opposite benches, but the Tories and the Physiocrats (the pseudo-Luddite successors to the Old Whigs) were building up their support in the countryside, inveigling local magnates into a national web of support.

The death of the King proved the nail in the coffin of a Radical government which had failed to implement many of its policies. Over the course of 1830, the Tories and Physiocrats would push out the Radicals and Reformists, as they suffered the short end of the British electorate's caprice. The Physiocrats, and their agrarian rhetoric caught on especially well in the slave-owning Old Virginia [1]. Andrew Jackson was a vocal Physiocrat MP from Rockinghamshire, who proposed an astonishing new vision of a 'crowned republic of yeomen'. The Tories built upon more traditional wells of support amongst the landed gentry and the growing order of aristocracy in America, which extended themselves beyond the old boundaries of Great Britain.

The coronation of Queen Charlotte caused a small upswing for Radical and Reformists due to her well-known support for such movements, but it leant more to the Reformists and only split the Enlightened vote. The result was in 1831, the Romantic parties of the Tories and the Physiocrats could not gain a majority alone, but together far outmatched either the Radicals or Reformers. The leaders of the Tories, Charles Jenkinson, the 3rd Earl of Liverpool, was an old style Tory, from the ideological lineage of Lord North, and further back to the Restoration Era Cavalier Parliament. He had to forge an alliance with Andrew Jackson, the bullet-riddled Indian fighter from the North American frontier, and had fought in Africa against heathen kings. A common ground over building an economy that would serve the farmer, the rural landowner. It was an idiosyncratic government, an alliance of old British aristocracy, with the brash, slave-owning yeomen of Old Virginia.

Queen Charlotte was dissappointed by the nature of her first Parliament. She believed she could have worked effectively with a Radical or Reform Parliament, but instead, she had a government of Tories and Physiocrats. The four party system was working against the 18th century electoral system which had favoured moderation, by delivering roughly equal quantities of factions. Instead, a stark division in the country ideologically was emerging, between rural areas and the new industrial cities.

Amongst the poorer, newly enfranchised population there was a new political movement, rising behind the four other parties. The Chartists were a populist, anti-establishment parties which catered to all manner of points of view, but what they wanted above all things was universal manhood suffrage, voting reform, wages for MPs, and constituency reform. They were not a party made for governance, or even necessarily for sitting in Parliament. They desired simply to reform Parliament so it would serve them, not only the moneyed interests, the aristocracy and the feudal gentry. Their protesting movement would be ridiculed and abused by those in power and even those in Opposition. But the Queen could see a use for them. In the olden days, the monarch could apply pressure to Parliament by appealling to the Mob. If she could not introduce reforming measures because of her government, she could use the Mob to manipulate them and apply pressure where need be. This alliance, as well as the shifting composition of the Physiocrats would result in a scandal, and possibly the largest political shake-up of the 19th century...

[1] OTL Dixie. Refers to the fact that most of the south was once regarded as being under Virginian jurisdiction. While technically, the old colony of Virginia extended all over the Eastern Seaboard, it refers exclusively to the south, due to the shared economic, cultural and social norms.

 

[Mumby]

Just a little drabble...

While many cultural changes resulted from the integration of the American colonies into Great Britain, one that is frequently underplayed or even ignored is the impact on Britain's long-standing relationship with alcohol. Particularly, hard liquor.

Alcohol had been a part of many Briton's daily lives for centuries. In the early 18th century, the scale of gin consumption had been a source of fear for Britain's upper classes as it seemed the urban commoners were descending into a gin fuelled madness. The British love of beer has seemed to be an eternal one, and the growth in gin seems only to have come when a hard-drinking culture emerged in the growing industrial cities. In the American colonies, an offshoot of this drinking culture had emerged independently, and had soon grown to outstrip the old country.

