The Glory of the Empire: A Visual Timeline

The French invasion was fraught with horror and difficulty. Thousands were lost in bloody guerilla warfare; Spanish partisans attacked on all sides. However, by November, they were on the doorstep of Madrid. The Spanish royal family fled to Granada, leaving their capital to be besieged and shelled. French reinforcements filtered in across the Pyrenees and secured the rear territory of the main army in Aragon.
On December 10, Louis-Philippe was acclaimed King of Spain, though he remained in his self-imposed exile at Orleans. As French juggernaut marched on, the Spanish royal family took sail and fled first to North Africa, and then in April they fled to Mexico. Portugal, nearby, remained steadfastly neutral, much to the chagrin of the British monarchies. The Portuguese remembered the Spanish invasion scarcely five years before, and did not want a repeat of that disaster.
The Bourbon King of Spain, Charles IV, died of disease en route to Mexico and his son, Ferdinand, was acclaimed King upon the shores of the Yucatan. He set up his court in Mexico City around March.
Meanwhile, in South America, Spanish Crown forces destroyed the Venezuelan rebels and hemmed them in around Caracas. The tenacious rebels in La Plata and Chile could not be defeated so easily, and repulsed a Peruvian assault in May of 1806.

Francis of Austria had to be again restrained from declaring war upon France; Emperor Charles would not let this petty man risk the peace he had built in the Empire. Francis, hemmed in on most sides by close allies of the Emperor, relented.
In October, British troops in Nubia, newly transferred from India, made headway into Southern Egypt. Riding and sailing along the Nile, an army of 55,000 men marched on Cairo, laying siege to it. French forces in North Egypt marched to repulse them, but retreated upon the artillery barrage of the British cannons and congreve rockets. Cairo fell to Britain on November 1.
The British generals planned to march on Alexandria next.
In early 1807, King Henry IX of England and Ireland died; he was succeeded by his official heir, Charlotte. Within months, George III of Great Britain was also dead, succumbing to porphyry, and was succeeded by Prince-Regent George Augustus. Great Britain became a joint dominion of the royal couple. The heir-presumptive to the whole pie was George IV's brother, William.
An Act of Parliament from both kingdoms made each others' monarch joint ruler of the other; in effect, they functioned like Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile-Aragon. Though separate kingdoms, and they each from different thrones, they became joint sovereigns of the entirety.

In March of 1807, British forces at Gibraltar managed to repulse an imminent French siege, and with assistance from Spanish loyalists, invaded Granada. However, success could not be matched in Northern Egypt. Two assaults on Alexandria were repulsed. The only shining light in the Aegean theatre was the capture of Crete in late May.
In August, the childless Duke of Lorraine, Archduke Charles of Austria, declared that on the event of him dying without a child, the Duke-Elector of Champagne, Charles-Philippe, would be his heir. This declaration was brought on by his struggle with epilepsy.
Around the same time, a large American force occupied and annexed all of the remaining parts of Louisiana. Britain, their steadfast ally, consented.
The autumn and winter periods of the year formed a lull in the conflict; it seemed like the many exhausted parties to the war had to pause and breathe. Murat issued another levy, raising even more men for the war in Spain, which was quickly becoming a meatgrinder for the French army. Greece had yet to be attacked.
That all changed in January of 1808. The Ottomans joined the struggle.

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Well, it's not like they drop the title "Archduke". :D


Well, to continue.

In January of 1808, the Ottoman Empire declared war on France, invading Greece. Joseph Bonaparte, commanding the forces are Athens, was overwhelmed. Drunk and depressed, and preferring to die with honour rather than surrender to the Turks, he committed suicide on February 3. The rest of Greece fell within a month.
In March, British troops assailed northwards into Lower Egypt, and finally took Alexandria, though they took heavy casualties. Eugene de Beauharnais fled to Ascalon with the rest of his army, which came under siege by a British and Turkish force. Jerusalem, the army garrisoned, were veteran troops the successfully outflanked and repulsed any attackers.

In June, thousands of British troops from India reached Granada after sailing into the Red Sea, crossing overland through the Sinai, and taking ships to Gibraltar. These, compounded with Spanish partisans and finally the Portuguese, marched into Muratian Spain, intent on liberating Madrid. The area became even more of a meatgrinder for the French troops.
In August, the Spanish court in Mexico City recognised the independence of La Plata, Chile, and Venezuela, in order to ease its economic burden.
Around the same time, the British continued making headway in Spain, occupying Valencia and Leon; a popular revolt broke out in Navarre, Asturias, and Aragon. Only Castile remained loyal to the French radical cause, or at least remained occupied by the French army.
In late October, Murat ordered another mass levy; the goal: the Rhine as France's eastern border. Murat declared war on the Holy Roman Empire, intent on recapturing the territories lost in 1796. Murat wished to re-take France's place as the most powerful state in Western Europe.

The French army had rapid successes in Champagne and much of Lorraine, attacking before the Imperial outposts could be readily prepared. However, a mostly-Dutch army repulsed attacks in Flanders and Artois, buying the Empire enough time to recommission their armed forces and send them to the front. By November, eighty thousand Imperial soldiers reinforced the Rhenish armies, repulsing the French in Alsace. A bold campaign led by Archduke Charles attacked into Pays-de-France, targeting Paris. Murat, leading forces personally, prevented the Imperials from attacking the city itself. Charles' forces pulled back and captured Rheims, a fierce blow to French morale.
Dutch troops campaigned along the northern coast and took Rouen in late December. With a port secure, British forces landed in Normandy, backing up Imperial forces.
On December 25, 1808, Emperor Charles VIII created the German Royal Order of Saint Michael, intended to be a counter to the French ancient knighthood of the same patron, and as a chivalric order for German soldiers in service of the Empire.

The early months of 1809 was a lull in the fighting. Allied forces rallied along northern France, planning a campaign towards Paris. British forces in Spain closed in on Madrid, while an expeditionary forces of Neapolitan and Sicilian troops, fighting under the Imperial banner, landed on the Levant coast, marching on Acre. With British and Turkish forces, the generals planned an assault on Jerusalem as soon as Ascalon fell.
In April, Eugene de Beauharnais surrendered and Ascalon fell to British occupation. The siege on Jerusalem would begin.

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Some minor geographical points and a question.

Geographical points.
The Madeira Islands, the Cape Verde islands and the Flores Island, in Indonesia, wore at that time part of the Portuguese Empire.
Also Ziguinchor was part of the Cape Verde colony with Bissau and Cacheu, the last two colonies later formed the colony of Portuguese Guinea.

