I think that well has been thoroughly poisoned. Not enough to prevent cooperation, but Britain would never submit to TTL's uber-America. Even if together they crushed the Draka, there'd be little hope of ever escaping New York's influence afterwards.
Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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I think that well has been thoroughly poisoned. Not enough to prevent cooperation, but Britain would never submit to TTL's uber-America. Even if together they crushed the Draka, there'd be little hope of ever escaping New York's influence afterwards.
I do wonder what William Lyon Mackenzie is thinking ITTL. IOTL, he was so anti-slavery that in the 1840s he disavowed his former desires for union with the US on the basis that its slave-ownership made it evil. ITTL, now that he’s a notable politician in the American state of Upper Canada, he’s bound to viscerally support the end of slavery and I really do wonder how his being an American politician with views otherwise similar to Jacksonian Democrats would mesh with the rest of American politics.
I was also making a jokeI wish I was taking something so I could make my humor posts make sense.
Although Newfoundland being English-founded (yes I know of Plaisance, but it came later, English colonists were the first to settle and not merely fish), but not having much to do with the strip of fellow Anglo-founded colonies on the mainland, always surprised me in actual history.
I doubt he's even around ITTL, butterflies would of eliminated him by now
He was born in 1795 and was (at least IOTL) the leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion, so there’s that.
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The British had a really negative opinion right after the Mexican American War all throughout the 1850s, to the point diplomats on both sides thought war would break out multiple times (including at one point Lord Palmerston thinking of sending gunships in response to a leaked plan of American filibusters in Haiti). With all this extra history and size, theres no way things would ever mend.
Also for shits and giggles I'd find it great if Alaska remained Russian on paper but no one bothers thinking that either in St Petersburg and Washington. Speaking of which, Russo American Alliance gang wya. Anglos must be banished from Asia and America.
Also for shits and giggles I'd find it great if Alaska remained Russian on paper but no one bothers thinking that either in St Petersburg and Washington. Speaking of which, Russo American Alliance gang wya. Anglos must be banished from Asia and America.
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Thanks! I have seen ME's TL yet, but give me a link and I'll check it out.
Texas is a weird case because the initial government was set up by the Anglophone minority, but the Tejaneaux will end up reasserting themselves. Red River has been admitted as a Francophone state though, and French has co-official language status in Ward (New Brunswick), Acadia (Nova Scotia), and Louisiana even though most of the people in those places speak English.
Thank you!
Danke.
It's long been an interesting little difference that America has traditionally used racism as an excuse to keep non-whites out of the country while every else has used it as an excuse to conquer non-whites.
They're oppressed minorities who have rebelled unsuccessfully but aren't giving it up yet.
They grabbed some Guatemalan territory that was permanently lost to Mexico IOTL and Los Altos to form a Guatemalan-dominated "Federation of Central America". They're holding together out of fear of Mexico... for now.
Blame President Polk whose original plan for Mexico created it.
Not with Georgia as a self-governing black state in the USA.
You may ask all you like.
They're good thoughts, keep having them!
Britain has been doing whatever it can to keep France "quarantined" although they've grabbed part of Polynesia anyway.
The sale of Florida ITTL didn't determine the northern border of California ITTL.
The OTL civil war actually came close to going international- the Czar sent ships to the Atlantic coast with orders to intervene in Britain and France attacked the Union and Secretary of State Seward actively advocated for a war with Britain to bring the north and south together. Some day I will write a TL where the ACW turns into Crimean War II: Electric Boogaloo, but not today.
Why Im tickled pink
Originally I was planning to have the sale of Rupert's Land be the beginning of normalizing relations between Britain and America, with the USA being uninvolved in European conflicts until the end of the 19th century, but it looks like that isn't going to happen.
Thank you, I'll try not to disappoint.
He's around. He even lead the rebellion in Upper Canada like he did IOTL.
I mean, the French and Poles seem to have forgiven the Germans these days...never say never, is what I'm saying. Depending on how big the Drakia threat gets...
Chapter 8
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Chapter 8
The Ottoman Empire was in decline.
