L’Aigle Triomphant: A Napoleonic Victory TL

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alexmilman

KingSweden24 said:
The Fernandine Gambit​

"...it matters little what Spanish law actually says or suggests; our sea power determines practically what Spanish law is."

- Lord Liverpool

Britain's "Wismar Insult" was taken as an affront in France and when the terms of Canning's initial offer - with its robust list of demands and sparse number of compromises in turn - were distributed to other European capitals by Napoleon's agents, most other monarchs and their courts were surprised that Britain was not willing to settle for a white peace to end the seemingly endless wars against Napoleon. But so long as Russia was content, and she was indeed content for now, there was no chance of revanchist Prussia or cunning Austria joining another Coalition. Paris's gamble that Britain would refuse to compromise on their counter-terms, and the perception on the Continent that it was now Britain being unreasonable and choking European commerce, gave Napoleon an opening - the reform of the Continental System and its replacement with a more lenient policy. In Toulon, he revoked the Berlin and Milan decrees and replaced it with a new one, namely stating that "neutrally flagged" transshipment would now be permissible, a move that simultaneously continued to twist the screws to Britain while giving "neutral" states such as Holland, Russia, Austria and Portugal the ability to move transit goods [1]. The early 1810s, then, saw an explosion in commerce in European, with Russia once again redounding the most as it formally formed the Baltic League, a successor to the League of Armed Neutrality, now dominating the Baltic and its ports with its navy and merchant marine. By 1815, indeed, St. Petersburg was one of the busiest ports in Europe.

"We must not starve just because we are strangling Britain," Napoleon remarked, and indeed he was not wrong; the Toulon Decree would do as intended, giving the rest of Europe a sigh of relief, improving the continent's economy and allowing relations with the skeptical United States to flourish once more, with Britain now viewed definitively as the villain in Washington. Of course, the move was not a total masterstroke - the other side always gets a say, after all.

Effectively denied any foothold on the Continent or European partner besides Bourbon Sicily and Savoyard Sardinia, hardly allies who could help defeat Napoleon's vast (and now well-rested) armies, Britain's focus since 1808 had been on a series of campaigns to probe Spanish America. The Wellington expedition to the Orinoco that year had helped create a substantial republican rebellion in Venezuela that threatened the whole of New Granada; Fireland in the Southern Cone had been occupied by the Royal Navy, as had the Chiloe Archipelago, in order to completely command trans-oceanic trade. But after the debacle in Buenos Aires in 1807, Cabinet was leery of a full invasion of Spanish America, and was beginning to doubt their ability to sustain control there in a society that was densely populated, with its own traditions and ways, and which would have been nakedly hostile to an Anglican government seizing control of a fervently devout Catholic polity.

Liverpool had a solution, what he called a "gambit," and spies paid out of his own pocket had journey to Rome - where the locals were not huge fans of Napoleon to begin with - to feel out its intended target. Infante Ferdinand of Spain had been in self-exile there since he was denied at Bayonne and replaced by his father; under Spanish law, Napoleon's re-imposition of Charles IV, effectively negating his abdication as void, was dubious. Though the pro-Ferdinand segment in Spain was not insubstantial, and was particularly concentrated in Madrid, the exile of the hated Godoy to France had tempered many of the passions, and the shrinking bloc opposed to Charles had simply resigned themselves to waiting for the old, unpopular King to die and then have one of his sons take power. That Ferdinand had attempted to overthrow his father twice and been humiliated was of little import to them, especially as his rigidly dutiful and traditional younger brother, Infante Carlos, would have refused any attempted usurpation out of order for the throne out of hand.

The reality on the ground in New Spain was murkier, though. The Spanish Navy had been effectively eliminated as a global force after Trafalgar and her armies were trapped in Iberia by the Royal Navy effectively cutting the lines of communication, with Spanish ports a particular focus of the British blockades after Charles was placed back on the throne. Without peninsular authority, local juntas had been formed in the absence of Spanish control. This arrangement, ad hoc at first, had actually worked rather well; and though New Spain and New Granada would never have deigned to revolt in the name of liberty the way the United States had, the elite criollos of Mexico and Bogota were beginning to wonder if this arrangement perhaps did not work better than staying forever under Madrid's control. The seed of an opportunity had been planted.

