68. Powderkegs
“After the Sicilian uprisings in 1879 [1], the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was left destabilized. Regarded as the ‘sick man of Europe’, Naples had lost control of Sicily to an international council, and King Francis II and his son Francis II were increasingly reliant on the British and Austrians to maintain power. The countryside was, for over a decade, completely in the hands of bandits and loose groups of Mazzinist revolutionaries who evaded the efforts of the government to restore order. Throughout 1895-1900, Francis III undertook a concerted effort to pacify the countryside, but the harsh punishments meted out to bandits and revolutionaries, while effective in the short term, only served to build resentment. Francis’s reliance on royalist brigands to enforce his rule in the country also angered the peasantry, as these brigands looted valuables and frequently committed violent acts on rural subjects.
In 1907, Giuseppe Montalto, a socialist and Mazzinist revolutionary, arrived in Pescara. Montalto had been active in land reform efforts in Sicily, successfully securing the council’s approval for a comprehensive program. He turned his attention north, hoping to depose the Bourbon monarchy and unite the Italian peninsula. In Pescara, he declared the Neapolitan Republic and called for armed supporters, promising “total land reform” and an end to Royal Brigandage. He was joined by thousands of peasants and urban socialists, as well as hundreds of well-armed volunteers from Italy. The revolutionaries swiftly secured control of Abruzzo, and revolutionary bandits and guerilla fighters formed pockets across the rest of the country. Felice Cavallotti, the Italian Consul and committed Mazzinist, gave Montalto’s regime recognition, sparking a diplomatic crisis. While Italy hadn’t intervened militarily, Cavallotti’s loud support for Montalto predictably angered the Two Sicilies, but it also inflamed tensions with Austria-Hungary, which were already high after the 1906 week-long nationalist riots in Milan.
By the end of 1907, Francis III’s position had eroded significantly, as the revolutionaries fought the Royal Brigands and cemented their control of the countryside. The revolutionaries also began seizing land from nobles and dividing it among the peasants. The spring of 1908 saw Montalto’s forces capture the port city of Bari and the agricultural city of Foggia, while closing in on Naples with victories in Benevento. Due to these successes, Cavallotti was able to convince French President Jules Meline to recognize the Neapolitan Republic in July 1908. Austria loudly protested this and threatened to send an expeditionary force to help King Francis suppress Montalto’s revolution. Cavallotti warned that if Austria intervened, Italy would unilaterally annex Sicily. The prospect of an unfriendly power controlling the Strait of Sicily got Britain’s attention, and Austen Chamberlain dispatched a fleet into the area while calling for an international conference, which was supported by King William II of Prussia.
The conference, convened in Frankfurt, was dominated by France, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. The Austrians were outraged over Cavallotti’s overt support for the revolutionaries and demanded that Italy abandon Montalto to an Austrian expedition. Italy refused, and France supported them. Chamberlain was solely concerned with keeping the straits open and offered to accept the victory of Montalto if Italy allowed a British naval base at Pozzallo and demilitarized the ports of Syracuse and Palermo. Austria was outraged and Prussia offered a lukewarm protest, but with Montalto at the gates of Naples and without British support, they could do little. Though the fighting was still ongoing, the Frankfurt Conference had already decided the outcome. Naples fell on August 23rd, 1908, and Francis III fled to Austria. Shortly after, Montalto petitioned the Italian government for annexation, and this was granted on September 14th. Italy, after formally annexing Sicily, duly ceded Pozzallo to the Royal Navy. The next few years would see the Italians carry out comprehensive land reform, extend labor protections, and begin major public works projects to bring economic growth to the impoverished south.
