Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
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So it looks like there will be a successful seccession (try saying that three times fast 
). Or two, in the case of California, maybe. I wonder if Superia becomes independent as a result of the Great American War as well. And whether the UPSA sides with the ENA against the greater alliance of slaveholding states/colonies/whatever...
As for the Kingdom of Carolina, one wonders if it will maintain a personal union with the king-emperor, or if the Hanoverian domains (the family, in this case) will go full-blown Arandite. (Not a particularly popular policy with this poster, however...)
). Or two, in the case of California, maybe. I wonder if Superia becomes independent as a result of the Great American War as well. And whether the UPSA sides with the ENA against the greater alliance of slaveholding states/colonies/whatever... As for the Kingdom of Carolina, one wonders if it will maintain a personal union with the king-emperor, or if the Hanoverian domains (the family, in this case) will go full-blown Arandite. (Not a particularly popular policy with this poster, however...)
So, what's going to happen to the Cherokee if Carolina goes independent? I can't help but think there's going to be a lot of Carolinians getting so, so sad that there's all this prime cotton land right there going to waste...
I suppose it depends on what the ENA does. Since relations between Carolina and the ENA probably won't be all that good after independence, I could see the ENA investing in the Cherokee out of spite and also as an alternate source of the products Carolina produces (cotton etc). Actually come to think of it the Cherokee might well see things coming and side with the ENA during the GAW precisely to try to defeat any future attempts on its territory by Carolina.
I also think that, in a war, that long western panhandle in *Arkansas and *Oklahoma isn't going to be very defensible, since all you have to do to cut it off from the rest of Carolina is control a small segment of the Mississippi, and the ENA will have the overwhelming advantage on that river. The residents might very well welcome it, since the province in *Arkansas (Othark?) mostly contains the Ozarks which OTL was a stronghold of Unionist sentiment. It had very little plantation slavery and was also OTL heavily settled by people from VA and KY in addition to people from TTL Carolina, who TTL might not be inclined to follow the rest of Carolina in breaking up the country. They also have more common interests economically with the ENA provinces upriver. The other province (... forget the name) probably has too few people, pro- or anti-, to put up much of a fight in either direction. Those provinces might well end up part of the ENA after the war, which would give them a land border with the Cherokee.
You know, I'm having trouble seeing how Carolina could win its war here. The country has even less strategic depth than the OTL confederacy: you can cut off *Tennesee pretty easily as well by just marching down the Appalachians to Cherokee country; it has a bunch of islands but they are vulnerable to blockades; and Carolina also faces a potentially hostile Cherokee Nation who will probably be aiding the ENA indirectly if not openly. New Spain, if they are indeed joining on Carolina's side, is going to have to pull off some serious maneuvers to keep them in the fight long enough to be of any help.
What's the state of the Imperial Navy? Is there a major Imperial force or do the Confederations primarily rely on their own fleets?
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@Hobelhouse: There is also Louisiana to consider. IIRC, they are not entirely happy with the French govenrment at the moment, so they might also decide to declare independence and join the greater slaveholding alliance.
So it looks like there will be a successful seccession (try saying that three times fast
As for the Kingdom of Carolina, one wonders if it will maintain a personal union with the king-emperor, or if the Hanoverian domains (the family, in this case) will go full-blown Arandite. (Not a particularly popular policy with this poster, however...)
I think we've had a number of hints as to the future King of Carolina in the person of a certain Hohenzollern frontiersman. And I seem to recall a reference, a long time ago now, to a second "Coronation of the Hun"...
But "Coronation" doesn't have to imply a monarchy, mind. It can equally be applied to a fait acompli in terms of an election.
But it would still be interesting to have Governor Owens-Allen being installed as king of the next confederation (for now) over.
Thande
Donor
Just got back from holiday and I do intend to continue with more updates ASAP, but if you'll forgive the bump I just wanted to thank UM for his comments below. When I started this TL I did not have a great deal of knowledge of American regional cultures (and the ensuing politics) and it's something I've tried to research over the course of this TL to add more depth to it (see this thread in particular). It's very gratifying to hear that at least some of that research has paid off.
And also...
And also...
You have a general point here which will come into play in the future, but bear in mind that in terms of broad economic society, the Cherokee have basically adapted to the Carolinian model. Their land isn't going to "waste" as the Supremacists accuse the Iroquois/Howden et al of doing: that prime cotton land has prime cotton plantations on it, it's just that they happen to be owned by people with less European ancestry than the plantations on the other side of the border. As Eric Flint is fond of pointing out in his 1812/1824 books, there was a substantial intermixing between Deep South people (especially those of Scots-Irish/Ulster Protestant descent) and the Cherokee and other local Indian groups; it's just that in TTL a substantial group of self-identifying Cherokee have managed to hold on to elements of their language and culture and some degree of political independence, while a traveller from a distant clime passing through the area might well not at first notice any difference as he crosses from Georgia Province of the Confederation of Carolina into the Cherokee Empire--especially if he was travelling along the Black Belt with its plantations.
Thande
Donor
A short update now I'm back
Part #173: The Faustian Bargain
“How many human beings are born and die all around this terraqueous globe in every day of our lives? How many can you name? Very few; one or two kings and princes and other notables, perhaps. Yet children are taught in school dates like 476, 843 and 1453, dates of the births and deaths of nations, of empires.[1] In reality of course each of those is of less consequence than the birth and death dates of the humblest beggar—whose dates are of no more or less importance than those of his king, of course. The human race needs perspective, but who will give it to them...?”
*
From: “The Septentrial Annals: A History of North America” by P. D. Juncker (1959)—
“The Empire of North America was born precisely one hundred years ago,” wrote a young Michael Chamberlain in 1851. “How appropriate, somehow—being one of those coincidences of narrative that would be cast out as absurdly quaint in a work of fiction , yet crops up constantly in everyday life—that today it comes to its end.” Of course, as we know, Chamberlain was being overly pessimistic, and it is likely just as well for the future President’s political career that his youthful writings did not come to light until after his death. The Empire did not end in 1851, but the Great American War did change it beyond all recognition. To understand this, we must naturally consider the events that led up to the war.
The Patriot Party had gained that most unusual events in American politics, a single-party majority (albeit a narrow one) in 1840, aided by the electoral wizardry of Edmund Grey, the confused division in the Radicals and Neutrals as John Vanburen attempted to weld them into one, and the Whigs’ failure to appeal to anyone outside Carolina except bitter Virginian former slaveholders deprived of their property by the late Crisis. In 1844 many things had changed. The Supremacist Party, which had won 11 seats in 1840, was in the ascendancy. The new Liberals had developed a strong, modernised network of clubs to organise and mobilise voters across the country with which the old-fashioned Patriots could not compete. Finally, the Democrats—which had been a significant spoiler for the Liberals in Virginia in 1840—were in disarray as they recovered from Sir James Henry’s shocking loss in the Virginia gubernatorial election to Henry Frederick Owens-Allen. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Zechariah Boone, younger brother of Israel Boone, had been elected a Democratic MCP in 1840 but, since the split between his brother and Henry had turned bitter, now advocated a merger with the Supremacists. The younger Boone and one other like-minded Virginia Democrat would be re-elected in 1844 and go on to caucus with the Supremacists. A third Democrat, loyal to Henry, would be elected on that ticket. But the seven other Democratic seats all fell, one to a new Supremacist candidate and the other six to Liberals. Henry’s attempt to create a new, more extreme successor to the Neutral Party under his control had failed, and the imperial-level Democrats would be nothing more than a footnote of history. Vanburen had powered through the darkest days of his mad idea and emerged triumphant, finally merging the old voter bases of the Radicals and Neutrals.
To some extent. Across the country the picture was more mixed. First of all we must consider Carolina. 1844 was the first election where even the most strident defender of the Old American identity would be forced to admit that Carolinian political exceptionalism was apparent. In 1840, the Whigs had won 32 out of Carolina’s 36 seats, 2 out of Virginia’s 31, and none elsewhere. In 1844, the Whigs lost both of their Virginian seats—and gained the other four Carolinian ones. Admittedly this was accomplished through the defection of the two Patriots, the aristocratic Petty brothers, and the two western Independents, but it was still a dramatic event. For the first time, one party had won all of the seats in one Confederation. And that party had won no seats outside that Confederation.
Even more remarkable was how the other parties stacked up. The Liberals won the most seats, yet that amounted to only 51 out of 160. Bizarrely, second place was tied three ways between the Supremacists, Patriots and Whigs, each of whom won 36. Naturally both the Supremacists’ and Patriots’ support was spread more thinly than the concentrated Whigs’. This represented a devastating loss for the Patriots, losing more than half their seats, yet seasoned political commentators realised that their high in 1840 had been a fluke of the specific circumstances. It was very hard for one party to win 80+ seats under the political landscape of the dying days of the Second Empire. Despite the volatility of the political landscape, 1844 also indicated that the chaos ensuing from the merger of the Radicals and Neutrals had died down and voters were slotting into the new partisan categories: only one independent (the always-controversial Mo Quedling) was elected. Longstanding acerbic political commentator Jethro Carter lost his Williamsburg seat—which he had taken from his father Solomon as a protest in 1832—to one of the two successful Liberal candidates who also defeated a sitting Whig, the Patriots managing to hold onto the third seat.
