Kitiem3000
Donor
This is a very interesting POD. It's well written, although I would have to continue reading if for no other reason then to see why The Netherlands is still called Batavia. I'm curious to see where it will go.
The Lights of Liberty - a counterfactual history
- Thread starter Widukind
- Start date
The WAS under Henry is highly unlikely to have occurred as in OTL.. This is lazy research...
It was a product of Frederick's ambition and his more impetuous personality that he acted as pre-emptively and Machiavellian fashion, as he did. Henry is NOT Frederick AND he is ONLY 14.
Considering that the Austro-Prussian conflict was not 1 but two separate Silesian Wars. A result that mirrors ours, while a statistical probability... would be EXTREMELY LOW to near impossible.
Given Henry's youth His government ministers would have had more influence on the conduct of said war, at least initially. The approach is more likely to have been more cautious and diplomatic.
that doesn't mean though that Saxony and Bavaria, egged on by the Hapsburgs French foes might not have acted on their own, to which Prussia joined subsequently...
The Austrians though may have beaten the Bavarians and Saxon...as they did OTL, giving the Prussians pause.
Its far more likely there is a partition in lower Silesia, to keep the Prussians out of the fray and mitigate any of the perceived slights for Julich and Berg
It was a product of Frederick's ambition and his more impetuous personality that he acted as pre-emptively and Machiavellian fashion, as he did. Henry is NOT Frederick AND he is ONLY 14.
Considering that the Austro-Prussian conflict was not 1 but two separate Silesian Wars. A result that mirrors ours, while a statistical probability... would be EXTREMELY LOW to near impossible.
Given Henry's youth His government ministers would have had more influence on the conduct of said war, at least initially. The approach is more likely to have been more cautious and diplomatic.
that doesn't mean though that Saxony and Bavaria, egged on by the Hapsburgs French foes might not have acted on their own, to which Prussia joined subsequently...
The Austrians though may have beaten the Bavarians and Saxon...as they did OTL, giving the Prussians pause.
Its far more likely there is a partition in lower Silesia, to keep the Prussians out of the fray and mitigate any of the perceived slights for Julich and Berg
That is a very interesting point, AuroraBorealis. I must admit, I've always thought that Prussia's blatant land grab in Silesia was going to happen one way or another. They wanted that land, and they were just waiting for an opportune moment to snatch it up. I never considered that Frederick influenced that decision so very much, but your reasoning is solid. So, I'll just see how I can improve on that. Your suggestion sounds plausible, so I'll take that as a baseline and go from there.
By the time I've worked it out, I may not be able to edit the post anymore, of course. In that case, I'll have to save the improvements for an eventual posting of this timeline as a finished scenario. Regardless, I feel a conflict akin to the Seven Years' war would still break out, so I can continue the timeline without significant hickups.
Part II, continued.
Insights, comments and criticism are more than welcome. Let me know what you think, folks, I want to get better at this!
---
Excerpted from The Six Years’ War in British America, by Geoffrey Wilbur (Northcote Books, Great-Britain, 1892):
(...) and because of this, Great-Britain had suffered repeated failure in North America. Particularly jarring was, of course, the humiliating defeat—and eventual massacre of British civillians—at Fort William Henry. In the end, however, adversity united the Britons in their perseverence, and political stability at home was established at last. Since the war had officially begun in 1756, the successive governments of Newcastle and Pitt had both fallen. In August 1757, the two men agreed to form a coalition government. This provided much-needed unity of direction to the war effort: the agreed-upon strategy embraced both Newcastle's commitment to involvement on the continent (specifically in support of Prussia) and Pitt's ambition to fight a colonial war using Britain’s naval superiority.
This new-found unity by no means guaranteed victory in North America, however, and as 1757 drew to a close, the situation for the British seemed even less optimistic than that of the Prussians...
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
Many Prussian or Prussophile historians display a tendency to portray king Henry as a military genius, faced with difficulties exclusively caused by the failures of others (such as his British and Havoverian allies). This is not entirely accurate—Prussia was in serious danger from advancing Swedish and Russian forces, despite his decisive victories at Zwickau and Pilsen. Henry’s salvation was that the Russians apparently overestimated his military strength at that time, and decided to withdraw their forces from East Prussia for the duration of the winter. Had they chosen to hold the ground they had conquered, it might have been a very different war.
They retreated, however, and Henry surmised that a renewed Russian advance was to be expected no earlier than the start of spring in 1758. He redirected his armies towards Pomerania in order to repel the Swedish invasion. Before the close of 1757, the Prussians had defeated the Swedish army, occupied the better part of Swedish Pomerania and blockaded its capital city of Stralsund.
Having dealt with the Swedish threat, Henry moved south again, correctly assuming that an Austrian attempt to reclaim Bohemia was to be expected in early 1758. As Henry was on the march, the Hungarian general András Hadik, serving in the Austrian army, opted for a daring mavoeuvre: to swing around the Prussian force with a 5,000-man force (mostly consisting of hussars) and capture the Prussian capital of Berlin.