It was doing better- considerably better- than it had IOTL thanks the absence of a French invasion of Egypt and the resultant butterflies. It had France as a protector providing relatively modern weapons (never quite up to current standards, but whatever it was France had just replaced), and countries like Russia were more focused on containing France than promoting Christian rebels in the Ottoman Empire. But the underlying factors that led to the OTL disintegration of the Sultanate were still in place- conservative elements were happy to accept French weapons but French training and organizational reforms were opposed by the military and the shifting markets of the era undermined the Ottoman economy. Uprisings in Serbia and Greece had been suppressed only barely at great cost and by 1850 the Sultanate was standing, but extremely brittle. Russia was beginning to nose around, looking for ways to peel off territory and help liberate its Orthodox Christian brothers whose nationalist movements had been by no means eliminated in the suppression of their revolts.
As Russian and French influence clashed in the Ottoman Empire the Holy Alliance itself was threatening to unravel.
Prussia, with France directly on its border and British Hannover (keep in mind that the King of Britain is Earnest Augustus ITTL) an indigestible lump to the north, was content to remain allied to Russia. Austrian and Prussian interests were colliding in the other German states however, with Austria and its fellow Catholic Bavaria attempting to increase Austrian influence in the mostly Catholic states of the Rhine even though they were within the Prussian-led German Confederation. Austria also resented the treatment of Catholic Poles at Prussian hands (a tad bit hypocritical given their own treatment of the Poles), and Russia’s lukewarm assistance during a Hungarian uprising a few years earlier. Ironically, they were beginning to drift closer to Paris- despite Italy’s annoyance at that development- due in no small part to the rise of the Red Movement.
Hungarians making a brave but doomed attempt at independence.
The Red Movement was the ideological child of the reactionary Red Armies who had emerged as insurgent groups opposed to the First French Republic of Napoleon and its client states. Initially the armies were simply reactionary conservatives calling for a return to the pre-French Revolution state of affairs. But “conservative” for the peasants who made up most of the rank and file of the Red Armies meant things like “deeply religious”, “wanting to kick out the occupying foreigners”, and “being loyal to the king” as opposed to “restoring ancient noble privileges” or “keeping the common people down”. After the defeat of France in the Canadian War the victorious and least semi-victorious Red Armies in Spain, Italy, and Germany gradually morphed into the Red Movement, a political movement that advocated for the interests of the rural peasantry who made up its members and for a deeply traditional Catholicism that was never-the-less more interested in the needs of its common followers than those of the rich and powerful. I say “Catholicism” because while Red Protestants existed, it was mostly a Catholic movement particularly after the investiture of Pope Pius IX (not the OTL Pope of the same name) who was from northern Italy (his imprisonment by the French during their occupation and fervent opposition to Republicanism had played a role in his selection as Pope) and sympathized with the Reds.
The Red Movement was not Christian Democracy- it had no uniform economic philosophy and explicitly condemned democracy and republicanism. It was also deeply nationalistic. But it called for a greater voice in government for its members (like every genuine political movement ever) which paradoxically meant that it endorsed representative government and greater rights for the common people. With most liberal opposition movements banned outside of France, the Red Movement drew reformers and critics of government policies- even in countries where the Reds were in power- who used it as a platform for airing grievances. By 1850 the Reds were in power in Spain, Italy, and Bavaria. In France a conservative-but-not-monarchist alliance strongly influenced by the Reds had won the 1848 elections and President Jean-Baptiste Houdon famously made a pilgrimage to Rome to ask Pope Pius IX’s forgiveness for the earlier French conduct towards him (said forgiveness was granted and the Pope officially recognized the legitimacy of the Second French Republic). They were also increasingly influential in Austria and were a growing but suppressed movement in Naples and Sardinia.
With Russia apparently a greater threat to Austria than France, and with the Reds in government as either senior or junior partners in Vienna and Paris it stood to reason that Austria and France should start drawing closer together as part of a developing Red bloc (to the continued aggravation of Italy, which still wanted Venice back). Meanwhile Britain remained staunchly hostile towards France, opposing French colonial efforts and any sort of rapprochement between France and Austria. London wasn’t fond of the other members of the Holy Alliance either- Russia was a competitor in Central Asia and Prussia wanted Hanover in the German Confederation, but it still preferred both over France and anyone allied to it.