If 1844 represented destruction for the Democrats, consolidation for the Whigs, devastation for the Patriots and renewal for the Liberals, it represented continued ascendancy for the Supremacists. Both the party’s popular appeal and electioneering tactics proved to be strong, and now that they proved they could win as many seats as long-standing parties like the Patriots, they began to attract voters and powerful interests that had previously been put off by their anti-establishment stance. After all, Supremacist expansionism, the ‘Self-Evident Birthright’,[2] aligned well with the interests of businessmen who wished to build more railways, canals and mines. This shift did not truly take place until 1845, however, when Supremacist leader Matthew Clarke was ousted in a caucus vote. The Supremacist backbenchers had become frustrated by Clarke’s refusal to participate in coalition negotiations after the 1844 election: in theory, Vanburen could have joined with any one of the other three parties to form a government with a working majority. In practice, of course, cooperation with the Whigs was unthinkable—although since the Whigs had ditched Wade Hampton II as leader for the more reasonable Joseph Hairston, he at least met with Vanburen over dinner and issued the party’s unworkable requirements in a polite fashion—and the Supremacists were, at best, an unknown factor. However, there was a possibility of a coalition being formed, the Liberals were certainly the least objectionable of the other parties from the Supremacists’ perspective, and yet Clarke had decided that being in government would damage the Supremacists’ anti-establishment image too much. He had unrealistic dreams of a wave of popular support sweeping the Supremacists to an overall majority like the one the Patriots had gained in 1840. So Clarke rudely rebuffed Vanburen’s calls for coalition talks and was in turn knifed in the back by his caucus. The move was particularly significant because it helped back up the Supremacists’ rhetoric: they chose a new leader not by the Patriots’ smoke-filled room or even the Liberals’ caucus vote, but by holding conventions across the country to which local ‘Pumpkin Clubs’ (an informal term for Supremacist party organisations) elected delegates. This helped strengthen the idea that the Supremacists really did support the idea of doing the same thing on a grander scale to draw up a new Constitution for the Empire. Of course, as conservative commentators pointed out, the Supremacists’ convention vote also illustrated some of the ochlocratic flaws of such a system: Peter Martin, MCP for Ticonderoga, was elected in part because some less well informed voters assumed he was the same person as, or related to, the Stephen Martin who had written the original American Supremacy. He was neither; but whether by chance or design, he was a capable leader who helped calm those who had been unnerved by Clarke’s rhetoric, while managing to hold onto those voters who had been stirred by it.
With both Whigs and Supremacists out of the window, then, only one coalition possibility remained: Liberal plus Patriot. This is the origin of what in global political parlance has become known as ‘the American Coalition’: a teeth-clenched collaboration between what are usually considered to be the two major parties, diametrically opposed, because no other combination of parties would produce a majority government.[3] It is rather debatable whether this was actually true of the Patriots and Liberals considering the Liberals were such a young party, but as many at the time regarded them as the primary heirs to the crown of the old Constitutionalists, which would fit the bill. Given America’s fragmented political landscape, the wonder is perhaps that it has seen so few of this Coalition to which it has given its name.
Technically under the established constitutional code, Nathaniel Crowninshield as incumbent Lord President should have been given first shot at forming a coalition, but Crowninshield was crushed after his party’s defeat and resigned as party leader, allowing Vanburen as leader of the largest party to have first choice instead by the approval of the Lord Deputy (the ageing Lord Fingall). As was the case under the rather organic style of constitution at the time, this therefore became the established practice, and at subsequent elections it was generally the leader of the largest party who was given first opportunity to try to form a coalition.
With Crowninshield’s exit, the Patriots required a leader for Vanburen to negotiate with. One advantage of the smoke-filled room over the Supremacists’ newfangled convention system was that it was fast. Incumbent Foreign Secretary Simon Studholme became the new Patriot leader and swiftly agreed a coalition with Vanburen based on the principle that Studholme would be allowed to continue as Foreign Secretary and set most of the Empire’s foreign policy. In return the Patriots would vote through a Liberal domestic agenda. Like most great compromises, this pleased exactly nobody, but discontented Patriots did not exactly have many options to defect to and the party collectively had a pathological fear of division since the brief fragmentation under Josiah Crane and their exploitation of their enemies’ similar division in 1840. To that end, though there were occasional rumbles about the more reactionary Patriot MCPs leaving the caucus, nothing came of it. Vanburen was satisfied with the compromise, as his interests were mainly in domestic politics and he consdiered Studholme to have presided over a fairly inoffensive foreign policy. But that was the problem: Studholme’s general strategy was to try to offend as few people as possible, even if that led to the ENA backing down from fights it could win, as in his infamous ‘Can’t we forget all this?’ plea surrounding the Drakesland Question.[4] And that, of course, was only fuel on the fires of the rhetoric of the Supremacists—who now, with the national irrelevancy of the Whigs, found themselves as effectively the Official Opposition.
The other problem of Studholme’s foreign policy was that he had the traditional Patriot distrust of the UPSA and its radicalism. If a Liberal had occupied Spotswood House,[5] a more friendly policy towards the Meridians might well have changed matters later on. As it was, the Liberal-Patriot coalition government was reasonable stable, but behind the scenes both parties were plotting to undermine the other and bring down the government at the best point for them to gain in the ensuing election.
In the end when the government fell in 1848, however, it would not be to the advantage of either party...
[1] The events Sanchez is alluding to are, respectively, the Fall of Rome and the traditional date for the end of the (Western) Roman Empire (476), the end of the united Frankish state and its division into the later France and Germany at the Treaty of Verdun, thus counting as both a death and birth (843) and the Fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire (1453). The fact that Sanchez chose dates whose precise significance are frequently wrangled over by historians is likely not a coincidence: most commentators believe he was making the point that a human being is a defined entity with an indisputable date of birth and death (in theory) whereas the fact that a nation’s dates of birth and death are debatable is an indicator that a nation is an artificial construct.
[2] Note that this author mistakenly attributes the phrase ‘Self-Evident Birthright’ to the Supremacists. This is a common error, with many writers specifically claiming it was coined by the Supremacists’ spiritual founder Stephen Martin. The phrase actually comes from the Liberal MCP Tom Whipple (part #170) during the Flag War. The confusion arises because he was certainly drawing upon Supremacist-style rhetoric and some Supremacists did adopt the phrase afterwards.
[3] Best known in OTL as a ‘Grand Coalition’, from the German ‘Große Koalition’.
[4] Another slight error from this author—he appears to be referring to the incident described in part #170, but that was about the controversy of the Flag War, not the Drakesland issue which had originally prompted it.
[5] Seat of the American Foreign Ministry in Fredericksburg.
Part #173: The Faustian Bargain
“How many human beings are born and die all around this terraqueous globe in every day of our lives? How many can you name? Very few; one or two kings and princes and other notables, perhaps. Yet children are taught in school dates like 476, 843 and 1453, dates of the births and deaths of nations, of empires.[1] In reality of course each of those is of less consequence than the birth and death dates of the humblest beggar—whose dates are of no more or less importance than those of his king, of course. The human race needs perspective, but who will give it to them...?”
– Pablo Sanchez, Towards a Universal Hierarchy, 1846
*
From: “The Septentrial Annals: A History of North America” by P. D. Juncker (1959)—
“The Empire of North America was born precisely one hundred years ago,” wrote a young Michael Chamberlain in 1851. “How appropriate, somehow—being one of those coincidences of narrative that would be cast out as absurdly quaint in a work of fiction , yet crops up constantly in everyday life—that today it comes to its end.” Of course, as we know, Chamberlain was being overly pessimistic, and it is likely just as well for the future President’s political career that his youthful writings did not come to light until after his death. The Empire did not end in 1851, but the Great American War did change it beyond all recognition. To understand this, we must naturally consider the events that led up to the war.
The Patriot Party had gained that most unusual events in American politics, a single-party majority (albeit a narrow one) in 1840, aided by the electoral wizardry of Edmund Grey, the confused division in the Radicals and Neutrals as John Vanburen attempted to weld them into one, and the Whigs’ failure to appeal to anyone outside Carolina except bitter Virginian former slaveholders deprived of their property by the late Crisis. In 1844 many things had changed. The Supremacist Party, which had won 11 seats in 1840, was in the ascendancy. The new Liberals had developed a strong, modernised network of clubs to organise and mobilise voters across the country with which the old-fashioned Patriots could not compete. Finally, the Democrats—which had been a significant spoiler for the Liberals in Virginia in 1840—were in disarray as they recovered from Sir James Henry’s shocking loss in the Virginia gubernatorial election to Henry Frederick Owens-Allen. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Zechariah Boone, younger brother of Israel Boone, had been elected a Democratic MCP in 1840 but, since the split between his brother and Henry had turned bitter, now advocated a merger with the Supremacists. The younger Boone and one other like-minded Virginia Democrat would be re-elected in 1844 and go on to caucus with the Supremacists. A third Democrat, loyal to Henry, would be elected on that ticket. But the seven other Democratic seats all fell, one to a new Supremacist candidate and the other six to Liberals. Henry’s attempt to create a new, more extreme successor to the Neutral Party under his control had failed, and the imperial-level Democrats would be nothing more than a footnote of history. Vanburen had powered through the darkest days of his mad idea and emerged triumphant, finally merging the old voter bases of the Radicals and Neutrals.
To some extent. Across the country the picture was more mixed. First of all we must consider Carolina. 1844 was the first election where even the most strident defender of the Old American identity would be forced to admit that Carolinian political exceptionalism was apparent. In 1840, the Whigs had won 32 out of Carolina’s 36 seats, 2 out of Virginia’s 31, and none elsewhere. In 1844, the Whigs lost both of their Virginian seats—and gained the other four Carolinian ones. Admittedly this was accomplished through the defection of the two Patriots, the aristocratic Petty brothers, and the two western Independents, but it was still a dramatic event. For the first time, one party had won all of the seats in one Confederation. And that party had won no seats outside that Confederation.
