Spectre of Europe - An Alternative Paris Commune Timeline

[guinazacity]

Chapter Sixty Two: Awful Fortune

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[FONT=&quot]“The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much."
Rasputin’s telegram to Spala, November 1910.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]“Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Psalm Nine[/FONT]

The Hunting Lodge at Spala
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[FONT=&quot]In the winter of 1910 the Tsar’s family travelled to their Hunting Lodge in Spala in Russian Poland. Intending to celebrate Christmas there, the Royal Family, a select group of courtiers, an a small army of servants trekked by rail and then by horse and coach to the grand lodge.
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[FONT=&quot]It was icy on the steps of the lodge, slippery sleet frozen and trampled into treacherous ice. It happened in seconds; the young Tsarevich’s toes skidding on a patch of blackened ice and his small body tumbling back down the hard stone. He only fell a couple of steps, bouncing off the balustrade as he catapulted back into the retainers who rushed to grab at him, but the fall broke two ribs.
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[FONT=&quot]And started the haemorrhaging.
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[FONT=&quot]Alexei had suffered with haemophilia B since birth, a genetic condition inherited from his estranged Grandmother Queen Victoria. Now, as the boy lay in semi-consciousness, he bled internally, his body unable to clot the bleeding. The court Doctors, Botkin and Devrenko, who travelled everywhere with the Tsar and his family, tried to operate and had reasonable success in resetting the ribs, under intense stress, and managed to staunch some of the bleeding. But they could not be sure they had got it all. They pleaded with the Tsar to be allowed to administer the new wonder drug Aspirin.

Rasputin, however, the Tsarina's emotional crutch, steadfastly refused by telegram. It was he who, two years before, had taken Alexei off the medication - a course of action that seemed to have brought about a remarkable recovery. An antiaggregant, Aspirin was, it is now known, partly responsible for the Tsarevitch's joint swelling and pain. But here it would, although neither Doctors nor Holy Man knew it, have staved off the after-shocks of the injury - Sepsis.

Within a few hours Alexei had gone into a pulse-racing shock from which his little body could not recover. He died about the time Rasputin arrived at the nearby train station, and the death sent his mother into insensible grief which required her to be sedated.

For Nicholas II, horror-struck and reeling with the grief of loss, the future seemed suddenly bleak. His brother Michael had been swept away during a Typhoid epidemic in the camps during the Great Balkan War and now the next in line seemed to be his preening and pretentious cousin Kyril. For a few days the Tsar held the news back from the public, isolated as they were in rural Poland, whilst he considered what to do next.
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Poor Alexei, won't get to experience so many things in life, including but not limited to being sentenced to death by the cries of the starving masses.

 

[tuxer]

Snip

The future is going to be very interesting for Russia. If I am not mistaken Kirill Vladimirovich was the guy who married his first cousin in open defiance of the Orthodox Church and strict royal values. If he becomes Tsar, he could bring about very needed reforms to the Russian Empire.

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

Poor Alexei, won't get to experience so many things in life, including but not limited to being sentenced to death by the cries of the starving masses.

He was murdered in exile by the Bolshevists.

 

[guinazacity]

He was murdered in exile by the Bolshevists.

Same same.

 

[Shawn Endresen]

The future is going to be very interesting for Russia. If I am not mistaken Kirill Vladimirovich was the guy who married his first cousin in open defiance of the Orthodox Church and strict royal values. If he becomes Tsar, he could bring about very needed reforms to the Russian Empire.

Kyril's a nasty piece of work to such an extent that Vladimir f'ing Lenin honestly was the better choice. OTL he announced that the gulags and purges of the Bolsheviks were fantastic ideas and he'd definitely be keeping them when he became Tsar. His mother's been scheming to put him on the throne since he was an infant, including one attempt to poison Nicholas II that the family swept under the rug, and the result is all of Nicholas' inattention and self-absorption with narcissism and megalomania thrown in for good measure. Nobody will like Kyril's "reforms", I promise. You'd have to skip Kyril and his brothers and go to cousin Peter...but Peter's a liberal, so Nicholas won't do that...