It nearly worked. Had Prussian scouts not sighted Hadik’s vanguard, he would most likely have reached Berlin with his army (that would have been more than able to capture that city) The sighting of his troops betrayed his intentions to Henry, however, who immediately ordered a large part of his army to turn around and defend Berlin. The Prussians sped north and beat Hadik to Berlin. When he arrived, expecting a poorly defended city, his army was smashed to pieces by the waiting Prussians.
What the Prussian histories ascribe to Henry’s great genius was, in truth, partially the result of nothing more than good fortune on his part. Nevertheless, the successes of late 1757 convinced the British government to revoke the earlier Hanoverian surrender. Over the following winter the new commander of the Hanoverian forces, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, regrouped his army and launched a series of offensives that drove the French back across the Rhine. Things seemed to be looking up for the Prusso-British alliance—but appearances can be deceiving...
---
Prussian army camp, near Dresden, Prussian-occupied Saxony, 21nd of March 1758
“What did you say? I cannot believe this!”
Of course, Henry could believe it, all too easily. He just didn’t want to accept the fact. But there it was, the undeniable truth: the Austrians had captured Prague. This was terrible news. Henry had entertained the hope that his garrison would be able to keep the city until he could arrive to relieve them—in vain, as it now turned out.
His general shrugged, the same disappointment showing on his face that also stirred in Henry’s soul. “Our men fought to the last, but the enemy was too strong.”
“And now?” the king asked. “What is our enemy planning?”
“Are scouts indicate they are advancing towards us,” the general said. “We can either take our chances here, or fall back to Dresden so we can combine our current forces with the army presently there. Either option—”
“Say no more,” Henry interrupted him. He knew what it all meant. If he fought the Austrians with his current forces, chances of victory were slim. But if he fell back, there would be no time to retake Prague even if he defeated the Austrians—he’d have to deal with the advancing Russians, first.
And that meant the Austrians would be able to secure their hold on Prague. Blast it all! But there was no real choice. He’d have to retreat. Better to lose Prague than to lose it all.
“We fall back, general, and fight them another day. We will join up with the army at Dresden. That should even the odds for our next encounter with the Austrians.”
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
Henry concluded that it would not be prudent to wait for the Austrians to come to Dresden. It would too severely hamper his ability to manoeuvre, to choose his own site of battle. So he set out with his combined army, and proceeded to choose the place of battle with great care. And so it turned out that the two sides met on april 17, close to the town of Altenberg. The battle was yet another Prussian victory (...)
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
The Battle of Altenburg is universally (at least, universally outside of Prussia) regarded as the turning point of Henry’s fortunes. Both sides claimed victory, and a good case could be made for both. Henry defeated the Austrian army under marshal Daun, yes, but at a tremendously high cost. Both armies suffered losses over 60%. The Austrian advance was broken, and the survivors had to flee back into Bohemia – a sign of victory for Henry. But at the same time, Henry had no forces at hand to pursue the Austrians, let alone recapture Prague. Bohemia was lost to him, and that was considered a great victory in Austria.
With both sides unable to re-engage one another, they each aimed to regain their strength. Henry, safe from further Austrian attacks for the moment, turned his attention to the Russian threat. Very different from what he had anticipated, the Russians had returned to East Prussia over the winter, and it was now firmly under their control. A Russian army of 43,000 soldiers under Count Fermor now marched on Berlin, forcing Henry to take immediate action against this advance.
He met the Russians at Landsberg on the Warthe. After a series of inconclusive skirmishes over the course of two days, the two armies definitively faced off on the 9th of July. Henry was, as usual, outnumbered – he had 35,000 soldiers at his disposal. Nevertheless, he managed to fight the Russians to a standstill. Both sides suffered high losses, though significantly less so than at Altenberg. The Russians withdrew from the field in good order, and were far from decisively beaten, but Henry nevertheless claimed a victory.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
Despite heavy losses incurred, it cannot be called into question that both Altenberg and Landsberg were victories for the Prussian side. There has been for the last two decades a tendency in historical analysis to slander the reputation of king Henry by making him seem far more inept than he was. No doubt this is inspired by the revisionist interpretation of the Battle of Zwickau, which posits that king Henry was a sort of war criminal. That type of misinterpretation stems from the error of overlaying modern sensibilities on the events of a different age, and it distorts the observer’s perception of the entire war.
Those who slander the king’s name by classifying Altenberg and Landsberg as defeats would do well to note that these battles rendered the Russians unable to advance any further, which allowed Henry to turn north in support of the armies already facing the Swedish. The Swedish forces were preparing to attempt an attack on Berlin, and Henry saw a chance to strike first. King Henry had been investing all available funds into the training of new recruits, and the campaign against the Swedish saw him reinforced with 20,000 fresh soldiers. [1]
He intercepted the Swedish army at Wittstock, and managed to catch them by surprise. In the Battle of Wittstock, fought on the 20th of August, he managed to force the enemy into a retreat. In the Battle of Dosse, fought the next day, he soundly defeated the Swedish army, thus ending the threat of a Swedish attack on Berlin once and for all.
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
One must be aware that Henry took an enormous risk by moving nearly his entire army north to deal with the Swedish. It left other parts of Prussia wide open for his enemies – a fact not lost on marshal Daun of Austria. The marshal directed his forces into Saxony as swiftly as he could manage in good order, and took the Prussian divisions garrisoned there completely by suprise. By the end of september, he was close to capturing Dresden. Henry had to speed south to cut Daun off, and although he managed this, it left him unable to defend his kingdom against the continued threat of a Russian invasion.