Even more remarkable was how the other parties stacked up. The Liberals won the most seats, yet that amounted to only 51 out of 160. Bizarrely, second place was tied three ways between the Supremacists, Patriots and Whigs, each of whom won 36. Naturally both the Supremacists’ and Patriots’ support was spread more thinly than the concentrated Whigs’. This represented a devastating loss for the Patriots, losing more than half their seats, yet seasoned political commentators realised that their high in 1840 had been a fluke of the specific circumstances. It was very hard for one party to win 80+ seats under the political landscape of the dying days of the Second Empire. Despite the volatility of the political landscape, 1844 also indicated that the chaos ensuing from the merger of the Radicals and Neutrals had died down and voters were slotting into the new partisan categories: only one independent (the always-controversial Mo Quedling) was elected. Longstanding acerbic political commentator Jethro Carter lost his Williamsburg seat—which he had taken from his father Solomon as a protest in 1832—to one of the two successful Liberal candidates who also defeated a sitting Whig, the Patriots managing to hold onto the third seat.
If 1844 represented destruction for the Democrats, consolidation for the Whigs, devastation for the Patriots and renewal for the Liberals, it represented continued ascendancy for the Supremacists. Both the party’s popular appeal and electioneering tactics proved to be strong, and now that they proved they could win as many seats as long-standing parties like the Patriots, they began to attract voters and powerful interests that had previously been put off by their anti-establishment stance. After all, Supremacist expansionism, the ‘Self-Evident Birthright’,[2] aligned well with the interests of businessmen who wished to build more railways, canals and mines. This shift did not truly take place until 1845, however, when Supremacist leader Matthew Clarke was ousted in a caucus vote. The Supremacist backbenchers had become frustrated by Clarke’s refusal to participate in coalition negotiations after the 1844 election: in theory, Vanburen could have joined with any one of the other three parties to form a government with a working majority. In practice, of course, cooperation with the Whigs was unthinkable—although since the Whigs had ditched Wade Hampton II as leader for the more reasonable Joseph Hairston, he at least met with Vanburen over dinner and issued the party’s unworkable requirements in a polite fashion—and the Supremacists were, at best, an unknown factor. However, there was a possibility of a coalition being formed, the Liberals were certainly the least objectionable of the other parties from the Supremacists’ perspective, and yet Clarke had decided that being in government would damage the Supremacists’ anti-establishment image too much. He had unrealistic dreams of a wave of popular support sweeping the Supremacists to an overall majority like the one the Patriots had gained in 1840. So Clarke rudely rebuffed Vanburen’s calls for coalition talks and was in turn knifed in the back by his caucus. The move was particularly significant because it helped back up the Supremacists’ rhetoric: they chose a new leader not by the Patriots’ smoke-filled room or even the Liberals’ caucus vote, but by holding conventions across the country to which local ‘Pumpkin Clubs’ (an informal term for Supremacist party organisations) elected delegates. This helped strengthen the idea that the Supremacists really did support the idea of doing the same thing on a grander scale to draw up a new Constitution for the Empire. Of course, as conservative commentators pointed out, the Supremacists’ convention vote also illustrated some of the ochlocratic flaws of such a system: Peter Martin, MCP for Ticonderoga, was elected in part because some less well informed voters assumed he was the same person as, or related to, the Stephen Martin who had written the original American Supremacy. He was neither; but whether by chance or design, he was a capable leader who helped calm those who had been unnerved by Clarke’s rhetoric, while managing to hold onto those voters who had been stirred by it.
With both Whigs and Supremacists out of the window, then, only one coalition possibility remained: Liberal plus Patriot. This is the origin of what in global political parlance has become known as ‘the American Coalition’: a teeth-clenched collaboration between what are usually considered to be the two major parties, diametrically opposed, because no other combination of parties would produce a majority government.[3] It is rather debatable whether this was actually true of the Patriots and Liberals considering the Liberals were such a young party, but as many at the time regarded them as the primary heirs to the crown of the old Constitutionalists, which would fit the bill. Given America’s fragmented political landscape, the wonder is perhaps that it has seen so few of this Coalition to which it has given its name.
Technically under the established constitutional code, Nathaniel Crowninshield as incumbent Lord President should have been given first shot at forming a coalition, but Crowninshield was crushed after his party’s defeat and resigned as party leader, allowing Vanburen as leader of the largest party to have first choice instead by the approval of the Lord Deputy (the ageing Lord Fingall). As was the case under the rather organic style of constitution at the time, this therefore became the established practice, and at subsequent elections it was generally the leader of the largest party who was given first opportunity to try to form a coalition.
With Crowninshield’s exit, the Patriots required a leader for Vanburen to negotiate with. One advantage of the smoke-filled room over the Supremacists’ newfangled convention system was that it was fast. Incumbent Foreign Secretary Simon Studholme became the new Patriot leader and swiftly agreed a coalition with Vanburen based on the principle that Studholme would be allowed to continue as Foreign Secretary and set most of the Empire’s foreign policy. In return the Patriots would vote through a Liberal domestic agenda. Like most great compromises, this pleased exactly nobody, but discontented Patriots did not exactly have many options to defect to and the party collectively had a pathological fear of division since the brief fragmentation under Josiah Crane and their exploitation of their enemies’ similar division in 1840. To that end, though there were occasional rumbles about the more reactionary Patriot MCPs leaving the caucus, nothing came of it. Vanburen was satisfied with the compromise, as his interests were mainly in domestic politics and he consdiered Studholme to have presided over a fairly inoffensive foreign policy. But that was the problem: Studholme’s general strategy was to try to offend as few people as possible, even if that led to the ENA backing down from fights it could win, as in his infamous ‘Can’t we forget all this?’ plea surrounding the Drakesland Question.[4] And that, of course, was only fuel on the fires of the rhetoric of the Supremacists—who now, with the national irrelevancy of the Whigs, found themselves as effectively the Official Opposition.
The other problem of Studholme’s foreign policy was that he had the traditional Patriot distrust of the UPSA and its radicalism. If a Liberal had occupied Spotswood House,[5] a more friendly policy towards the Meridians might well have changed matters later on. As it was, the Liberal-Patriot coalition government was reasonable stable, but behind the scenes both parties were plotting to undermine the other and bring down the government at the best point for them to gain in the ensuing election.
In the end when the government fell in 1848, however, it would not be to the advantage of either party...
[1] The events Sanchez is alluding to are, respectively, the Fall of Rome and the traditional date for the end of the (Western) Roman Empire (476), the end of the united Frankish state and its division into the later France and Germany at the Treaty of Verdun, thus counting as both a death and birth (843) and the Fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire (1453). The fact that Sanchez chose dates whose precise significance are frequently wrangled over by historians is likely not a coincidence: most commentators believe he was making the point that a human being is a defined entity with an indisputable date of birth and death (in theory) whereas the fact that a nation’s dates of birth and death are debatable is an indicator that a nation is an artificial construct.
[2] Note that this author mistakenly attributes the phrase ‘Self-Evident Birthright’ to the Supremacists. This is a common error, with many writers specifically claiming it was coined by the Supremacists’ spiritual founder Stephen Martin. The phrase actually comes from the Liberal MCP Tom Whipple (part #170) during the Flag War. The confusion arises because he was certainly drawing upon Supremacist-style rhetoric and some Supremacists did adopt the phrase afterwards.
[3] Best known in OTL as a ‘Grand Coalition’, from the German ‘Große Koalition’.
[4] Another slight error from this author—he appears to be referring to the incident described in part #170, but that was about the controversy of the Flag War, not the Drakesland issue which had originally prompted it.
[5] Seat of the American Foreign Ministry in Fredericksburg.
I love the ENA's politics. It's so gloriously complex.
Sanchez's quotation that the dates of beggars' life and death are no more important than the dates of kings seems somewhat at odds with the impression I'd received of him as in favour of a strictly hierarchical society with everyone in assigned places. I suppose it could be rationalised as a belief that monarchy and aristocracy are necessary duties that someone has to carry out but no more prestigious than any other necessary duties, yet this sounds like a difficult concept to sell to monarchs and aristocrats.
I also note with alarm the impending regime change in the ENA. (By the way, what's the First Empire? British rule? The time before the King-Emperor grants formal independence in Blandford's era?) Let's hope the transition from the Second Empire to the Third (presumably the ENA's reaction to its failure to prevent Carolina's secession) includes the kind of electoral reform the Supremacists appear to want but doesn't give the Supremacists too much power, rather than a major Supremacist victory (which I devoutly hope isn't what you're foreshadowing, Thande)
Sanchez's quotation that the dates of beggars' life and death are no more important than the dates of kings seems somewhat at odds with the impression I'd received of him as in favour of a strictly hierarchical society with everyone in assigned places. I suppose it could be rationalised as a belief that monarchy and aristocracy are necessary duties that someone has to carry out but no more prestigious than any other necessary duties, yet this sounds like a difficult concept to sell to monarchs and aristocrats.
I also note with alarm the impending regime change in the ENA. (By the way, what's the First Empire? British rule? The time before the King-Emperor grants formal independence in Blandford's era?) Let's hope the transition from the Second Empire to the Third (presumably the ENA's reaction to its failure to prevent Carolina's secession) includes the kind of electoral reform the Supremacists appear to want but doesn't give the Supremacists too much power, rather than a major Supremacist victory (which I devoutly hope isn't what you're foreshadowing, Thande)
I was under the impression that Sanchez would be against a landed aristocracy. He has seen the negative consequences of a monarchical struggle in Spain during the Jacobin Wars, and his power base lies in the strictly republican UPSA.