In OTL one article of the British Portuguese alliance of 1662 was that if the British conquered some former Portuguese colony it should be returned to Portuguese rule.
In OTL it was ignored by the British, but in TGE:aVT it look like it is being at least partially kept in the Indian subcontinent.
Is it active in TGE:aVT?
The new treaty would put that article even strongly, so at least Malacca and Ceylon, or at least part of it, should be returned.
Also the border between Brazil and Guyana wasn't well defined so it can be different, but I guess that the Brazilian members are better defining the border.
 
Some minor geographical points and a question.

Geographical points.
The Madeira Islands, the Cape Verde islands and the Flores Island, in Indonesia, wore at that time part of the Portuguese Empire.
Also Ziguinchor was part of the Cape Verde colony with Bissau and Cacheu, the last two colonies later formed the colony of Portuguese Guinea.
No idea which islands those even are. Much of this was originally of the 1783 map in the Base Maps 550 BCE-Present thread.

In OTL one article of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1662 was that if the British conquered some former Portuguese colony it should be returned to Portuguese rule...The new treaty would put that article even strongly, so at least Malacca and Ceylon, or at least part of it, should be returned.
Normally, yes, the British will defend Portuguese colonies. Especially in light of Portuguese assistance in Britain's recent conflict.
Regarding Ceylon- it was Dutch on the Basemap I used.
 
In April 1809, the Siege of Jerusalem began; a corps of infantry from the Kingdom of Naples plus two Imperial regiments marched on the city along with 30,000 British and Turkish soldiers. The negotiations between the generals established that the city itself would be jointly administered, and the land of the Kingdom would be occupied by Neapolitan and Imperial forces. Though the wording of their agreement never conceived of the long-term future of the kingdom.
On May 5, Madrid fell to British and Spanish partisan armies. General Wellesley was hailed as a hero; within weeks, the Spanish monarchy was relocated back to Madrid. On June 1, Wellesley was conferred by the victory title Duke of Madrid and Salamanca, after his two most decisive victories. In the fall, Wellesley headed a continued march northwards over the Pyrenees and into southern France, heading for Toulouse, backed by the Spanish Royal Army. In the same month, Russia declared war on France and sent a contingent to join the Allied forces.
In Normandy, Murat had led his troops in a harrowing defensive campaign, and had pulled back, not to Paris, but to Orleans. With the French dictator's presence suddenly gone, the Imperial and British combined army attacked in December.

On December 29, commanded by Emperor Charles VIII himself and his chief generals, the Duke of Lorraine and Karl zu Schwarzenberg, an army of 75,000 Imperials backed by 50,000 Dutch and 25,000 British soldiers marched on the Paris region. The French National Guard forces, commanded by Joseph Bonaparte's younger brother, Louis, met the attackers at Versailles with 100,000 men. The massive battle was won, barely, by the Allies; it had been the bloodiest and largest single-day battle of the war. The main contributing factor for Allied victory was their superior company-level officers and larger cannon batteries. A total of 70,000 men were dead or wounded in the course of the battle. Paris itself surrendered two days later, after a ruthless shelling by Imperial and captured French cannons. The French Assembly, in the name of King Louis-Philippe, issued a proclamation deposing Joachim Murat as Regent, Viceroy, and Grand Marshal. He was declared an outlaw.
In January of 1810, Wellesley's army destroyed the French forces at Toulouse, capturing southern France.
In a mirroring of the final weeks of the life of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joachim Murat barricaded his forces in the fortresses and cities in west-central France. Only the most loyal men remained with him now; on February 3, Joachim Murat, considering the Assembly's deposition an illegal act, acted in his offices of Regent and Viceroy; he ordered King Louis-Philippe and his personal guard rounded up and shot. However, the Garde Royal staged a false execution and smuggled the King out of the city, along with his pregnant wife. Murat issued another proclamation declaring himself King of the French, but revised it prior to its publication, and changed the title of Emperor of France. The proclamation was copied and widely disseminated in leaflets across France, by a network of Muratian agents.

Louis-Philippe encountered Allied forces and was received as the legitimate King by Emperor Charles VIII, the monarch at the head of the advancing army. The French Assembly had commissioned the rest of the National Guard who had defended Paris to march under the royal banner, and became led ostensibly by Louis. They were joined by a Russian corps, who had marched overland, swelling the Allied army to some 200,000 men.
Orleans came under siege in late February; Murat was horrified by the news that Louis-Philippe yet lived. He ordered dozens of his own men shot, and secluded himself in the city hall. As the siege stretched out, other strongholds of the Muratian faction fell: Poitiers on March 16, Tours on March 28, La Rochelle on April 8, and during the rest of April, the isolated French forces were pushed out of Champagne. Arthur Wellesley and his army joined the siege of Orleans, doubling the amount of cannons. Shelling destroyed much of the city, some cannon shot striking the hall wherein Murat had locked himself.
The former absolute ruler of France was gradually going mad, paranoid even; he saws traitors in every corner, and dozens of people were summarily executed every day, even civilians. The "petit terror" in Orleans was finally the last straw; on the night of April 30, with shells and rockets still raining into the city, a mob of civilians seized weapons and marched on the main Hall. Despite Murat's guards firing into the crowd, the mob overwhelmed the defenders and swarmed the building. Joachim Murat, refusing to bow to anyone and cornered in his office, drew a pistol and committed suicide.
On the morning of May 1, 1810, the city's forces laid down their arms and presented the head of Murat to the Allied army as a sign of their surrender. The Muratian War was, at long last, over. Nearly half a million men had died, and many more limped home with wounds and psychological scars.

After the war, a treaty between the powers, signed January 1811, established a new European Order. The borders were established as status quo ante bellum; Egypt and Greece were regained by the Ottoman Empire. Jerusalem's crown was given to Charles VIII, Holy Roman Emperor as a personal kingdom of his line; he was, accordingly, given the keys of the main Christian churches and the Roman Catholic Church was given primary administrative status of them. Though the Russian emperor was angered by this, he did not want to risk a war over it. Other shifts in the Mediterranean were confirmed, and Louisiana was recognized as annexed by the United States. Partly directed by the liberal Prince Metternich, a concert of Europe formed, making for a ordered and secure peace in Europe.
However, despite the ostensibly liberal foreign policy that Metternich and his compatriots attempted to pursue, the internal affairs of many states, notably Austria, France, Spain, and Prussia would grow increasingly reactionary in subsequent years. In France particularly, the restoration of the absolute power of the monarchy seemed to undo much that the revolutionaries, even the King himself, had struggled for; the Parliament, ostensibly the supreme legal body, grew increasingly powerless in the face of reactionary measures that abolished universal male suffrage in favour of a more complex electoral system that gave the Parliament an ultraroyalist flavour.