Indeed, by the time Henry had managed to fight Daun back into Bohemia, the Russians were advancing on Berlin. With Daun forced to stay in Bohemia for the duration of the winter, regaining his strength, Henry turned to the Russian threat, hoping to defeat them during the winter, so he could focus on fighting Daun in Bohemia come springtime.
It proved to be a dangerous misjudgment of the Russians, who were far more capable in the field than Henry intitially believed. They threatened Berlin directly, forcing Henry to defend his own capital. It proved to be his first undeniable defeat of the war. It claimed the life of general Carl Heinrich von Wedel, along with some 10,000 of Henry’s 32,000 soldiers present at the battle. Only the arrival of a Prussian relief force saved Henry (and Berlin) from perdition. The Russian army, under Count Saltykov, chose to retreat rather than fight the reinforced Prussian army outright.
This strategy forced Henry into pursuing his enemy. What followed was a game of cat and mouse lasting into the summer of 1759. Saltykov hoped to be able to lure Henry into a trap, but he was to be disappointed: Henry eventually managed to outflank and defeat him. This Prussian victory ended the Russian ability to threaten him for the remainder of 1759. By that time, however, it was August – and the Austrians under Daun had sufficiently recovered for a renewed attempt to capture Dresden. While Henry was still tied up in his struggle with the Russians, Daun succeeded in this endeavour.
Henry dispatched general Fouqué to halt Daun’s advance and recapture Dresden, but the general only succeeded in the first of these objectives. The continued success of the Hanoverians against the French, meanwhile, prevented France from sending troops to aid the Austrians against Prussia in the east. Knowing this, and correctly estimating that Sweden was not able to threaten Prussia after he had defeated its armies at Wittstock and Dosse, Henry swung his entire force towards Dresden. Daun was forced to retreat back into Bohemia. Henry, believing that this would be his chance to crush Daun once and for all, pursued.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
The Austrians fled from Dresden with their tail between their legs, and king Henry was more determined than ever to deal with them for good. He caught up to Daun’s fleeing army at Kletzan, and the Battle of Kletzan took place on the first of October. King Henry managed to defeat the Austrians by means of feigning a retreat, and crushing the Austrians with a cavalry charge when they aimed to exploit his perceived weakness. Daun fled the field of battle, and king Henry pursued him to Rostok. By that the following day, however, an Austrian relief force under general Laudon had arrived.
King Henry was now forced to face off against an fresh host of enemy soldiers, while his own army was tired from the battle of the day before. The battle turned into a bloodbath, with both sides suffering tremendous losses – but Prussia prevailed in the end. The Austrians broke ranks and fled, allowing king Henry to capture both Daun and Laudon, who would remain his prisoners for the rest of the war.
It was this defeat that permanently disabled the Austrian ability to stage new invasions into Prussia. Still, winter was coming, Henry’s position in Bohemia was not strong enough to remain in control of the country. Not with Prague still in enemy hands, and he lacked the means to wrest control away from them. Knowing also that 1760 would eventually bring renewed Russian aggression, king Henry elected to leave Bohemia to the Austrians, content in the knowledge that they were no longer fit to threaten Saxony or Silesia. He would use the coming months to regain his strength, in order to face the Russians with renewed zeal the next year.
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] The war, at this point, is going decidedly better for Prussia than it did IOTL, and Henry has more funds at his disposal than Frederick did, because unlike his brother, he prevented Hadik from capturing Berlin. Frederick had to pay a hefty ransom IOTL to prevent the hussars from putting his capital to the torch. Those funds remain Henry’s to spend ITTL.
Insights, comments and criticism are more than welcome. Let me know what you think, folks, I want to get better at this!
---
Excerpted from The Six Years’ War in British America, by Geoffrey Wilbur (Northcote Books, Great-Britain, 1892):
(...) and because of this, Great-Britain had suffered repeated failure in North America. Particularly jarring was, of course, the humiliating defeat—and eventual massacre of British civillians—at Fort William Henry. In the end, however, adversity united the Britons in their perseverence, and political stability at home was established at last. Since the war had officially begun in 1756, the successive governments of Newcastle and Pitt had both fallen. In August 1757, the two men agreed to form a coalition government. This provided much-needed unity of direction to the war effort: the agreed-upon strategy embraced both Newcastle's commitment to involvement on the continent (specifically in support of Prussia) and Pitt's ambition to fight a colonial war using Britain’s naval superiority.
This new-found unity by no means guaranteed victory in North America, however, and as 1757 drew to a close, the situation for the British seemed even less optimistic than that of the Prussians...
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
Many Prussian or Prussophile historians display a tendency to portray king Henry as a military genius, faced with difficulties exclusively caused by the failures of others (such as his British and Havoverian allies). This is not entirely accurate—Prussia was in serious danger from advancing Swedish and Russian forces, despite his decisive victories at Zwickau and Pilsen. Henry’s salvation was that the Russians apparently overestimated his military strength at that time, and decided to withdraw their forces from East Prussia for the duration of the winter. Had they chosen to hold the ground they had conquered, it might have been a very different war.