Thande
Donor
Well, as Umbric Man said, the ENA might be very different to OTL's USA but likely one of those cultural constants throughout all TLs is that Americans like complicated multi-tier political systems
Of course adding multi-party politics does complicate matters further...
It wasn't deliberate, but that is a nice comparison... (and to be more accurate, what I hear is people saying things like "That guy, Miliband...uh...David Miliband?" - not that they think Ed is David, but that they haven't realised they're two different people yet).
Thande
Donor
There is nothing more annoying than working for a couple of hours on an update and then having AH.com go down before you can post it. Anyway, here it is. I hope you'll forgive the number of "See Part #N" footnotes, but when you get to the end, longtime readers of this TL may realise why I'm quite glad I managed to get in a couple of them in particular...
Also thanks to Teg for noting above that I accidentally called it the First Spanish Revolution before when I meant the Second - I have edited the earlier post.
Part #174: O Brave Old World
“Seawater and blood: both salty, spiritually linked perhaps. An ocean of either cannot keep the brotherhood of mankind apart.”
*
From: “The Rose and the Shamrock: A History of Anglo-Irish Relations” by P. Collins (1973)—
At a time when politics in Britain was marked by chaos and controversy, her smaller neighbour was a model for moderate and measured reform. Admittedly, this was as much by good fortune as intent: Prime Minister James Roosevelt, who had come to power as part of a compromise in the unrest of 1832,[1] received praise for his handling of Irish intervention into the British crisis and his shaky coalition was soon replaced with a majority government in 1836. The small Farmers’ Party in the west were mostly shut out as Irish political organisation gradually modernised, being reluctantly absorbed into Roosevelt’s Radicals. Only a handful of Farmers’ Party MPs remained, though they kept the idea of a rural western interests party alive for another day. The Whig-Tories, the party of the old Ascendancy, continued to decline as its members mostly switched to the Patriots as the lesser of two evils, although they retained a couple of dozen seats in Ulster—home of a stubborn rejectionism to participate in pluralistic Irish politics. In the 1836 election the Patriots were ultimately placed in a difficult position due to having both supported Roosevelt’s government yet were now standing against its policies, and unsurpisingly lost ground. However, they were easily the most capable party in Ireland in terms of organisation and this would not last long.
After nine years occupying New Chichester House,[2] Roosevelt lost his majority in 1841 for a number of reasons, including controversy surrounding government grants to Catholic seminaries and public dissatisfaction over the Populist British government cutting off food relief.[3] Although Roosevelt had protested this, his government received some of the blame for it whether fair or no, and the Patriots regained a majority under Nicholas Cogan. Irish politics in this era was noted by a rather bland and homogenous political landscape. Both the major parties, the Radicals and Patriots, realised that they had to appeal to a diverse set of interests in order to gain a working majority, with the result that both of them tried to be as vague as possible in their ideological positioning. The Radicals had moderated under Roosevelt and the Patriots had radicalised in recognition that they needed to appeal to a broadened voter base after the franchise had been expanded. The result was that one party would effectively hold office until either the voters became bored or a scandal happened, and then they would be replaced with the almost indistinguishable other party. Only the small remnants of the Farmers’ Party and Whig-Tories provided any colour to the scene.
Roosevelt retired after his election loss and was succeeded by Thomas Burgh. Burgh defeated Fergus O’Connor to gain the position; O’Connor had been the Radicals’ leader back in the 1820s and had previously been passed over in favour of Roosevelt for being too extreme. O’Connor retired as a result and penned waspish newspaper articles about the Radicals having surrendered to the establishment for the price of moderating it somewhat, while still allowing inequality to rest on Catholics. This was true to a certain extent, but sectarian discrimination was gradually reduced under both the Radicals and Patriots throughout the nineteenth century until Ireland could be said to be truly pluralistic around the turn of the twentieth.
The 1846 election produced a hung parliament, with the Whig-Tories holding the balance of power. Cogan attempted to form a coalition, but gave up as the Whig-Tories were still making unrealistic demands such as reversing Catholic emancipation. Burgh became Prime Minister, but as head of a shaky minority government that would likely fall sooner or later and lead to fresh elections.
And then the Duke of Mornington died.
In itself this was not much of a surprise: the Duke was, after all, over eighty years old by this point. Yet he had been a constant in Ireland for so long that his loss sent a shockwave through the country’s establishment. It had been the Duke’s iron hand that had helped prevent Ireland slipping into the same chaos as Britain in the Popular Wars, and the Duke’s quiet support that had stabilised Roosevelt’s initially controversial government. Irishmen and –women said that Lord Mornington had not merely governed Ireland from Dublin Castle: he had reigned over it as a homegrown substitute monarch. And now he was gone.
It had been vaguely discussed in the past what to do if the Duke decided to relinquish the position he had held since the birth of the modern Irish state in 1800. Such discussions had inevitably ended in disagreement. It certainly did not help that no-one could truly picture Mornington shuffling off this mortal coil: he had been so instrumental in the defeat of the United Society and the creation of the ‘Kingdom of Compromise’ that men almost imagined him like the ravens in the Tower of London: his death would mean the end of Ireland, or at least the end of the peaceful settlement in which famine and starvation was a tragedy to be united against rather than a weapon to be exploited against your community’s sectarian foe.
The problem was that Mornington was regarded as being neutral and above politics in the same way a good constitutional monarch was—something that would have seemed unthinkable to those who had known the crusty, ultra-Tory Duke of the 1790s. He had governed Ireland based on what he considered best for the nation’s peace and wellbeing, not what he personally desired, as evidenced by how he had helped construct Roosevelt’s government. There were few men in Ireland of similar political stature who could boast such a reputation for neutrality: most of them had nailed their colours to one mast or another. There was the possibility, of course, of appointing a Lord Deputy from outside the Kingdom, but a British-born Lord Deputy would reopen all sorts of old wounds. One curious proposal was to appoint an American-born Lord Deputy, thus providing a neat counterpart to the Earl of Fingall in Fredericksburg. However, King Frederick II decided on balance simply to travel to Dublin himself and temporarily execute the duties of the Lord Deputy in person, while considering his choice. As a result he postponed a planned trip to the Empire of North America, for which purpose he had already appointed a Regent to rule on behalf of his underage son George in London: Hugh Percy, theoretically still Duke of Northumberland—unlike many aristocrats, a title still acknowledged by many. The Percys remained popular in Northumberland and Hugh had impeccable credentials in fighting the Blandford regime, though his flight to the Isle of Man had unfortunately indirectly led to the Rape of Man. He had returned to Great Britain to fight alongside the Irish expeditionary force and, like Stephen Watson-Wentworth, had been ‘rewarded’ by the ensuing Populist regime by having his lands and properties seized or overtaxed. Despite this enmity with Llewelyn Thomas’ men, Percy was the least controversial option the King had available to him, with most of the usual candidates for Regent being too deep in party politics or having left the country. Of course given Frederick’s own travails as a child with the Duke of Marlborough as his Regent, we can be quite certain he must have given the question considerable thought.
Percy had also organised the rules of modern football in 1843, which ultimately gained him some level of revenge against the Populists due to the role that the rejectionists of these rules played in the public voting to end Populism’s reign earlier in 1846. Percy continued to work on this even during his duties as Regent and helped found the National Football Authority in 1848. Probably not by accident, he left the future King George IV with a lifelong love of the game, much to the distress of those of his tutors who considered it inappropriate for a monarch. Percy had helped the still somewhat shaky monarchy gain a new connection with its subjects—or rather, in the People’s Kingdom, its citizens.
If Lord Mornington had been a king in all but name, some darkly whispered that Percy was not so much Regent as ‘Lord Deputy of Great Britain’; King Frederick had seemed rather eager to escape Britain’s turbulence and return to the America he loved and where he had met his Queen. But perhaps this is simply Frederick’s enemies tarring him with the same brush as Ferdinand VII given the events that would soon unfold elsewhere.
Given the comparison of the late Lord Mornington to a monarch, the obvious solution to the question of the Irish Lord Deputy-ship was to make it a hereditary position and give it to his son—or, as the Duke's son Richard had predeceased him, to his grandson. There were two problems with this: firstly Frederick disliked the idea of setting a precedent which effectively deprived him and his successors of the power to appoint their own choice of Lord Deputy, and secondly Lord Mornington’s first grandson was not considered suitable to occupy Dublin Castle. William Wesley, better known by the Irish abbreviation of his name ‘Liam’, was a gambler, drunkard, womaniser and adventurer whose accounts of his own real-life exploits were more outrageous than most fictional florin bloodies and were bought just as eagerly by the public, not solely in Ireland but in Great Britain and as far afield as America and continental Europe. The second grandson, on the other hand, was far more suitable: Arthur Wesley almost fit the stereotype of a second son too well, being quiet and studious, yet beneath that image was an iron will to match his grandfather’s. King Frederick therefore killed two birds with one stone—he created the title of Duke of Dublin[4] for Arthur and made him the new Lord Deputy, passing over Liam, who inherited his grandfather’s title despite the disapproval of society. Liam immediately gained the nickname of ‘The Bad Duke’ and proceeded to sell off most of his inheritance over the years to fund his expensive thrill-seeking lifestyle. He would not re-enter the annals of political history for many years to come.