In 1812, Arthur Wellesley was made Duke of Wellington, a hereditary peerage, and became a member of the British House of Lords in Edinburgh; he worked with other members to pass a new Act of Union. A year later, a treaty between the Jacobite Monarch in England and the Kingdom of Great Britain recognised the Acts of Union passed in both countries, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Parliament was relocated back to London, and the reforms of the Stuart monarchy were upheld across all of Britain, including Catholic Emancipation, religious freedom of public servants, and Commons reforms.
Ireland was not included in the Union, and Charlotte's son Charles Edward was declared heir of the Stuart Kingdom of Ireland, while George's brother William remained heir of the United Kingdom. Wales, as a separate nation and kingdom, still existed but was economically dependent on Britain and Ireland.

In late 1813, the populace in northern Mexico rebelled against the Spanish royal authorities. After the Muratian War, Spain had refused to recognise Mexico as an independent dominion of the crown, and had reinstituted direct rule of New Spain. The criollo nobility, denied their autonomy, and the vast peasantry, suffering from terrible famine, erupted together in revolution. A counter-revolt broke out in California. Within a few years, the revolutionaries made great headway in the north, though the south remained solidly occupied by the Spanish.
In 1815, a brief war between the Indian Empire and an Anglo-Portuguese coalition ended in defeat for the Maratha-dominated Indian state. A large swathe of land was annexed by Britain, securing their frontier in Eastern India; Portugal gained a strip of land linking their Western Indian Coast territories into a single colony. The war, however, had been quite bloody; the modernisation of the Indian state and military had paid off, as the conflict had not ended with complete British domination.

In 1816, the ageing Emperor Charles VIII knew that he would soon die. His wife had died three years before of tuberculosis, and he had taken to alcohol abuse to drown his pain. His liver had suffered, and cirrhosis was now killing him. On February 20, he had his son, Joseph, King of the Romans, crowned Co-King of Germany and Italy and passed much of his administrative authority to him. In November of that year, Emperor Charles retired to the royal palace in Jerusalem. By then, he had quit drinking, but it was far too late to save him from cirrhosis.
In 1817, he invested his son with the title Prince of Galilee, established as the Courtesy Title of the kingdom's heir. The same year, in the summer, the Reichstag approved the renaming of the Duchy of Frankfurt to the Duchy of Franconia and conferred upon its holder an electoral dignity.

On July 20, 1818, Emperor Charles VIII issued a proclamation of abdication; a week later, his son was crowned at Rome as Joseph III, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, Italy, and Jerusalem, Duke and Elector of Franconia. Joseph's younger brother, Johann Michael, inherited the Duchy of the Saale. Joseph's eldest son, 17-year-old Joseph Francis Leopold, was named Prince of Galilee, Prince of Frankfurt, and Crown Prince of Germany and Italy, and was subsequently elected King of the Romans.
On his 62nd birthday, August 1, 1818, former-Emperor Charles, a pious Catholic regardless of his political liberalism, took monastic vows and spent the remainder of his life in the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. He died on October 20, 1818 of cirrhosis of the liver.
Along with his allies, and through war and peace, he had reshaped Europe upon the foundation of a united German and Italian confederation, revitalising the Holy Roman Empire into the most powerful state in central Europe. In the wake of his death, the Empire would continue its outward hegemony on the continent, but would also begin another internal decline.

I present the World, at the death of Emperor Charles VIII.

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I really don't see a future for cymru in the future...

I mean wales has been part of England since Edward I, I don't really see Britain accepting its existence.

Maybe as some kind of dominion really, but not total independence. Too much of a security threat.
 
I really don't see a future for cymru in the future...

I mean wales has been part of England since Edward I, I don't really see Britain accepting its existence.

Maybe as some kind of dominion really, but not total independence. Too much of a security threat.
Well, Wales is an ally of Britain, and they've no reason, or the strength, to wage any sort of a conflict with their neighbour. They're not really a threat at all, and both governments realise this.

Besides, if Britain went on a war spree to "reunite" Wales with the rest of the UK, they wouldn't be putting out a good example, especially with the "Concert of Europe" balance they have going on.
 
No idea which islands those even are. Much of this was originally of the 1783 map in the Base Maps 550 BCE-Present thread..
OK.
Madeira Islands, small archipelago to Southwest of Portugal, North of the Canary Islands and to the West of Morocco, part of Portugal since 1420.
Cape Verde Islands an archipelago due West of Senegal, part of the Portuguese Empire since 1462, independent in 1975.
Flores Island, it's due West of Timor island and vaguely looks like a "L" on its back, since 1642 it was part of Portuguese Timor until the 1850s, when the local governor sell it to the Dutch without order from Lisbon.
Ziguinchidor was funded in 1642 to control the Casamance territory, part of today's Senegal, traded with France after the Berlin congress.


Normally, yes, the British will defend Portuguese colonies. Especially in light of Portuguese assistance in Britain's recent conflict.
Regarding Ceylon- it was Dutch on the Basemap I used.

True the British helped the Portuguese defending the colonies.
But the treaty went a lot further, any former Portuguese colony that the British capture to the Dutch or the French wore to be returned to Portuguese rule.
And as Malacca and Ceylon wore conquered by the Dutch to the Portuguese.
Later those lands wore conquered by the British to the Dutch, by the 1662 treaty those colonies should be returned to Portuguese rule.
But I understand that the British would be refused to do it, after all they did it OTL.
In here the British did ask for Portuguese help and that will have a price, in short Portugal will demand that the British give to Portugal Malacca and at least the former kingdom of Kotte (Southwestern Ceylon) in Ceylon.
By the way in OTL the British tried to trade Malacca for Goa several times,the most famous one happened in the apologetic mail from the British government to the Portuguese government after the Mutiny.
 
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In September of 1819, the forces of the Mexican Revolution, led by Agustin de Iturbide, marched on Mexico City. Rebellions in the Yucatan and central America had pledged fealty to Iturbide's Army of the Four Guarantees, and their promises: Liberty, Independence, Religion, and Unity. Iturbide's plan was the unite all of New Spain under the banner of a constitutional, parliamentary, Catholic state.
Besieged on all sides, Mexico City surrendered. The governor signed a treaty, in the name of the Spanish King, recognising the independence of the Mexican revolutionary government, and transferred the administration of the entirety of New Spain to the revolutionaries. Many generals of the Spanish Army in New Spain defected to the revolutionary army, notably General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
On March 21 of 1820, Agustin and the revolutionary council promulgated a new constitution, declaring Mexico an Empire with a constitutional monarchy and a parliament, not unlike Great Britain or France. Mexico's first diplomatic crisis was to find among Europe's princes a suitable candidate for the throne. The only prince willing to accept such a crown was Louis, Duke of Nemours, the second son of the French king. However, Louis died en route to Mexico, during a dysentery epidemic on the boat he was on. Most of the crew died as well.