They retreated, however, and Henry surmised that a renewed Russian advance was to be expected no earlier than the start of spring in 1758. He redirected his armies towards Pomerania in order to repel the Swedish invasion. Before the close of 1757, the Prussians had defeated the Swedish army, occupied the better part of Swedish Pomerania and blockaded its capital city of Stralsund.
Having dealt with the Swedish threat, Henry moved south again, correctly assuming that an Austrian attempt to reclaim Bohemia was to be expected in early 1758. As Henry was on the march, the Hungarian general András Hadik, serving in the Austrian army, opted for a daring mavoeuvre: to swing around the Prussian force with a 5,000-man force (mostly consisting of hussars) and capture the Prussian capital of Berlin.
It nearly worked. Had Prussian scouts not sighted Hadik’s vanguard, he would most likely have reached Berlin with his army (that would have been more than able to capture that city) The sighting of his troops betrayed his intentions to Henry, however, who immediately ordered a large part of his army to turn around and defend Berlin. The Prussians sped north and beat Hadik to Berlin. When he arrived, expecting a poorly defended city, his army was smashed to pieces by the waiting Prussians.
What the Prussian histories ascribe to Henry’s great genius was, in truth, partially the result of nothing more than good fortune on his part. Nevertheless, the successes of late 1757 convinced the British government to revoke the earlier Hanoverian surrender. Over the following winter the new commander of the Hanoverian forces, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, regrouped his army and launched a series of offensives that drove the French back across the Rhine. Things seemed to be looking up for the Prusso-British alliance—but appearances can be deceiving...
---
Prussian army camp, near Dresden, Prussian-occupied Saxony, 21nd of March 1758
“What did you say? I cannot believe this!”
Of course, Henry could believe it, all too easily. He just didn’t want to accept the fact. But there it was, the undeniable truth: the Austrians had captured Prague. This was terrible news. Henry had entertained the hope that his garrison would be able to keep the city until he could arrive to relieve them—in vain, as it now turned out.
His general shrugged, the same disappointment showing on his face that also stirred in Henry’s soul. “Our men fought to the last, but the enemy was too strong.”
“And now?” the king asked. “What is our enemy planning?”
“Are scouts indicate they are advancing towards us,” the general said. “We can either take our chances here, or fall back to Dresden so we can combine our current forces with the army presently there. Either option—”
“Say no more,” Henry interrupted him. He knew what it all meant. If he fought the Austrians with his current forces, chances of victory were slim. But if he fell back, there would be no time to retake Prague even if he defeated the Austrians—he’d have to deal with the advancing Russians, first.
And that meant the Austrians would be able to secure their hold on Prague. Blast it all! But there was no real choice. He’d have to retreat. Better to lose Prague than to lose it all.
“We fall back, general, and fight them another day. We will join up with the army at Dresden. That should even the odds for our next encounter with the Austrians.”
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
Henry concluded that it would not be prudent to wait for the Austrians to come to Dresden. It would too severely hamper his ability to manoeuvre, to choose his own site of battle. So he set out with his combined army, and proceeded to choose the place of battle with great care. And so it turned out that the two sides met on april 17, close to the town of Altenberg. The battle was yet another Prussian victory (...)
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
The Battle of Altenburg is universally (at least, universally outside of Prussia) regarded as the turning point of Henry’s fortunes. Both sides claimed victory, and a good case could be made for both. Henry defeated the Austrian army under marshal Daun, yes, but at a tremendously high cost. Both armies suffered losses over 60%. The Austrian advance was broken, and the survivors had to flee back into Bohemia – a sign of victory for Henry. But at the same time, Henry had no forces at hand to pursue the Austrians, let alone recapture Prague. Bohemia was lost to him, and that was considered a great victory in Austria.
With both sides unable to re-engage one another, they each aimed to regain their strength. Henry, safe from further Austrian attacks for the moment, turned his attention to the Russian threat. Very different from what he had anticipated, the Russians had returned to East Prussia over the winter, and it was now firmly under their control. A Russian army of 43,000 soldiers under Count Fermor now marched on Berlin, forcing Henry to take immediate action against this advance.
He met the Russians at Landsberg on the Warthe. After a series of inconclusive skirmishes over the course of two days, the two armies definitively faced off on the 9th of July. Henry was, as usual, outnumbered – he had 35,000 soldiers at his disposal. Nevertheless, he managed to fight the Russians to a standstill. Both sides suffered high losses, though significantly less so than at Altenberg. The Russians withdrew from the field in good order, and were far from decisively beaten, but Henry nevertheless claimed a victory.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
Despite heavy losses incurred, it cannot be called into question that both Altenberg and Landsberg were victories for the Prussian side. There has been for the last two decades a tendency in historical analysis to slander the reputation of king Henry by making him seem far more inept than he was. No doubt this is inspired by the revisionist interpretation of the Battle of Zwickau, which posits that king Henry was a sort of war criminal. That type of misinterpretation stems from the error of overlaying modern sensibilities on the events of a different age, and it distorts the observer’s perception of the entire war.
