Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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If I remember correctly Draka had very close ties with India in the books, absorbing parts of Indian culture and using the caste system to justify their masterrace philosophy.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
I was thinking about having him be an ancestor of either that Boulanger or a relative of this Boulanger, but in any case he's meant as a reference to Marshall Boulanger of @Thande's Look to the West TL.
Quite so! Having America conquer Canada was actually one of the less ASB parts of the Drakaverse, it was having that conquest happen specifically in 1812 that didn't make sense. You gotta let little America grow up a bit and eat his wheaties before he can actually take on British Canada and win.
Thank you.
Well done with the predictions.Probably the trickiest part of this TL is mapping out how technology will advance faster than OTL. It's going to keep on being terrifying- and expect it to get worse.
History is full of legitimate badasses and I am firmly of the opinion that every AH TL needs a few to be realistic.
The Red Armies are still too conservative to be Christian Democrats, but since they're composed of common people it stands to reason that they will emphasize the grievances of the common people when speaking to power. And of course their successful uprisings demonstrated that if the people in power screw around too much then they can be overthrown, so it's hard for the Red Armies to not evolve into more democratic movements as time goes on.
Alt-Crimea is gonna be fun.
Well the Draka have to come from somewhere...
What sort of French political philosophy were you thinking of? I was thinking that there might a greater American lean towards secularism than OTL due to French influence, probably a stronger central government, and certainly some French cultural influences.
I though Napoleon getting Napoleon'ed was poetic justice.
Texas ITTL has been settled by French immigrants as part of the same wave of conservative French emigration that hit Drakia, plus with a few Irish along. There are some Americans there, but they settled illegally as Mexico never opened Texas up to American settlement ITTL, and they're a minority.
That's a mistake, I'll fix it.
They can, but part of the Compromise of 1786 that admitted Georgia to the Union was that they wouldn't, and the black aristocracy who ran Georgia until they lost a bunch of land to the State of Jefferson held to that. Expect things to start changing soon.
Quite right, fixed.
Probably not. I'm initially following some of the general outline of the original Drakaverse (almost typed OTL, ha ha) but once we start getting down to brass tacks I'm going to start giving the dice a say in what happens next. At that point anything can happen, and probably will. Even if the Drakians win ITTL, it won't look like their victory in the books though.
We'll get there next chapter, promise.
Speaking of the next chapter it's in the works- I've got it mostly written but it's still fighting me. It doesn't flow very well and I want to make the connection between the bits about Britain and Drakia more organic. In the next few days, hopefully.
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What came to mind at first was a greater influence of liberalism, positivism, more utopian socialism (or really more guys sitting in a Parisan cafe and their weird dreams of social utopia filtering back), discourse for centralization, etc; as opposed to Anglo-American political thought resting on say, Jeffersonianism vs Hamiltonianism.
In other words I suppose greater push for negative liberty yet a stronger and more active government to shape society. It fits in nicely with the less isolationism, stronger government, and the larger urban population here.
Buurrr,(I cover my self under the blankets but let one eye see through because I probably can't turn away.)Probably the trickiest part of this TL is mapping out how technology will advance faster than OTL. It's going to keep on being terrifying- and expect it to get worse.
True that, even better when you make a OC who is realistic for this environment.History is full of legitimate badasses and I am firmly of the opinion that every AH TL needs a few to be realistic.
Interesting, so what is there politics right now? Is it something like a Constuional monarchy with a Church and The People Repesentives (through the Red Army) to keep the King in check and doing his duties? Also on another note it may make the Catholic Church Abit less weary of Revolutionary elements what with more examples than the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1838 (which had a anti Clerical undertone many times with the Pope being forced to flee Rome), they may be willing to work with them to gain an understanding.The Red Armies are still too conservative to be Christian Democrats, but since they're composed of common people it stands to reason that they will emphasize the grievances of the common people when speaking to power. And of course their successful uprisings demonstrated that if the people in power screw around too much then they can be overthrown, so it's hard for the Red Armies to not evolve into more democratic movements as time goes on.