Out of options, Parliament offered the crown to Agustin, and after street riots broke out after his initial refusal, he reluctantly consented.
On May 5, 1820, on the 10th anniversary of the Fifth of May Revolt that sparked the gradual revolution, Agustin de Iturbide was crowned Augustine I, Constitutional Emperor of Mexico at the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral by the Archbishop of Mexico. He named his son, Agustin Jeronimo, as King of Guatemala, establishing a courtesy title for the heir apparent.
Along with a reluctant Spain, the United States was one of the first countries to recognise the new North American state.
Within a year of Mexico's independence, "criollo revolutions" broke out across Latin America. First, in 1822, Brazil declared independence from Portugal, under the helm of the King's first son, Pedro. This was a crushing blow to King John VI, who summarily disowned Pedro, and told royalist armies to offer no mercy to the "Prince of Revolutions". Hispaniola fell the same year to a revolution by African slaves, who evicted the Spanish and French slaveholders; Henri Christophe, one of the revolutionary generals, had his compatriot and rival, Alexander Petion, murdered, and subsequently declared himself King of Haiti.

In 1823, New Granada fell to revolution, aided and abetted by the Venezuelan Republic. In 1825, New Granada was completely under revolutionary control, concentrated in the hands of General Simon Bolivar. Peru erupted in revolt soon after, as the Spanish Crown army fled south into the Andes. Bolivar's army, joined by Peruvian revolutionaries, followed them; south-central Peru was the first to pledge fealty to Bolivar, and in September declared itself the Republic of Bolivia, named in his honour. On December 24, 1825, the royalists surrendered, after Argentina and Chile joined the struggle.
In March, 1826, the Constitution of the United States of Grand Colombia was promulgated by the revolutionary council. It established a federation with South Peru, North Peru, Bolivia, Quito, Cundinmarca, Venezuela, and as its constituent states; the states would have republican forms of government, while the central government would be a Parliamentary Monarchy. Simon Bolivar, hero of the revolution, was offered the crown by Parliament almost as soon as elections were held in the Spring. On July 4, he was crowned Emperor of Grand Colombia in Caracas. To prevent infighting over dominance among the states, he commissioned the construction of a new Federal Capital on the coast of Lake Maracaibo, roughly equidistant between the great cities of Bogota and Caracas.
Once again, a reluctant Spain and a jubilant United States of America were the first to recognise the new nation.

In 1827, Brazilian independence was recognised by Portugal, and Pedro was crowned Peter I, Emperor of Brazil. He was, however, excluded from the line of succession. Instead, his brother Michael was recognised as heir to the Portuguese throne; a year later, King John VI died, and Peter's daughter, Maria, was married to Michael as an assurance of good Portuguese-Brazilian relations. This was a reflection of the late 1820's in general, which was a period of reconciliation. The new nations made trade treaties with America and Spain, enriching themselves.
In Britain, King George IV and his wife died at sea in 1829. George's brother, William, became sovereign of the United Kingdom, while Charlotte's son, Charles Edward, became King of the Irish. In 1830, at the behest of both Parliament and King William IV, the British Army marched into the Indian Empire, securing the entire subcontinent for the British East India Company; the Maratha administration was dismantled, the Mughal rulers were restored, but only in the city of Delhi. Much of India came under British rule, and only Princely States retained their autonomy.
Earlier, in 1821, the King of the Welsh, Henry of Hesse-Kassel, had died, and his son had ascended the throne. As per the agreement of 1799, Hesse-Kassel was merged into the Darmstadt line. Louis I, now landgrave of all Hesse, was raised to the rank of Duke and Elector.

In 1831, the Sovereign Prince of Bulgaria, Constantine Pavlovich, died; his youngest brother, Michael Pavlovich, was given the throne by the constituent assembly. Around the same time, Emperor Joseph III made an order-in-council that radically altered the composition and organisation of the Imperial Army. The Army Reform charter dissolved the previous organisation based around the Reichskreise, which has supported regionalist patriotism and caused various supply problems; instead, the Army would be centralised in the hands of the Imperial Government in Frankfurt, and organised into Corps and Brigades instead of Legions; a Ministry of War was created to handle the civil administration of the Imperial military. The Imperial army was subsequently expanded from a 150,000-man force of six Legions that broke down into 25 infantry and six cavalry regiments, to a 250,000-man force ordered into four Corps that broke down into 25 Brigades of 2 regiments each.
By this time, the old air-rifles that Charles VIII had introduced as standard weapons had been abandoned; though effective in battle, they were difficult to mass-produce, technically complex for the average soldier, and often faulty manufacture led to air leaks in the reservoir.
A technological development in the 1820's created the perfect replacement weapon; the percussion cap, invented in 1819, came to the attention of the Imperials, and in 1824, the first mass-built Percussion Musket was issued to Imperial troops. Similar enough to flintlock muskets, but easier to use, the Model 1824 Musket became the standard arm for the Imperial Army for over 10 years.
In 1832, another innovation was made- the self-contained loadable cartridge. The ball, powder, and primer were contained in a single unit, wrapped in a thin, combustible paper. It cut out the entire process of tearing open a cartridge and pouring powder and ball down the barrel. In 1834, the Empire issued its first Percussion Rifle, built to use the new cartridge unit.
Meanwhile, to the south, the United Principalities of Barbary had been dissolver after a united offensive by Naples, the Ottomans, and France. Naples took Tunisia as a colony; France seized Algeria, and the Ottomans got the rest.
The same decade saw the brutal Greek War of Independence, which sparked with revolts in Morea in 1820, broke into full revolution in 1826, and finally ended in 1835 after Russian and British intervention. Greece became independent with a constitutional monarchy; the king of Denmark, Christian VIII, successfully lobbied for his distant cousin, Duke Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg , to be chosen as King. He converted to Orthodoxy and was crowned in Athens on August 15 as Christian I, King of the Hellenes.

