Great way to depict the escalation into full out war. I'm kind of surprised that Carolina has an industrial capacity even close to OTL CSA's. Virginia is very well geographically located to have strong coal and steel based industries, and provided the majority of the CSAs industry. I'm sure Carolina has had more capital development than Georgia and the Carolina's OTL, but it still can't really ever stand up to Pennsylvania, New York and New England's combined outputs.
Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!
- Thread starter Thande
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I think the ugliness of the Carolinian flag is all the evidence we need that their independence won't last long.
Thande
Donor
...it's clear that South African time travellers have gone back to the 1860s to tell the Confederates about this TL. That's the only realistic way to explain it.
Very interesting point.
This is also an important point and one which must be borne in mind when considering things like relative industrial power. It's not just having that power, it's about how motivated you are to use it for a specific military purpose, and how long it takes for any increase in that motivation to deliver meaningful results.teg said:
I'm not sure I follow what you're asking for here - that is pretty much the main point of this whole Volume of the TL. We already saw some of the earliest stuff in previous updates and we are now witnessing the formative events that particularly influenced Sanchez in the writing of his later books.teg said:
The perils of webcomics...Dammit, man. I clicked on that and now I've been reading that for two hours.
Remember that the OTL CSA in 1861 had had almost seventy years since the invention of the cotton gin and its unrestrained effect to turn the South into a virtual cotton monoculture with little industrial power because it made its money from selling its primary crop to other people with the industry. In TTL the cotton gin wasn't invented until the 1830s, and thanks to the Virginia Crisis and the increasing Carolinian paranoia from it, the government in Carolina has been intervening to preserve and produce Carolinian industry and avoid that destructive monoculture because they don't want to become too dependent on the North. In the last few years leading up to the war, Carolinian industry has begun to grow more on its own due to access to New Spain as an emerging market.
(By contrast, the Cherokee Empire has a much more laissez-faire approach, with the result that by 1848 the Cherokee lands have become pretty much the same cotton monoculture with little industry that the corresponding states were in OTL).
Another factor is that the ENA has more in the way of inter-Confederate trade tariffs than the USA which makes it easier to protect industry. There has been less of a move towards free trade because most of the European markets are less open for American trade than OTL (although of course Latin America is more open, so it's swings and roundabouts).
I'm curious about the internal politics of the Cherokee Empire, since in OTL they were really split between the traditionals, who lived more in clan-run or as individual farmers, and the plantation owners who imitated their Caucasian counterparts. I read a really good online article about it years ago. Maybe I can find it for you.
Great update Thande. Since this update includes some of the opening moves that I imagine will involve some of the Continental powers, e.g. Britain, Spain, and France, into the war, will other European powers be involved as well. I imagine that Russia and Portugal especially would have interests in the outcome of the conflict, especially with the Russian rebels in California (Something I never would have thought to say before reading this TL).
).Another fantastic update. In addition to my frustration at seeing the ENA botch things (still pulling for them. Side effect of me living in PA, I suppose), I'm greatly amused by Benjamin Barker attempting to slit the figurative throat of the Kingdom of Carolina. Is this accidental, or was this a deliberate reference to Sweeney Todd?
Thande
Donor
I would be interested in reading that, obviously in TTL it's the latter group that have grown dominant due to the almighty dollar (or, er, imperial).
Completely accidental but now you point it out, it does work, doesn't it?
Thande
Donor
Part #182: Diamond Dawn
“While they tear themselves apart, in the corner, unnoticed, a single candle burns with a message of hope. We must ensure it is not snuffed out.”
*
From “A History of California” by J. D. Peters-Vasquez (1989)—
No sooner had the New Spanish fleet left for Old Spain (harried ineffectually by the British Admiral Kincaid) did it become clear that the Campaña de Represión had backfired, the Americans were deadly serious about intervention, and Ferdinand VII had bitten off more than he could chew. The New Spanish state newspapers and propaganda could attempt to downplay the significance of events in the Californias as the security situation deteriorated, but ultimately their denials shattered when the events of New Year’s Day 1849 echoed around the world.
As we have already covered, there were many disparate groups only vaguely united in opposition to the New Spanish authorities in the Californias, though the Campaña had only succeeded in driving these closer together. One consistent misconception of the New Spanish—though it is unclear whether this was only propaganda or something Ferdinand, Antonio and Adolfo Montero truly believed—was that the rebels only consisted of ‘foreign’ settlers and that all men of good Spanish blood remained loyal to their Emperor. This was not the case. Although Emperor Charles’ declaring Monterey as Mexico’s temporary capital in the Watchful Peace had never really meant that much except on paper (with most administration remaining in Veracruz) it had led to the creation of something of a social scene and local aristocracy. That had remained even after Monterey’s official importance had declined, and many of the nobles were resentful at a reversion under Ferdinand to treating the Californias as rustic frontier provinces full of ignorant peasants. One such aristocrat was Emilia Mendoza (as she is known to history, having discarded some of her more elevated-sounding names). By day she was known as an airheaded socialite, but it was all an act, for by night she led the Monterey rebels seeking to overthrow a system they regarded as colonial rule. Despite her own noble blood, Mendoza was an egalitarian and a strong believer in Rouvroy’s Adamantianism in which fairness and meritocracy would determine who rose and who fell, and the state should look after the latter group. Her views in part stemmed from how her family had lost its lands in Oaxaca due to a dispute between alcaldes and backing the wrong horse. Thus she joined the long line of proletarian heroes of aristocratic background whose resentment at being spurned by a feudal system lead to a desire to burn the whole thing down.[1]
By the end of 1848 the Mexican Internal Security Directorate[2] had determined that their enemy had a female leader, though they never dreamed of identifying her with the flirtatious, shallow partygoer Mendoza. They gave her what was intended to be an insulting code name, ‘The Vixen’ (which in Spanish also carries connotations along the lines of ‘the Bitch’ or ‘the Whore’). Mendoza proceeded to embrace this and used it herself, emblazoning the words LA ZORRA on the doors of those local enforcers whom she and her men strangled in their beds in the dead of night. ‘The Vixen’s Kiss’ became a euphemism for a horrible death among the army, and remains a Californian idiom to this day (of course, modern times being what they are, it has also become the name of a famous cocktail).