The new Duke of Dublin soon proved an able heir, though his perhaps overly idealistic speech to both Houses of Parliament was mocked by the newly published satirical magazine The Leprechaun: Or, the Irish Ringleader, who summarised it as “I wish to govern an Ireland in which all Irishmen and –women are able to strive to reach their full potential as human beings—except you, Liam.” Lord Dublin presided over the collapse of Thomas Burgh’s minority government in 1847, with fresh elections giving Burgh a small majority. He would be the Prime Minister to lead Ireland through the Great American War. However, all of this had set a rather crucial precedent. No sooner had Frederick returned to London than the news arrived by fast steamer that the Earl of Fingall had died a few weeks short of the thirtieth anniversary of his investiture. He had therefore become the longest-serving Lord Deputy of America, beating out even Lord North’s 26 years in the post. The man originally appointed by Frederick (or rather by the Duke of Marlborough) as a cunning way of spitting in Matthew Quincy’s eye had gone on to be a widely respected and capable royal representative. It is no exaggeration to say that it is no coincidence that a more open and tolerant attitude to Catholics gained traction across America (but especially in Carolina) during the Earl’s time in office. Orangist ideas could not stand up very well when faced with this soft-spoken, cultured gentleman working to try and ensure America was governed well despite its complex and eclectic political landscape.
But now Lord Fingall had passed away, and America was faced with the same problem as Ireland—but on a substantially larger scale. Many people assumed that the rather shaky Patriot-Liberal ‘American Coalition’ government would end prematurely, yet the Continental Parliament could not legally be dissolved without a Lord Deputy if it did. This opportunity was seized by Supremacist leader Peter Martin, who paid tribute to Fingall but pointed out that this revealed a flaw in the existing constitutional setup. He called for the establishment of a line of succession (‘a deputy deputy’ as an editorial in the Philadelphia Gazette sardonically put it) and used this to argue for the appointment of native sons as Lords Deputy, pointing to the Irish example. Of course, given some of the Supremacists’ crypto-republican sympathies, there were also fringe calls for doing away with the Lord Deputy altogether in favour of an elected replacement (or Parliament signing its own bills into law) but the able Martin carefully suppressed and condemned these, aware of the risks of alienating moderate voters. In this he was a considerable improvement for the Supremacists on Matthew Clarke, who had never quite let go of Orangist ideas and would probably have damaged the Supremacists by saying the wrong thing about Fingall’s ‘popery’.
With the precedent set, and Frederick already having planned a visit to America in any case, it was obvious what to do. Much to the Populists’ annoyance, Percy swiftly returned to his role as Regent and the King-Emperor set out for his wife’s homeland, and an appointment with destiny...
*
From “The Restless Peninsula: Iberia, 1701-1853” by Franz Dietrich, 1969—
One can debate the causes of the Second Spanish Revolution for years, as historians have in fact done so, and trace them back as far as one pleases, to Visigoths and Moors even. It is more useful to narrow one’s perspective slightly and focus on the key points that led to the Iberian Peninsula once more bursting into the flames of war.
The Pânico de '46 in Portugal—itself born of complex underlying causes, but ultimately triggered by the humiliating defeat of Portuguese East India Company forces in Timor by the exilic Dutch—taught King John VI the lesson that his fears of revolutionaries lurking beneath the fabric of Portuguese society were accurate. He dismissed those advisors who had called for a more relaxed approach and cracked down hard on dissent, seizing unauthorised printing presses and banning many public meetings. The Portuguese revolutionary underground did exist, but was never as large as John had imagined; the Pânico had largely been the result of the ideologically unmotivated mob exploiting existing unrest to loot and plunder and it had thus spiralled out of control. However, John’s heavy-handed approach only drove previously uncommitted Portuguese into the revolutionaries’ arms and made their message more attractive. In the short term, though, his methods seemed to work: the revolutionary ringleaders, most notably Sérgio Fernandes, known as O Chacal (“The Jackal”), decamped en masse ahead of John’s security forces and went into exile to rebuild their position. Some of the Portuguese revolutionaries originally came from Brazil—in particular Pernambuco, disappointed with the new republic that had been set up by the UPSA as an economic colony and even still retained slavery. Some of these returned to South America with Iberian-born allies and went on to play a part in further developments there. However, the majority of the revolutionaries, including Fernandes, instead crossed the border into Old Spain and created training camps there. This was only possible because Joaquín Blake y Joyes approved the move and gave the revolutionaries support and weapons. Blake, a Spanish officer of Irish descent, had fought in all of the wars and revolutions to afflict the Iberian Peninsula since his debut as a young major in the Jacobin Wars.[5] He had served under Alfonso XII and his Portuguese-backed Castilian regime, but had been demoted after a Portuguese envoy had taken a dislike to him—hammering home the influence that the Portuguese had had over Castile. The incident had given Blake a permanent burning grudge against the Portuguese and he had been swift to go over to New Spain’s side when the First Spanish Revolution and the Reconquista began. For this he had been rewarded with a series of important military posts under the restored Charles IV and finally, in his seventies, the controversial appointment of ‘Viceroy of Old Spain’ by the absentee Ferdinand VII. Blake ruled in the king’s name, with a free hand, and had decided that the Jackal’s men represented a way of getting even with Portugal for both his nation’s humiliation and his own. Although Spain had been largely freed from Portuguese (and Neapolitan) domination after the Popular Wars, Portugal retained control of the enclave of Corunna and a small additional part of Galicia. Blake believed that by stoking a Portuguese revolution, he could provide an opportunity for the Spanish to regain control of their lost territories.
Blake had other motivations besides patriotism and revenge. A short victorious war might rally popular support to the Spanish regime. After the brief afterglow of the Reconquista, and in particular after the ascension to the throne of Ferdinand VII with his disregard for European affairs, the Spanish people had become increasingly discontented. In particular there was a sense among some that Spain had become old-fashioned and was being left behind by its neighbours—while those traditionalists who might have welcomed such an idea regarded the present regime as being tainted by foreign ideas and unworthy to govern. There was already grumbling discontent for taxes imposed in part to pay for military and civil improvements in New Spain as well as Old and the sense that these were not fairly levied, especially considering that Ferdinand VII had granted limited self-rule and representative government (albeit not consistently so) to New Spain but had dismissed any call to do the same for what he described as ‘a country of kneelers’. It is unclear precisely how extreme Ferdinand’s views were, as many of his supposed ‘gaffes’ have been traced back to exaggerated propaganda accounts and there is no proof he ever said them—for example, his infamous comment that ‘since Columbus discovered America—for good or for ill—those Spaniards with minds of their own and bravery to match have crossed the ocean to seek their fortune; those that remain in the Peninsula represent the result of breeding dull-minded coward with dull-minded coward for generations’. (Another criticism, made by Y. Jacobsen in Transactions of the Batavia Society for Historiographic Analysis (vol VI), 1962, is that Ferdinand appears to refer to work on human hereditary that was not yet published, but that is more debatable).
Blake’s mistake was in failing to realise that the Portuguese revolutionaries had cross-border contact with their Spanish counterparts and the weapons and resources that Blake fed to the Portuguese also ended up in Spanish hands. In fact, some of the revolutionaries had views which placed their ideology above their nation—seeking the establishment of republican liberty first and foremost, not in any particular country—and thus the Jackal and his compatriots recognised that it would be easier to start a revolution in Spain, with its unpopular regime and thinly-spread enforcers, then in Portugal with its paranoid king and ruthless but effective security apparatus. This factor has unsurprisingly led to many less historically literate modern propagandists attempting to tar the revolutionaries with the brush of proto-crypto-Societism, but it scarce needs mentioning that Sanchez himself observed the revolution from afar and condemned it as ‘yet another pointless turn in the bloodstained wheel of Iberian history, a wheel that drives no useful mechanism and ultimately changes nothing no matter how many times it turns’. Having personally witnessed both the Jacobin Wars and the Popular Wars tear the Peninsula apart, his despair at seeing history repeat itself is self-evident and understandable, no matter how much right-thinking men and women might condemn the conclusions he drew from it.
Despite Sanchez’s opinion, the Second Spanish Revolution was far better organised than many earlier counterparts. The revolutionaries planned to seize control of several major cities at once in a well-organised manoeuvre, with help from their Portuguese counterparts but in a suitably back-seat manner that would avoid enemy regime propagandists from claiming they were related to the Portuguese-allied old Castilian regime from before the Popular Wars. Blake himself was assassinated by his own creation, as were many other senior regime enforcers, including the head of the Spanish Internal Security Directorate (as the Spanish Inquisition had been reformed into by Ferdinand VII). Besides Madrid, the revolutionaries managed to seize control of the cities of Saragossa, Valencia, Granada, Burgos and Toledo. Their efforts in the western part of the country were much less successful, with the border fortresses of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo rebuffing attempts at infiltration and Salamanca’s cadre being betrayed by a university professor who could not bear to see his city burnt again after the riots only five years before in 1843. Reportedly, Sanchez was greatedly astounded to discover that the professor in question was none other than his old sparring partner Víctor Marañón.[6] “I would not have thought he would have it in him either to join a revolutionary group or then to betray it for matters of the heart,” Sanchez wrote in a letter to his friend Luis Carlos Cruz. “A reminder to us all that all men may conceal hidden strengths and weaknesses in their heart that only the right circumstances will bring out. Perhaps it behooves us to ensure that the appropriate circumstances do come about for such men...”
