Part V – 1905: The Boiler Explodes
At the beginning of 1905, anyone with any political sense knew that the world was a boiler at the edge.
Early in 1905, the world was shocked when the British unveiled a ship that threatened to put everything that had ever been built in the seas: the
HMS Juggernaut, so-called because it was believed it would be unstoppable, was an enormous mass of steel and iron armed with more cannons than anything else in the planet, and that could make shadow on any warship ever made before. Based on ideas developed by several naval engineers and theorists, the Royal Navy expected the
Juggernaut to utterly dominate in any naval conflict it might get involved with, and it showed.
Immediately, this sparked the interest of the other navies in the world. If these “juggernauts” were that capable, allowing the British Empire to have a monopoly on this kind of ship would be tantamount to suicide if there was a naval war with the British at some point in time. So, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Austria-Hungary... all of them did what they could to get their hands on anything that might lead them to being able to build a ship of the same characteristics. In Spain itself, a first design was finished by the end of September, although several more would follow as the government tried to consider which was the best one to engage with: it would not be until early 1907 that the first hull was laid.
However, Austria-Hungary would not be one of those lucky nations, able to make their own juggernauts. The troubles started with Franz Josef's murder the previous year were starting to spill into the following one. Austria and Hungary had had many things in common, but their differences, the ones that had sparked the transformation of the Austrian Empire into the Dual Monarchy were there, and starting to make the country come at the seams.
It all started in February, when Franz Ferdinand met the Hungarian government to tell them the ultimatum: either they accepted the changes to transform Austria-Hungary, or they would be seeing the door. When the Hungarians rejected the proposal, calling it blackmail of the worst order, the King-Emperor carried out his threat, and the Hungarian government was replaced by another, led by Franz Ferdinand's advisor, Aurel Popovici, who would ensure the program was carried out.
However, the Hungarian half of the government had the slight problem that it did not answer to the King, but to the Parliament, and as such the Hungarians considered the King's actions illegal: the new government became known as the “Kiszabott Kormány”, the Imposed Government, and chose to ignore them: the previous government was the only one considered legitimate by the Parliament, and the first time the Kiszabott Kormány tried to speak to the Parliament, all of its members – save for those that supported Franz Ferdinand's objectives – left the building.
Protests would begin to hit the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarchy, as the minorities began to understand that their monarch wished to give them a say in their own future, but their parliament was opposed to the idea. Several propagandists were able to spark even more protests and demands for the
Vereignten Staaten von Gross-Österreich. It was the beginning of a cold war between the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the Dual Monarchy.
Alarmed by this turn of events, Germany would begin to aid Austria in order to bring an end to the mess, sending diplomats to the Hungarians to convince them to drop the attitude and accept the possibility of change, but the Hungarians, not wanting to lose their power over the minorities within their half of the country, barely accepted the diplomats and mostly dismissed their points. It would be hard to attempt to find a way to reconcile both sides of the matter, and not even the best German diplomats believed they would be able to act and save the day.
To their east, Tsar Nikolai II saw the situation with ambivalent eyes. Ever since the alliance with France started, the air in the western border had started to rarefy, and the idea of one of their neighbours and potential future enemies going down was good, particularly considering that territory such as Galitzia that was populated by people of Polish extraction: a collapse of Austria-Hungary might allow them to gain such territory, not to mention become closer with the southern Slav nations; on the other side, though, were Austria-Hungary to fall, the situation may actually become too chaotic, particularly if it broke down in a civil war. So, Russia would wait and see what happened.
At the other side of the Atlantic, the United States of America celebrated the swearing in of Theodore Roosevelt to the office of the President of the United States. One of Roosevelt's first actions was to order a build-up of the Army and the Navy, as well as increasing the size of the Air Cavalry, seeing that there was a likely chance of armed conflict within his term.
Of course, this wound up making its neighbours nervous. Porfirio Díaz assumed that the United States might try to invade, taking advantage of the current chaos caused by what foreign journalists imaginatively called “the Mexican Revolution”, and asked for help to anyone that could listen, but few paid attention when it was obvious that he was done for. The British government, while not worried about it – the large border between the United States and Canada was too long for the United States to protect, and they had the most powerful navy in the world – still made sure to take care that Canada had enough protection for any eventual attack by the US.
It was Spain, though, that realized that they were at the greatest danger: no one there had lost sight of the enmity the United States now held for Spain, after becoming so much stronger and because they controlled Cuba, Puerto Rico and Quisqueya. They carefully started to expand what they had in the Caribbean, increasing the size of the Caribbean Fleet and recruiting soldiers in the region. Of course, this did not exactly help the US Government trust in Spain, so the arms race continued in the sea.