I would argue their also be greater arguments against Secularism for ITTL America though what with Drakas turn to Darwinist Atheism and the Depravity which comes with it and the addition of Mexico and Centeral America to the Union (not secular places in the slightest) plus American dedication to Religous Freedom making European style Secular laws or Lacite being repelled easily. Then again it be interesting to See a Secular America while Europe stays Religous.
By that Of course you mean extremely bloody. If any actual people who lived in our tls found us they probably would think us complete sadists.
So born out of Nietzhce in London possiblly? Intriguing
I think part of the reason laicite has achieved so much success in Europe is because of the close relationship religions have had to the old repressive states. Naturally, the newer regimes, which arose democratically or otherwise, viewed religious groups as organizations which could potentially organize a restoration, and so they naturally suppressed them with harsh laws as a result. The US established constitutional secularism early on, so this same association between the state and religion did not exist to the same extent.
Of course, Quebec has laicite, but that’s again a result of the Catholic Church being associated strongly with repression. ITTL, where Papineau and the Patriotes won, you may not see the same laicite emerge, as the trend towards ultramontanism and Catholic state religion would be weakened though not eliminated. Then again, you could very well see something like the Parti Rouge, so there is potential for some anti-clericalism in Quebec. This is particularly the case if Papineau’s endorsement of the seigneurial system results in a party split between his moderates and the radicals, with the church probably supporting the moderates.
Well I would also believe the Constuion also establishs equal protections against any such laws by the State to interfere in Religous and private lives the way say France does. This is baked into the nature of the first amendment and overturning it would either take very creative Constuional interpertation (not impossible given the horrible decisions which have been given in the past) or a Constuional amendment.
I'd argue the oppositee will happen ITTL, Secularism and Secular Education will be associated with The French Occupation, and as such something to be fought against and suppressed.
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I doubt it. Sure, during the white terrors that would follow the occupation it would be suppressed by the government, but eventually such attitudes would fade away and openly secular parties would re-emerge. After all, if a religious organization is too closely associated with a repressive regime it generates a reaction against it and maybe the religion in general. If secularists are suppressed (and remember, many secularists would also be democratic reformists), it could cause a revolution.
It honestly seems a bit dubious, especially since there would be a lot of secularists who would be fighting against France.
I hope that either Stirling's super-Nazis don't arise or the rest of the world isn't too busy chugging lead paint to stop them.
Chapter 6
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Chapter 6
For Great Britain the Canadian War brought victory and defeat.
The second French invasion of England was swiftly and effectively defeated, a friendly government was restored to Spain, and the Channel Islands were returned to British patrimony. British attempts to invade France itself however- either via Spain or at Pais-de-Calais- were failures and the war in Canada itself was a catastrophe. It was the second time that Britain had lost colonies due to internal rebellion and their failure to decisively defeat France soured the victory in Europe. The French Republic remained a threat and Eastern Europe was still in the hands of an unfriendly absolutist coalition. Drakia had a better experience, having spent most of the war fighting against the Boers (who were a collection of independent republics friendly towards France and America, and therefore a potential threat to be eliminated) and their Tsonga allies. The Boer areas became the Vaal Colony while the Tsonga lands were added to Mozambique. As had been the case during the French Revolutionary Wars a small Drakian Legion served with the British Army overseas, seeing service in Nova Scotia and Spain.
As they had done at the end of the last war the British Parliament convened a special commission of inquiry to contemplate their failures and make recommendations on how to improve. The Agnew Commission (after its chair Lord Agnew) provided a wide variety of suggestions, but once again we are only going to focus on a couple of them- particularly those that pertain directly to Drakia and the British colonies.
In OTL the Rebellions of 1837 in Canada led to Britain realizing the need to provide greater responsible government for its settler colonies, a shift towards the merging of settler colonies together into larger units, and ultimately the creation of the British Dominions. In the Separate-verse the Canadian Revolution of 1836 and the following Canadian War led to Canada being lost almost entirely to Britain, apparently following a very similar pattern to the loss of the 13 Colonies and the American Revolution. The lesson was a much sharper one, and it resulted in a general recommendation by the Commission that Britain begin granting greater degrees of responsible government to Britain’s colonies- particularly its settler colonies. This was accompanied by another recommendation that Britain take steps to better enable colonies to defend themselves, in recognition of the fact that Canada was almost entirely reliant on the mother country for protection but their need for protection came at the same time that the British military was most needed in Europe.