 

[tuxer]

Kyril's a nasty piece of work to such an extent that Vladimir f'ing Lenin honestly was the better choice. OTL he announced that the gulags and purges of the Bolsheviks were fantastic ideas and he'd definitely be keeping them when he became Tsar. His mother's been scheming to put him on the throne since he was an infant, including one attempt to poison Nicholas II that the family swept under the rug, and the result is all of Nicholas' inattention and self-absorption with narcissism and megalomania thrown in for good measure. Nobody will like Kyril's "reforms", I promise. You'd have to skip Kyril and his brothers and go to cousin Peter...but Peter's a liberal, so Nicholas won't do that...

Yeah, you're right. Lenin might have been authoritarian and had zero tolerance for political dissident, but he would not have dragged Russia into hell. Although I didn't knew about the attempted assassination on Nick, but I doubt that would make him megalomaniac. I mean, Nick was the rightful heir to the Russian throne- he was already important so self-absorption was very likely part of his upbringing. That someone attempted to assassinate him would mean very little for his psychological growth.

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Sixty Three: Swan, Pike, and Crab

Chapter Sixty Three: Swan, Pike and Crab

W[SIZE=-1]HENE’ER[/SIZE] companions don’t agree,
They work without accord;
And naught but trouble doth result,
Although they all work hard.

One day a swan, a pike, a crab,
Resolved a load to haul;
All three were harnessed to the cart,
And pulled together all.

But though they pulled with all their might,
The cart-load on the bank stuck tight.
The swan pulled upward to the skies;
The crab did backward crawl;
The pike made for the water straight— It proved no use at all!
Now, which of them was most to blame,
’Tis not for me to say;
But this I know: the load is there Unto this very day.
Ivan Krylov, Fables.

What emerged from the Hunting Lodge at Spala was a Tsar who, whilst deep in mourning, was committed to his new plan of action. He had to wait until reaching St Petersburg, the black wreathed train sweeping through a countryside lined with his grieving subjects, before he could take action.

As the preparations for his son's funeral began in earnest, the Tsar shocked his council of ministers with his bold intent. Kyrill, the heir apparent, was too dissolute Nicholas argued. Too morally suspect, too quick to flirt with the forces of "reform" if it meant he could do what he wanted. Russia, he reminded his ministers, was a country on the edge of a new world. "I am the helmsman" he pointed out at one point in the discussion, "and any accidental nudge one way or another heads us for Scylla or Charybdis." Kyrill, he argued, could never manage such a task. "The Empire would be ruined within a week".

Instead, in a move that silenced Stolypin and the others around the table, Nicholas instead intended for a different succession. To skip Kyrill and his younger brother, he argued, could be seen as too petty - a indisputable sleight to an entire section of his family. Instead, Nicholas proposed unpicking the Pauline Laws that had set the current succession law one hundred years before, and reverting to Peter the Great's system of elective succession. The candidate in mind? His oldest daughter Olga.

Despite the uproar Nicholas was determined. He had, as the Okhrana informed him, a huge wave of public sympathy over the death of his son. Foreign leaders and dignitaries were arriving in St Petersburg already including, despite the frosty reception, his uncle and aunt Edward VII of England and Alexandra. Edward, although in poor health, had cancelled a recuperative break in Switzerland to attend and, a master of small-talk and public diplomacy, caused a considerable thaw in Anglo-Russian relations with his heart-felt and sincere grief over the death of Alexis. The time, Nicholas argued, was right to push the issue.

His method involved, to the further shock of the ministers, calling a Duma. Nicholas banked on the wave of public sympathy packing the two houses with conservative supporters of the monarchy who would rubber stamp the law change and then effectively neuter themselves. The Zemstvo system his grandfather had invoked, he pointed out, had not bred any real opposition to the regime.

The Senate, or State Council, of Russia - the Upper House. Nicholas II hoped that the Duma elections of 1911 would essentially mirror the conservatism of this group.
​

The elections were set for January 1911 - deliberately short to prevent opposition groups campaigning too widely. National Union, essentially the Tsarist Party, seemed to be doing well, buoyed up by secret state funds and riding a wave of sympathy for Nicholas II. The results, however, were not quite what the Tsar had hoped for:

Seats in the 1911 All Russian Duma
(478 seats total - 240 needed for majority)
National Union - 138
Other Right Wing Candidates - 37
Ethnic groups - 63
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) - 88
Social Revolutionary Party - 132

Whilst the National Union had seen off the Constitutional Democrats the upsurge of the Social Revolutionaries (SRs) had shocked many. Although Nicholas II was currently secure, the Senate still running by direct appointment, this fractious lower house threatened to throw his plans askew.