Britain's plan, then, was to smuggle Ferdinand out of Rome and sail him to Mexico via Barbados (Havana was still fairly loyal to Spain), where he would declare his father an illegitimate puppet of the French, the Bayonne Abdication an illegal usurpation, and that he was the rightful King of Spain, in the same sense/legal fiction that the Braganza court in Rio de Janeiro was the rightful court of Portugal. Liverpool, Canning and Perceval saw no particular downside to this gambit; there were a number of ways to measure success, all of which damaged Spain to their benefit. "We have identified the weak underbelly of Napoleon's continental network of despots," Liverpool announced to the Cabinet. "It is in Iberia, and that is where pressure shall be applied. It matters little what Spanish law actually says or suggests; our sea power practically determines what Spanish law is."

Ferdinand was smuggled out of Rome in early December, 1810. Stopovers in Gibraltar, the Canaries, Barbados and Jamaica preceded his arrival in Veracruz, where he made his anticipated declaration as Ferdinand VII, the rightful king of Spain, setting up an exile court in Mexico, and endorsing the juntas in his name...

[1] Credit to @alexmilman for this suggestion
Click to expand...
Interesting “gambit” but how effective it is going to be in your TL? Transatlantic trade is great but between whom and whom? With the Europe being denied (at least for the British direct trade), it is trade between Britain and, potentially, the Spanish colonies but what was their purchasing power and interests? Would they be able to replace Europe as supplier of the strategic materials for the navy?

Then comes Ferdinand. The British schema as described is logical in theory but in practice there may be problems:
1. I was under impression that Ferdinand had rather obnoxious personality and, if true, it is just a matter of time when this becomes a problem for his new subjects.
2. Establishing the local juntas is a right first step but how long will it take for these juntas to start making demands for more power or to consider advantages of the old system? You already kind of hinted to something of the kind
3. Ferdinand landed in Mexico but why would the rest of the colonies consider him as their legitimate ruler? And without a complete “switch” of the colonies the “soft underbelly” scenario is not meaningful even in theory.
4. Ferdinand does not have its own power base, just the British support, and analogy with Maximillian comes to mind. The Brits would be even more obnoxious to the locals than the French who were, at least, the Catholics.
5. Revolt in the South American colonies may happen but it would not be in Ferdinand’s favor: they were against rule from Madrid so why would they be for rule from Mexico?
6. Ferdinand’s chances in Spain would be seriously damaged regardless his legitimacy: he would be blamed (with or without a reason) for the loss of all American colonies. After Charles’s death the younger son could be “persuaded” by the public opinion to take the throne instead of Ferdinand the Traitor, a known British puppet who made a career damaging Spanish national interests. In OTL he was a martyr for the cause but now he is an enemy. Almost anything would be on the table. Probably not all the way to a republic but constitutional monarchy with a strong corteses would definitely have a chance


Impact on Spain itself is complicated (and I simply don’t know enough) but in OTL Spain survived loss of the American colonies and, IIRC, even did something about its own economic development and in this TL Spain is benefitting from the new trade arrangements (and, as pretty much everybody else except the Brits) is interested in them lasting for as long as possible (direct British competition is out) and still has a lot of colonies elsewhere so that the South American colonies are not vitally important.
 
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KingSweden24

alexmilman said:
Interesting “gambit” but how effective it is going to be in your TL? Transatlantic trade is great but between whom and whom? With the Europe being denied (at least for the British direct trade), it is trade between Britain and, potentially, the Spanish colonies but what was their purchasing power and interests? Would they be able to replace Europe as supplier of the strategic materials for the navy?