Christmas 1848 was a melancholy one for the authorities in Monterey: they had just heard that although not defeated as such, the army had failed to catch the Russian rebel ringleaders Pyotr and Pavel Volkov, who had escaped into the lawless Great Valley after days of cavalry pursuit. Rumours abounded about the Americans being more serious than previously thought and amassing troops at Fort Canzus for the long westward trek. Many dismissed such talk and spoke of American troops dying in the empty expanse of the interior from extremes of heat or cold, from the arrows of the Keowa or the blades of the Thirteen Fires. But Mendoza and her allies decided that the time was ripe. They made contact with the ‘bandit’ forces active in the area, mostly American, who had gone to ground with the Campaña curfews. And on New Year’s Day, when many were still recovering from the defiant celebrations the previous night, they struck.
The Governor-General and his assistants were taken in the dead of night in Portolà House. Bloodshed was relatively minor, though there were running firefights with some troops and the Directorate’s agents. Of course Mendoza knew they would have to face the spectre of the New Spanish troops engaging the rebels turning round and descending back on Monterey, but that lay in the future. For now, she called the frightened people of Monterey into Customs House Square – which had not so long ago been the stage for the dumping of George Alexander’s grisly corpse – and proclaimed the creation of an Independent Adamantine Republic of California. American fighters, including Mark Hilton who had fought alongside Eustace Clarke and effectively taken over his group, stood alongside her and pledged to respect Mendoza’s declaration and honour the brief new constitution and bill of rights that she announced. It is unfair to make the claim (as some have) that these were hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope the previous night, for Mendoza had been planning this for a long time. Nonetheless they have become a little notorious for the sort of loopholes that stem from lack of committee proofreading, and it is not surprising that despite its reverence for this moment of national birth, California would eventually have to tear them down and start again in 1873.
Hilton’s support was important because many of the American Supremacist-sympathising rebel groups wanted California to become not an independent republic but a new Confederation of the Empire of North America. Hilton also wanted this, but was willing to work with Mendoza for now and believed that the Republic could be converted into a Confederation later on. Of course to some extent Mendoza was playing sides against one another, thus being the effective progenitor of what has become emblematic of California’s foreign policy. She had no formal contact with the Russians until after the Battle of Monterey Bay in April 1849.
This battle ultimately stemmed from the fact that the New Spanish troops in the Californias, particularly spurred on by an incensed Ferdinand and Antonio, indeed proceeded to turn from their attempt to enforce the government’s will on the countryside and return to Monterey. Mendoza appealed for help to the world and quoted the Malraux Doctrine that oppressed peoples deserved a right to freedom. Of course, France itself ended up on the opposite side, but her plea nonetheless struck a chord with many…
*
From: “Golden Sun and Silver Torch: A History of the United Provinces of South America” by Benito Carlucci (1976)—
The UPSA under the lame duck presidency of Manuel Vinay hesitated. Vinay did not want to jeopardise the increased trade links with the New Spanish kingdoms that had been established under his government. He had drawn up plans for a new organisation dubbed the League of Friendship (Liga de la Amistad) which would see the UPSA’s client states such as Cisplatina, Rio Grande, Pernambuco and Guayana joined irrevocably to Cordoba’s axis of control but without any of those troublesome voting rights that full annexation would bring. However, Vinay had been unable to formally create the organisation during his term. Four years into it, his Unionist Party had lost control of the Cortes Nacionales when it became apparent that his rhetoric about immigration had just been a vote-winning tactic. The election produced a hung Cortes, as the Adamantines made gains but so too did the Colorados—still factionally divided, but with the Neo-Jacobin faction increasingly in the ascendancy over the Germanophiles. Some of the latter were increasingly being driven to support the more inclusive Adamantines instead, even though they disliked the Adamantines’ more moderate stances.
Vinay could not run for re-election of course, but he wanted to give his party’s candidate for 1849—the ‘President of Asturias’ opposition leader Rodrigo del Prado, who had been passed over in 1843—a fighting chance. To that end, he effectively spent the last few months of his presidency campaigning for Prado, speaking of the great prosperity that Unionist rule had brought to the UPSA, the new trade links that had been forged with her ‘brother nations’ (a far cry from his xenophobic rhetoric of six years before) and how Unionism had dealt with Adamantine corruption and misrule in areas such as the Philippines and Formosa. It was a rational and pragmatic message. And just as Vinay had defeated his opponent’s rational and pragmatic message in the last election, so this time the Unionists could not compete with the Adamantines’ impassioned romantic campaign in which they spoke of the sufferings and dreams of the Californian people. Pablo Sanchez is reported to have sardonically commented “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” when the election results came in.[3]
United Provinces of South America presidential election, 1849 (First round) results:
Diego Luppi (Adamantine): 41%
Rodrigo del Prado (Unionist): 30%
Alejandro Muñiz (Colorado): 27%
Others (including various Germanophile “Real Colorado” candidates): 2%
The first round results were noteworthy not only because the Adamantines did well and the Unionists did badly, but because the Colorados had substantially increased their vote compared to 1843 and come within reach of overtaking the Unionists for a place in the run-off. The lesson they took from this was that their Neo-Jacobin xenophobic message had worked better than the inclusive one of the Germanophile faction candidate Eduardo Alemán had in 1843. Of course, as has been pointed out, this is not surprising considering that xenophobic voters were particularly incensed by what they regarded as Vinay’s betrayal and were driven to vote for Muñiz in droves to punish the Unionists, but it was taken as an article of faith by the Colorados that this message would always work and next time might be the time. And so they took their first step down a dark road, with their Germanophiles heading either for the Adamantines or for the small, ineffective breakaway Mentian Party that was founded in 1854. It is hard to deny that these events must have had a substantial influence on Pablo Sanchez’s later ideas.