Meanwhile there was an ongoing arms race to create newer and better weapons, and an industrialization race, both of which were continually heightening tensions.
ITTL those guys are Catholic Populist/Conservatives, ignore the hat on the flag.
The Last Crusade began with a ladder.
It was a small ladder of Lebanese cedar sitting under the window of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the holy city of Jerusalem. The ladder was irrelevant in and of itself- no one had actually climbed it in over half-a-century- but it symbolized a frozen religious conflict. Different Christian churches had for many years contested who got to control the holiest sites of the Christian religion, culminating in a series of bloody riots on Palm Sunday in 1757 between different Christian denominations that resulted in triple-digit casualties and the Greek Orthodox Church taking control of many of the more important sites including most of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Christians of all stripes believe that Christ’s resurrection took place. Annoyed at all the Christian infighting and its potentially deleterious effect on public order, Ottoman authorities announced that they would freeze what denominations controlled what, and that in disputed sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, and the Church of the Nativity, no changes could occur to the buildings or their contents without the agreement of all the disputing parties. This enforced “Status Quo” favored the Greek Orthodox, but the presence of five other denominations controlling lesser parts of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher meant that nothing about that church could be changed without agreement from the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches simultaneously. Because no one was willing to spend the political capital needed to convince all six churches to co-operate in moving a pointless ladder, the ladder had remained there from 1757 to 1852 being periodically replaced with a newer identical ladder whenever it started to rot.
It became a symbol of the forced stagnation of the Status Quo, and for Christians like the Roman Catholics who resented the presence of other churches (particularly the Greek Orthodox) in their holy places it was a symbol of heretical control over the most sacred Christian sites.
The Immovable Ladder in an 18th-century engraving, you can see it in the upper right window of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
In 1852 President Houdon of France sent a letter to Sultan Mustafa V (not an OTL sultan) of the Ottoman Empire requesting that Turkish authorities end the Status Quo and transfer control over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and other sites to the Catholic Church. As a conservative and a devout Catholic Houdon certainly desired to see these holy places in the hands of his faith, but the very public letter was also part of Houdon’s project repair French relations with the other Catholic nations of Europe and the letter was endorsed by Emperor Francis II, Pope Pius IX and other Catholic rulers once word of it spread. The Ottomans desperately relied on French support to maintain their empire and Mustafa V was personally suspicious of Orthodox Christians who he regarded as a potential fifth column in the case of war with Russia (his oppression of the Orthodox would conveniently make this paranoia a reality). The Commander of the Faithful considered the letter and agreed, issuing orders that several Christian holy sites be turned over to the Roman Catholic Church in their entirety.
On September 19th, 1852 the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem came down to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where he personally removed the ladder and smashed it on the cobblestones. The following “Ladder Revolutions” (a couple of the groups used actual ladders as symbols) began as a series of mass protests and rioting by Christians across the Ottoman Empire who weren’t Catholic (which was most of them). In Greece the rioting turned into rebellion as the Romios (for the Greeks ITTL had settled their national-soul-search by identifying with Rome and Byzantium instead of ancient Greece and kept the Medieval and Ottoman-era name for themselves) launched another bid for independence. They were joined by the Serbs and the Bulgars- fellow Eastern Orthodox Christians outraged at the loss of the Holy Sepulcher. The Ottomans called for help from France which pledged to answer and Czar Konstantin I of Russia (an alt-brother of the guy in the link) declared war on the Turks in a thundering proclamation that called for a “a new crusade” to “reclaim holy Jerusalem” and free Russia’s oppressed Orthodox brothers. The Holy Alliance split, with Prussia and the German Confederation joining Russia and Austria and Bavaria standing with France and Italy. Pius IX called for devout Catholics to come together to protect the oppressed Catholics who were subject to depredations by the Russians and Prussians, and to keep the Holy Sepulcher in Catholic hands. Spain joined the war on the same side as France and the Ottomans to the surprise of many.
An 1842 lithograph- note the ladder.