Those who slander the king’s name by classifying Altenberg and Landsberg as defeats would do well to note that these battles rendered the Russians unable to advance any further, which allowed Henry to turn north in support of the armies already facing the Swedish. The Swedish forces were preparing to attempt an attack on Berlin, and Henry saw a chance to strike first. King Henry had been investing all available funds into the training of new recruits, and the campaign against the Swedish saw him reinforced with 20,000 fresh soldiers. [1]
He intercepted the Swedish army at Wittstock, and managed to catch them by surprise. In the Battle of Wittstock, fought on the 20th of August, he managed to force the enemy into a retreat. In the Battle of Dosse, fought the next day, he soundly defeated the Swedish army, thus ending the threat of a Swedish attack on Berlin once and for all.
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
One must be aware that Henry took an enormous risk by moving nearly his entire army north to deal with the Swedish. It left other parts of Prussia wide open for his enemies – a fact not lost on marshal Daun of Austria. The marshal directed his forces into Saxony as swiftly as he could manage in good order, and took the Prussian divisions garrisoned there completely by suprise. By the end of september, he was close to capturing Dresden. Henry had to speed south to cut Daun off, and although he managed this, it left him unable to defend his kingdom against the continued threat of a Russian invasion.
Indeed, by the time Henry had managed to fight Daun back into Bohemia, the Russians were advancing on Berlin. With Daun forced to stay in Bohemia for the duration of the winter, regaining his strength, Henry turned to the Russian threat, hoping to defeat them during the winter, so he could focus on fighting Daun in Bohemia come springtime.
It proved to be a dangerous misjudgment of the Russians, who were far more capable in the field than Henry intitially believed. They threatened Berlin directly, forcing Henry to defend his own capital. It proved to be his first undeniable defeat of the war. It claimed the life of general Carl Heinrich von Wedel, along with some 10,000 of Henry’s 32,000 soldiers present at the battle. Only the arrival of a Prussian relief force saved Henry (and Berlin) from perdition. The Russian army, under Count Saltykov, chose to retreat rather than fight the reinforced Prussian army outright.
This strategy forced Henry into pursuing his enemy. What followed was a game of cat and mouse lasting into the summer of 1759. Saltykov hoped to be able to lure Henry into a trap, but he was to be disappointed: Henry eventually managed to outflank and defeat him. This Prussian victory ended the Russian ability to threaten him for the remainder of 1759. By that time, however, it was August – and the Austrians under Daun had sufficiently recovered for a renewed attempt to capture Dresden. While Henry was still tied up in his struggle with the Russians, Daun succeeded in this endeavour.
Henry dispatched general Fouqué to halt Daun’s advance and recapture Dresden, but the general only succeeded in the first of these objectives. The continued success of the Hanoverians against the French, meanwhile, prevented France from sending troops to aid the Austrians against Prussia in the east. Knowing this, and correctly estimating that Sweden was not able to threaten Prussia after he had defeated its armies at Wittstock and Dosse, Henry swung his entire force towards Dresden. Daun was forced to retreat back into Bohemia. Henry, believing that this would be his chance to crush Daun once and for all, pursued.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
The Austrians fled from Dresden with their tail between their legs, and king Henry was more determined than ever to deal with them for good. He caught up to Daun’s fleeing army at Kletzan, and the Battle of Kletzan took place on the first of October. King Henry managed to defeat the Austrians by means of feigning a retreat, and crushing the Austrians with a cavalry charge when they aimed to exploit his perceived weakness. Daun fled the field of battle, and king Henry pursued him to Rostok. By that the following day, however, an Austrian relief force under general Laudon had arrived.
King Henry was now forced to face off against an fresh host of enemy soldiers, while his own army was tired from the battle of the day before. The battle turned into a bloodbath, with both sides suffering tremendous losses – but Prussia prevailed in the end. The Austrians broke ranks and fled, allowing king Henry to capture both Daun and Laudon, who would remain his prisoners for the rest of the war.
It was this defeat that permanently disabled the Austrian ability to stage new invasions into Prussia. Still, winter was coming, Henry’s position in Bohemia was not strong enough to remain in control of the country. Not with Prague still in enemy hands, and he lacked the means to wrest control away from them. Knowing also that 1760 would eventually bring renewed Russian aggression, king Henry elected to leave Bohemia to the Austrians, content in the knowledge that they were no longer fit to threaten Saxony or Silesia. He would use the coming months to regain his strength, in order to face the Russians with renewed zeal the next year.
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] The war, at this point, is going decidedly better for Prussia than it did IOTL, and Henry has more funds at his disposal than Frederick did, because unlike his brother, he prevented Hadik from capturing Berlin. Frederick had to pay a hefty ransom IOTL to prevent the hussars from putting his capital to the torch. Those funds remain Henry’s to spend ITTL.