 

[Reydan]

Yeah, you're right. Lenin might have been authoritarian and had zero tolerance for political dissident, but he would not have dragged Russia into hell. Although I didn't knew about the attempted assassination on Nick, but I doubt that would make him megalomaniac. I mean, Nick was the rightful heir to the Russian throne- he was already important so self-absorption was very likely part of his upbringing. That someone attempted to assassinate him would mean very little for his psychological growth.

Kyril's a nasty piece of work to such an extent that Vladimir f'ing Lenin honestly was the better choice. OTL he announced that the gulags and purges of the Bolsheviks were fantastic ideas and he'd definitely be keeping them when he became Tsar. His mother's been scheming to put him on the throne since he was an infant, including one attempt to poison Nicholas II that the family swept under the rug, and the result is all of Nicholas' inattention and self-absorption with narcissism and megalomania thrown in for good measure. Nobody will like Kyril's "reforms", I promise. You'd have to skip Kyril and his brothers and go to cousin Peter...but Peter's a liberal, so Nicholas won't do that...

The future is going to be very interesting for Russia. If I am not mistaken Kirill Vladimirovich was the guy who married his first cousin in open defiance of the Orthodox Church and strict royal values. If he becomes Tsar, he could bring about very needed reforms to the Russian Empire.

Didn't know that about Kyrill (the assassination attempt I mean) but yeah, he's useful as a complex figure. I've never been sure what to make of him - he was essentially a contradiction. Plus a lot of views we have of him are coloured by the events of 1917, which don't apply here!

I'm trying to avoid simply re-writing the 1917 Revolution of our timeline - largely my thinking behind killing off Lenin a while back. So expect to see some different faces and parties in this timeline!

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Sixty Four: Last Conversations

Chapter Sixty Four: Last Conversations

"This is a book of dreams come to fruition"
Opening line of Conversations amongst Comrades, 1911

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[FONT=&quot]Up until 1911 the Commune had never produced a clear ideological approach to the revolution or socialism. It had always been, especially after the expulsion of Marx from the International in the 1870s, always been a mixture of ideologies. A spectrum of ideas. Individual members of the Commune had published theses and texts, reflecting on their particular views of the events since 1870 – Rigault had written four just by himself. Yet by 1911 it became clear, following the Third International in 1907, that the revolutionary ripples around the world demanded explanation.
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[FONT=&quot]Closer to home it was the aging of the original Communards that also drove them to the writing desk. The death of the anarchist Elisee Reclus in 1908, one of the few remaining members of the Commune’s original Council, was a loss Varlin particularly felt keenly. “How few remain” he wrote mournfully in his diary the evening of the funeral.
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[FONT=&quot]The publication of Conversations amongst Comrades, usually now known simply as Conversations, emerged from the musing of Varlin and others after the funeral of Reclus. Edited by Varlin, Kropotkin, and the leader of the Blanquist faction Edouard Vaillant it represented the complex fusion of ideas that bubbled around the Commune. There were over thirty authors of individual chapters, drawn from across seventeen countries, who reflected on everything from the abolition of the death penalty and the rise of trade unionism, to female rights and internationalism. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]The crux of the text, a chapter written by the three editors themselves, reflected on the paths to revolution.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Conversations [/FONT][FONT=&quot]argued, crucially, that there could be no one path to revolution. The central chapter, taking the form of a recorded conversation between the three, reflected on how important armed struggle had been for the Commune, in Argentina, and in Catalonia. It also emphasised, however, the limitations of striking without support, as in India. Even the Blanquists, at this point, grudgingly admitted that a groundswell of support was needed. “We must listen to the people before we lead them” concluded Vaillant.
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[FONT=&quot]On the other end of the spectrum, social democracy, as it was growing in the USA and UK, was not written off as bourgeois compromise. “We cannot effect socialism by purging the bourgeoisie” wrote Varlin firmly, with Kropotkin concurring. “If we wish to build a utopia we must win over all facets of society”. “All revolutionary terror has proved at best irrelevant and at worst harmful to the process of building socialism” wrote Kropotkin, although on this point the Blanquists disagreed. All paths to socialism were valid, the trio concluded, as long as the broad church of socialism at the end of such a revolution (violent or peaceful) matched the broad church of support that went into creating it. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]The publication of Conversations, distributed freely across France, and available worldwide within weeks, was overshadowed by tragedy. On 3rd April 1911 Varlin passed away, aged 72, the last of the leading communards of the original 1871 revolution. The Republic went into mourning for a week, public buildings wreathed in black.
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Varlin is laid to rest at the Mur des Federes in Pere Lachaise, 1911.