In 1836, the Dutch colonies in South Africa, along the Orange and Vaal rivers, were split into three autonomous zones: Natal Free State, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal Free State. The Boers had been pressuring the Batavian elector for colonial autonomy, especially in the face of a larger British presence. However, their fears were misplaced; Britain was far more concerned with Portugal's colonial empire in Africa, particularly after the announcement in 1830 that they had completed a "roadway of territory" that connected their main African colonies. The British Parliament prepared to mobilize troops in India and Africa against Portugal, but in 1837, King William IV died.
Most of William's brothers had predeceased him, and the only viable heir was his brother, the ageing Duke of Kent, who became Edward VII. Edward's daughter, Victoria, was his declared heiress; initially, she was betrothed to Prince Alexander of Batavia, against her will and at the behest of King William. However, before they could be married, he had died of tuberculosis. So, she was allowed to marry her personal choice, her first cousin the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Albert.
Edward was far more accommodating of his daughter's wishes than his brother had been; in 1838, he had Victoria and Albert jointly invested as Dukes of Cornwall and Albany. Parliament was wary, but agreed that a German king-consort wasn't all that bad a prospect.
In the spring of 1840, Edward VII died after only a few years on the throne. He was succeeded jointly by Victoria and Albert. Hanover, operating under Salic Law, remained under the British Crown, though on a shaky foundation.

Thus, the world, at the time of accession of Victoria and Albert to the throne of Great Britain, circa June, 1840.

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In late 1840, the King of Portugal and the Congo, Miguel I, and his co-ruler, Maria II, made a joint proclamation conferring upon themselves the title Emperor and Empress of Africa, and that all land in Africa south of Ethiopia and north of the Vaal river were part of this new Empire.
Britain and the Netherlands jointly declared war on Portugal on January, 1841. The Anglo-Portuguese war would last until 1843; a brutal war in India pulverised Portuguese troops, and a blockade of Lisbon forced the kingdom to surrender. In the peace treaty, Portugal was forced to give up their Natal Province to the Dutch free state of Natalia; all of Portuguese India would be ceded to the United Kingdom; Portuguese land north of Ethiopia on the African continent would be annexed by Britain; and, Miguel would cease all territorial claims beyond the extant Portuguese central African colonies. He still used the title of Emperor of Africa, however.
Meanwhile, Mexico had been struggling with rebel forces in various regions. Earlier, an independence movement for the Texas region had come to a head; in 1837, Mexico gave in, allowing Texan independence. Emperor Augustine II had bigger fish to fry: California.

Texas was mostly barren land with little real value to Mexico, but the department of California was rich in minerals and metals, which would be mined; mostly, silver. Mexico broke off the engagement in Texas to commit more men to California; however, in 1845, Texas was annexed by the United States, which then declared public support for California's independence movement. Mexico saw this as an act of war, and attacked in Texas. The American army, commanded by Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, marched into Texas and northern Mexico, winning several critical battles. Over the course of the next year, they steam-rolled across Mexico, occupying much of it, and finally besieged the capital, Mexico City. The Emperor was forced to surrender, and on January 12, 1847, the Treaty of Chapultepec mandated that the Mexican territories of Alta California, Veracruz, and New Mexico were to be ceded to the United States.

In Europe, Francis of Austria-Carpathia died at age 80. He was succeeded by his epileptic but brilliant son, Ferdinand; around the same time, his brother Charles also died, and Lorraine was merged with Champagne, which was now ruled by Louis-Antoine, eldest son of Charles-Philippe.
The brief Azeri War between the Ottoman and Persian empires resulted in the Ottomans seizing Azerbaijan, the traditional homeland of the Azeris, and placing the Azeri people under their protectorate. Meanwhile, the Minie bullet design came into standard issue in France and the Empire. The new bullet was conical, with a hollow back, allowing it to fit to a barrel's rifling; it would soon become known as one of the most brutal innovations of the 19th century.

In July of 1848, Tsar Alexander I of Russia died at age 70. Without children, a succession crisis developed. The Russian Emperor had wanted to promulgate a constitution, but had died before being able to do so; various attempts had failed, due to the stubbornness of the Russian bureaucracy and landed nobility.
In August the Governing Senate decided that Alexander's brother, Nicholas, who had hitherto seemed to be the quintessential conservative military man, would become the Emperor. Nicholas was crowned on September 9. In his post-coronation speech, he announced the intent to promulgate a constitution for the Russian Empire, to reform the Russian government and bureaucracy into a clear three-branch system, and to improve the situation of the serfs.
A storm of conspiracy soon surrounded Nicholas; the military, the Governing Senate, the State Council, and especially the nobility viewed him with distrust. On December 29, a cadre of military officers stormed the Grand Kremlin Palace and told the Emperor that there was a riot in the city and he had to be escorted out; Nicholas and his guards followed the soldiers. Once outside the city limits, the soldiers tried to murder the Tsar, but the Imperial guards managed to kill the assailants. Realising that Moscow was now under the control of some military coup, and that St. Petersburg was likely to be, as well, Nicholas fled south, to Kiev, where he would be able to escape to Austria by railway.

Meanwhile, the Governing Senate declared, on January 1, 1849, that Michael Pavlovich Romanov, the youngest brother of the late Emperor Alexander and the sovereign Prince of Bulgaria, would be the new Tsar. The news was sent to Michael in his court in Sofia.
Nicholas arrived in Vienna on January 18, and plead his case to Ferdinand, who then asked Emperor Joseph III to convene a special congress of all of Europe's nations to hear Nicholas out. From February 3 to February 17, the Congress of Cologne was held, meeting in the city's large cathedral; Britain, France, the Holy Roman Empire and her states, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Sweden, Austria, Wales, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Portugal, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem sent representatives to the Congress. Of them, the Iberian kingdoms, Denmark, and Greece refused to even hear Nicholas' case, and left. Denmark and Greece recognised Michael Pavlovich as Tsar. Spain and Portugal remained neutral.
The remaining representatives agreed that Nicholas, being the next eldest brother of former Emperor Alexander, and the initial choice of the Governing Senate, was the legitimate Emperor of Russia. The states formed the Grand Alliance for the purpose of pressuring the Russian government, and Michael Pavlovich, to let Nicholas regain the throne.

On March 5, Russia declared war on the Grand Alliance, and mobilised to secure her southern borders. The longest and bloodiest war of the 19th century, the War of the Russian Succession, was about to begin.

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The War of the Russian Succession would prove to be the bloodiest conflict of the 19th century. Over a million people would be slain, by bullet and disease, over the course of the twelve years of war.
The conflict could be broken down into stages. The first stage was the initial moves of the Russian army, which by March of 1849 completely controlled the Russian government in Moscow. The army first tasked itself with putting down Nicholite revolts in central and southern Russia, while also moving men to safeguard their western border. Denmark declared alliance with Russia in April, and engaged their navy to deter any Allied invasion along the straits between Denmark and Scandinavia. However, a British naval force engaged the Danish navy at Jutland and crushed them, forcing Denmark to rely on her coastal gun emplacements for safety.
Allied forces were slow to respond and counter-mobilise; unlike in the previous wars at the beginning of the century, the recent generation of officers did not understand the strategic necessity of rapid movement. Russian forces, likewise, held off on pressing an attack unless aggressive force was shown by the Grand Alliance, or at least until the revolts were put down.