By contrast to this (and perhaps deliberately to appeal to Germanophile Colorados) the Adamantines ran Diego Luppi, a deputy (but not party leader) in the Cortes whose father had come over from Italy after the Jacobin Wars. Luppi would often tell the story that his father had heard the Meridian president at the time was named Castelli, and that any country in which someone of Italian blood could rise to the top despite being a minority was a country he wanted to live in. Even though the Adamantines had decidedly mixed opinions of Castelli’s chequered record these days, the message was nonetheless powerful and a good way to combat the xenophobia that Vinay had cynically used as a political weapon and that the Colorados held as a genuine belief. When asked of his opinion of Luppi, Pablo Sanchez is recorded as saying “Oh, I expect he no more believes any of this than Vinay did the opposite, it’s just that sensible ideas are in fashion now and stupid ones were six years ago. But they are not popular for the right reasons, and in time people will lose interest and decide that stupid is ‘in’ again. We need more of a change than occasionally getting a leader who might possibly give you the impression that one or two scales have fallen from his eyes. That’s not enough.”
Despite this dismissal, biographers generally agree that Sanchez probably considered Luppi to be one of the better Presidents-General of his lifetime in the UPSA. His victory in the second round was certainly convincing:
United Provinces of South America presidential election, 1849 (Second round) results:
Diego Luppi (Adamantine): 59%
Rodrigo del Prado (Unionist): 41%
The scale of the landslide somewhat masked a significant fall in turnout: many Colorados, despite disliking Luppi intensely, had refused to vote for Prado and had simply stayed home on election day, a sign of the coming radicalisation of the party.
Luppi’s first business of the day was foreign policy, and he gave Emperor Ferdinand an ultimatum that either New Spain should come to the negotiating table with the Californian rebels, or else the UPSA would recognise California’s independence. This was predictably met with an outraged refusal, and—in a narrow vote of the hung Cortes—Luppi managed to push the recognition through. At the time, it seemed inevitable that the UPSA would enter the war on the side of the rebels, with some bitter old Meridian revanchists casting their eyes towards Peru again and younger freebooters drawing speculative lines across New Granada. But Luppi certainly could not push any declaration of war through that divided Cortes: it could only come if the New Spanish made the first move and galvanised public opinion against them. As it was, of course, something quite different happened with the Nottingham Affair—and by the time the UPSA took a direct hand with California, events had overtaken them…
*
From “A History of California” by J. D. Peters-Vasquez (1989)—
By February 4th, the would-be Independent Adamantine Republic seemed imperilled. Mendoza’s forces controlled only the vicinity of Monterey—many other parts of California were out of government control, but the rebels there generally had no connection with Mendoza’s group. If they won, those rebels might well fall in line, but now that possibility seemed out of sight. New Spanish troops surrounded and besieged Monterey on all sides. Fortunately, and ironically, the last two governors had built up the city’s fortifications in fear of revolution, but had never dreamed it would come from within. Supplies of powder and shot were low, though, and Monterey could only hold out for so long.
It was at this point that Commodore Amos Fowler intervened. The commander of all American naval forces—such as they were—assigned to the Drakesland capital and port city of Fort Washington (later, of course, just Washington).[4] The Pacific Squadron was not particularly well-equipped, typically consisting of those frigates and a few second- and third-rate ships of the line that the main Atlantic fleet now considered obsolete, but Fowler was a good commander if one who had a habit of not watching his tongue. Hence his current assignment, considered to be an exile or punishment by many, but Fowler was not one of them. He loved the Pacific Northwest with its untouched natural beauty, mysterious pine forests and mountains which no man had ever climbed, the exotic beasts whose furs gave it much of its wealth. Fowler played almost as big a role in the colony’s governance as Governor-General Jacobs himself, and by the time of the Californian Revolution had spent nearly a decade developing Drakesland. In particular he oversaw the construction of small dockyards to repair the existing ships of the isolated squadron and even produce a few new ones of the smaller classes, exploiting the apparently bottomless forestry resources of the region which made obtaining new masts easy. Fowler was aware of the recent history of the colony’s foundation almost fifty years before and encouraged the colonists by naming the main dockyard “Bella” after the sloop that they had built for Michael Weston and the Noochaland mission at the turn of the century, the first ship ever built in Drakesland.[5]
The idea of a line of Optel towers stretching across the barbarous interior of the continent was laughable, and so communications between the core Empire and Drakesland remained stuck in the last century. Fowler had not received word that Parliament had declared war on New Spain when he decided to act: he simply trusted in his judgement that this would have happened by the time he reached California. This was a risky gamble, but one which paid off. With Jacobs’ somewhat qualified approval, Fowler led his fleet south along the coast into New Spanish waters, carrying with them supplies and a few troops (though Jacobs had insisted on most of them remaining in Fort Washington for defence against any counterattack). Fowler paused when one of his craft reported three New Spanish frigates entering the Hidden Gate [Golden Gate], presumably to dock at Cometa. Fowler exploited the mists of the bay by sending a single rocket frigate, the Javelin, to attack the three frigates in dock and try to set them alight, thus impairing the New Spanish’s ability to launch the counterattack Jacobs feared. The Javelin was protected under cover of the mists and, using maps of the city and its docks to make range estimates, succeeded in forcing the abandonment of one New Spanish ship and limited damage to another. However, rockets were never the most accurate weapon even at the best of times, never mind when the targets were concealed, and the Javelin also inadvertently set Cometa itself alight with two rockets that went off course. The settlement suffered moderate damage and twenty deaths before the flames were doused, and even to this day Cometa is one of the least American-sympathetic parts of California in memory of the attack.
