April 26th, 1958 - Prologue
Rory Dance slept poorly the previous night. It was not for want of comfort, he lived in one of the many expensive houses that lined the streets of Hurlingham, an affluent and largely Anglophone enclave on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. What troubled him was the election. The Parti Plantiano, under the leadership of the charimastic Juan Perón had won a majority in the Rio Plata provincial election recently, the first time in Argentine history. The markets took a dip, and this was a headache for Rory, who worked at the Buenos Aires stock exchange, but that was just the nature of the job. What troubled Rory, was the future. What lay ahead for him, and for the Dominion of Argentina. He had grown up in the Anglophone province of Pampas to the south, studied business at the University of Falmouth before coming to Rio de la Plata, or Rio Plata as Anglophones shortened it to. Though he had never left the country, Rio Plata was a foreign land. In hushed Spanish the people here talked about independence - freedom from their Anglo-Saxon rulers in Whiteharbour and from a Queen that reigned in London.
Everyday it seemed these voices wouldn't be hushed much longer. He wondered if he should move back to Falmouth with his family, or maybe Whiteharbour or Taunton. There he wouldn't feel like a foreigner in his own country. He wouldn't have to worry about not knowing the language, or the sense that his culture and way of life was being lost, or -on more paranoid days- for his safety.
He tried to dismiss such thoughts. He had well paying job, a lovely home, and wife and children that loved him. He was living the Argentine dream, and he wouldn't let politics cause him grief. He had work to do, now more than usual. He showered, shaved and brewed a cup of tea before the dew had left the grass that morning. He stepped out into the driveway wearing his bathrobe and a sense of lassitude, and took shuffling steps in his slippers towards the mailbox. When he opened 5 sticks of dynamite exploded in his face. It had been placed by the EPL, or the Ejército Platino de Liberación, who had randomly selected houses in the upscale suburb of Hurlingham. Of the 34 bombs placed the previous night, 12 exploded, injuring 14 people and killing one, Rory Dance, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The Royal Argentine Constabulary worked throughout the day to sweep the houses for bombs and disarm the ones they found, and to assure residents that the situation was under control.
However as news of Rory's death swept the nation, the question on everyone's minds was whether the situation truly was however, under control at all.
RAC policemen at the scene of Rory Dance's death, after a bomb placed in his mailbox by the EPL detonated.
1805 - The Seizure of Cape Town
Britain and Revolutionary France had been in a state of continuous war since 1792. While Britain had reigned supreme at sea, taking colonies and islands the world over, including Cape Colony, France had smashed the armies of it's monarchist neighbors, and secured peace treaties and client states all across Europe. The First Coalition was defeated, and the Second Coalition soon after. With no victory in sight and war exhaustion setting on the economy, Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens. It acknowledged British gains overseas, with the largest exception being Cape Colony, which was to be returned to the French influenced Batavian Republic.
This peace would last only a year. Angered by France's re-ordering of the political system and seeing continued French dominance as an existential threat, the United Kingdom declared war on France and it's satellites once more and assembled the Third Coalition of itself, Russia, Austria, Sweden and the Two Sicilies.
France had allied with Spain and with an influx of ships and a desire to break the strangehold that was British naval superiority, and perhaps secure an invasion of Britain itself, sailed a Franco-Spanish fleet of 41 ships into the Atlantic under the command of the French Admiral Villeneuve. Intercepting it was a British fleet of 33 ships commanded by Lord Nelson, whom had devised an innovative strategy that would disrupt the French line formations and force a pitched battle after they were thrown into disarray. The ensuing Battle of Trafalgar on the 21st of October spectacularly confirmed British naval superiority in Europe.
The Battle of Trafalgar is counted among the greatest naval battles of all time.
As war raged on inconclusively on the continent, Britain then looked outward, and wanted to secure it's maritime route to India around Africa. This meant taking Cape Colony for the second time.
On August 28 1806, a British fleet of 75 ships under Sir David Baird sailed out from Cork with the objective of taking the Cape. Two infantry brigades of 5000 men were landed north of the colony and were marched south. Outnumbered, the Dutch garrison of 2000 under the command of Jan Willem Janssens nevertheless sallied out to intercept them. Janssen declared that "Victory could be considered impossible, but the honour of the fatherland demanded a fight." His garrison was defeated on the sun baked veld in the Battle of Blaauwberg on January 8, after his force of largely militia men and mercenaries broke in the face of a British bayonet charge. The British forces reached Cape Town the next day, and the city raised the white flag to spare it from siege. Janssens took what was left of forces out into the veld, hoping for reinforcements from the French. Help never arrived and his troops deserted in increasing numbers. On the 18th, Janssen finally agreed to surrender.
The articles of Capitulation were lenient. The British would respect private property and would not billet troops in civilian houses, and the militia men who had raised arms against the British were allowed to return to their homes peacefully. Janssens, the Batavian soldiers, officers and officials were sent back the Netherlands. Cape Town and the surrounding forts would come under British occupation, and they would remain so until August 13 1814, when the Netherlands would cede the colony to the UK a permanent possession.
With the capture of Cape Town, the route to India was secured.
The fleet that had taken Cape Town was then split up to patrol Britain's sea routes as the war continued. Sir Home Riggs Popham was assigned a patrol along the coast of South America to detect any Spanish attempt at launching a counterattack on the Cape from their holdings in America.
Popham however other ideas. He had sat with the PM William Pitt and the Spanish American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda in London the year prior concerning a plan to occupy the River Plate and provide aid to the rebellion against Spanish rule in the Americas. Promising a victory as easy as the one they had just achieved, Popham convinced Baird to outfit him with 17 ships and 2000 infantrymen to carry out his expedition.