These recommendation plus a variety of other factors, will shape a new era for the British Empire.
With France effectively quarantined by Europe and Portugal and Spain mostly focused on France, Britain faced little competition for colonizing abroad. The loss of Canada meant that they would turn their resources away from the New World- focusing heavily on Africa and Asia, particularly after a Metis Rebellion in 1853 broke off the southern part of Rupert’s Land as the independent Red River Republic. Unable to defeat the rebellion and either effectively control or defend Rupert’s Land Britain sold the colony to the United States- the beginning of warming relations with America- in exchange for a tidy sum and an agreement that the Hudson’s Bay Company could continue its operations in the area tax free (the Red River Republic joined the Union somewhat grudgingly, becoming America’s second Francophone state). British colonies rapidly received responsible government- beginning with Newfoundland- and soon dominion-status- beginning with Drakia in 1851.
Scene from the Metis Rebellion.
Eventually- not right away, but eventually- Britain will come to a realization about the nature of colonialism. This will be similar to realizations had by certain countries IOTL, and it can be summed up by the statement that “colonialism costs money”. You have to pay to maintain, administer, and defend a colony, while hoping that the profit obtained from using the colony as a cheap source of resources and an open market for goods will offset your costs. But a self-governing dominion (or a banana republic if you’re OTL America or a newly independent former colony with a puppet government if you’re OTL France) can take on most of the expensive parts of actually running a colony while still providing a cheap source of resources and a market for your goods. In other words, Britain will come to realize that it’s cheaper to lead a family of British dominions run by settler populations that remain under British economic dominance, than to directly rule colonies stretching around the globe.
Like I said, this realization is gradual and won’t be complete until much later, but it began with the changing British approach towards its colonies in the years after the Canadian War. For places like Australia, Newfoundland, and eventually New Zealand this will result in majority-ruled democracies similar to OTL. For India, Drakia, the East Indies, and the West Indies it will mean white colonial minorities ruling over disenfranchised native majorities. The British Empire ITTL will end up much more willing to grant white settlers a say in things, but with fewer colonial competitors and with imperialism taking on the appearance of a much more straightforward conquest it will be considerably more racist and far less willing to grant natives any say in how they are governed.
It’s not that natives won’t end up being involved intimately in British rule- there will be favored classes of native soldiers, low-ranking administrators, and potentates everywhere in the empire. But as unwilling as Britain was IOTL to let Africans or Asians have a voice in colonial governance, they will be even less willing here.
But as a new epoch was beginning for Great Britain, Drakia was experiencing a new era of its own, one that would shape the national character of Drakian people. Later Drakian historians will dub it the Tutelage Period when Britain and Drakia fought together for expansion and dominance, Britain imparting on its firstborn son the principles of empire and supremacy in the days before the homeland fell to decadence and weakness. It was the days of the Drakian Gold Rush when large numbers of immigrants flooded into the country and Drakia began truly exploiting its mineral resources for the first time. It was the time when the industrial revolution first spread to Africa and received a uniquely Drakian stamp. It was a period of cultural flowering, with authors such as Adam Burton and Raymond Leroux producing novels and poetry advancing a concept virtually identical to Kipling’s White Man’s Burden. It was when Drakia took its first steps of self-government and elected its first Premier- Wilard Berthold- and his immediate successors.
And of course, it was when the foundations of the Bonded Labor System were laid out.
A nice an early South African Gold Rush ought to give the Draka the money and population boost they need to really get started.