Fowler’s fleet, led by his flagship George North, then pressed on and reached Monterey just as Mendoza’s men were reaching breaking point. Mendoza was even forced to kill one of her own allies who had tried to parley with the New Spanish behind her back in exchange for his own life, but was found out. However, just as General Rubio was about to launch a final push to escalade the breached city defences, Fowler arrived. He divided his forces in two and positioned them in both Monterey and Carmel Bay, meaning they could bombard the New Spanish army from both sides in an enfilading attack that Frederick II of Prussia would be proud of. Rubio was forced to retreat and Monterey had lived to fight another day. The success of the Relief of Monterey was the catalyst needed to get most of the Spanish and English-speaking rebel groups to cleave to the Republic, and news of the victory was welcome in Fredericksburg when it finally reached it, a contrast to the difficulties closer to home.
The New Spanish realised how small Fowler’s fleet was and deployed a substantial force from Acapulco to defeat the fleet and leave Monterey open to attack again. Though the Emperor and King remained sceptical, Adolfo Montero had become convinced that a substantial number of American troops were going to pour into California—reports of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians’ attack on Santa Fe were already trickling down to the City of Mexico. Montero therefore realised that there was a narrow window of opportunity to retake Monterey before American troops could hold the field against their New Spanish counterparts, rather than rebels who would flee before overwhelming force.
The Acapulco force under Admiral Ortiz fought Fowler to a standstill in the Battle of Monterey, which raged from the 14th to the 15th of April 1849 by day and by night. Eventually though the New Spanish superior numbers told, and with four American ships on the bottom of the bay, Fowler was forced to consider a retreat. Accounts at the time suggest the admiral was depressed to the point of contemplating suicide (after he had led his men away safely) due to what he regarded as his betrayal of California—or more likely his betrayal of Mendoza. It has never been proved that the two were lovers but there is substantial circumstantial evidence.
But in the end events intervened, for Fowler was not the only one to have recognised the course of events. Indeed, whereas the American-derived rebels in California were not under any more than the most indirect influence from the American government, the same could not be said of their Russian counterparts. Some of the rebels, particularly the Volkovs, had been serving the ends of the Russo-Lithuanian Pacific Company for a while, and now the dynamic new Director Mikhail Pozharsky (aided and tempered by his administrative sidekick Vladimir Potemkin, son of Ivan) was determined to ensure the creation of a California that would fit the interests of the Company. Given this stance, it is unsurprising that Pozharsky (who commanded his fleet in person, leaving Potemkin to run Russian Yapon from Fyodorsk [Niigata] in his absence) is reported to have considered helping the New Spanish finish off sinking Fowler’s fleet and then turning against them. After all, the removal of the American force would help secure Russia’s predominant place without rivals in postwar California, and if the act was done out of sight of land, it would be difficult to prove that they hadn’t been sunk at the hands of the New Spanish. History turns on such decisions. But Pozharsky decided differently—according to some biographical claims, purely because he admired Fowler’s courage. Of course the two would have many fallings-out later on—not least, according to those same biographers, due to being rivals for Mendoza’s affections.
Therefore the Russians stabbed the New Spanish in the back and saved the Americans from destruction. That night, Monterey celebrated, with American, Russian and Spanish-speaking veterans of the conflict sharing drinks and stories, sometimes via an interpreter. Victory Night was a microcosm of what postwar California would become.
It was a far gloomier night in the City of Mexico when the news arrived. Adolfo Montero knew that American troops had taken Santa Fe and were marching on Tucsón, and a declaration of war from the Tsar could only be a matter of time. (Fortunately for Pozharsky, who had acted even more precipitously than Fowler, Tsar Theodore was already about to declare war due to the situation in Old Spain by the time news of the incident reached his ears). With the newly Adamantine-ruled UPSA increasingly hostile and demanding New Spain allow the recognition of this upstart rebellion as a new state, it seemed as though the house that Charles built was about to come crashing down.
But, though in the end California indeed proved lost to New Spain, events played out quite differently from how they might seem on that dark night…
[1] Some (OTL) examples of such figures include Oliver Cromwell, George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
[2] As in Old Spain, the Inquisition has been reorganised into this secular state security force by Ferdinand.
[3] The proverb Sanchez quotes is a paraphrase of Matthew 26:52.
[4] OTL Seattle.
[5] See Part #86. Obviously by ‘first ship’ the writer isn’t counting any of the craft the local Indians themselves built (and indeed the Chinook helped with the Bella’s construction).
“While they tear themselves apart, in the corner, unnoticed, a single candle burns with a message of hope. We must ensure it is not snuffed out.”