In December, 1849, a Russian army commanded by General Ivan Paskevich marched into the Carpathian Empire, with the intent to geographically unite Bulgaria with Russia. One wing marched through Moldavia, and another crossed through the Carpathian mountains; they linked up in Wallachia in January 1850, and made camp along the Danube river. Momentarily, they waited for a sign of aggression before proceeding; Paskevich avoided unnecessary risks with his troops.
The Swedish army occupied the Kola and Ingria, and besieged St. Petersburg, from land and sea. The siege would last the entirety of the war. Copenhagen was likewise besieged. In the spring, Russian troops crossed Ottoman border and began a bloody campaign in Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Governing Senate issued a declaration that the Russian Empire was the true protector of all Christians in the Ottoman Empire and the rightful holders of the keys of the Holy Sepulchre, on the basis of the Russian Orthodox claim of being the Third Rome; it was a hyperbolic claim used as a patriotic rallying point for the reluctant peasant levies.
In June, Emperor Joseph III convened a Reichstag assembly and obtained a declaration of an Imperial War against Russia; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled also by Joseph, declared war; the Ottoman Empire mobilized men to defend their territories and their claim on the protectorate of Christians in the Turkish lands. France was the last to declare war, in December 1850, after a coup placed Charles Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in the simultaneous positions of Prime Minister, Grand Maitre, Chancellor, Grand Chamberlain, and Grand Marshal. Louis-Napoleon now directed the affairs of the French state, and he wished for participation in the war.

In January of 1851, Russian troops continued their march south in Romania and linked up with Bulgarian forces under the command of Prince-Emperor Michael. An Allied counter-attack, mainly by Carpathian Imperial forces, who had mobilised in late 1850, struck into Bulgaria. Repeated disengagements and manoeuvres led to a showdown further south, at Varna. On March 30, a force of 100,000 Russians sparred with a combined force of 170,000 Turks and Carpathians, but casualties only reached 10,000 total; the first decisive Allied victory in the war saw the majority of Russian and Bulgarian forces flee via boat from Varna to Russian-held coast in the northern Caucasus. Russian troops, in the same month, captured Tblisi.
In June, German forces occupied Denmark and, in concert with Anglo-Swedish blockades, forced Copenhagen to its knees. Denmark was knocked out of the war.
Much of 1851 was committed to training fresh volunteers, naval battles, and mobilisation. The vast railways of Europe made transport of hundreds of thousands of men far easier. In late 1851, the Emperor Joseph III died at age 75. He was succeeded by his son, as Joseph IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany, Italy, and Jerusalem.

The year 1852 was known as the first year of the war as a truly international conflict, and a year of Russian victories. Russian forces occupied the Grand Duchy of Kiev and destroyed the Nicolite rebels via the 1st Battle of Poltava on February 10, 1852. A week later, Allied forces attempted to invade the Crimea; landing numerous forces at Foros and Yalta, they marched north-west towards the fortress of Sevastopol, but were cut off by a larger Russian army at the fields near Balclava. The battle turned into an unmitigated disaster. An assault force of 10,000 British, 10,000 Germans, and 20,000 French, already ridden with cholera and parched from sparse water, were unprepared for the Russian attack.
The 93rd Highlanders successfully defended a Russian attack on the flank, but the hastily-established redoubts of the French were mangled by Russian cannonades. German forces attacked forward, their accurate and effective percussion rifles dealing heavy losses to the Russian lines; however, superior numbers forced a withdrawal. Russian assaults at mid-day pressed the Allied troops even further, and an ill-fated counter-attack by the British Light Brigade failed miserably, with nearly every man of the brigade slaughtered by Russian shot and bayonet. In the end, over 25,000 men were killed in battle. Many more were wounded. The Allied troops retreated to their redoubts at Yalta.

In April, Russian Army, led again by General Paskevich, marched into the Baltics and Poland. One wing occupied Livonia, defeating Allied forces as Wolmar on April 28. On June 12, they besieged Riga.
The second, larger wing continued south. Numerous skirmishes kept them held up during the summer and autumn in Lithuania. Meanwhile, Ottoman ships continued funnelling Allied forces to Yalta. By December, the garrison consisted of 100,000 Germans and Italians, 100,000 British, 10,000 Latins, 100,000 Turks, and 100,000 French. All poised, ready to strike,if they were not still struggling with cholera, which was crippling their potential advance. Meanwhile, the Russian army of over 600,000, mostly raised from mass peasant levies, was rallying around Kiev, intent on countering the Allied force.
In January of 1853, the siege of Sevastopol was threatened to be lifted when a Russian contingent of 100,000 marched down into the peninsula. The healthy third of the Yalta Garrison was mobilised to attack and prevent the Russians from relieving the fortress. Bypassing the towns, about 120,000 men encountered the Russians head-on in the morning of January 10. The battle raged for three days.
Simultaneously, a corps of French Royal Marines, numbering some 50,000 men, stormed the breech at one of the granite forts, Malakoff, attempting to take the fortress while the Russian men and cannon were aimed down-field. It was an unimaginable slaughter, but the French marines won out; taking a 20% casualty rate, they raised the tricolour on the fort by the evening of January 12. The Russian troops were forced to retreat northwards; the Battle of Sevastopol became the decisive victory the allies were looking for, despite nearly 28,000 Allied casualties and 35,000 Russian casualties.

Another Allied force landed at Kerch on the eastern edge of the Crimea in March, and made camp; by June it consisted of 150,000 French, 100,000 Turks, and 50,000 British. Headed by Lord Cardigan, the force marched along the Kerch Peninsula to link up with Allied forces in central Crimea; a smaller, but well-trained Russian army counter-marched on the Allies at Kerch, leading to a large battle on July 8. The Russian forces, mostly cavalry, were mauled by French troops armed with Minie rifles.
During the autumn, the Allies paused to count their losses and replenish their reserves in the Crimea. Approximately 100,000 men had died total, about half of whom had been slain by the cholera epidemic rife among the garrisons. Most of the others had been the killed by infections in their wounds, and only about 10% had died in action.
To the north, Poland and Prussia steeled themselves for the brunt of a Russian assault; the Russian army, aided by the policy of Livonian impressment, besieged Koenigsberg and marched on Preussisch-Eylau. However, the siege at Koenigsberg was broken, as was that of Riga, in October.
The December battle at the village of Neu Eylau, which lay adjacent to Preussisch-Eylau, was a bloodbath. Armies of immense scale, with some 250,000 total Prussian and Polish troops facing off against an near-equal Russian number, slugged it out with accurate rifles and cannons; the Prussian bolt-action, breech-loading needle-rifle gave them immense infantry firepower. The Russians took massive casualties, nearly 50,000 dead, many others wounded; most of the dead were from infection sustained by the wounds dealt by accurate Prussian fire.