[FONT=&quot]“Who can follow such a man?” worried Cri du Peuple “surely no-body”. Although a paraphrase, the label of “the nobodies” hung over his successors to this day. [/FONT]​

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[mlp]

thus moderate socialism was born as the political norm.

 

[tuxer]

Interesting, although I have a few nitpicks.

The word bourgeoisie would not be used by socialists in such a manner (that is, to refer to the upper class) due to butterflies. Karl Marx was the first person to use that word to describe the capitalist class, while historically the term bourgeoisie was used to describe the middle class of an modern society-ie, doctors, judges, lawyers, high-ranking military people etc. With Marx discredited, the overall impact of marxist doctrine over the socialist movement will be much smaller, and the word bourgeoisie is one of those things are butteflied away.

The word would still be used, but it would not refer to the wealthy class that employs (or exploits, depending on your point of view) the rest of the population.

Another nitpick is social democracy. It seems a bit anachronistic to use that word to refer to non-revolutionary reformist socialism especially considering that, OTL, the word was still in wide use by revolutionary socialists such as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, which the bolsheviks were split from but still called themselves social democratic.

Sorry if I am being harsh, it's just seems odd that the discrediting of Marx had no impact at all on the radleft.

 

[Reydan]

Interesting, although I have a few nitpicks.

The word bourgeoisie would not be used by socialists in such a manner (that is, to refer to the upper class) due to butterflies. Karl Marx was the first person to use that word to describe the capitalist class, while historically the term bourgeoisie was used to describe the middle class of an modern society-ie, doctors, judges, lawyers, high-ranking military people etc. With Marx discredited, the overall impact of marxist doctrine over the socialist movement will be much smaller, and the word bourgeoisie is one of those things are butteflied away.

The word would still be used, but it would not refer to the wealthy class that employs (or exploits, depending on your point of view) the rest of the population.

Another nitpick is social democracy. It seems a bit anachronistic to use that word to refer to non-revolutionary reformist socialism especially considering that, OTL, the word was still in wide use by revolutionary socialists such as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, which the bolsheviks were split from but still called themselves social democratic.

Sorry if I am being harsh, it's just seems odd that the discrediting of Marx had no impact at all on the radleft.

You aren't being harsh, but to answer your points:

Varlin is talking about the older concept of the bourgeoisie here, although admittedly the text doesn't make that clear. I will edit to emphasize.

I was using social democracy here for the modern reader, for ease of reference, but regardless of Marx or not social democracy as a concept was already evolving in the late 19th century. Although, as you point out, the term was widely used by revolutionary socialists OTL Jaures, about to feature heavily in this timeline, was already putting it together as a concept in France.

I would argue that the discrediting of Marx has had a huge impact in this timeline, namely:

* The continued presence of the anarchist movement within the left, as opposed to its increasing isolation in our timeline, is a major distinction here.

* There's no discussion, anywhere, of a class-based model of conflict and revolution that is central to Marxism. In fact the c-word is hardly used in this timeline. Instead older socialist ideologies are in play - making socialism in this timeline different indeed.

* The acknowledgement, in Conversations, of different and equally valid pathways to socialism is not the same as Marxism, which sees a more defined doctrinal belief in a set road-map of stages of revolution driven by class-conflict as the ultimate aim. Yes, Marx himself was never clear on whether he favored armed struggle or democracy really, but this timeline sees a much more open socialism that does not, crucially, set any importance in models of revolution or doctrinal purity.

 

[lukedalton]

Frankly all this talk seem to be an attempt to keep the socialist house to remain united and not split in moderate and extremist...and this will probably end well as OTL.

Basically you can't have the cake and eat it; or you accept the democratic path adn the fact that violent revolution is not the way to create your paradise or you for the revolution path.
Doing a middle way, basically simply slow the final recoking between the two side and greatly harm the credibility of the moderate in the eyes of the undecided or potential sympathizer...as they will be seen as implicity agree on the violent tattics of the boulangist and will make look anybody as a potential terrorist.