-From THE END OF THE CONSENSUS: EUROPE 1898-1910 by Rebecca Gardner, published 2009
“Upon the death of Frederick III in 1907, he was succeeded by his son William [2]. The new King was more conservative than his father, and quickly came into conflict with a legislature accustomed to a large role in governmental affairs. The years between his coronation and the outbreak of the Great War were dominated by the struggle between King and Landtag, with a string of short-lived, ineffectual Minister-Presidents falling victim to the power struggles. Frequently, the Minister-President would serve until some budgetary dispute resulted in him resigning and William II either backing down or standing firm. Starting in 1909, the Landtag simply renewed the past year’s budget, as they were unable to agree on a new budget with the King. It was also the King who drove the escalating tensions with France, even as opposition to his authoritarian rule slowly built at home. It would take a bloody war, however, to finally sweep away the last vestiges of Prussian absolutism…”
-From THE PRUSSIAN MODEL by John Harper, published 1998
“After the oil strikes of 1896, resentment against the Liberal regime grew substantially. Though the Liberals clung to power with their old methods of voter fraud and intimidation, the rise of the populist Popular Reform Party of Victoriano Madero threatened the regime. In 1900, after several PRP workers were arrested and found mysteriously dead a week later, Madero, at the urging of his more radical associates, plotted a revolution against President Limantour. Madero had the support of several brigades of the Mexico City garrison, as well as the governors of California, Coahuila, and San Luis Potosi. However, Madero’s poor military leadership meant that the Revolution of 1900 was swiftly crushed, and Madero himself was arrested. He was released after a year, but his subsequent reluctance to instigate a revolution and belief that a moderate path would bring about the downfall of the Liberals alienated him from the growing radical element of the PRP.
In 1903, Madero was replaced as party leader by Antonio Carbajal, who was little more than a mouthpiece for Joaquin Orozco, a military officer and radical sympathizer, and just 34 years old at the time. Orozco supported the radical program and plotted to compel the Liberal regime to institute the secret ballot in order to come to power through democratic means. One revolution attempt was squashed before it could even be launched, while the second one, in 1905, was far more successful. Orozco and the revolutionaries managed to seize control of California, Chihuaha, and New Mexico, while failing to secure the capital or arrest the government. The near-success of the 1905 Revolution, which put the country on the verge of civil war, forced the reform-minded President Terrazas to push for the secret ballot, and congress narrowly approved the measure. The 1907 elections were the first held under the new law, and Orozco ran as the PRP’s candidate against Salvador Rabasa of the Liberals and Victoriano Madero, who ran as the centrist Constitutionalist Party candidate. Orozco won decisively, with 46.6% of the vote against Rabasa’s 32.8% and Madero’s 18.9%. However, the PRP failed to secure a majority of the congress, as Madero’s Constitutionalists held the balance of power.
Orozco established himself as a heavy-handed leader, fond of removing state governors who went against his policies. He fought often with congress, but was able to massively expand labor protections, including legalizing trade unions and implementing a national minimum wage. He also pushed through a land reform program, though it was watered down due to the Constitutionalists. He was enormously popular with the poor, especially oil workers and farmworkers, but their devotion to him personally divided the PRP [3]. The triumphs of 1905 and 1907 soon gave way to pessimism and squabbling within the PRP between the pro-Orozco and anti-Orozco factions, while the economy remained stagnant despite the reforms.”
-From A CONCISE HISTORY OF MEXICO by Herman Wheeler, published 2002
“As the war entered its sixth year, the various factions were increasingly exhausted. The Federal and Royal Army in the south was stymied by the reluctance of President Yrigoyen to provide more than just material aid. The Republicans were beset by financial struggles and a restive conscript army that was only kept loyal by the promise of generous but still-unfunded pensions, and the Societists faced growing equipment shortages from international embargoes. The emergence of a breakaway military government in the Amazon separated from the rest of the Republican forces by sheer distance also hindered the Societists’ southern advance, as Candido Rondon’s forces advanced into Maranhao at the same time that Julio Almeida’s People’s Army became bogged down in southern Bahia.
By April of 1908, all sides were exhausted. The promises of peace made by Emperor Afonso seemed increasingly hollow to his followers, the Republican Army’s soldiers calls for backpay grew louder with each day, and the Societist armies were increasingly manned by peasant conscripts rather than dedicated soldiers of the revolution. After the failure of the People’s Army to take the city of Victoria and the surrender of the last pockets of Societist resistance in Minas Gerais, the Society for Economic Justice approached Nilo Peçanha’s government via backchannels in the United States of Colombia [4] with a proposal for an armistice. Peçanha, facing the growing threat of more mutinies and hoping to concentrate his forces against the Royalists in the south, readily accepted. Even his strongest rival, Pinheiro Machado, supported the peace negotiations, because the shaky new government couldn’t withstand more fighting and the debt and social strife that would entail. The negotiations were held in Bogota and mediated by President Rafael Uribe. Uribe was a committed liberal and social reformer and was viewed as a neutral mediator due to his sympathies with both the Republicans and Societists.