– Pablo Sanchez on the Californian Declaration of Independence, 1849
*
From “A History of California” by J. D. Peters-Vasquez (1989)—
No sooner had the New Spanish fleet left for Old Spain (harried ineffectually by the British Admiral Kincaid) did it become clear that the Campaña de Represión had backfired, the Americans were deadly serious about intervention, and Ferdinand VII had bitten off more than he could chew. The New Spanish state newspapers and propaganda could attempt to downplay the significance of events in the Californias as the security situation deteriorated, but ultimately their denials shattered when the events of New Year’s Day 1849 echoed around the world.
As we have already covered, there were many disparate groups only vaguely united in opposition to the New Spanish authorities in the Californias, though the Campaña had only succeeded in driving these closer together. One consistent misconception of the New Spanish—though it is unclear whether this was only propaganda or something Ferdinand, Antonio and Adolfo Montero truly believed—was that the rebels only consisted of ‘foreign’ settlers and that all men of good Spanish blood remained loyal to their Emperor. This was not the case. Although Emperor Charles’ declaring Monterey as Mexico’s temporary capital in the Watchful Peace had never really meant that much except on paper (with most administration remaining in Veracruz) it had led to the creation of something of a social scene and local aristocracy. That had remained even after Monterey’s official importance had declined, and many of the nobles were resentful at a reversion under Ferdinand to treating the Californias as rustic frontier provinces full of ignorant peasants. One such aristocrat was Emilia Mendoza (as she is known to history, having discarded some of her more elevated-sounding names). By day she was known as an airheaded socialite, but it was all an act, for by night she led the Monterey rebels seeking to overthrow a system they regarded as colonial rule. Despite her own noble blood, Mendoza was an egalitarian and a strong believer in Rouvroy’s Adamantianism in which fairness and meritocracy would determine who rose and who fell, and the state should look after the latter group. Her views in part stemmed from how her family had lost its lands in Oaxaca due to a dispute between alcaldes and backing the wrong horse. Thus she joined the long line of proletarian heroes of aristocratic background whose resentment at being spurned by a feudal system lead to a desire to burn the whole thing down.[1]
By the end of 1848 the Mexican Internal Security Directorate[2] had determined that their enemy had a female leader, though they never dreamed of identifying her with the flirtatious, shallow partygoer Mendoza. They gave her what was intended to be an insulting code name, ‘The Vixen’ (which in Spanish also carries connotations along the lines of ‘the Bitch’ or ‘the Whore’). Mendoza proceeded to embrace this and used it herself, emblazoning the words LA ZORRA on the doors of those local enforcers whom she and her men strangled in their beds in the dead of night. ‘The Vixen’s Kiss’ became a euphemism for a horrible death among the army, and remains a Californian idiom to this day (of course, modern times being what they are, it has also become the name of a famous cocktail).
Christmas 1848 was a melancholy one for the authorities in Monterey: they had just heard that although not defeated as such, the army had failed to catch the Russian rebel ringleaders Pyotr and Pavel Volkov, who had escaped into the lawless Great Valley after days of cavalry pursuit. Rumours abounded about the Americans being more serious than previously thought and amassing troops at Fort Canzus for the long westward trek. Many dismissed such talk and spoke of American troops dying in the empty expanse of the interior from extremes of heat or cold, from the arrows of the Keowa or the blades of the Thirteen Fires. But Mendoza and her allies decided that the time was ripe. They made contact with the ‘bandit’ forces active in the area, mostly American, who had gone to ground with the Campaña curfews. And on New Year’s Day, when many were still recovering from the defiant celebrations the previous night, they struck.
The Governor-General and his assistants were taken in the dead of night in Portolà House. Bloodshed was relatively minor, though there were running firefights with some troops and the Directorate’s agents. Of course Mendoza knew they would have to face the spectre of the New Spanish troops engaging the rebels turning round and descending back on Monterey, but that lay in the future. For now, she called the frightened people of Monterey into Customs House Square – which had not so long ago been the stage for the dumping of George Alexander’s grisly corpse – and proclaimed the creation of an Independent Adamantine Republic of California. American fighters, including Mark Hilton who had fought alongside Eustace Clarke and effectively taken over his group, stood alongside her and pledged to respect Mendoza’s declaration and honour the brief new constitution and bill of rights that she announced. It is unfair to make the claim (as some have) that these were hastily scribbled on the back of an envelope the previous night, for Mendoza had been planning this for a long time. Nonetheless they have become a little notorious for the sort of loopholes that stem from lack of committee proofreading, and it is not surprising that despite its reverence for this moment of national birth, California would eventually have to tear them down and start again in 1873.
Hilton’s support was important because many of the American Supremacist-sympathising rebel groups wanted California to become not an independent republic but a new Confederation of the Empire of North America. Hilton also wanted this, but was willing to work with Mendoza for now and believed that the Republic could be converted into a Confederation later on. Of course to some extent Mendoza was playing sides against one another, thus being the effective progenitor of what has become emblematic of California’s foreign policy. She had no formal contact with the Russians until after the Battle of Monterey Bay in April 1849.