 

[Salvador79]

Oh, this Duma is nice, but somehow I have the feeling that there won`t be a simple, smooth transition / progress in Russia...

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Sixty Five: Hearst, Huerta, Viva Mexico!

Chapter Sixty Five: Hearst, Diaz, Viva Mexico!

“You must keep your mind on the objective, not the obstacle”
Hearst, attributed.

“The land belongs to those that work it!”
Emiliano Zapata

If President Roosevelt’s 1904 term had begun with a bang, it ended with a whimper. After his faltering mishandling of the Venezuela Crisis in 1906 Teddy had been hammered in the press and then hamstrung by crushing defeat in the midterms that saw Congress swing against the Republicans. The final two years of his Presidency were marked by a stultifying lack of progress that saw the grand man reduced to negotiating for table scraps with a hostile congress. The most lasting legacy of Roosevelt’s time in office, the creation of the National Park system, has often been seen as a sop by Congress. Whatever the truth Roosevelt declined to run for re-election in1908, leaving his VP, Taft, facing a tough battle. The Republican star was at its lowest dip and, in a chaotic but invigorating convention the man who had been doing so much to keep it down, William Randolph Hearst, secured the Democratic nomination.

In 1908 Hearst ran the table in the electoral college. Although not a lock with Southern Democrats, his money, his appeal, and his promise to take a lukewarm stance on race and labour issues, helped him swing the Democratic heartland and reach into states where the traditional Republican dominance was looking shaky. Taft’s attempt to lurch to the centre of the party backfired, alienating the growing liberal and progressive tendencies amongst Northern Republicans, and Hearst’s relentless attack on the “fat-cats” of Roosevelt’s “sleeping Presidency” (a clear jibe at Taft’s figure) hit home. Many Republicans stayed home on election day. Others voted for the Socialist Party (the last time it would compete an election under that name). Debs, with Hillquivst as VP, secured three diverse states – Minnesota, Iowa (a relic of Bryan-era Populism), and West Virginia (due to a strong trades union turn-out), finishing in second place. Yet Hearst’s tally of 442 electoral votes remains one of the most impressive results to date.

Circumstances, however, were soon to overtake the new President, riding high on a wave of popular optimism.

The aging Generalissimo Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled Mexico since 1876, reversed his decision in 1910 to stand down from office, triggering an upsurge of anti-Government activity. The assassination, almost certainly by Diaz’s men of young opposition leader Francisco Madero, in March 1910, triggered full scale insurrection.

Within seven months Diaz’s regime, that had once looked so credible, collapsed. Army desertions, financial chaos, and widespread peasant insurrection combined with the skilful guerrilla tactics of revolutionary leaders, in town and countryside, to topple the President and install a new revolutionary regime.

Villa, Gutierrez, and Zapata at the Victory Celebrations, Mexico City, 1911​

Although, as in Argentina, the revolutionaries ran a left-wing spectrum from Liberals through to Socialists and Anarchists, Paris was quick to recognise the regime as legitimate, even drawing up plans to dispatch the tiny French navy, still largely comprising of those Russian vessels that had been repaired in La Havre after being salvaged from the Channel in 1900. Whilst not all of the revolutionary leadership was pro-Communard, even the liberal Venustiano Carranza believed that foreign recognition was key, and the French could count amongst supporters both Alvaro Obregon, who had studied in Paris, and rebel leaders Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.

“Socialism is laying down solid roots in the New World” wrote Blum, who had succeeded Varlin as Centrist President as the next election was still a few years away.

Mexican Rebels, 1911​

In Washington Hearst, convinced with his electoral backing he could do no wrong, allowed himself to be swayed by a hawkish cabinet. He could not out and out crush Mexico without incurring the wrath of labour at home, his advisors informed him, but there were back channels and American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson not only came into contact with reactionary General Victor Huerta in January 1911 but also began to act as a conduit for the importation of arms clandestinely funded with American taxes into Mexico.

 

[tuxer]

Chapter Sixty Five: Hearst, Diaz, Viva Mexico!

“You must keep your mind on the objective, not the obstacle”
Hearst, attributed.