Britain initially remained neutral- they didn’t want to fight against their ally Spain and they didn’t want to ally with France even if France was fighting their enemy Russia. But it was events in America that eventually drew Britain in.
In November 1852 President Butler won a second term on a platform of bringing the expansion of slavery to an end in the United States for good. At the same time a new constitutional amendment was introduced to Congress to outlaw slavery wherever it currently existed. It didn’t have the votes to pass yet, but this was a bridge too far for the South. West Florida became the first state to secede from the Union and was followed within days by South Carolina. Jefferson and Louisiana joined them, as did North Carolina and Arkansas. On January 15th, 1853 representatives of the seceding states met in Raleigh, North Carolina and formed a new government; the familiarly named (to my OTL readers) Confederate States of America. Ixcanha participated and joined the Confederacy as a state of its own. Butler attempted to negotiate some kind of peace deal, but he could offer nothing other than a promise that he wouldn’t try to interfere with slavery in the slate states- the South wanted a guarantee that no constitutional amendment would ever be passed to outlaw slavery and this he would not and could not give. The American Civil War began when Georgia refused to return an escaped slave to South Carolina, leading to a confrontation between Georgian and South Carolinian state militias. South Carolina won the fight and with the failure of peace negotiations President Butler began mobilizing the US Army and ordered the deployment of Federal troops to protect a now-isolated Georgia. Great Britain recognized the new country now that it was clear there was going to be a civil war in America, and Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, and Cimarron Territory joined the CSA- prompted partly by Butler’s decision to use force and partly because with British help victory seemed possible. Delaware alone of the slave states was kept in the Union whether it wanted to be there or not.
General Archibald Freeman of the Georgia State Militia, later the first African-American General in the United States Army in the Separate-verse
An uprising began by Hispanics within the Mexican Cession and Emperor Juan I- seeking to secure his shaky rule (as a liberal leader who had proclaimed himself monarch he was unpopular with both liberal and conservative Mexicans)- mobilized every adult Mexican man he could get him hands on and launched the Second Mexican-American War with an invasion of the United States to reclaim Mexico’s lost territory. The rebels greeted his army as liberators and further north Comancheria intensified its conflict with the US government. France, Haiti and most of Central America pledged support for the United States, Britain, Portugal, and Spain for Mexico and the Confederacy. Hostilities between Britain and the United States began when the US Navy fired on British ships bringing military aid to the Confederacy, hostilities between Britain and France began when British ships fired on French ships bringing aid to the Union.
The American Civil War and the Second Mexican-American War had merged into the Last Crusade.
The war was a confusing tangle of alliances- in North America Spain supported Britain and the Confederacy, in Europe Spain was allied to France and at war with every member of the Holy Alliance except for Britain. Portugal was allied to Britain and the Confederacy in the New World but neutral in the Old. In Europe the Protestant and Orthodox Alliance stood together against the mostly Catholic Brotherhood of Nations, but Catholic Sardinia and Naples fought with the Alliance (as did most of the Rhenish Catholics of Germany), while Catholic Mexico was allied to Protestant Britain and the Confederacy in North America, proving that religion was less a cause of the war than its trigger. Pope Pius IX’s decision to issue a papal bull endorsing the Brotherhood’s war to secure Catholic control over sacred sites in the Holy Land and the United States of America’s war to free the slaves of the Confederacy proved very controversial. It won the Pope and Catholicism in general quite a bit of good will among American Protestants and was extremely popular within the members of the Brotherhood, but Catholics in Mexico, Drakia, the Confederacy, and Portugal were hostile towards a Papacy taking an active role in the wars and alliances of temporal nations (because that’s never happened before).
I'm posting another picture of the ladder because I love how ridiculous it is so much. Yes, I know my religion has plenty of ridiculousness of its own. Photograph from 1885 OTL.