This battle ultimately stemmed from the fact that the New Spanish troops in the Californias, particularly spurred on by an incensed Ferdinand and Antonio, indeed proceeded to turn from their attempt to enforce the government’s will on the countryside and return to Monterey. Mendoza appealed for help to the world and quoted the Malraux Doctrine that oppressed peoples deserved a right to freedom. Of course, France itself ended up on the opposite side, but her plea nonetheless struck a chord with many…
*
From: “Golden Sun and Silver Torch: A History of the United Provinces of South America” by Benito Carlucci (1976)—
The UPSA under the lame duck presidency of Manuel Vinay hesitated. Vinay did not want to jeopardise the increased trade links with the New Spanish kingdoms that had been established under his government. He had drawn up plans for a new organisation dubbed the League of Friendship (Liga de la Amistad) which would see the UPSA’s client states such as Cisplatina, Rio Grande, Pernambuco and Guayana joined irrevocably to Cordoba’s axis of control but without any of those troublesome voting rights that full annexation would bring. However, Vinay had been unable to formally create the organisation during his term. Four years into it, his Unionist Party had lost control of the Cortes Nacionales when it became apparent that his rhetoric about immigration had just been a vote-winning tactic. The election produced a hung Cortes, as the Adamantines made gains but so too did the Colorados—still factionally divided, but with the Neo-Jacobin faction increasingly in the ascendancy over the Germanophiles. Some of the latter were increasingly being driven to support the more inclusive Adamantines instead, even though they disliked the Adamantines’ more moderate stances.
Vinay could not run for re-election of course, but he wanted to give his party’s candidate for 1849—the ‘President of Asturias’ opposition leader Rodrigo del Prado, who had been passed over in 1843—a fighting chance. To that end, he effectively spent the last few months of his presidency campaigning for Prado, speaking of the great prosperity that Unionist rule had brought to the UPSA, the new trade links that had been forged with her ‘brother nations’ (a far cry from his xenophobic rhetoric of six years before) and how Unionism had dealt with Adamantine corruption and misrule in areas such as the Philippines and Formosa. It was a rational and pragmatic message. And just as Vinay had defeated his opponent’s rational and pragmatic message in the last election, so this time the Unionists could not compete with the Adamantines’ impassioned romantic campaign in which they spoke of the sufferings and dreams of the Californian people. Pablo Sanchez is reported to have sardonically commented “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” when the election results came in.[3]
United Provinces of South America presidential election, 1849 (First round) results:
Diego Luppi (Adamantine): 41%
Rodrigo del Prado (Unionist): 30%
Alejandro Muñiz (Colorado): 27%
Others (including various Germanophile “Real Colorado” candidates): 2%
The first round results were noteworthy not only because the Adamantines did well and the Unionists did badly, but because the Colorados had substantially increased their vote compared to 1843 and come within reach of overtaking the Unionists for a place in the run-off. The lesson they took from this was that their Neo-Jacobin xenophobic message had worked better than the inclusive one of the Germanophile faction candidate Eduardo Alemán had in 1843. Of course, as has been pointed out, this is not surprising considering that xenophobic voters were particularly incensed by what they regarded as Vinay’s betrayal and were driven to vote for Muñiz in droves to punish the Unionists, but it was taken as an article of faith by the Colorados that this message would always work and next time might be the time. And so they took their first step down a dark road, with their Germanophiles heading either for the Adamantines or for the small, ineffective breakaway Mentian Party that was founded in 1854. It is hard to deny that these events must have had a substantial influence on Pablo Sanchez’s later ideas.
By contrast to this (and perhaps deliberately to appeal to Germanophile Colorados) the Adamantines ran Diego Luppi, a deputy (but not party leader) in the Cortes whose father had come over from Italy after the Jacobin Wars. Luppi would often tell the story that his father had heard the Meridian president at the time was named Castelli, and that any country in which someone of Italian blood could rise to the top despite being a minority was a country he wanted to live in. Even though the Adamantines had decidedly mixed opinions of Castelli’s chequered record these days, the message was nonetheless powerful and a good way to combat the xenophobia that Vinay had cynically used as a political weapon and that the Colorados held as a genuine belief. When asked of his opinion of Luppi, Pablo Sanchez is recorded as saying “Oh, I expect he no more believes any of this than Vinay did the opposite, it’s just that sensible ideas are in fashion now and stupid ones were six years ago. But they are not popular for the right reasons, and in time people will lose interest and decide that stupid is ‘in’ again. We need more of a change than occasionally getting a leader who might possibly give you the impression that one or two scales have fallen from his eyes. That’s not enough.”
Despite this dismissal, biographers generally agree that Sanchez probably considered Luppi to be one of the better Presidents-General of his lifetime in the UPSA. His victory in the second round was certainly convincing:
United Provinces of South America presidential election, 1849 (Second round) results:
Diego Luppi (Adamantine): 59%
Rodrigo del Prado (Unionist): 41%
The scale of the landslide somewhat masked a significant fall in turnout: many Colorados, despite disliking Luppi intensely, had refused to vote for Prado and had simply stayed home on election day, a sign of the coming radicalisation of the party.
Luppi’s first business of the day was foreign policy, and he gave Emperor Ferdinand an ultimatum that either New Spain should come to the negotiating table with the Californian rebels, or else the UPSA would recognise California’s independence. This was predictably met with an outraged refusal, and—in a narrow vote of the hung Cortes—Luppi managed to push the recognition through. At the time, it seemed inevitable that the UPSA would enter the war on the side of the rebels, with some bitter old Meridian revanchists casting their eyes towards Peru again and younger freebooters drawing speculative lines across New Granada. But Luppi certainly could not push any declaration of war through that divided Cortes: it could only come if the New Spanish made the first move and galvanised public opinion against them. As it was, of course, something quite different happened with the Nottingham Affair—and by the time the UPSA took a direct hand with California, events had overtaken them…
*
From “A History of California” by J. D. Peters-Vasquez (1989)—
By February 4th, the would-be Independent Adamantine Republic seemed imperilled. Mendoza’s forces controlled only the vicinity of Monterey—many other parts of California were out of government control, but the rebels there generally had no connection with Mendoza’s group. If they won, those rebels might well fall in line, but now that possibility seemed out of sight. New Spanish troops surrounded and besieged Monterey on all sides. Fortunately, and ironically, the last two governors had built up the city’s fortifications in fear of revolution, but had never dreamed it would come from within. Supplies of powder and shot were low, though, and Monterey could only hold out for so long.