The Revolution therefore split Spain in half. The regime still retained most of the trained troops and could have crushed the revolution in its infancy had it not been for the revolutionaries’ successful decapitation of the regime with the death of Blake. While urgent calls for help were sent across the Atlantic to the City of Mexico, control was de facto seized by General José de Palafox—a man who had fought for Spain almost as long as Blake, but had chosen to fight with the Carlistas in the brief, farcical civil war following Philip VI’s death and had followed Charles IV into his American exile.[7] Palafox had gone on to fight Meridians in the Third Platinean War, winning plaudits for his heroism at Acapulco that had seen him wounded. He had gained a command position, going on to fight bandits and rebel Indians in New Spain before finally leading an army in the Reconquista. He remained loyal to Ferdinand VII—or at least to the idea of his house—and was strongly opposed to what he regarded as the ‘Jacobinism’ of the revolutionaries. To be fair, the revolutionaries included some neo-Jacobins among them, as well as Adamantine republicans, moderate liberal constitutional monarchists (some of whom also considered themselves Adamantians) and even some traditionalist conservatives who just objected to Ferdinand VII specifically. This lack of a unifying ideology was made obvious by the fact that the Madrid Declaration of November 3rd, 1848—despite eventually becoming a celebratory date for Spanish republicans—only referred to the establishment of “A Free Spanish State”, not the First Spanish Republic it would eventually become. It was obvious to many that this eclectic mix of diametrically opposed beliefs among the revolutionaries would fall apart as soon as its common enemy disappeared, but for now Palafox led the regime’s remaining forces from the west to fight on.
Palafox also appealed to Portugal for aid in the hope that John VI would want to avoid a neo-Jacobin republic on his doorstep. However, the revolutionaries had ensured that proof of Blake’s role in funding their Portuguese counterparts made its way into John’s hands, and the king refused, even sending his troops into Galicia ‘to maintain peace and order’, an obvious attempt to grab back the territory Portugal had lost in the Popular Wars. This galvanised the Spanish public against the hated old enemy, and Palafox’s attempts to keep his approach secret ultimately failed, meaning most of the sympathy went to the revolutionaries.
Ferdinand VII was naturally incensed in the dying days of 1848 when a steamer brought the news of his ancestral realm falling into chaos. For all his own personal opinions of Old Spain, he swiftly dispatched a force of Meridian-built steamers carrying troops and armourclad escorts, the most modern naval force New Spain had to offer. Yet soon afterwards, news of a second uprising closer to home reached his ears, and that ensured that the first proud fleet of reinforcements that set off from Veracruz for Santander would also be the last...
[1] See Part #145.
[2] Chichester House was an earlier site of the Irish Parliament. The building no longer exists, but another was built on the same site in TTL that retained the name, and was instead used as the Prime Minister’s residence.
[3] See Part #158.
[4] As in the county, not the city. In OTL the title of Earl of Dublin was created three times for various royals, usually younger sons, from 1760 onwards, but in TTL this is the first creation of a Dublin peerage.
[5] See Part #39. Note that the exilic Irish Blake family had many members in Spanish service, and a General Blake also fought in the Jacobin Wars, being Joaquín Blake’s much older second cousin.
[6] See Part #121.
[7] See Part #49.
Anyway, here it is. I hope you'll forgive the number of "See Part #N" footnotes, but when you get to the end, longtime readers of this TL may realise why I'm quite glad I managed to get in a couple of them in particular...Also thanks to Teg for noting above that I accidentally called it the First Spanish Revolution before when I meant the Second - I have edited the earlier post.
Part #174: O Brave Old World
“Seawater and blood: both salty, spiritually linked perhaps. An ocean of either cannot keep the brotherhood of mankind apart.”
– Pablo Sanchez, scribbling in the margin of a book borrowed from the University of Buenos Aires’ library; quoted in “Fever Dreams: Sanchez the Parablist” by Agnes Scrope (1976)
*
From: “The Rose and the Shamrock: A History of Anglo-Irish Relations” by P. Collins (1973)—
At a time when politics in Britain was marked by chaos and controversy, her smaller neighbour was a model for moderate and measured reform. Admittedly, this was as much by good fortune as intent: Prime Minister James Roosevelt, who had come to power as part of a compromise in the unrest of 1832,[1] received praise for his handling of Irish intervention into the British crisis and his shaky coalition was soon replaced with a majority government in 1836. The small Farmers’ Party in the west were mostly shut out as Irish political organisation gradually modernised, being reluctantly absorbed into Roosevelt’s Radicals. Only a handful of Farmers’ Party MPs remained, though they kept the idea of a rural western interests party alive for another day. The Whig-Tories, the party of the old Ascendancy, continued to decline as its members mostly switched to the Patriots as the lesser of two evils, although they retained a couple of dozen seats in Ulster—home of a stubborn rejectionism to participate in pluralistic Irish politics. In the 1836 election the Patriots were ultimately placed in a difficult position due to having both supported Roosevelt’s government yet were now standing against its policies, and unsurpisingly lost ground. However, they were easily the most capable party in Ireland in terms of organisation and this would not last long.
After nine years occupying New Chichester House,[2] Roosevelt lost his majority in 1841 for a number of reasons, including controversy surrounding government grants to Catholic seminaries and public dissatisfaction over the Populist British government cutting off food relief.[3] Although Roosevelt had protested this, his government received some of the blame for it whether fair or no, and the Patriots regained a majority under Nicholas Cogan. Irish politics in this era was noted by a rather bland and homogenous political landscape. Both the major parties, the Radicals and Patriots, realised that they had to appeal to a diverse set of interests in order to gain a working majority, with the result that both of them tried to be as vague as possible in their ideological positioning. The Radicals had moderated under Roosevelt and the Patriots had radicalised in recognition that they needed to appeal to a broadened voter base after the franchise had been expanded. The result was that one party would effectively hold office until either the voters became bored or a scandal happened, and then they would be replaced with the almost indistinguishable other party. Only the small remnants of the Farmers’ Party and Whig-Tories provided any colour to the scene.
Roosevelt retired after his election loss and was succeeded by Thomas Burgh. Burgh defeated Fergus O’Connor to gain the position; O’Connor had been the Radicals’ leader back in the 1820s and had previously been passed over in favour of Roosevelt for being too extreme. O’Connor retired as a result and penned waspish newspaper articles about the Radicals having surrendered to the establishment for the price of moderating it somewhat, while still allowing inequality to rest on Catholics. This was true to a certain extent, but sectarian discrimination was gradually reduced under both the Radicals and Patriots throughout the nineteenth century until Ireland could be said to be truly pluralistic around the turn of the twentieth.
The 1846 election produced a hung parliament, with the Whig-Tories holding the balance of power. Cogan attempted to form a coalition, but gave up as the Whig-Tories were still making unrealistic demands such as reversing Catholic emancipation. Burgh became Prime Minister, but as head of a shaky minority government that would likely fall sooner or later and lead to fresh elections.
And then the Duke of Mornington died.
In itself this was not much of a surprise: the Duke was, after all, over eighty years old by this point. Yet he had been a constant in Ireland for so long that his loss sent a shockwave through the country’s establishment. It had been the Duke’s iron hand that had helped prevent Ireland slipping into the same chaos as Britain in the Popular Wars, and the Duke’s quiet support that had stabilised Roosevelt’s initially controversial government. Irishmen and –women said that Lord Mornington had not merely governed Ireland from Dublin Castle: he had reigned over it as a homegrown substitute monarch. And now he was gone.
It had been vaguely discussed in the past what to do if the Duke decided to relinquish the position he had held since the birth of the modern Irish state in 1800. Such discussions had inevitably ended in disagreement. It certainly did not help that no-one could truly picture Mornington shuffling off this mortal coil: he had been so instrumental in the defeat of the United Society and the creation of the ‘Kingdom of Compromise’ that men almost imagined him like the ravens in the Tower of London: his death would mean the end of Ireland, or at least the end of the peaceful settlement in which famine and starvation was a tragedy to be united against rather than a weapon to be exploited against your community’s sectarian foe.
The problem was that Mornington was regarded as being neutral and above politics in the same way a good constitutional monarch was—something that would have seemed unthinkable to those who had known the crusty, ultra-Tory Duke of the 1790s. He had governed Ireland based on what he considered best for the nation’s peace and wellbeing, not what he personally desired, as evidenced by how he had helped construct Roosevelt’s government. There were few men in Ireland of similar political stature who could boast such a reputation for neutrality: most of them had nailed their colours to one mast or another. There was the possibility, of course, of appointing a Lord Deputy from outside the Kingdom, but a British-born Lord Deputy would reopen all sorts of old wounds. One curious proposal was to appoint an American-born Lord Deputy, thus providing a neat counterpart to the Earl of Fingall in Fredericksburg. However, King Frederick II decided on balance simply to travel to Dublin himself and temporarily execute the duties of the Lord Deputy in person, while considering his choice. As a result he postponed a planned trip to the Empire of North America, for which purpose he had already appointed a Regent to rule on behalf of his underage son George in London: Hugh Percy, theoretically still Duke of Northumberland—unlike many aristocrats, a title still acknowledged by many. The Percys remained popular in Northumberland and Hugh had impeccable credentials in fighting the Blandford regime, though his flight to the Isle of Man had unfortunately indirectly led to the Rape of Man. He had returned to Great Britain to fight alongside the Irish expeditionary force and, like Stephen Watson-Wentworth, had been ‘rewarded’ by the ensuing Populist regime by having his lands and properties seized or overtaxed. Despite this enmity with Llewelyn Thomas’ men, Percy was the least controversial option the King had available to him, with most of the usual candidates for Regent being too deep in party politics or having left the country. Of course given Frederick’s own travails as a child with the Duke of Marlborough as his Regent, we can be quite certain he must have given the question considerable thought.
Percy had also organised the rules of modern football in 1843, which ultimately gained him some level of revenge against the Populists due to the role that the rejectionists of these rules played in the public voting to end Populism’s reign earlier in 1846. Percy continued to work on this even during his duties as Regent and helped found the National Football Authority in 1848. Probably not by accident, he left the future King George IV with a lifelong love of the game, much to the distress of those of his tutors who considered it inappropriate for a monarch. Percy had helped the still somewhat shaky monarchy gain a new connection with its subjects—or rather, in the People’s Kingdom, its citizens.