“The land belongs to those that work it!”
Emiliano Zapata

If President Roosevelt’s 1904 term had begun with a bang, it ended with a whimper. After his faltering mishandling of the Venezuela Crisis in 1906 Teddy had been hammered in the press and then hamstrung by crushing defeat in the midterms that saw Congress swing against the Republicans. The final two years of his Presidency were marked by a stultifying lack of progress that saw the grand man reduced to negotiating for table scraps with a hostile congress. The most lasting legacy of Roosevelt’s time in office, the creation of the National Park system, has often been seen as a sop by Congress. Whatever the truth Roosevelt declined to run for re-election in1908, leaving his VP, Taft, facing a tough battle. The Republican star was at its lowest dip and, in a chaotic but invigorating convention the man who had been doing so much to keep it down, William Randolph Hearst, secured the Democratic nomination.

In 1908 Hearst ran the table in the electoral college. Although not a lock with Southern Democrats, his money, his appeal, and his promise to take a lukewarm stance on race and labour issues, helped him swing the Democratic heartland and reach into states where the traditional Republican dominance was looking shaky. Taft’s attempt to lurch to the centre of the party backfired, alienating the growing liberal and progressive tendencies amongst Northern Republicans, and Hearst’s relentless attack on the “fat-cats” of Roosevelt’s “sleeping Presidency” (a clear jibe at Taft’s figure) hit home. Many Republicans stayed home on election day. Others voted for the Socialist Party (the last time it would compete an election under that name). Debs, with Hillquivst as VP, secured three diverse states – Minnesota, Iowa (a relic of Bryan-era Populism), and West Virginia (due to a strong trades union turn-out), finishing in second place. Yet Hearst’s tally of 442 electoral votes remains one of the most impressive results to date.

Circumstances, however, were soon to overtake the new President, riding high on a wave of popular optimism.

The aging Generalissimo Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled Mexico since 1876, reversed his decision in 1910 to stand down from office, triggering an upsurge of anti-Government activity. The assassination, almost certainly by Diaz’s men of young opposition leader Francisco Madero, in March 1910, triggered full scale insurrection.

Within seven months Diaz’s regime, that had once looked so credible, collapsed. Army desertions, financial chaos, and widespread peasant insurrection combined with the skilful guerrilla tactics of revolutionary leaders, in town and countryside, to topple the President and install a new revolutionary regime.

Villa, Gutierrez, and Zapata at the Victory Celebrations, Mexico City, 1911​

Although, as in Argentina, the revolutionaries ran a left-wing spectrum from Liberals through to Socialists and Anarchists, Paris was quick to recognise the regime as legitimate, even drawing up plans to dispatch the tiny French navy, still largely comprising of those Russian vessels that had been repaired in La Havre after being salvaged from the Channel in 1900. Whilst not all of the revolutionary leadership was pro-Communard, even the liberal Venustiano Carranza believed that foreign recognition was key, and the French could count amongst supporters both Alvaro Obregon, who had studied in Paris, and rebel leaders Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.

“Socialism is laying down solid roots in the New World” wrote Blum, who had succeeded Varlin as Centrist President as the next election was still a few years away.

Mexican Rebels, 1911​

In Washington Hearst, convinced with his electoral backing he could do no wrong, allowed himself to be swayed by a hawkish cabinet. He could not out and out crush Mexico without incurring the wrath of labour at home, his advisors informed him, but there were back channels and American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson not only came into contact with reactionary General Victor Huerta in January 1911 but also began to act as a conduit for the importation of arms clandestinely funded with American taxes into Mexico.

Hearst is basically setting up an Iran-Contra. I wonder if Roosevelt's image is going to be rehabiliated in the future.

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Sixty Six: White Smoke, Black Smoke, Red Flame

Chapter Sixty Six: White Smoke, Black Smoke, Red Flame

"For Christ the King!"
Cristero battlecry


By the hot July of 1911 opposition groups to the new Mexican Republic were already festering. Yet whilst Wilson and Huerta had, the latter from Havana to avoid arrest, succeeded in sewing dissent amongst sections of the army and the former power-players of the Diaz regime, they were unable to find that popular spark that would ignite a counter-revolution.