Rory Dance slept poorly the previous night. It was not for want of comfort, he lived in one of the many expensive houses that lined the streets of Hurlingham, an affluent and largely Anglophone enclave on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. What troubled him was the election. The Parti Plantiano, under the leadership of the charimastic Juan Perón had won a majority in the Rio Plata provincial election recently, the first time in Argentine history. The markets took a dip, and this was a headache for Rory, who worked at the Buenos Aires stock exchange, but that was just the nature of the job. What troubled Rory, was the future. What lay ahead for him, and for the Dominion of Argentina. He had grown up in the Anglophone province of Pampas to the south, studied business at the University of Falmouth before coming to Rio de la Plata, or Rio Plata as Anglophones shortened it to. Though he had never left the country, Rio Plata was a foreign land. In hushed Spanish the people here talked about independence - freedom from their Anglo-Saxon rulers in Whiteharbour and from a Queen that reigned in London.
Everyday it seemed these voices wouldn't be hushed much longer. He wondered if he should move back to Falmouth with his family, or maybe Whiteharbour or Taunton. There he wouldn't feel like a foreigner in his own country. He wouldn't have to worry about not knowing the language, or the sense that his culture and way of life was being lost, or -on more paranoid days- for his safety.
He tried to dismiss such thoughts. He had well paying job, a lovely home, and wife and children that loved him. He was living the Argentine dream, and he wouldn't let politics cause him grief. He had work to do, now more than usual. He showered, shaved and brewed a cup of tea before the dew had left the grass that morning. He stepped out into the driveway wearing his bathrobe and a sense of lassitude, and took shuffling steps in his slippers towards the mailbox. When he opened 5 sticks of dynamite exploded in his face. It had been placed by the EPL, or the Ejército Platino de Liberación, who had randomly selected houses in the upscale suburb of Hurlingham. Of the 34 bombs placed the previous night, 12 exploded, injuring 14 people and killing one, Rory Dance, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The Royal Argentine Constabulary worked throughout the day to sweep the houses for bombs and disarm the ones they found, and to assure residents that the situation was under control.
However as news of Rory's death swept the nation, the question on everyone's minds was whether the situation truly was however, under control at all.
RAC policemen at the scene of Rory Dance's death, after a bomb placed in his mailbox by the EPL detonated.
Britain and Revolutionary France had been in a state of continuous war since 1792. While Britain had reigned supreme at sea, taking colonies and islands the world over, including Cape Colony, France had smashed the armies of it's monarchist neighbors, and secured peace treaties and client states all across Europe. The First Coalition was defeated, and the Second Coalition soon after. With no victory in sight and war exhaustion setting on the economy, Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens. It acknowledged British gains overseas, with the largest exception being Cape Colony, which was to be returned to the French influenced Batavian Republic.
This peace would last only a year. Angered by France's re-ordering of the political system and seeing continued French dominance as an existential threat, the United Kingdom declared war on France and it's satellites once more and assembled the Third Coalition of itself, Russia, Austria, Sweden and the Two Sicilies.
France had allied with Spain and with an influx of ships and a desire to break the strangehold that was British naval superiority, and perhaps secure an invasion of Britain itself, sailed a Franco-Spanish fleet of 41 ships into the Atlantic under the command of the French Admiral Villeneuve. Intercepting it was a British fleet of 33 ships commanded by Lord Nelson, whom had devised an innovative strategy that would disrupt the French line formations and force a pitched battle after they were thrown into disarray. The ensuing Battle of Trafalgar on the 21st of October spectacularly confirmed British naval superiority in Europe.
The Battle of Trafalgar is counted among the greatest naval battles of all time.
As war raged on inconclusively on the continent, Britain then looked outward, and wanted to secure it's maritime route to India around Africa. This meant taking Cape Colony for the second time.
On August 28 1806, a British fleet of 75 ships under Sir David Baird sailed out from Cork with the objective of taking the Cape. Two infantry brigades of 5000 men were landed north of the colony and were marched south. Outnumbered, the Dutch garrison of 2000 under the command of Jan Willem Janssens nevertheless sallied out to intercept them. Janssen declared that "Victory could be considered impossible, but the honour of the fatherland demanded a fight." His garrison was defeated on the sun baked veld in the Battle of Blaauwberg on January 8, after his force of largely militia men and mercenaries broke in the face of a British bayonet charge. The British forces reached Cape Town the next day, and the city raised the white flag to spare it from siege. Janssens took what was left of forces out into the veld, hoping for reinforcements from the French. Help never arrived and his troops deserted in increasing numbers. On the 18th, Janssen finally agreed to surrender.
The articles of Capitulation were lenient. The British would respect private property and would not billet troops in civilian houses, and the militia men who had raised arms against the British were allowed to return to their homes peacefully. Janssens, the Batavian soldiers, officers and officials were sent back the Netherlands. Cape Town and the surrounding forts would come under British occupation, and they would remain so until August 13 1814, when the Netherlands would cede the colony to the UK a permanent possession.
With the capture of Cape Town, the route to India was secured.
The fleet that had taken Cape Town was then split up to patrol Britain's sea routes as the war continued. Sir Home Riggs Popham was assigned a patrol along the coast of South America to detect any Spanish attempt at launching a counterattack on the Cape from their holdings in America.
Popham however other ideas. He had sat with the PM William Pitt and the Spanish American revolutionary Francisco de Miranda in London the year prior concerning a plan to occupy the River Plate and provide aid to the rebellion against Spanish rule in the Americas. Promising a victory as easy as the one they had just achieved, Popham convinced Baird to outfit him with 17 ships and 2000 infantrymen to carry out his expedition.
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