Now, for the conclusion of Part II:
---
Excerpted from The Six Years’ War in British America, by Geoffrey Wilbur (Northcote Books, Great-Britain, 1892):
If 1759 is to be considered a good year for king Henry, it has to be deigned positively miraculous for king George. British troops at long last succeeded in capturing Fort Ticonderoga in late July, and James Wolfe defeated the French general Montcalm at Québec in the decicive battle of the war in North America; the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Wolfe led 200 ships carrying 9,000 soldiers and 18,000 sailors on a most daring amphibious landing at the base of the cliffs west of Québec along the St. Lawrence River. His army, with two small cannons, scaled the cliffs early in the morning of 13 September 1759, surprising the French under the command of Montcalm, who thought the cliffs would be unclimbable. Faced with the possibility that the British would haul more cannons up the cliffs and knock down the city's remaining walls, the French fought the British on the Plains of Abraham. They were defeated after fifteen minutes of battle, and Montcalm himself was fatally injured, dying the following day of his wounds. Wolfe himself was shot in the arm as he moved forward with the troops, but the injury proved minor. [1]
Wolfe's victory at Québec, combined with a British victory at Fort Niagara that successfully cut off the French frontier forts further to the west and south, enabled an assault on the French at Montréal the following year. It seemed at first that the French would defeat the British at Sainte-Foy, but Wolfe’s capable command turned the battle around. [2] When the British were subsequently able to prevent the arrival of French relief ships in the naval Battle of the Restigouche while their armies approached Montréal from three sides, the victory in North America was made complete.
In august 1760, [3] the French governor Vaudreuil negotiated a surrender with General Wolfe, who granted Vaudreuil’s request that any French residents who chose to remain in the colony would be guaranteed the continued ownership of their property, and the right to remain undisturbed in their own homes. Wolfe also granted them the freedom to continue worshipping in their Roman Catholic tradition, but only “until His Majesty’s government sees fit to legislate this matter”. Vaudreuil was not a happy man, but he was left with no choice but to accept the terms.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
No sooner had the British crown achieved its goal of seeing France defeated, or British support for the Prussian war effort was reduced to near-complete insignificance. King Henry was left to fend for himself. Only his ability to foresee the petty self-interest of the British ensured that Prussia was prepared for exactly this scenario. The alliance with Great-Britain had been of benefit to both nations, and had been a natural merging of national interests. But it was never meant to be permanent, for the Britons are not instilled with the dedicated honor and warrior spirit, as the Prussian race is. [4] An alliance with such a people can only ever be temporary, and in the end, Prussia will always have to rely on her own strength. History has taught us this much. [5]
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
As the British were finalizing their victory in North America, king Henry was fanatically engaged in the buildup of his armed forces in preparation for what he saw as the final and decicive conflict of the war: the fight against the Russians. He had ample time: the awaited Russian attack came no sooner than August, and by that point the Prussian defences were honed to near perfection. Henry’s armies deflected the Russian incursions with relatively limited losses to their own ranks.
In a famous letter written in early september, Henry anticipated victory within the year. It proved to be overly optimistic, as scarcely a week later, the remaining Russian armies arrived from the east. The renewed assault proved more overwhelming than the last, and Henry suffered heavy losses just to hold his ground. By mid-October, he managed to turn the tide of the war just miles from Berlin. Fighting off the Russians, however, had demanded all his military strength. He now had the chance to pursue them as they broke off their invasion, but all his other borders were left peactically defenseless.
Although the king had been correct in his assumption that the Swedish and the Austrians were no longer able to mount considerable offensives, they still managed to exploit the fact that he was tied up in the east by sending raiding parties into Prussia. With nothing stopping them, these proved far more dangerous than Henry had anticipated. As he pursued the Russians after preventing them from taking Berlin, news reached him that Berlin had been taken after all—by a Swedish raiding party.
Enraged, the king sent back a considerable force to uproot the Swedish. This succeeded, but the absence of these soldiers on the Russia front allowed that enemy to mavouevre around him. The Russians escaped, and Henry lost his chance to beat them decisively. This course of events made it clear to Henry that he would have to substantially garrison his borders with both Sweden and Austria.
1760 closed with all sides tired and suffering from considerable losses, but Henry must be credited with the strongest recovery during the winter months, implementing a highly effective recuiting program. Despite having to commit new troops to guarding against Swedish and Austrian raiders, he had a substantial army available for the fight against Russia. The subsequent clashes throughout 1761 were all inconclusive: the two sides were evenly matched. The war slowed down into a stalemate, at least on the Prusso-Russian front.
The next year, on the other hand, would bring great upheaval – not in the least the sudden entry of Spain and Portugal into the war. Under king Ferdinand VI, Spain had enjoyed good relations with Great-Britain. Therefore, Spain had remained neutral. But upon Ferdinand’s death, he was succeeded by the Francophile Charles III, whose government switched to a more pro-French policy. Britain declared war against Spain on 4 January 1762; Spain reacted by issuing their own declaration of war against Britain on 18 January. Portugal followed by joining the war on Britain's side. Spain, aided by the French, launched an invasion of Portugal and succeeded in capturing Almeida. The arrival of British reinforcements, however, prevented a further Spanish advance.
---
Excerpted from The Portuguese Campaign, by general George Townshend (Palmington publishing house, Great-Britain, 1780):
We won the whole thing at Valencia de Alcántara, really. Our forces overran a major enemy supply base, and from there on it was all the way down for the Spaniards. Our boys under col. Burgoyne cleared the whole area of enemy troops, and they even captured one of the Spanish generals. A hefty ransom was paid for his return: a year worth of taxes. Paid in corn, mind you...