The same kind of problem was taking place in East Asia: Japan's possession of Korea had them facing off with Russia and China over the territory of Manchuria, rich in resources and people that China wished to keep, and Russia and Japan wanted to take over, or at least turn into a protectorate for them to take advantage of those resources. Both empires pretty much ignored China's protestations, considering them weak and unworthy of holding that land, and as such it was pretty much an attempt at showmanship between them. No shots were fired, but those who were there knew it was a matter of time.
Even South America was starting to pick on the smell of trouble. While the alliance between Peru and Bolivia remains as strong as ever, things around them are not going that well. For example, Chile was rearming itself, and was also trying to find allies in the region: Brazil, for example, had their eye on the Acre region, populated by many Brazilians but actually controlled by Bolivia, and Ecuador sought to solve in their favor the current border dispute with Peru.
Not everything that happened around the world in this year was a threat against humanity, though: for example, in the Institute Pasteur de Lille, physician Albert Calmette and his colleague Jean-Marie Guérin managed to create the first working immunization for tuberculosis; German-Swiss scientist Hans Einstein produced several papers that explained several issues that people had yet to find an answer for, such as the photoelectric effect or the random movement of particles within a fluid; cars powered with electric batteries started to become as common as gasoline-powered cars; the first cycling Grand Tour de la France took place during the month of July; Lisbon University celebrated its ten-year anniversary; the International Football Confederation was formed by football associations from all of Europe, in order to consider the possibility of organizing international tournaments in the future...
But peace was not to be held, and the pressure kept building until the boiler could not stand it anymore.
The
USS New York armored cruiser was going from the West Coast to the East Coast, as the Secretary of the Navy ordered it to be redeployed to the Atlantic Fleet in case a war with Spain ensued. Their last stop for coaling before reaching the United States was the port city of Santo Domingo, now capital of the Foral Region of Quisqueya, on September 9th.
While there, several sailors went ashore on leave, in order to attempt to enjoy some time at land before the last days of travel. A group of ten of them, drunk after visiting several taverns, assaulted a group of five young women that were walking through the streets, enjoying the festivities of the Día del Descubrimiento: the two old ladies that were accompanying the girls were thrown aside and gravely injured, and it took the intervention of twenty people, including five police officers, to stop the sailors before they could rape the ladies.
The group of sailors was imprisoned in wait for the trial to take place. The
USS New York captain attempted to get them out on bail, but this was prevented by the judge in charge, since it was clear that they would be jumping bail before the sun set. Trying to get the American consul – still styled as “Ambassador” in official American communications – in Santo Domingo involved did not work, either. In the end, being well behind schedule, the captain was forced to continue the travel to Newport, Rhode Island. Upon arriving there, they were all met with a growing scandal over the “injustice of the Spaniards' actions at imprisoning our brave boys”.
It turned out that the American consul had immediately sent word to Washington D.C. about the sailors being imprisoned, and the journalists for the main newspapers of the United States – among them Joseph Pulitzer's
New York World and John Roll McLean's
Washington Journal – reported on the events. However, all reports were "slightly" changed from reality, particularly those of the newspapers, where the articles written from the reports barely made mention of the victimized women and tried to portray the sailors as unjust victims of “Spanish rampant tyranny over our Caribbean brothers, who claim for liberation from their oppressors every day”.
Admittedly, what was being published was, at best, an exaggeration, and at worst pure lies. But such was the mood among the American public, and the American newspapers happily fed that fire with what was being called “yellow journalism”. Telegrams and letters started to be sent to the capital, demanding immediate action to free the sailors and bring them home. Protests took place in front of the Spanish Embassy, with people throwing stones and calling the ambassador every evil name under the sun.
Theodore Roosevelt saw here the perfect chance to finally put an end to the Spanish adventures in the United States' backyard, and fully open the Caribbean to them. Plus, they could even plan for the possibility of taking over what they are doing at Nicaragua, and that way they would be able to control both canals in the future. To that effect, he sent for the Spanish ambassador, and during the meeting 'requested' him that he work to liberate the prisoners.
Ambassador Antonio Quesada Pinares [1], however, was not moved by the 'request', and politely asked the President if he believed that his men were above the law. When Roosevelt replied that they were not, the Ambassador asked him why, then, he made that demand, and he also stated that, if the sailors were truly innocent – which did not look likely, given the many witnesses – then they had nothing to fear.
However, this answer was not to the liking of the American people, who were reading articles about the sailors being held in the most horrible of prisons in Quisqueya, or the squalor most families were supposedly living in at the three islands held by Spain, or even rumours of pro-independence people being shot daily. Most of it lies, of course, but the American people did not know that, trusting their newspapers' words.
As the situation between both sides started to heat up, Spain considered the need to send troops to the Caribbean: given the mood in the region, it was likely that a war may take place sooner or later. The troop movements, though, gave the United States the impression that Spain was planning to attack, and thus decided to answer accordingly.