If Lord Mornington had been a king in all but name, some darkly whispered that Percy was not so much Regent as ‘Lord Deputy of Great Britain’; King Frederick had seemed rather eager to escape Britain’s turbulence and return to the America he loved and where he had met his Queen. But perhaps this is simply Frederick’s enemies tarring him with the same brush as Ferdinand VII given the events that would soon unfold elsewhere.
Given the comparison of the late Lord Mornington to a monarch, the obvious solution to the question of the Irish Lord Deputy-ship was to make it a hereditary position and give it to his son—or, as the Duke's son Richard had predeceased him, to his grandson. There were two problems with this: firstly Frederick disliked the idea of setting a precedent which effectively deprived him and his successors of the power to appoint their own choice of Lord Deputy, and secondly Lord Mornington’s first grandson was not considered suitable to occupy Dublin Castle. William Wesley, better known by the Irish abbreviation of his name ‘Liam’, was a gambler, drunkard, womaniser and adventurer whose accounts of his own real-life exploits were more outrageous than most fictional florin bloodies and were bought just as eagerly by the public, not solely in Ireland but in Great Britain and as far afield as America and continental Europe. The second grandson, on the other hand, was far more suitable: Arthur Wesley almost fit the stereotype of a second son too well, being quiet and studious, yet beneath that image was an iron will to match his grandfather’s. King Frederick therefore killed two birds with one stone—he created the title of Duke of Dublin[4] for Arthur and made him the new Lord Deputy, passing over Liam, who inherited his grandfather’s title despite the disapproval of society. Liam immediately gained the nickname of ‘The Bad Duke’ and proceeded to sell off most of his inheritance over the years to fund his expensive thrill-seeking lifestyle. He would not re-enter the annals of political history for many years to come.
The new Duke of Dublin soon proved an able heir, though his perhaps overly idealistic speech to both Houses of Parliament was mocked by the newly published satirical magazine The Leprechaun: Or, the Irish Ringleader, who summarised it as “I wish to govern an Ireland in which all Irishmen and –women are able to strive to reach their full potential as human beings—except you, Liam.” Lord Dublin presided over the collapse of Thomas Burgh’s minority government in 1847, with fresh elections giving Burgh a small majority. He would be the Prime Minister to lead Ireland through the Great American War. However, all of this had set a rather crucial precedent. No sooner had Frederick returned to London than the news arrived by fast steamer that the Earl of Fingall had died a few weeks short of the thirtieth anniversary of his investiture. He had therefore become the longest-serving Lord Deputy of America, beating out even Lord North’s 26 years in the post. The man originally appointed by Frederick (or rather by the Duke of Marlborough) as a cunning way of spitting in Matthew Quincy’s eye had gone on to be a widely respected and capable royal representative. It is no exaggeration to say that it is no coincidence that a more open and tolerant attitude to Catholics gained traction across America (but especially in Carolina) during the Earl’s time in office. Orangist ideas could not stand up very well when faced with this soft-spoken, cultured gentleman working to try and ensure America was governed well despite its complex and eclectic political landscape.
But now Lord Fingall had passed away, and America was faced with the same problem as Ireland—but on a substantially larger scale. Many people assumed that the rather shaky Patriot-Liberal ‘American Coalition’ government would end prematurely, yet the Continental Parliament could not legally be dissolved without a Lord Deputy if it did. This opportunity was seized by Supremacist leader Peter Martin, who paid tribute to Fingall but pointed out that this revealed a flaw in the existing constitutional setup. He called for the establishment of a line of succession (‘a deputy deputy’ as an editorial in the Philadelphia Gazette sardonically put it) and used this to argue for the appointment of native sons as Lords Deputy, pointing to the Irish example. Of course, given some of the Supremacists’ crypto-republican sympathies, there were also fringe calls for doing away with the Lord Deputy altogether in favour of an elected replacement (or Parliament signing its own bills into law) but the able Martin carefully suppressed and condemned these, aware of the risks of alienating moderate voters. In this he was a considerable improvement for the Supremacists on Matthew Clarke, who had never quite let go of Orangist ideas and would probably have damaged the Supremacists by saying the wrong thing about Fingall’s ‘popery’.
With the precedent set, and Frederick already having planned a visit to America in any case, it was obvious what to do. Much to the Populists’ annoyance, Percy swiftly returned to his role as Regent and the King-Emperor set out for his wife’s homeland, and an appointment with destiny...
*
From “The Restless Peninsula: Iberia, 1701-1853” by Franz Dietrich, 1969—
One can debate the causes of the Second Spanish Revolution for years, as historians have in fact done so, and trace them back as far as one pleases, to Visigoths and Moors even. It is more useful to narrow one’s perspective slightly and focus on the key points that led to the Iberian Peninsula once more bursting into the flames of war.
The Pânico de '46 in Portugal—itself born of complex underlying causes, but ultimately triggered by the humiliating defeat of Portuguese East India Company forces in Timor by the exilic Dutch—taught King John VI the lesson that his fears of revolutionaries lurking beneath the fabric of Portuguese society were accurate. He dismissed those advisors who had called for a more relaxed approach and cracked down hard on dissent, seizing unauthorised printing presses and banning many public meetings. The Portuguese revolutionary underground did exist, but was never as large as John had imagined; the Pânico had largely been the result of the ideologically unmotivated mob exploiting existing unrest to loot and plunder and it had thus spiralled out of control. However, John’s heavy-handed approach only drove previously uncommitted Portuguese into the revolutionaries’ arms and made their message more attractive. In the short term, though, his methods seemed to work: the revolutionary ringleaders, most notably Sérgio Fernandes, known as O Chacal (“The Jackal”), decamped en masse ahead of John’s security forces and went into exile to rebuild their position. Some of the Portuguese revolutionaries originally came from Brazil—in particular Pernambuco, disappointed with the new republic that had been set up by the UPSA as an economic colony and even still retained slavery. Some of these returned to South America with Iberian-born allies and went on to play a part in further developments there. However, the majority of the revolutionaries, including Fernandes, instead crossed the border into Old Spain and created training camps there. This was only possible because Joaquín Blake y Joyes approved the move and gave the revolutionaries support and weapons. Blake, a Spanish officer of Irish descent, had fought in all of the wars and revolutions to afflict the Iberian Peninsula since his debut as a young major in the Jacobin Wars.[5] He had served under Alfonso XII and his Portuguese-backed Castilian regime, but had been demoted after a Portuguese envoy had taken a dislike to him—hammering home the influence that the Portuguese had had over Castile. The incident had given Blake a permanent burning grudge against the Portuguese and he had been swift to go over to New Spain’s side when the First Spanish Revolution and the Reconquista began. For this he had been rewarded with a series of important military posts under the restored Charles IV and finally, in his seventies, the controversial appointment of ‘Viceroy of Old Spain’ by the absentee Ferdinand VII. Blake ruled in the king’s name, with a free hand, and had decided that the Jackal’s men represented a way of getting even with Portugal for both his nation’s humiliation and his own. Although Spain had been largely freed from Portuguese (and Neapolitan) domination after the Popular Wars, Portugal retained control of the enclave of Corunna and a small additional part of Galicia. Blake believed that by stoking a Portuguese revolution, he could provide an opportunity for the Spanish to regain control of their lost territories.
Blake had other motivations besides patriotism and revenge. A short victorious war might rally popular support to the Spanish regime. After the brief afterglow of the Reconquista, and in particular after the ascension to the throne of Ferdinand VII with his disregard for European affairs, the Spanish people had become increasingly discontented. In particular there was a sense among some that Spain had become old-fashioned and was being left behind by its neighbours—while those traditionalists who might have welcomed such an idea regarded the present regime as being tainted by foreign ideas and unworthy to govern. There was already grumbling discontent for taxes imposed in part to pay for military and civil improvements in New Spain as well as Old and the sense that these were not fairly levied, especially considering that Ferdinand VII had granted limited self-rule and representative government (albeit not consistently so) to New Spain but had dismissed any call to do the same for what he described as ‘a country of kneelers’. It is unclear precisely how extreme Ferdinand’s views were, as many of his supposed ‘gaffes’ have been traced back to exaggerated propaganda accounts and there is no proof he ever said them—for example, his infamous comment that ‘since Columbus discovered America—for good or for ill—those Spaniards with minds of their own and bravery to match have crossed the ocean to seek their fortune; those that remain in the Peninsula represent the result of breeding dull-minded coward with dull-minded coward for generations’. (Another criticism, made by Y. Jacobsen in Transactions of the Batavia Society for Historiographic Analysis (vol VI), 1962, is that Ferdinand appears to refer to work on human hereditary that was not yet published, but that is more debatable).
Blake’s mistake was in failing to realise that the Portuguese revolutionaries had cross-border contact with their Spanish counterparts and the weapons and resources that Blake fed to the Portuguese also ended up in Spanish hands. In fact, some of the revolutionaries had views which placed their ideology above their nation—seeking the establishment of republican liberty first and foremost, not in any particular country—and thus the Jackal and his compatriots recognised that it would be easier to start a revolution in Spain, with its unpopular regime and thinly-spread enforcers, then in Portugal with its paranoid king and ruthless but effective security apparatus. This factor has unsurprisingly led to many less historically literate modern propagandists attempting to tar the revolutionaries with the brush of proto-crypto-Societism, but it scarce needs mentioning that Sanchez himself observed the revolution from afar and condemned it as ‘yet another pointless turn in the bloodstained wheel of Iberian history, a wheel that drives no useful mechanism and ultimately changes nothing no matter how many times it turns’. Having personally witnessed both the Jacobin Wars and the Popular Wars tear the Peninsula apart, his despair at seeing history repeat itself is self-evident and understandable, no matter how much right-thinking men and women might condemn the conclusions he drew from it.