The scale of drinking in the colonial era of British America was monumental. Rum was fed to babies to keep them quiet. Whiskey was drunk at breakfast and maintained throughout the day. In an overwhelmingly agrarian environment, alcohol was produced in many families' homes entirely of their own accord. Many social events became excuses for alcoholic binges, regardless of class or race. Whisky or other spirits were sometimes used as an impromptu currency, with gallons being paid for services rendered. Days off were regarded as a day to get drunk on.

When the first MPs and Lords came to Parliament from the colonies, they brought with them entourages, hopeful courtiers and money-grabbing sorts. They also brought with them demands that the British initially failed to adapt to. But within a few years, bars and pubs were soon purveying liquors to appeal to the colonial pallete. It wasn't long before whiskey, rum, cider, and wine joined gin and beer as British staples. A wine industry in North America grew, exporting to Britain, fuelling a boom in wine consumption which only grew. Beer became increasingly displaced as a new and wild variety of drinks became commercially available.

At a time when Britain was at war, and was then arguing over great matters like the slave trade or the very nature of commerce, it was worrying to many observers that some of Parliament's Honourable Members were to be seen passed out in pubs across London. The coffee house of the 18th century was increasingly displaced by the tavern, serving hard liquor in huge kegs, as the meeting place and talking shop of the great and the good. The young experimented with wild combinations, and as the educated middle class grew, their youth became a common sight in many university cities, drinking to excess and carousing with intense fervour.

The impact in America was almost the opposite. While the British had never been exactly restrained in their drinking habits, stories (often exaggerated) from Britain repulsed the upper classes. Moderation, even temperance, became desirable. But hard-drinking, while reduced, remained common across the middle and lower classes. The result was that the gulf in drinking culture across the Atlantic was closed. The division that had begun to open up in British culture in North America was closed in yet another way, contributing further to the integration of the former colonies into the united Kingdom of Great Britain.

 

[Mumby]

#55: City of Lights

Post-Revolutionary France was a strange place indeed. The institutions of the Ancien Regime returned but they had to learn to live alongside the Jacobin legacy. The Catholic Church never recovered her central role once the Faith of Reason was established, and her successors would continue to hold out, leading to at least a form of secularism becoming the norm in France. Politically, the country had changed too. While most French people had resented the Terror and so had aligned on the side of the King when he returned, many saw that period as a positive good. The most vociferous Jacobins were hunted down, arrested and transported to Australia, during the post-war Ultra government. But an undercurrent of republicanism or at least pro-democratic sentiment remained.

Louis XVIII was a not a stupid King. When he was restored in Paris as King of the French, and he heard the cheering crowds crying 'Vive le Roi!', he knew there were many who would rather be shouting 'Vive la Nation!' and watching his head be sliced from his shoulders. France could not return to the Pre-Revolutionary state and pretend it never happened. So he called the Estates-General and made moves to constitute it as a sitting parliament, intending to take advantage of Jacobin centralism to usher in the reforms he believed were needed to build a stable Kingdom.

Louis kept many Revolutionary laws, including the disestablishment of the Catholic Church as the official faith, though explicitly favouring it in public declarations. The Jansenist turn the Catholic Church took after the Revolutionary Wars made this easier, with Louis able to portray a rejuvenated Gallic Catholic Church as a syncretism of traditional Catholicism and the nationalistic Faith of the Revolutionary era. He also retained the Hebertiste provinces as their borders proved more rational, and greatly facilitated a centralised domestic policy.

Louis chose not to be an absolute monarchy, believing to do so would be little better than suicide. But he did build the post-Revolution political settlement, in such a way as to favour him, and make him integral to the state. He was the sole executive, and it was up to the King to hand-pick a Cabinet of Ministers who advised him on executive matters and policies. This Cabinet was drawn from the bicameral Estates-General. The disestablishment of the Church, meant there were now only two Estates, and the decision was made to divide it into two chambers which would act as checks and balances. The Estate of the Commons was elected, by those who were eligible to vote. In the immediate atmosphere of post-Revolutionary France, the vote was restricted to property-owners and to cast your vote, an oath of loyalty to the King was necessary. The Estate of the Nobles was composed of those who held titles, and it was in the King's power to ennoble individuals.