It did wonders for Portuguese morale, which was the greatest asset of all. Burgoyne was given a large diamond as a sign of their gratitude, and the Spanish Colours that had been captured. It’s a shame he succumbed to disease only a month later. Then again, illness was the greater foe in that campaign. Fever claimed more lives than all the Spanish bullets fired in the war. Still, sad that it should’ve been Burgoyne among the dead. I feel he would have been of much use to His Majesty in the recent American troubles... [6]
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
The fifth of january, forever a day of glory for all Prussia! Gone at last was that vilest of women, Empress Elizabeth of Russia. It turned everything around. Her successor, the infinitely wiser Peter III, at once recalled all Russian armies from the war, requesting peace with king Henry, whom he held in high esteem. The king, always a man of noble character, accepted at once, and all previous animosity between the two nations was dispelled fortwith.
Following this most fortunate turn of events, king Henry was able to turn his entire army against his remaining opponents, who were already weakened from the earlier defeats they had suffered at his hands. Dividing his army into two parts, he dispatched one third to occupy all of Swedish Pomerania, while personally leading the remaining two thirds in a renewed Bohemian campaign.
In both instances, Prussia was victorious. The Swedish barely offered resistance, and on the urging of Peter III, they surrendered before long. Bohemia proved a longer fight, but late September, king Henry ultimately crushed the remaining Austrian forces, exposing Prague to his advance.
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, United States, 1941):
At the close of 1762, everything was different from the way it had been the year before. Russia and Sweden were out of the war, Prussia threatened Prague directly, and the armies of Hanover and Brunswick captured the key town of Göttingen and compounded this victory by taking Cassel. In North America the French, who had captured St. John’s in Newfoundland, saw their victory reversed by the Battle of Signal Hill in September. French control of Newfoundland was lost, and the already low morale of the French population reached new depths.
There could be no further doubt that Austria and France had lost the war, and in October, both nations sued for peace. The treaties were signed on Christmas Day, bringing an end to the Six Years’ War.
---
Excerpted from The Christmas Peace, by Dolf Manning (Bisterfeld Books, Prussia, 1904):
For Prussia, of course, the peace treaty held great spoils – chief among them the complete annexation of Meissen [7] and the obligation for the Austrians to pay an annual sum of 25,000 thaler to the Prussian crown in perpetuity. This is well-known history to all self-respecting Prussians.
Oft forgotten in our country is the separate treaty that established peace between Great-Britain and France. During the war, Britain had conquered the French colonies of Canada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tobago, the French trading posts in India, the slave-trading station at Gorée, the Senegal River and its settlements, and the Spanish colonies of Manila in the Philippines and Habana in Cuba.
France had captured Minorca and several British trading posts in Sumatra, while Spain had captured the border fortress of Almeida in Portugal, and Colonia del Sacramento in South America. France and Spain restored all these conquests to Britain and Portugal. Britain, in turn, restored Manila and Havana to Spain, in exchange for permanent ownership of formerly Spanish Florida. (In a further secret agreement, France gave Louisiana to Spain to compensate their ally for the loss of Florida.) Britain also returned Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Gorée, Senegal and the Indian factories to France.
In return, France ceded French North America east of the Mississippi, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tobago to Britain. France aimed to retain fishing rights off Newfoundland as well as ownership of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands where it could dry that fish, but was rebuffed by Britain. [8]
One more condition of the peace treaty was that France was to pay an annual sum of 20,000 livres to the British Crown for a period of 25 years, resulting in a cumulative payment of 500,000 livres over the period 1763-1788. This, of course, turned out to be very damaging to the French economy. At the time, no-one was aware how debt-ridden the French government already was, so it was not realized how utterly destabilizing the annual repair payments would turn out to be.
Perhaps the most important point of the Anglo-French peace treaty, though, was the absence of a particular point: the British refused to outright confirm the right of its new Francophone subjects to practice the Catholic religion. The Six Years’ War was over, but the peace was an incomplete settlement of accounts, and this would come back to haunt the British even decades after the fact...
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] IOTL, he was hit twice more, and died on the battlefield.
[2] IOTL, the British lost this battle
[3] That is, a month earlier than IOTL.
[4] Wilhelm Anrath: for all your rabid nationalism.
[5] In this case, the rabid nationalist has, however, stumbled onto a bit of a point. ITTL as IOTL, the British got what they wanted from the war, and then largely bailed on Prussia. There’s a reason certain Prussian generals later decided to support the fledgling United States, rather than their erstwhile ally, Britain. When you always look out for number one, and leave all your friends hanging, you’ll end up with very few friends.
[6] Townshend’s remark is not meant to be sarcastic. Burgoyne is often portrayed as a buffoon IOTL after his defeat in the Revolutionary War, but that doesn’t do the man justice. At the time of the Portuguese campaign, he was universally regarded as an excellent officer.
[7] Then called the Electorate of Saxony, ITTL as IOTL, but Manning doesn’t mention that.
[8] IOTL, Britain allowed this concession to France. ITTL, the British position is stronger, and the concession is deemed unneccesary.