Despite Sanchez’s opinion, the Second Spanish Revolution was far better organised than many earlier counterparts. The revolutionaries planned to seize control of several major cities at once in a well-organised manoeuvre, with help from their Portuguese counterparts but in a suitably back-seat manner that would avoid enemy regime propagandists from claiming they were related to the Portuguese-allied old Castilian regime from before the Popular Wars. Blake himself was assassinated by his own creation, as were many other senior regime enforcers, including the head of the Spanish Internal Security Directorate (as the Spanish Inquisition had been reformed into by Ferdinand VII). Besides Madrid, the revolutionaries managed to seize control of the cities of Saragossa, Valencia, Granada, Burgos and Toledo. Their efforts in the western part of the country were much less successful, with the border fortresses of Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo rebuffing attempts at infiltration and Salamanca’s cadre being betrayed by a university professor who could not bear to see his city burnt again after the riots only five years before in 1843. Reportedly, Sanchez was greatedly astounded to discover that the professor in question was none other than his old sparring partner Víctor Marañón.[6] “I would not have thought he would have it in him either to join a revolutionary group or then to betray it for matters of the heart,” Sanchez wrote in a letter to his friend Luis Carlos Cruz. “A reminder to us all that all men may conceal hidden strengths and weaknesses in their heart that only the right circumstances will bring out. Perhaps it behooves us to ensure that the appropriate circumstances do come about for such men...”
The Revolution therefore split Spain in half. The regime still retained most of the trained troops and could have crushed the revolution in its infancy had it not been for the revolutionaries’ successful decapitation of the regime with the death of Blake. While urgent calls for help were sent across the Atlantic to the City of Mexico, control was de facto seized by General José de Palafox—a man who had fought for Spain almost as long as Blake, but had chosen to fight with the Carlistas in the brief, farcical civil war following Philip VI’s death and had followed Charles IV into his American exile.[7] Palafox had gone on to fight Meridians in the Third Platinean War, winning plaudits for his heroism at Acapulco that had seen him wounded. He had gained a command position, going on to fight bandits and rebel Indians in New Spain before finally leading an army in the Reconquista. He remained loyal to Ferdinand VII—or at least to the idea of his house—and was strongly opposed to what he regarded as the ‘Jacobinism’ of the revolutionaries. To be fair, the revolutionaries included some neo-Jacobins among them, as well as Adamantine republicans, moderate liberal constitutional monarchists (some of whom also considered themselves Adamantians) and even some traditionalist conservatives who just objected to Ferdinand VII specifically. This lack of a unifying ideology was made obvious by the fact that the Madrid Declaration of November 3rd, 1848—despite eventually becoming a celebratory date for Spanish republicans—only referred to the establishment of “A Free Spanish State”, not the First Spanish Republic it would eventually become. It was obvious to many that this eclectic mix of diametrically opposed beliefs among the revolutionaries would fall apart as soon as its common enemy disappeared, but for now Palafox led the regime’s remaining forces from the west to fight on.
Palafox also appealed to Portugal for aid in the hope that John VI would want to avoid a neo-Jacobin republic on his doorstep. However, the revolutionaries had ensured that proof of Blake’s role in funding their Portuguese counterparts made its way into John’s hands, and the king refused, even sending his troops into Galicia ‘to maintain peace and order’, an obvious attempt to grab back the territory Portugal had lost in the Popular Wars. This galvanised the Spanish public against the hated old enemy, and Palafox’s attempts to keep his approach secret ultimately failed, meaning most of the sympathy went to the revolutionaries.
Ferdinand VII was naturally incensed in the dying days of 1848 when a steamer brought the news of his ancestral realm falling into chaos. For all his own personal opinions of Old Spain, he swiftly dispatched a force of Meridian-built steamers carrying troops and armourclad escorts, the most modern naval force New Spain had to offer. Yet soon afterwards, news of a second uprising closer to home reached his ears, and that ensured that the first proud fleet of reinforcements that set off from Veracruz for Santander would also be the last...
[1] See Part #145.
[2] Chichester House was an earlier site of the Irish Parliament. The building no longer exists, but another was built on the same site in TTL that retained the name, and was instead used as the Prime Minister’s residence.
[3] See Part #158.
[4] As in the county, not the city. In OTL the title of Earl of Dublin was created three times for various royals, usually younger sons, from 1760 onwards, but in TTL this is the first creation of a Dublin peerage.
[5] See Part #39. Note that the exilic Irish Blake family had many members in Spanish service, and a General Blake also fought in the Jacobin Wars, being Joaquín Blake’s much older second cousin.
[6] See Part #121.
[7] See Part #49.
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Thande, you are an unholy combination of the Easter Bunny and London buses. We have to wait ages for your updates but when they come they come in multiples and they are oh so gloriously too much of a good thing. [Yes, I am slightly hyper/drunk at the moment.]
Another interesting update. The Spanish house of cards seems to be really falling down rapidly at the moment, although the whole fiasco has probably been building since the 1780s if not before. In some ways, the unabashed success of the Reconquest probably has made things worse as it created a fall sense of security in the Spanish establishment. Hopefully the New Spanish won't collapse entirely, because it is such an interesting state to read about...
That said, I do think New Spain in its current form is doomed. California may well be breaking off for starters. Earlier in the thread, I speculated that the final lineup for the Great American War would be UPSA and ENA vs. Carolina and New Spain. Now I think its actually more likely to be; ENA, New Spain and Cherokee vs. Carolina (possibly with Virginia on board, but I'm not so sure...), Louisiana and the UPSA with all sorts of contortions that make the GAW every bit as anarchic as the Popular Wars. The reason why I think the UPSA will join the Carolinians is that a) its beeen mentioned that UPSA-ENA have gone south recently, b) Carolina cannot hope to defeat the ENA without foreign help and c) the UPSA has a lot to gain by stabbing the ENA and especially New Spain in the back [Lower Peru, the Falklands, Colombia etc...]
teg
We have to wait ages for your updates but when they come they come in multiples and they are oh so gloriously too much of a good thing. [Yes, I am slightly hyper/drunk at the moment.]Another interesting update. The Spanish house of cards seems to be really falling down rapidly at the moment, although the whole fiasco has probably been building since the 1780s if not before. In some ways, the unabashed success of the Reconquest probably has made things worse as it created a fall sense of security in the Spanish establishment. Hopefully the New Spanish won't collapse entirely, because it is such an interesting state to read about...
That said, I do think New Spain in its current form is doomed. California may well be breaking off for starters. Earlier in the thread, I speculated that the final lineup for the Great American War would be UPSA and ENA vs. Carolina and New Spain. Now I think its actually more likely to be; ENA, New Spain and Cherokee vs. Carolina (possibly with Virginia on board, but I'm not so sure...), Louisiana and the UPSA with all sorts of contortions that make the GAW every bit as anarchic as the Popular Wars. The reason why I think the UPSA will join the Carolinians is that a) its beeen mentioned that UPSA-ENA have gone south recently, b) Carolina cannot hope to defeat the ENA without foreign help and c) the UPSA has a lot to gain by stabbing the ENA and especially New Spain in the back [Lower Peru, the Falklands, Colombia etc...]
teg
Great update !
So the peace that was (more or less ) the inheritance of the Popular wars is finished .And it looks like Spain is going to be the first battleground . I am somewhat surprised by the fact Portugal seems to not intervene for the moment in the Spanish Revolution . Having potential Jacobins as neighbours isn't a very attractive proposition . On the other hand , there are other countries which could considerer themselves interested by this Civil War . Will France or the Three Sicilies go to war to expand their sphere of influence ? This could literally make the peninsula implode ...
So the peace that was (more or less ) the inheritance of the Popular wars is finished .And it looks like Spain is going to be the first battleground . I am somewhat surprised by the fact Portugal seems to not intervene for the moment in the Spanish Revolution . Having potential Jacobins as neighbours isn't a very attractive proposition . On the other hand , there are other countries which could considerer themselves interested by this Civil War . Will France or the Three Sicilies go to war to expand their sphere of influence ? This could literally make the peninsula implode ...
Well, as Umbric Man said, the ENA might be very different to OTL's USA but likely one of those cultural constants throughout all TLs is that Americans like complicated multi-tier political systems
Of course adding multi-party politics does complicate matters further...
Unless they go the Canadian root and vote the same party in almost every time for some reason.
Great set of updates, Thande! I am very curious about where in the New Spanish empire that might be more significant than Old Spain an uprising might take place -- Mexico itself? Peru? And the updates seem to foreshadow a Supremacist takeover, frightening as that sounds...
I'd love to "figure" 1844 for you, but what with exams coming up in a week it might take me more time than usual to get those results to you. In any case, I'm looking forward to the task
I'd love to "figure" 1844 for you, but what with exams coming up in a week it might take me more time than usual to get those results to you. In any case, I'm looking forward to the task
Thande
Donor
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
That's fine, it took me long enough to translate your calculations to a map last time...whenever you get the chance.
I'd love to "figure" 1844 for you, but what with exams coming up in a week it might take me more time than usual to get those results to you. In any case, I'm looking forward to the task
That's fine, it took me long enough to translate your calculations to a map last time...whenever you get the chance.
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