Louis' 'constitution' bore a startling resemblance to the initial hopes for a constitutional monarchy that had been proposed in the early stages of the Revolution. It gave more power to the nobles, and stripped some from the lower classes, but it was a much better settlement than either the despotic Jacobins or the ossified Ancien Regime could offer.

In a situation where debate was encouraged, even if one ultimately answered to the will of the King, it did not take long for parties to emerge. The first and intially most successful were the Ultras. The Party of the King, they supported the power of Louis in law-making matters and at first were essentially a rubber stamp to the King's executive powers. In time they developed more of a will of their own, becoming very Catholic (notably calling for a reinstitution of the tricameral Ancien Regime Estates-General), and a very Romantic (even Luddite) attitude to the Industrial Revolution. There were two other much smaller parties. The first were the Moderates, who wanted to contain or even reduce the King's role in government and wished to emulate the legislature-led government of Great Britain. They were somewhat wishy-washy at first and essentially acted to constrain the Ultras from their most extreme whims. The other party was the party of the crypto-Jacobins, the Constitutional Party. They wanted a codified constitution, believing they could then remake France as a crowned republic. They were weak, easily tarred with Jacobin blood. They found it difficult to separate themselves from their roots.

France enjoyed a new period of prosperity after the war and into the 1830s, only constrained by the government's suspiscion of new industrial technologies. A legislature-led policy of pursuing trade in Southeast Asia was a boon to the Moderates. However, tensions were building across Europe. The genie of nationalism and republicanism couldn't be put back in the bottle. Luddism, Romantic Nationalism, Neo-Enlightenment thought, Liberty movements, Reactionary governments, all would form a soup of conflict as the 1830s came to a close. But it would not be in France that the first shots were fired.

 

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#56: Orient Espresso

The Osmanids had taken a hammering againts the Persian army, but her navy had held her own, and had allowed her to keep control of Aceh. Despite the war ending unsatisfactorily, the Caliphate had not collapsed and her troops had performed well. It was proof that the Buonapartian reforms were effective. If they had remained in the ossified Ottoman form, there was little doubt that the Persians would have humiliated the Empire, and could even have claimed the title of Caliph themselves.

Ali Buonaparte had settled into his role as Grand Vizier and fended off challenges by those who wanted to reverse his reforms or punish him for allowing the Persians to invade Mesopotamia and endanger the new capitol. He was now comfortable enough to start pushing through new policies. In particular, he wanted to secure Aceh as an Osmanid doorway to the East and compete for trade. Not only that, but he saw what was happening in Great Britain and other European states and wanted to replicate the industrial processes in the Caliphate.

The Osmanid textile industry had long been one of its big exports. But its handmade nature meant they were now being outstripped by more industrialised states, especially Britain whose large mills could feast on cotton harvested in North America and produce huge quantities of textiles. In the 1830s, a number of steam powered silk reeling factories were built, which allowed her to circumvent the Chinese silk trade and supply the West with mass-produced and valuable silk. The abolition of the Janissaries allowed the state to undermine the old guilds and drive down wages to make production cheaper.

Accompanying the industrialisation of traditional economic sectors, was the laying down of railtrack between the major cities, allowing ease of transport across the Caliphate and speeding supply of commodities to port cities for export. But rail-work was dangerous and often, the employees on these projects were African wage slaves traded from the interior of the continent.

The dual threat of wage depression as traditional manufactures industrialised, and of increased numbers of slaves in hard construction work, upset the traditionally well protected workers of the Caliphate. A domestic Luddite movement emerged, which caused chaos amongst the textile factories and the growing cotton fields, as well as breaking the rails the trains travelled along. Buonaparte ordered these rebels crushed and utilised a much improved army and internal police to pursue them. A series of penal colonies were set up south of the North African eyalets. Buonaparte oversaw the roots of the Osmanid Caliphate's rebirth as a modern state. The penal colonies foreshadowed future Osmanid competition in Africa, and he set up the start of a modern economy with a healthy central bank and large industries.