The Republicans were forced to concede Bahia to the Societists, though they retained the whole of Espírito Santo, forcing the Societists to withdraw from the north of the state. The state of Goiás was partitioned, its north-eastern third ceded to the Societists and the rest confirmed under Republican control. President Peçanha was also forced to recognize the independence of the Republic of Grão-Para, though this wasn’t a real loss, as the Paraense had helped the Republicans fend off the Societists, and Candido Rondon’s government was friendly with Rio de Janeiro. Following the signing of the treaty on August 3rd, Peçanha ordered a massive offensive against the Royalists. This began in September and was initially successful, driving the royalists out of São Paulo and Paraná. However, the offensive ground to a halt due to stiff resistance and falling Republican morale as demands for backpay turned into threats of mutiny. The Argentines finally offered to mediate a ceasefire on October 12th, and the exhausted republicans and royalists agreed to come to the table.
It was quickly agreed to draw the border along the existing frontlines, and the main point of contention became the name of the royalist state. The republicans strongly objected to the royalists continuing as the Brazilian Empire. After several inconclusive rounds of negotiation and pressure from Argentina, the royalists agreed to drop their claims to the entirety of Brazil and renamed themselves the Riograndense Federation. The Federation retained the decentralized constitution promised by Afonso, but Afonso would be styled as Emperor of the Federation, not Emperor of Brazil. With this matter settled, the Treaty of Buenos Aires ended the final conflict of the Brazilian Civil Wars. Peace had finally returned to the continent over 16 years after the beginning of the Platine War…”
-From THE BRAZILIAN CIVIL WARS by Seward Jennings, published 2013
“The Colorados were already suspicious of the CRU when it was chartered in 1901, and this suspicion only grew. Even as the CRU employed Uruguayans in its electrification and public works projects, CRU corporate leadership often clashed with Montevideo. First, President Cuestas objected to the CRU’s employment of large numbers of Argentinians on its projects, which was ignored. Then, Cuestas was forced into giving the CRU half of the revenues generated by the power plants and dams it built. In that instance, President Yrigoyen threatened to order the CRU to cease operations, ending the reconstruction aid. The Colorados soon split over the issue, with Cuestas and Pablo Viera leading the autonomist faction and Antonio Williman, a businessman and teacher, leading the pro-Buenos Aires faction. In March 1907, Uruguay held presidential elections, which were won by Viera.
Argentina was distracted from 1907-1909 by Yrigoyen’s reforms, including the settlement of a series of strikes, an initial reform of the university system in response to student protests, and partially successful efforts in land reform. Yrigoyen’s presidency focused heavily on domestic issues, which was protested by the Progressive Conservatives. By 1909, the domestic situation had calmed considerably, and Argentina once more turned its attention beyond its borders with the election of Francisco Barroetaveña, an attorney and education reformer. He promised a more conservative domestic agenda and a more aggressive posture abroad. He was especially concerned with President Viera, who had imposed strict regulations on the CRU, including quotas on foreign workers and canceling the tax exemptions it enjoyed. The final straw for Barroetaveña was Viera’s decision to forcibly renegotiate the electricity revenue divisions, passing a law declaring that Uruguay would receive 75%, and the CRU 25%. Barroetaveña protested, arguing that this ran counter to the 25-year contract Uruguay had made with the CRU, and demanded that Viera back down.
When Viera refused, Barroetaveña began preparations to depose him. Among the Argentine workers brought into the country for work, some were military agents who contacted Williman and sympathetic army officers. Barroetaveña also circulated rumors that Viera harbored Blanco sympathies. The coup was launched on May 24th, 1910. Troops loyal to General Jose Campisteguy seized the legislative building and arrested President Viera on charges of treason and corruption. A rump legislature composed solely of pro-Buenos Aires politicians then elected Williman as “interim president,” with Campisteguy appointed as the Minister of War. The coup was met with protests in Montevideo, but the new regime was backed up with Argentinian guns, and resistance quickly subsided. Argentina had toppled Brazil to become the continental hegemon, and now it was flexing its newfound muscles…”
-From IMPERIALISM ON THE RIVER PLATE by Miguel Fuentes, published 2011
[1] Way back in chapter 40.
[2] Not quite the Wilhelm II of OTL, but definitely an old-fashioned conservative monarch.
[3] Mexico TTL has strong parallels with OTL Argentina.
[4] The USC survives TTL for reasons.