Drakia received responsible government in 1845 along with a law abolishing slavery that offered them no choice in the matter. The anger from many Drakians over this surprised the British- for Drakia as in the OTL American South slavery had become a matter of ideology and tribal identity more than an economic system or a source of cheap labor. They had little say in the issue however, and Berthold himself argued strongly that while the decision over slavery should be Capetown’s and not London’s to make, he held that they did not need to keep slavery. The traditional European societies that Drakia idolized- pre-revolutionary France and aristocratic Britain- did not rely on slavery, therefore neither should they. Rather, traditional European society relied on an underclass of free serfs or peasants under the paternal eye of their overlords- this, Berthold insisted, was what they should aspire to. Once the colony had gained responsible government and the descendant of American Loyalists and Hessian Mercenaries had been elected its first Premier, he inaugurated “the New Serfdom” of the Bonded Labor System.
Berthold’s BLS replaced slavery with a system under which Bondsmen (initially composed only of former slaves) would be required to work to pay off their former value and eventually earn their freedom. This proved identical to OTL debt slavery as crooked book keeping could easily keep families enslaved for generations and it was not hard for free non-whites who fell into regular debt to be seized as Bondsmen. Of course, debt could be bought and sold, making it possible to transfer Bondsmen from one employer to another. The use of Bondsmen expanded considerably in Drakia at this time, as labor-intensive forms of agriculture became economical in newly acquired territory and as mining emerged as important to the Drakian economy. It was occasionally possible for a Bondsman to gain his freedom though, and some did through individual acts of heroism or employers choosing to forgive debts on their deathbeds. While escape short of literal escape from the BLS was impossible for most, it would never become totally closed.
One of the primary new ways in which Bondsmen were used was in the spread of the industrial revolution to southern Africa.
Part of Britain’s plan to ensure that their colonies could protect themselves involved permitting the larger ones to develop their own military industry so that they wouldn’t be reliant on long-distance imports of weapons and munitions from the homeland that could be subject to disruption in wartime. Despite a deliberate attempt to prevent the industrial production of civilian goods in the colonies (so that they wouldn’t end up competing with Britain economically) this will eventually lead to the emergence of general industrial production, but industrialization in the British colonies/dominions began with military factories. For Drakia this meant a surging demand for Bondsmen in mining coal, iron, and other mineral resources and it also meant the use of Bondsmen (and women) in manufacturing itself. Bonded workers in factories and industry often had privileges that Bondsmen didn’t have in other areas- they had access to a company store, could rent company housing, and if they worked long enough and hard enough could realistically expect to earn their freedom within 50-60 years. It had an emphasis on child labor as young children were easier to intimidate and control, but extra privileges and the thin promise of eventual freedom offered more motivation to work than standard slavery and of course injured bondsmen were generally freed and cast out to spare their employers the cost of taking care of an injured worker who was unlikely to be productive (this occasionally led to Bondsmen deliberately injuring themselves, but the consequences of an injury bad enough to make an employer abandon their investment kept this to a minimum). Drakian industry was labor heavy in any case, relying on large amount of cheap Bonded labor to make up for more primitive industrial machinery (and because marginally-less-forced labor and complex industrial equipment make for a bad combination).
Just to make sure that you’re properly visualizing this- imagine a crowded wooden building in the sweltering heat of southern Africa. The long building is lined with tables, each surrounded by young African children around the ages of eleven, twelve, or thirteen. Each table has at least one adult supervisor- also an African native and a Bondsman, one occupying a more privileged position in the Bonded hierarchy with extra perks and wages in form of scrip that they can use at the company store. The children labor in the stifling heat for fifteen to sixteen hours a day, no child responsible for more than a single repetitive action performed over and over again as part of the assembly of an early metal cartridge. They are beaten, bullied, and whipped by the supervisors to keep them productive and it goes without saying that there are no protections against sexual abuse at the hands of Bonded supervisors, their white Drakian managers, or their fellow workers. They are often injured by the tools that they use, sickened by the repetitive labor and dire working conditions, or simply by normal diseases taking advantage of immune systems weakened by forced labor. If their injury is minor or they seem likely to recover then they will be cared for- each represents an investment usually of a few shillings needed to purchase their debt- those maimed into worthlessness are cast out to fend for themselves and those with illnesses too expensive to treat or unlikely to abate are left to die in an infirmary. If this later group recovers anyway then they are returned to work as soon as they are judged ready. Officially the factory that purchased the debts of the children- in some cases they were sold into bondage by desperate parents, many others are orphans created during Drakia’s wars of expansion- is educating them and converting them to Christianity. Their education consists of the work they learn to do, their religious instruction of the small wooden crosses around their necks and a weekly sermon delivered by a wandering clergyman whose arrival is welcomed by the boys and girls- more for the break they get to listen than for his words. If they live long enough, they have a chance to be transferred to other duties- perhaps even more privileged ones like their supervisors- and may earn their freedom by the time they are in their seventies and old enough that their labor begins to lose its value. More will die first, or gain their freedom through a crippling injury, or attempt to escape and end up sent to the mines. A few may even escape successfully to the bush and be quickly replaced.