Then comes Ferdinand. The British schema as described is logical in theory but in practice there may be problems:
1. I was under impression that Ferdinand had rather obnoxious personality and, if true, it is just a matter of time when this becomes a problem for his new subjects.
2. Establishing the local juntas is a right first step but how long will it take for these juntas to start making demands for more power or to consider advantages of the old system? You already kind of hinted to something of the kind
3. Ferdinand landed in Mexico but why would the rest of the colonies consider him as their legitimate ruler? And without a complete “switch” of the colonies the “soft underbelly” scenario is not meaningful even in theory.
4. Ferdinand does not have its own power base, just the British support, and analogy with Maximillian comes to mind. The Brits would be even more obnoxious to the locals than the French who were, at least, the Catholics.
5. Revolt in the South American colonies may happen but it would not be in Ferdinand’s favor: they were against rule from Madrid so why would they be for rule from Mexico?
6. Ferdinand’s chances in Spain would be seriously damaged regardless his legitimacy: he would be blamed (with or without a reason) for the loss of all American colonies. After Charles’s death the younger son could be “persuaded” by the public opinion to take the throne instead of Ferdinand the Traitor, a known British puppet who made a career damaging Spanish national interests. In OTL he was a martyr for the cause but now he is an enemy. Almost anything would be on the table. Probably not all the way to a republic but constitutional monarchy with a strong corteses would definitely have a chance


Impact on Spain itself is complicated (and I simply don’t know enough) but in OTL Spain survived loss of the American colonies and, IIRC, even did something about its own economic development and in this TL Spain is benefitting from the new trade arrangements (and, as pretty much everybody else except the Brits) is interested in them lasting for as long as possible (direct British competition is out) and still has a lot of colonies elsewhere so that the South American colonies are not vitally important.
Click to expand...
You just outlined very ably why this “gambit” by the British Cabinet is asinine, shortsighted and, as @TimTurner ably put it, IQ 5000 level
 

Deleted member 143920

KingSweden24 said:
The Fernandine Gambit​

"...it matters little what Spanish law actually says or suggests; our sea power determines practically what Spanish law is."

- Lord Liverpool

Britain's "Wismar Insult" was taken as an affront in France and when the terms of Canning's initial offer - with its robust list of demands and sparse number of compromises in turn - were distributed to other European capitals by Napoleon's agents, most other monarchs and their courts were surprised that Britain was not willing to settle for a white peace to end the seemingly endless wars against Napoleon. But so long as Russia was content, and she was indeed content for now, there was no chance of revanchist Prussia or cunning Austria joining another Coalition. Paris's gamble that Britain would refuse to compromise on their counter-terms, and the perception on the Continent that it was now Britain being unreasonable and choking European commerce, gave Napoleon an opening - the reform of the Continental System and its replacement with a more lenient policy. In Toulon, he revoked the Berlin and Milan decrees and replaced it with a new one, namely stating that "neutrally flagged" transshipment would now be permissible, a move that simultaneously continued to twist the screws to Britain while giving "neutral" states such as Holland, Russia, Austria and Portugal the ability to move transit goods [1]. The early 1810s, then, saw an explosion in commerce in European, with Russia once again redounding the most as it formally formed the Baltic League, a successor to the League of Armed Neutrality, now dominating the Baltic and its ports with its navy and merchant marine. By 1815, indeed, St. Petersburg was one of the busiest ports in Europe.

"We must not starve just because we are strangling Britain," Napoleon remarked, and indeed he was not wrong; the Toulon Decree would do as intended, giving the rest of Europe a sigh of relief, improving the continent's economy and allowing relations with the skeptical United States to flourish once more, with Britain now viewed definitively as the villain in Washington. Of course, the move was not a total masterstroke - the other side always gets a say, after all.