President Roosevelt decided to send a small flotilla to Nicaragua, in order to engage in some gunboat diplomacy with the Nicaraguans and secure their “support” for the incoming conflict, but the Nicaraguan government decided to call for Spanish support, and a week later several Spanish ships were sailing into the port of Bilwi. When the American Rear Admiral John Storm [1] demanded that the Spanish leave, Rear Admiral Juan Casas de la Reina [1] replied that, unlike the Americans, they were there at the invitation of the local government, so, if anyone had to leave, it was them.
Tensions were increasing, the boiler was a hair's breadth away from exploding... and it did.
On November 12th 1905 at 2 AM, boiler no. 3 of the protected cruiser
USS Clarksville exploded, taking the ship out of commission and killing thirty-five crewmen. Captain Calvin Johnson [2], paranoid, half asleep and remembering the words of the Rear Admiral to expect a traitorous attack from the Spanish at any moment, believed they had been attacked by the Spaniards, and ordered to shoot back at their opponents and to warn the rest of the fleet the event.
Ten minutes later, the Spanish were surprised when the Americans started to shoot towards them, and Rear Admiral Casas de la Reina ordered an inmediate counter-attack.
The subsequent fight ended with heavy losses for the less trained Americans, but the Spanish fleet did not leave unscathed, losing two of their six ships and variable damages to the other ships. As the surviving Americans limped back home, news flew far and wide across the world, and by the time they arrived to Pensacola, the American public had been whipped into a war frenzy by the yellow press.
It was then that President Roosevelt issued the ultimatum that would forever bear his name: among the demands were “ending the illegal occupation of the Dominican Republic and restore its freedom”, selling all claims to the Nicaragua Canal to the United States, a great compensation for their “willful, malicious attack on our gallant ships and sailors”, for Rear Admiral Casas de la Reina to be given up to face American justice for his murder of American citizens and a boatload more of demands, while also including a few “recommendations” such as selling or leaving Cuba and Puerto Rico. If these demands were not accepted by the Spanish government, the United States “would be forced to declare war”.
The Spanish answer was quite clear: the fault for the attack clearly laid in the American fleet, which clearly struck first – which many Nicaraguans would be able to attest to – and, if anyone was to pay compensations, it was the American government.
Finally, on December 12th 1905, a month after the Roosevelt Ultimatum was issued, Theodore Roosevelt requested the joint session of House and Senate to vote in favor of declaring war on Spain. Two hours later, after the House voted 341-45 and the Senate 75-15 in favor of declaring war, the United States of America had officially declared war on the United Empire of the Spains.
[1] Invented names.
[2] Yes, it's the same as Skye's dad's name in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I did not pick it because of that.
END OF CHAPTER EIGHT
OK, first things first: I really, really did not want to repeat the
USS Maine incident. I actually told myself several times that I would not go the easy way. Actually, the initial idea was to use the incident with the sailors as the spark, but I realised it would have been the most idiotic excuse for such a war to happen (probably around the same level as the War of Jenkins' Ear) and decided to just use the issue to heat up the atmosphere between the USA and Spain. But then, when it came down to the spark, I saw that there was no way one side would attack the other without a reason, and I did not have Tocomocho's excuse of Venezuela's war to bring the initial smackdown, so... strange explosion + paranoid navy = "OMFG, we are being attacked!". Yes, it is a bit weak, because someone with enough sense should have done like Stanislav Petrov and realised that there was no way the Spanish ships would have shot just one shell.
Ugh. Trying to find a way to start a war is not easy.
Anyway, onto other issues.
The name for TTL's dreadnoughts has, obviously, changed. The original Dreadnought was, as you can imagine, named after the belief that its sailors would "dread nought", dread nothing. Here, they are called juggernauts, the unstoppable force.
About the Austria-Hungary issues, I fear I may have considered the Crown's powers in Hungary much greater than they were, because the information I could find stated that the Hungarian government was appointed by the King-Emperor but answered to Parliament, which meant that, either it played like in current parliamentary monarchies (the appointed government is actually the one chosen by Parliament) or it was directly picked by the monarch (as it happened in still-absolutist Austria). If it was the former, I apologize for this utter screw-up, but then the ideas I am having for A-H would not work.
Also, the little things. Sure, having Albert Einstein's ATL brother being responsible for a good part of his discoveries is too easy, but it makes for a good alternative to bringing in a completely unrelated guy. And we don't have FIFA anymore: instead, it is the IFC/CIF. Electric cars are more common since several countries (among them Spain) are quite rich but do not have easy access to petrol, which tends to be saved for the Navy.
For those who wonder, military planes are still a bit away. They definitely do not have the range to reach from Florida to Cuba. They will in a few years, but not during the Spanish-American War.
Hope you have liked this chapter, and keep close for the next!