In Mexico City, meanwhile, the loose coalition of rebels proved more durable than previously thought. Although Carranza was a classic Liberal, wary of social reforms that pushed society too far, he found himself able to balance out his liberalism and the socialism and anarchism of Obregon, Villa, Zapata and others. The one sticking point was land – the socialists demanded the breaking up of the old landed estates and foreign-owned farms in favour of the peasants. Carranza, wary of the backlash this might bring at home and abroad, refused. There was, however, a compromise – the vast lands held by the Catholic Church in Mexico. The Church, a staunch supporter of Diaz, was an easy, uncontroversial target for the revolution.

Resistance was met, in many places, by restraint. But elsewhere force reigned. Priests and nuns were driven from churches and convents if they refused, icons and banners destroyed, as the revolutionaries began a campaign of land-redistribution. Meanwhile, at the urging of Parisian advisers, the leadership of the revolution remained in Mexico City working on the structure of the new Government.

The desire to keep all players in the diverse revolutionary cause proved fatal advice from the French, however, when the burning heat of August saw tensions boil over. The uprising, when it came, was scattered across the countryside. Small villages and peasant communities banding together to protect their faith, as they saw it, from the attack of godless anarchists.

Catholic Peasant Rebels, Mexico, Summer 1911​

Spurred on by reactionary elements across Mexico, pushed out of power with the fall of Diaz but still in the background of society, small revolts became flames of anger as the revolutionary coalition wobbled in the face of what to do. Within a week the violence was spreading, smaller bands growing into rivers, and before the revolutionary leadership could act Enrique Gorostieta, a young commander and protégé of Huerta, led armed cadres in open revolt in Mexico City itself. Whilst Zapata managed to escape, riding hell for leather for his traditional power base of Morelas, both Carranza and Villa were slain. Obregon only survived by pretending to be the chaffeuer of the French Ambassador, himself masquerading as Swiss, the two fleeing the city through a rebel checkpoint and making it to Veracruz in time to evacuate several hundred Mexican socialists via the newly arrived Blanqui (the renamed and repaired Prince Potemkin). Zapata, in his diary, chastised Obregon as a coward for fleeing but, truthfully, the revolution had been decapitated and, as Huerta was installed in Mexico City with American aid, the body was simply thrashing in its death throws.

The impact around the world was intense, shaking both the elections in France and in America the following year. Most significantly, though, was the nature of this counterrevolution. The rebels, driven by their Catholic faith, had named themselves Cristeros and were but one plank of the vague reactionary conservatism of Huerta. But, as Cardinals gathered in Rome to select a new Pope, they were soon to receive official sanction from on high. The expected successor to Pius X, Giacomo Chiesa, was unexpectedly defeated after fourteen rounds of voting by a young challenger.

Archbishop Henri Deguarde [1]​

The Archbishop of Milan, only 31, was a rising star in the Catholic faith. Outspoken, political, and vehemently anti-Communard. Child of Belgian exiles Henri Deguarde was elected, in December 1911, Pope and took as his new name an inspiration from history. He would be Pope Urban IX, harking back to the first Pope Urban who had inspired a crusade of faith to reclaim holy land. He immediately bestowed a personal blessing on Gorostieta and his Cristeros and it was one of the battle cries of their movement that gave this ideological movement of authoritarian Catholicism a name. The cry of "Viva Cristo Rey!" (Long live Christ the King) gave way to Gorostieta's movement being dubbed Reyism. A favourite of Deguarde, who saw in it echoes of the resistance in the Vendee years before, it was to shape both Catholicism and world politics in the years to come.

[1] Deguarde is the first major fictional character in this timeline, but with a POD now 40 years ago I think this is acceptable! Also, apologies to the Cardinal whose picture I have stolen for him.

 

[tuxer]

What really surprises me is that it took forty years for fascism to appear, because that's what Montanism basically is although it is fascism with strong religious foundation.

 

[Falecius]

Montanism ? Hell, that is the name of a major Late Antique heresy. No even vaguely Catholic movement would ever consider such a label acceptable.
Also "Ultra-montanism" made sense in reference to France, in particular, and more generally everywhere it was NOT Italy (it was used here too, however).
Perhaps "Ultraism" (also with reference to the French "Ultras" of the preceding times) works better?

 

[lukedalton]

Yeah an hardline pope...this will surely help greatly the relationships between the italian state and the church.

And yes, Ultrism work better as a name, even if is the italian newspaper to named it, something akin to Templarism or neo-crusaderism can be applied.