In February of 1854, more men arrived at the Allied-held ports as Kerch, Yalta, and Sevastopol. Russian forces were still heavily engaged in the Black Sea naval battles, causing huge supply problems for the allied. Cholera still ravaged the garrisons. In the spring, the Allied and Nicholite cause was damaged by the death of Nicholas Romanov; but his eldest son, Alexander Nicolaevich, took up his father's claims to the Tsardom, and re-invigorated rebel movements in further parts of Russia.
An Allied counter-offensive pressed into Poland to place more men at the Eastern Front. Mostly Prussians and a fresh corps of Germans were organised into the relief army; about 330,000 men squared off with a Russian force a third the size at the Polish town of Lutsk in late June. The Russians again lost a number of men, and surrendered. Thousands were taken as POWs.
In June, the Allied army in the Crimea marched north and met the Russians at Dzankhoy along the thin isthmus linking Crimea to mainland Ukraine. On August 25, about 500,000, split evenly among German, Turkish, French, and British contingents, engaged the Russian hulk of 600,000. Armed with percussion smoothbores and precious few rifles, the Russians were poorly-equipped to deal with the accurate fire of the Allied lines. However, the slow movement along the narrow pass caused massive casualties for the Allies, who were met with Russian cannonades. But, by the morning of June 26, the Russians were in retreat, after losing 60,000 men to gunfire and gangrene. The Allies had lost a similar number of 40,000. It was one of the bloodiest battle of the conflict.

The Russians fled in a disorganised heap from the Crimea; after the Battle of Genichesk on New Years' Day, 1855, the peninsula was securely in Allied hands, as was Poland. Alaska, centre of a lesser front of the war, had been completely occupied by the British. Despite the continuing ravages of cholera and dysentery, the war had turned. But it was not over yet; not by a long shot.

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The year 1855 saw the gradual retreat of the Russians from the Crimea and further into Ukraine. Additionally, the Russian forces defeated in Poland retreated back to their homeland, pursued by Prussian and Polish forces.
The coldest winter in over a century kept the Allied forces in the south from moving much; their march was long, and many men were lost along the way. Approximately a fifth of the men died to exhaustion or disease moving along the river towards central Ukraine.
On November 9, the two allied armies linked up and attacked across the river; they met the combined Russian force in the single largest engagement, of the war: the 2nd Battle of Poltava. An army of 600,000 Allied troops launched an offensive across the bridges against 500,000 Russian men. The battle was a chaotic, bloody slaughter, and visibility was poor due to a raging snowstorm. Many men froze to death while fighting. When it was all said and done, a quarter of all the men who had fought were dead, and another quarter were grievously injured from frostbite and wounds. The Russian forces, a ragtag band of 100,000 men, fled the field and made along the Don River. The Allies, for the moment, were forced to wait it out.

In February 1856, Greece declared war on the Ottomans in support of their Russian allies and seized the Cyclades islands. A naval battle in the Aegean neutralised the Greek fleet, and a bloody island-hopping operation re-captured the Cyclades, though at the expense of many thousands of Turkish soldiers.
By June, the snow had mostly melted; the injured men had died of their wounds. Reinforcements, mostly French and Turks, moved up to replenish the lost numbers; the survivors were exhausted and disillusioned with the purpose of the campaign. Nevertheless, they trudged, marching for the Don River. The Russians, meanwhile, had taken flight along the river, lacking boats. The Allied generals, headed by Joseph Charles, King of the Romans and Prince of Galilee, moved to cut the Russians off up north at a major bridge.
Joseph Charles, at only 25, was renowned as a tactical genius within the Imperial army; furthermore, despite being the only son of the Holy Roman Emperor, he chose to lead from the front in battle, alongside his men. He shared their miseries and successes as much as they did, and so made himself popular among the soldiers. Words of his deeds, likewise, made him popular back home, and he was called a war hero by German newspapers.

At the Battle of the Don River Crossing, July 3 1856, the replenished Allied army ambushed the Russian remnant forces, and crushed them. However, it was found that the forces that went north were only a quarter of the fleeing men. The rest had scattered across central Russia and the Caucasus, making it impossible to pursue them. The Allies cut their losses, and were content to occupy Ukraine. The Russian army presence in northern Russia, however, was far too strong, and the Russian guerillas far too determined, to risk a direct assault on Moscow. The Swedish siege in St. Petersburg was dangerous enough as it was. An army assault northwards would be suicide.
It would be a strategic decision that would prolong the war for four more brutal years.
By December 1856, the Russians had secretly mobilised a large force in Tblisi, under the cover of Russia's vast landscape and the Caucasus mountains. Naught by Russia knew what would soon strike the Ottoman lands.

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In January 1857, the Ottomans made an attempted assault into Greece, entering a prolonged siege at Lamia in Thessaly. The battle degenerated into some of the first instances of trench warfare. Much of the rest of the year, the Russians transported more men to Tblisi while the Allies fought Russian partisans in the north, linking up with Swedish troops around St. Petersburg, and occupying parts of Further Ukraine. Spring and Summer were spent replenishing forces, as many more had died from diseases and wounds. Alaska became a hard-fought battlefield as the few Russian towns held out like fortresses in the ice; at the same time, the US and UK partitioned Columbia fairly evenly among themselves, ending any territorial tensions between the two.
In the autumn, however, a massive Russian force marched from the Caucasus to northern Turkey, laying siege to Trebizond. By December, the city had fallen; the government in Moscow declared newly conquered parts of the Ottoman Empire to be the Tsardom of Trebizond, a component of the Russian Empire. Around the same time, the battle at Lamia came to an end, with Ottoman forces being repulsed. A different approach would have to be taken.

In January 1858, Prince Joseph Charles was transferred to Jerusalem to spearhead a counter-attack north. A combined force of 400,000 men were transported, thinning the occupying troops in Ukraine. With Spain's belated joining of the conflict in May, another hundred thousand were deployed. The Russians, meanwhile, had defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Lake Van and occupied all of Azerbaijan and much of Kurdistan. Turkish troops were mostly deployed in Crete, securing the southern and eastern parts of the island, while the Greeks held on to the north and west.
In June, the Allies at Jerusalem began a march north to counter the Russian movement. The trek through the desert was long and arduous. Meanwhile, the Ottomans besieged the city of Heraklion; the Greek troops moved to repulse the Turks at the hill nearby, and so the battle became known as the Battle of Knossos. It was a monumental Greek victory; the Ottomans were forced to retreat to their port garrisons in the eastern part of the isle.