Effectively denied any foothold on the Continent or European partner besides Bourbon Sicily and Savoyard Sardinia, hardly allies who could help defeat Napoleon's vast (and now well-rested) armies, Britain's focus since 1808 had been on a series of campaigns to probe Spanish America. The Wellington expedition to the Orinoco that year had helped create a substantial republican rebellion in Venezuela that threatened the whole of New Granada; Fireland in the Southern Cone had been occupied by the Royal Navy, as had the Chiloe Archipelago, in order to completely command trans-oceanic trade. But after the debacle in Buenos Aires in 1807, Cabinet was leery of a full invasion of Spanish America, and was beginning to doubt their ability to sustain control there in a society that was densely populated, with its own traditions and ways, and which would have been nakedly hostile to an Anglican government seizing control of a fervently devout Catholic polity.

Liverpool had a solution, what he called a "gambit," and spies paid out of his own pocket had journey to Rome - where the locals were not huge fans of Napoleon to begin with - to feel out its intended target. Infante Ferdinand of Spain had been in self-exile there since he was denied at Bayonne and replaced by his father; under Spanish law, Napoleon's re-imposition of Charles IV, effectively negating his abdication as void, was dubious. Though the pro-Ferdinand segment in Spain was not insubstantial, and was particularly concentrated in Madrid, the exile of the hated Godoy to France had tempered many of the passions, and the shrinking bloc opposed to Charles had simply resigned themselves to waiting for the old, unpopular King to die and then have one of his sons take power. That Ferdinand had attempted to overthrow his father twice and been humiliated was of little import to them, especially as his rigidly dutiful and traditional younger brother, Infante Carlos, would have refused any attempted usurpation out of order for the throne out of hand.

The reality on the ground in New Spain was murkier, though. The Spanish Navy had been effectively eliminated as a global force after Trafalgar and her armies were trapped in Iberia by the Royal Navy effectively cutting the lines of communication, with Spanish ports a particular focus of the British blockades after Charles was placed back on the throne. Without peninsular authority, local juntas had been formed in the absence of Spanish control. This arrangement, ad hoc at first, had actually worked rather well; and though New Spain and New Granada would never have deigned to revolt in the name of liberty the way the United States had, the elite criollos of Mexico and Bogota were beginning to wonder if this arrangement perhaps did not work better than staying forever under Madrid's control. The seed of an opportunity had been planted.

Britain's plan, then, was to smuggle Ferdinand out of Rome and sail him to Mexico via Barbados (Havana was still fairly loyal to Spain), where he would declare his father an illegitimate puppet of the French, the Bayonne Abdication an illegal usurpation, and that he was the rightful King of Spain, in the same sense/legal fiction that the Braganza court in Rio de Janeiro was the rightful court of Portugal. Liverpool, Canning and Perceval saw no particular downside to this gambit; there were a number of ways to measure success, all of which damaged Spain to their benefit. "We have identified the weak underbelly of Napoleon's continental network of despots," Liverpool announced to the Cabinet. "It is in Iberia, and that is where pressure shall be applied. It matters little what Spanish law actually says or suggests; our sea power practically determines what Spanish law is."

Ferdinand was smuggled out of Rome in early December, 1810. Stopovers in Gibraltar, the Canaries, Barbados and Jamaica preceded his arrival in Veracruz, where he made his anticipated declaration as Ferdinand VII, the rightful king of Spain, setting up an exile court in Mexico, and endorsing the juntas in his name...

[1] Credit to @alexmilman for this suggestion
Click to expand...

Another update that fulfils beyond expectations.

Napoleon, is in a position of strength, while Britain is seen as the aggressor due to the "Wismar Insult". You had mentioned Bourbon Sicily and Savoyard Sardinia. Perhaps, as @alexmilman analyzed, should Ferdinand fail in the Americas, then they too could be willing to negotiate with Napoleon; the Savoyards could be given Corsica as I previously mentioned (although it seems unlikely at the current moment), while a recognition of each other's territories could be achieved with the Bourbons in Sicily.

Keep going, this TL is only getting better!
 