This is what the industrial revolution in Drakia looked like. This is the face of the New Serfdom.
The best part of this is that the Drakian Industrial Revolution is only marginally worse than the OTL IR in America and Britain.
But most of Drakia’s native subjects weren’t Bonded, most were ordinary Africans with Drakian Residency subject to a Hut tax that could be paid through money, commodities or labor. Since most Native subjects of Britain’s firstborn dominion couldn’t afford to pay the tax through money or commodities, they were forced to pay through labor and were used by the state to build new towns and infrastructure central to Berthold’s economic programs including roads and eventually railways. As a firm believer in the Continental Imperative- Drakia’s destiny to unify and civilize all of Africa- Wilard Berthold pushed for the early versions of these infrastructure projects in order to better tie together the British colonies in southern Africa and was an early advocate of confederation between the colonies in question.
While Berthold arguably launched the “Middle Wars of Expansion” with the Drakian invasion of Tsawana territory after the discovery of diamonds there, it was under the third and last Premier of the Crown Colony of Drakia, John Thomas, that expansion resumed in earnest. Despite attempts by later Drakian historians to characterize these wars as “Drakian” conquests, for the most part they consisted of British expansion motivated by Britain’s loss of its primary colonies in North America and the hostile situation in Europe. As disease remained a problem in the interior expansion during this time was mostly focused along the coast of East Africa, with conquest pressing into the territories of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, OTL Tanganyika, and up into OTL Kenya. British outposts were first established in OTL Namibia as well, and after the purchase of Angola from Brazil (which was dealing with internal unrest including an uprising in the south, plus the aftermath of a slave revolt that saw the rebels granted transportation to Brazilian São Tomé in exchange for giving up) included the expansion of Angola further into the interior and a partially successful war with the Kingdom of the Kongo. Drakian involvement included the contribution of troops for these conquests and growing responsibility to police them and put down rebellions after conquest was completed. This increasingly became the case after Drakia gained Dominion status in 1851 and the beginning of Drakia confederation.
As Premier of the Crown Colony Thomas- himself a war hero and a military man- formalized the militia system as the Royal Drakian Guard with all able-bodied Drakian men required to do two years’ service at the age of eighteen and then remain in the reserves until age thirty. He restructured the Colony’s military in general when he became the first Premier of the Dominion of Drakia, emphasizing a small but highly trained professional army with the best available weapons backed by the more numerous but less elite Guard. It was Thomas who- recognizing the advantages a technologically advanced army enjoyed over a technologically inferior one- created the Bureau for Technical Progress. Though envisioned as being responsible for technological advancement, the Bureau will end up mostly being concerned with monitoring and adopting new innovations from overseas as Drakian society is not the sort that will lend itself well to domestic inventions. Their lack of a sense of technological conservatism will serve them well however, with some foreign discoveries seeing more rapid adoption in Drakia than in their countries of origin.
A good example of this is the airship, with the first steam-powered dirigible making its debut in France in the second half of the 1840s. The Second French Republic was less eager to invest large sums of money into experimental technologies after Napoleon’s expensive boondoggles into heavy artillery however, and while many countries tinkered with powered airships it was Thomas’ government in Drakia that took the plunge into deploying what he conceived of as a more mobile and effective means of aerial reconnaissance than pre-existing military hot air balloons. These early airships were small, short-ranged, and very dangerous, but saw effective use for scouting in the deserts and grasslands of southern Africa and in the savannahs of East Africa and Angola.