It was at this point that Commodore Amos Fowler intervened. The commander of all American naval forces—such as they were—assigned to the Drakesland capital and port city of Fort Washington (later, of course, just Washington).[4] The Pacific Squadron was not particularly well-equipped, typically consisting of those frigates and a few second- and third-rate ships of the line that the main Atlantic fleet now considered obsolete, but Fowler was a good commander if one who had a habit of not watching his tongue. Hence his current assignment, considered to be an exile or punishment by many, but Fowler was not one of them. He loved the Pacific Northwest with its untouched natural beauty, mysterious pine forests and mountains which no man had ever climbed, the exotic beasts whose furs gave it much of its wealth. Fowler played almost as big a role in the colony’s governance as Governor-General Jacobs himself, and by the time of the Californian Revolution had spent nearly a decade developing Drakesland. In particular he oversaw the construction of small dockyards to repair the existing ships of the isolated squadron and even produce a few new ones of the smaller classes, exploiting the apparently bottomless forestry resources of the region which made obtaining new masts easy. Fowler was aware of the recent history of the colony’s foundation almost fifty years before and encouraged the colonists by naming the main dockyard “Bella” after the sloop that they had built for Michael Weston and the Noochaland mission at the turn of the century, the first ship ever built in Drakesland.[5]
The idea of a line of Optel towers stretching across the barbarous interior of the continent was laughable, and so communications between the core Empire and Drakesland remained stuck in the last century. Fowler had not received word that Parliament had declared war on New Spain when he decided to act: he simply trusted in his judgement that this would have happened by the time he reached California. This was a risky gamble, but one which paid off. With Jacobs’ somewhat qualified approval, Fowler led his fleet south along the coast into New Spanish waters, carrying with them supplies and a few troops (though Jacobs had insisted on most of them remaining in Fort Washington for defence against any counterattack). Fowler paused when one of his craft reported three New Spanish frigates entering the Hidden Gate [Golden Gate], presumably to dock at Cometa. Fowler exploited the mists of the bay by sending a single rocket frigate, the Javelin, to attack the three frigates in dock and try to set them alight, thus impairing the New Spanish’s ability to launch the counterattack Jacobs feared. The Javelin was protected under cover of the mists and, using maps of the city and its docks to make range estimates, succeeded in forcing the abandonment of one New Spanish ship and limited damage to another. However, rockets were never the most accurate weapon even at the best of times, never mind when the targets were concealed, and the Javelin also inadvertently set Cometa itself alight with two rockets that went off course. The settlement suffered moderate damage and twenty deaths before the flames were doused, and even to this day Cometa is one of the least American-sympathetic parts of California in memory of the attack.
Fowler’s fleet, led by his flagship George North, then pressed on and reached Monterey just as Mendoza’s men were reaching breaking point. Mendoza was even forced to kill one of her own allies who had tried to parley with the New Spanish behind her back in exchange for his own life, but was found out. However, just as General Rubio was about to launch a final push to escalade the breached city defences, Fowler arrived. He divided his forces in two and positioned them in both Monterey and Carmel Bay, meaning they could bombard the New Spanish army from both sides in an enfilading attack that Frederick II of Prussia would be proud of. Rubio was forced to retreat and Monterey had lived to fight another day. The success of the Relief of Monterey was the catalyst needed to get most of the Spanish and English-speaking rebel groups to cleave to the Republic, and news of the victory was welcome in Fredericksburg when it finally reached it, a contrast to the difficulties closer to home.
The New Spanish realised how small Fowler’s fleet was and deployed a substantial force from Acapulco to defeat the fleet and leave Monterey open to attack again. Though the Emperor and King remained sceptical, Adolfo Montero had become convinced that a substantial number of American troops were going to pour into California—reports of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians’ attack on Santa Fe were already trickling down to the City of Mexico. Montero therefore realised that there was a narrow window of opportunity to retake Monterey before American troops could hold the field against their New Spanish counterparts, rather than rebels who would flee before overwhelming force.
The Acapulco force under Admiral Ortiz fought Fowler to a standstill in the Battle of Monterey, which raged from the 14th to the 15th of April 1849 by day and by night. Eventually though the New Spanish superior numbers told, and with four American ships on the bottom of the bay, Fowler was forced to consider a retreat. Accounts at the time suggest the admiral was depressed to the point of contemplating suicide (after he had led his men away safely) due to what he regarded as his betrayal of California—or more likely his betrayal of Mendoza. It has never been proved that the two were lovers but there is substantial circumstantial evidence.