TimTurner

TimTurner

KingSweden24 said:
My Cinco de Mayo has a soft Britscrew where they simply don’t have the enormous run of gone luck under Disraeli and Gladstone in the 1860s and 1870s; this Britscrew will be more… severe (Bane voice)
Click to expand...
1628105489623.png
 

alexmilman

KingSweden24 said:
You just outlined very ably why this “gambit” by the British Cabinet is asinine, shortsighted and, as @TimTurner ably put it, IQ 5000 level
Click to expand...
As someone put it for this IQ level, “That’s beyond transhuman. Such an entity would be working on conceptual basis that are so far beyond us we wouldn’t even recognise them as concepts, never mind understand them.” And with the established fact that a person in question has to be a genius, we can rely upon assurance by Bernard Shaw’s that the symptoms for a (military) genius and semi-idiot are exactly the same. 😜

But, as I said, it looks logical and quite reasonable providing its author is a cabinet figure who has a very little familiarity with the situation on a ground and even lesser concern about it based upon a feeling of an overall superiority stemming from a real superiority in a much narrower area, which is not even always important within a specific framework (as, for example, was the case with Palmerston’s grandiose plan for the CW). So this chapter is just great. 🤗🤗🥲
 
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Xgentis

Xgentis

It would be funny if thanks to Ferdinand obnoxious personality the Spanish empire and especially Mexico turn into a British analog to otl Napoleon peninsular campaign. The British being forced to send troups to stop revolts and proping up Ferdinand regime and facing a costy guerilla war.
 
TimTurner

TimTurner

Xgentis said:
It would be funny if thanks to Ferdinand obnoxious personality the Spanish empire and especially Mexico turn into a British analog to otl Napoleon peninsular campaign. The British being forced to send troups to stop revolts and proping up Ferdinand regime and facing a costy guerilla war.
Click to expand...
The terrain in Latin America is pretty friendly to guerilla warfare. I can't imagine the British having a very easy time there.
 
Xgentis

Xgentis

I wonder how many children will Napoleon have with his ne empress? At least having a few spare would ensure stability. I wonder if the Tsar would not turn his attention toward the far east?
 

alexmilman

Xgentis said:
It would be funny if thanks to Ferdinand obnoxious personality the Spanish empire and especially Mexico turn into a British analog to otl Napoleon peninsular campaign. The British being forced to send troups to stop revolts and proping up Ferdinand regime and facing a costy guerilla war.
Click to expand...
Unlike Napoleon in Spain, the Brits do not have 200,000 troops to commit to such an endeavor and they pretty much have a single very good general (if Wellington is in charge) who simply would not be able to be in more than one place at a time. Then goes the size. Even now, after losing more than a half of its territory, Mexico is more than 3 times bigger than Spain and in the early XIX was much “wilder” than a contemporary Spain. So in an optimistic scenario the Brits would be able to hold some piece of a coastal territory which would make Ferdinand’s claim to a royal title a mockery. And the Brits looking at the locals down their noses hardly are going to be excessively popular. A need of the long-term commitment of at least 20-30,000 troops and a reasonably big naval squadron seriously handicaps their ability to get effectively involved elsewhere so the “soft underbelly” may prove to end up as a huge problem (*).



IMO, there are two most probably scenarios:
1. There is anti-Spanish revolution in Mexico which ends, among other things, with Ferdinand either being thrown out and ending life in exile in Britain or being executed if he is not lucky enough to flee.
2. Anti-British/anti-Ferdinand uprising in the name of King Carlos. The Brits are thrown out and Carlos ends up being popular in Mexico as a symbol of <pick whatever you want>. Mexico may remain for a while within Spanish “empire” but perhaps with a more independent status (local government and a representative of the Spanish crown as a figurehead).

___________
(*) Just as the OTL WC’s idea regarding the Balkans as a “soft underbelly”: when passing from the stage of a political demagoguery (disclaimer: no disrespect to Churchill, he was a great man, but this does not mean that he was always right on everything) to the stage of a serious military discussion, the idea was killed by the military as extremely impractical. In this TL probably nobody is going to ask Wellington’s opinion.
 
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