On July 4th, 1853, four months to the day after the start of his second term, President Robert M. Butler was attending a public event in New York when an Ohioan haberdasher named Jules Henry shot him in the shoulder. Ironically Henry wasn’t motivated by racism, a love of slavery, or sympathy for the South. Despite later efforts by many to paint President Butler as a martyr for the cause of liberty the haberdasher’s grievance was over his only son, Martin Henry, who had volunteered to fight in the US Army and been killed by accidental friendly fire from another green recruit during training. The President lingered for over a month after the bullet was successfully removed from his initially nonfatal wound by a doctor who hadn’t washed his hands, eventually dying to hospital gangrene. His Vice-President was a much more radical abolitionist originally chosen to balance the ticket and ensure support by Whig radicals for Butler’s first candidacy.
Who was the man upon whom the awesome powers and duties of the Presidency had just devolved?
He was President William Lyon Mackenzie of the United States of America.
Bet you weren't expecting that wham line, were ya? Here I go, droppin' bombshells like Curtis LeMay.
Photo I took with my cellphone of the ladder in June 2019 (OTL). Why don't more people know about this? It's the most beautiful piece of crazy bureaucracy that I've ever seen.
This sounds like a combination of the ACW, the Crimean War, and the First World War
Knowing I'm kinda sorta a part of the "Great Ladder Fiasco of 1757-Infinity" is hands down the best part about being Catholic. All hail the Most Holy Ladder!
Photo I took with my cellphone of the ladder in June 2019 (OTL). Why don't more people know about this? It's the most beautiful piece of crazy bureaucracy that I've ever seen.
Ooh, you know, you could create a religion revolving around the Ladder. It could be called... the Church of Jesus Christ of the Ladder-Day Saints?
...I'll leave.
Ooh, surviving Connecticut Western Reserve. That's not something I see a lot of.
It'll be interesting if it survives, considering that the OTL former-Western-Reserve area actually has a bigger population by the present day than Connecticut itself does.
But I think it's more likely that it'll split sooner or later, and we'll end up with East Connecticut and West Connecticut.
It'll be interesting if it survives, considering that the OTL former-Western-Reserve area actually has a bigger population by the present day than Connecticut itself does.
But I think it's more likely that it'll split sooner or later, and we'll end up with East Connecticut and West Connecticut.
Hopefully they name the Reserve something better, like Erie, or Washington. "West Connecticut" does not roll off the tongue.
Ah so the ottomons just have Cancer, not the horrible slow acting gangrene of OTL...Also great on the Military for getting a bit of stupidity virus.
Got to love awkward political movements contradicting themselves...Also this is a hilarious ironic line:
So kinda like “Democracy as long as you keep to lip service towards us and promise not to rock essential princples (Catholic religon ..”...interesting to see how that works.
Interesting figure, is his movement essentially Christian Democracy early? Also abit suprised there are still conservative groups in France, what with all the deportation that Napoleon had going on.
ah that Ladder, interesting fact, My Grand Ma actually visited the Holy sepulacher With a church group awhile back and the priest had a kinda of hard time explaining what exactly the ladder was. She said it got kinda funny seeing him explain how it worked.
Guy has balls, no question about it.
Ah, so funny how this works.youd think people would learn that being oppressive dicks aren't good for National stability..
Congratulations West Florida on stealing South Carolinas ignominious honor of being first to secede.Wear it well.
Why did they do this? I thought you said most were very ambivalent on slavery wouldn't they want to join Mexico on their semi suicidal crusade?
Oof, Georgia is so screwed here isolated the way it is.
Yeah their screwed. Good bye Mexico, we hardly knew ye
Yeah I have no doubt it's all about the temporal neutrality of the Holy see guys, no doubt at all. (Sarcasm drips off youngest) That said I am Abit worried my self on that account, while I have no problem with who he's siding with in Ameria(Screw Slavery) I am more than Abit weary about it in Europe, yes the Czarists are dicks who deserve a good slap in the face but the ottomans are just as big dicks who are oppressing co Religonists. In addition I do not wish to fall into the trap of the Church of England during WW1, who aggressively backed the Entente for Patriotism purposes only to find disillusionment from the people and soldiers who saw how pointless that war was.
Also here's my guess for the future: The USA will win the war in the most brutal way possible and go on a massive Radical reconstruction efforts after the war. This combined will give the Draka a boost in the arm from Southerners who hate the US government. This will do two things: 1.give them a permanent even more vicous anti American feeling and 2. Allow them to expand deeper into Africa.
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