But in the end events intervened, for Fowler was not the only one to have recognised the course of events. Indeed, whereas the American-derived rebels in California were not under any more than the most indirect influence from the American government, the same could not be said of their Russian counterparts. Some of the rebels, particularly the Volkovs, had been serving the ends of the Russo-Lithuanian Pacific Company for a while, and now the dynamic new Director Mikhail Pozharsky (aided and tempered by his administrative sidekick Vladimir Potemkin, son of Ivan) was determined to ensure the creation of a California that would fit the interests of the Company. Given this stance, it is unsurprising that Pozharsky (who commanded his fleet in person, leaving Potemkin to run Russian Yapon from Fyodorsk [Niigata] in his absence) is reported to have considered helping the New Spanish finish off sinking Fowler’s fleet and then turning against them. After all, the removal of the American force would help secure Russia’s predominant place without rivals in postwar California, and if the act was done out of sight of land, it would be difficult to prove that they hadn’t been sunk at the hands of the New Spanish. History turns on such decisions. But Pozharsky decided differently—according to some biographical claims, purely because he admired Fowler’s courage. Of course the two would have many fallings-out later on—not least, according to those same biographers, due to being rivals for Mendoza’s affections.
Therefore the Russians stabbed the New Spanish in the back and saved the Americans from destruction. That night, Monterey celebrated, with American, Russian and Spanish-speaking veterans of the conflict sharing drinks and stories, sometimes via an interpreter. Victory Night was a microcosm of what postwar California would become.
It was a far gloomier night in the City of Mexico when the news arrived. Adolfo Montero knew that American troops had taken Santa Fe and were marching on Tucsón, and a declaration of war from the Tsar could only be a matter of time. (Fortunately for Pozharsky, who had acted even more precipitously than Fowler, Tsar Theodore was already about to declare war due to the situation in Old Spain by the time news of the incident reached his ears). With the newly Adamantine-ruled UPSA increasingly hostile and demanding New Spain allow the recognition of this upstart rebellion as a new state, it seemed as though the house that Charles built was about to come crashing down.
But, though in the end California indeed proved lost to New Spain, events played out quite differently from how they might seem on that dark night…
[1] Some (OTL) examples of such figures include Oliver Cromwell, George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte.
[2] As in Old Spain, the Inquisition has been reorganised into this secular state security force by Ferdinand.
[3] The proverb Sanchez quotes is a paraphrase of Matthew 26:52.
[4] OTL Seattle.
[5] See Part #86. Obviously by ‘first ship’ the writer isn’t counting any of the craft the local Indians themselves built (and indeed the Chinook helped with the Bella’s construction).
Female Zorro. Your timeline has female Zorro. The rest of us can go home; we'll never be this cool.
But really, when I read "By day she was known as an airheaded socialite, but it was all an act, for by night she led the Monterey rebels seeking to overthrow a system they regarded as colonial rule." - I thought: 'Hey, that sounds a lot like... No, no way he's actually gonna go there.'
But then you did: LA ZORRA.
But really, when I read "By day she was known as an airheaded socialite, but it was all an act, for by night she led the Monterey rebels seeking to overthrow a system they regarded as colonial rule." - I thought: 'Hey, that sounds a lot like... No, no way he's actually gonna go there.'
But then you did: LA ZORRA.
VIVA CALIFORNIA!
You really are spoiling us with all these updates - I was kind of hoping California would end up incorporated into the ENA, but actually an Adamantine Republic seems more fitting (and, indeed, something of a breath of fresh air compared to all the transplanted European monarchies taking root in North America). Slightly confused as to why Sanchez seems to regard them so highly, given his disdain for the Adamantines in his own country.
I'm actually really interested to see where Adamantianism fits into the political continuum here, and what its relations with Societism and Diversitarianism are like - but I suspect that's not going to become apparent for a while yet...
You really are spoiling us with all these updates - I was kind of hoping California would end up incorporated into the ENA, but actually an Adamantine Republic seems more fitting (and, indeed, something of a breath of fresh air compared to all the transplanted European monarchies taking root in North America). Slightly confused as to why Sanchez seems to regard them so highly, given his disdain for the Adamantines in his own country.
I'm actually really interested to see where Adamantianism fits into the political continuum here, and what its relations with Societism and Diversitarianism are like - but I suspect that's not going to become apparent for a while yet...
It isn't conclusively stated that Sanchez is talking about the Californian declaration of Independence, although he most likely is...
teg
I'm not sure, of course, but it might be because California ITTL is so thoroughly multi-linguistic and multicultural that it can't really be called a nation-state, so Sanchez might regard a harmonious polity including people of plenty of different nationalities (Russians, Americans, New Spaniards) as at least a good example and perhaps even a kind of proto-Combine.
Great update, Thande. I know it's not exactly something you've only just started but I really do like how the different perspectives of the authors fit together: what struck me is the point about American intervention and Admiral Kincaid's attack, where the Anglo-Franco-American authors focus on how crucial the former was and on the usefulness, if not decisiveness, of the latter whereas the Californian author Peters-Vasquez considers the former as merely one of many factors, including the (it seems) rather more important matter of the resistance of the Californians themselves, and mentions the latter off-hand as almost a waste of time.
Great update, Thande. I know it's not exactly something you've only just started but I really do like how the different perspectives of the authors fit together: what struck me is the point about American intervention and Admiral Kincaid's attack, where the Anglo-Franco-American authors focus on how crucial the former was and on the usefulness, if not decisiveness, of the latter whereas the Californian author Peters-Vasquez considers the former as merely one of many factors, including the (it seems) rather more important matter of the resistance of the Californians themselves, and mentions the latter off-hand as almost a waste of time.
Female Zorro. Thande you crazy bastard, you did it again. Great update.
I too hoped California would join the ENA. But, an independent California is fine, too.
I too hoped California would join the ENA. But, an independent California is fine, too.
FDW
Banned
I say this because Seattle wasn't a very good location in of itself, requiring massive amounts of BOTH landfill and regrading (flattening hills) in order to make itself a halfway decent harbor, and it has rather indirect routes to the interior of the state to boot.
- Status