This is what we're talking about when we say Drakian dirigibles in the 1850s and 60s. Small, a crew of maybe two or three, short ranged by modern standards. Not really capable of carrying weapons, they're used almost exclusively for reconnaissance.
Of course, no account of Drakia’s technological progress in the 1850s would be complete without mentioning Doctor Henricus Calvet.
Calvet was a doctor at a camp established to hold captured enemy combatants during a Native rebellion in Mozambique against the deeply unpopular hut tax. Conditions at such camps were universally miserable, with inmates surviving on limited rations in filthy and unhygienic conditions. Calvet took things one step further however- while in charge of medicine at the Pondo camp he engaged in a variety of deeply unethical “scientific” experiments upon the inmates. These included deliberately injuring prisoners and then applying different treatments for their injuries and dosing prisoners with a variety of toxic or dangerous substances to see what would happen. At the time the doctor was a largely unknown individual whose experiments were low profile (there was very little oversight of the treatment of captured Native rebels) and his strange biological and racial theories plus a lack of scientific rigor meant that his data was useless. Calvet is noteworthy for two reasons however; the first is that he originated a practice of human experimentation among the Drakian medical establishment (such as it was) and the second was the steps that he took towards manufacturing a new and terrible weapon.
Using urine collected from camp inmates the doctor produced moderate amounts of yellow phosphorus using the method pioneered by Hennig Brandt in 1669. At the time phosphorus was a curiosity, intriguing for its glowing properties but otherwise useless. Calvet observed its toxicity by giving it to inmates to ingest, but it was brutal consequences of an accidental ignition that gained the attention of a visiting military commander. Later experiments by the Bureau for Technical Progress (sidelining Calvet entirely) produced a very early and very dangerous type of grenade using chemicals similar to OTL Fenian Fire.
It was during Last Crusade that they would first see use.
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My god. That’s horrifying.
Though putting the horror of it all aside, it does explain how Drakia is going to get away with slavery in an era where slavery was viewed as uncivilized. It has a system which is technically not slavery, and which will doubtless be compared by Drakian intellectuals to the likes of the Indian indenture system (a system which, after all, lasted until the early 20th century due to the opposition of Indian nationalists, not to Britain growing a conscience).
Though putting the horror of it all aside, it does explain how Drakia is going to get away with slavery in an era where slavery was viewed as uncivilized. It has a system which is technically not slavery, and which will doubtless be compared by Drakian intellectuals to the likes of the Indian indenture system (a system which, after all, lasted until the early 20th century due to the opposition of Indian nationalists, not to Britain growing a conscience).
While it's fascinating seeing the horrific racist trainwreck of a system be set up I'm still hoping that at some point Drakia/Draka's actions register as a threat. Dystopias, like what the Draka-verse turned into, aren't any more realistic than blissful utopias. Hopefully, with America being set up as the Anti-Draka they can stop the Edgelord Domination from conquering the world.
It's always good to get a reminder that OTL isn't the worst of all possibilities.
There is no way an external force is going to derail this train off the tracks for quite some time to come. The USa is busy digesting and incorporating Canada, and the North/South free/slave conflict will happen, so they are not going to be concerned with what is going on in Africa. The British are moving towards a situation where "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" with their colonies now dominions. Obviously the bind labor/debt peonage the Drakia have put in place to replace slavery has not drawn any sort of response from the UK. As long as it is the "locals" who are moving in to putting up the muscle and expense of Imperial expansion in Africa, while at the same time buying British goods that is just fine for the UK. The rest of the world really does not matter. I'm sure the British military will see the Drakia military as "interesting" and may adopt some of the Draka tech, basically "ignored" tech they decide to use, like airships after they see it in action. However the Draka are only fighting "natives" so what can the British learn from fighting fuzzy-wuzzies.
I'm curious, given that the U.S. has absorbed (or will absorb) two francophone states which kept French, and presumably still retained their Catholic faith, will the U.S. in this timeline not develop as harsh of an anti-catholic sentiment?
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