The next year, the Russians and Allies met outside of Edessa in early January. It was a tumultuous, chaotic fight; French troops armed with Minie rifles, consisting of third of the army, managed to hold the Russian horde at bay initially. However, the Imperials, armed with non-regulation older model rifles, and the remaining troops were unprepared to fight the Russians, who had recently adopted a Minie-esque bullet for their rifles. In a desperate cavalry charge, Prince Joseph Charles was killed by a Russian volley, along with several cavalrymen. Despite not losing many men, the Germans and French fled the field, followed soon by the Spanish and Turks. With their army leader and royal heir dead, the morale of the Germans and their war effort was struck a terrible blow; the Turks lost a key city on the border of their Arab lands, and the Allies were forced to retreat to Antioch and Aleppo.
Upon news of his son's death, Emperor Joseph IV reportedly locked himself in his study for a week, completely unable to deal with anyone around him; for years afterwards, he would often contemplate suicide. He soon took to heavy drinking, much like his grandfather. There erupted from this a succession crisis for the Kingdoms of Germany and Jerusalem, and the Holy Roman Empire.

The Russians paused during much of the year, moving more men through the Caucasus and to Kurdistan. With the lack of railways, it was a slow and draining process. The Allies scrambled to secure their occupied areas in the north, anticipating a second assault at any second. Afraid to make any movement, the Allies high command sacrificed their opportunity to end the war by Christmas.
Instead, the Russian assault picked up in early 1860. In February, they marched their whole force to Aleppo, intending to proceed south to Jerusalem. It was a frightening, shocking thing to the Ottomans. However, after a month-long siege and trench battle, the Russians were repulsed. The engagement was bloody, and many men died from a dysentery epidemic in the trenches. The outdated tactics of the Russians, and their total lack of cannons, caused many deaths in action. The Russian army retreated northwards, back to Edessa.
However, after Swedish and Allied forces broke the defenders at St. Petersburg, the Russians finally offered a truce. They realised that Moscow would not be far behind St. Petersburg's fall.

The war was not technically over, and a peace treaty was under negotiation, but the fighting had finally stopped. In France, King Louis-Philippe, who had endured much tumult over the course of his long reign, which had stretched from 1797 to this point, died. He was succeeded by his eldest son.
Meanwhile, in December, the sectional crisis in the US came to a head with the inevitable result: South Carolina seceded, with other states negotiating the same within their legislatures. A civil war was brewing in America.

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Why has there been a steady creep of the American border northwards?

In OTL it was essentialy established in 1819 and was never changed aftewards.

Buying land from Britain during their gradual preparation to partition Colombia/Oregon Country, so that it'll synq up with the eventual partition line. It won't move any more northwards, if that's what's bugging you.
 
In the Treaty of Riga, signed February 1861, certain territorial shifts gave land in Russia's borders to Poland and Austria, and doubled the size of the Grand Duchy of Kiev. Poland annexed Livonia and Estonia; Sweden seized Karelia and Ingria-Above-St. Petersburg. The Caucasus were partitioned at the 42'nd parallel, or roughly the line from Batumi to Tblisi to the Caspian sea. Azerbaijan and Armenia were returned to Ottoman sovereignty, as were the Cyclades. Britain annexed the Yukon area of Alaska, while Russia retained some coast. Additionally, all territorial issues between the allies were resolved; notably, Dutch South Africa ceded portions of Griqualand to the British Cape Colony.
The War of the Russian Succession was ended; it had been the longest, bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Great Northern War in the early 1700's. Each side took approximately 800,000 casualties, about half of which were deaths. Most of the death toll was attributed to disease, mainly cholera. The rest fell among wounds sustained in battle, injuries, accidents, and deaths in action; just a little over 10% of the war's deaths were men killed in action. A total of around one million men had died in the course of the twelve years of war.

The Empire's men returned as conquering heroes; however, Germany was embroiled in a political dispute that threatened to tear their federation apart. Several issues roiled in the melting pot of German politics; notably, democratic reform, national unification, economy, and the careful power-balance among the major states. The issue that sparked the primary political struggle was the secularisation of the Prince-Bishopric of Liege in 1861, which was conferred to Batavia to sate the Dutch patriots. The balance shifted in favour of the northern, Protestant powers. For a long time, the Empire and the Emperor had been able to accomplish what he could with a coalition of the northern, industrialised Protestant states like Prussia, Hanover, Saxony, and the Netherlands and the southern, agrarian Catholic states like Bavaria, Austria, and Naples. It was a careful balancing act that juggled economics, religion, and politics on a sensitive see-saw. After 1861 and the secularisation of Liege, the balance began to shift, especially in light of Prussia's superb performance in the war, contrasted against the tragic loss of Prince Joseph Charles in battle, and the ravages of cholera on the Imperial army.

In late 1862, the Netherlands, responding to the call of autonomy from their South African colonies, offered a plebiscite to each of the three Free States. The Transvaal chose independence and republic, and was allowed to go peacefully; Natal and the Orange Free State chose to unify as a sovereign duchy under the brother of the Dutch Elector, and become a Imperial state. Prince Frederick of Batavia was chosen to become Duke of South Africa and Prince of Natal and set sail to be enthroned at Bloemfontein. The Emperor, still in a state of depression, had left the administrative decisions in the hands of his liberal-leaning wife; she consented in the name of the Emperor, and the Duchy of South Africa and Principality of Natal became voting states in the Reichstag.
An uproar arose across Germany, and the debate raged among prince and pauper alike over the even greater shift towards the Protestant powers in the assembly. Some knew it then, that the nation would be plunged in the near future towards open conflict. But many did not foresee such tension.

Meanwhile, across the seas, the United States was dealing with its own sectional crisis and civil war; by late 1863, the Union was winning, and had crushed the Confederacy in Tennessee; the war was truly over for the South, but it would take another year and a half for them to realise it.
On November 1, 1863, the republics of South Peru, North Peru, and Bolivia seceded from Grand Colombia to form the Peru-Bolivian Confederacy; when Brazil declared an alliance with the Grand Colombia government in the north, Peru-Bolivia subsequently invaded Brazil, occupying the province of Northern Amazonia. Argentina and Chile declared for the Peru-Bolivian Confederacy, and the bloody South American War began in December.

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I'm planning on picking this TL back up; I quite enjoyed doing it.

I had an idea in place for a German War of Succession that would weaken the Empire; but I forget part of what I had planned.

I am open to suggestions and critique. I'd really like to continue this TL, with more audience input.
 
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