GENERAL NOTES
With the war at an end, the next update will at last take us to America. Stay tuned for the next part:
---
Excerpted from The Six Years’ War in British America, by Geoffrey Wilbur (Northcote Books, Great-Britain, 1892):
If 1759 is to be considered a good year for king Henry, it has to be deigned positively miraculous for king George. British troops at long last succeeded in capturing Fort Ticonderoga in late July, and James Wolfe defeated the French general Montcalm at Québec in the decicive battle of the war in North America; the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Wolfe led 200 ships carrying 9,000 soldiers and 18,000 sailors on a most daring amphibious landing at the base of the cliffs west of Québec along the St. Lawrence River. His army, with two small cannons, scaled the cliffs early in the morning of 13 September 1759, surprising the French under the command of Montcalm, who thought the cliffs would be unclimbable. Faced with the possibility that the British would haul more cannons up the cliffs and knock down the city's remaining walls, the French fought the British on the Plains of Abraham. They were defeated after fifteen minutes of battle, and Montcalm himself was fatally injured, dying the following day of his wounds. Wolfe himself was shot in the arm as he moved forward with the troops, but the injury proved minor. [1]
Wolfe's victory at Québec, combined with a British victory at Fort Niagara that successfully cut off the French frontier forts further to the west and south, enabled an assault on the French at Montréal the following year. It seemed at first that the French would defeat the British at Sainte-Foy, but Wolfe’s capable command turned the battle around. [2] When the British were subsequently able to prevent the arrival of French relief ships in the naval Battle of the Restigouche while their armies approached Montréal from three sides, the victory in North America was made complete.
In august 1760, [3] the French governor Vaudreuil negotiated a surrender with General Wolfe, who granted Vaudreuil’s request that any French residents who chose to remain in the colony would be guaranteed the continued ownership of their property, and the right to remain undisturbed in their own homes. Wolfe also granted them the freedom to continue worshipping in their Roman Catholic tradition, but only “until His Majesty’s government sees fit to legislate this matter”. Vaudreuil was not a happy man, but he was left with no choice but to accept the terms.
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
No sooner had the British crown achieved its goal of seeing France defeated, or British support for the Prussian war effort was reduced to near-complete insignificance. King Henry was left to fend for himself. Only his ability to foresee the petty self-interest of the British ensured that Prussia was prepared for exactly this scenario. The alliance with Great-Britain had been of benefit to both nations, and had been a natural merging of national interests. But it was never meant to be permanent, for the Britons are not instilled with the dedicated honor and warrior spirit, as the Prussian race is. [4] An alliance with such a people can only ever be temporary, and in the end, Prussia will always have to rely on her own strength. History has taught us this much. [5]
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1941):
As the British were finalizing their victory in North America, king Henry was fanatically engaged in the buildup of his armed forces in preparation for what he saw as the final and decicive conflict of the war: the fight against the Russians. He had ample time: the awaited Russian attack came no sooner than August, and by that point the Prussian defences were honed to near perfection. Henry’s armies deflected the Russian incursions with relatively limited losses to their own ranks.
In a famous letter written in early september, Henry anticipated victory within the year. It proved to be overly optimistic, as scarcely a week later, the remaining Russian armies arrived from the east. The renewed assault proved more overwhelming than the last, and Henry suffered heavy losses just to hold his ground. By mid-October, he managed to turn the tide of the war just miles from Berlin. Fighting off the Russians, however, had demanded all his military strength. He now had the chance to pursue them as they broke off their invasion, but all his other borders were left peactically defenseless.
Although the king had been correct in his assumption that the Swedish and the Austrians were no longer able to mount considerable offensives, they still managed to exploit the fact that he was tied up in the east by sending raiding parties into Prussia. With nothing stopping them, these proved far more dangerous than Henry had anticipated. As he pursued the Russians after preventing them from taking Berlin, news reached him that Berlin had been taken after all—by a Swedish raiding party.
Enraged, the king sent back a considerable force to uproot the Swedish. This succeeded, but the absence of these soldiers on the Russia front allowed that enemy to mavouevre around him. The Russians escaped, and Henry lost his chance to beat them decisively. This course of events made it clear to Henry that he would have to substantially garrison his borders with both Sweden and Austria.
1760 closed with all sides tired and suffering from considerable losses, but Henry must be credited with the strongest recovery during the winter months, implementing a highly effective recuiting program. Despite having to commit new troops to guarding against Swedish and Austrian raiders, he had a substantial army available for the fight against Russia. The subsequent clashes throughout 1761 were all inconclusive: the two sides were evenly matched. The war slowed down into a stalemate, at least on the Prusso-Russian front.
The next year, on the other hand, would bring great upheaval – not in the least the sudden entry of Spain and Portugal into the war. Under king Ferdinand VI, Spain had enjoyed good relations with Great-Britain. Therefore, Spain had remained neutral. But upon Ferdinand’s death, he was succeeded by the Francophile Charles III, whose government switched to a more pro-French policy. Britain declared war against Spain on 4 January 1762; Spain reacted by issuing their own declaration of war against Britain on 18 January. Portugal followed by joining the war on Britain's side. Spain, aided by the French, launched an invasion of Portugal and succeeded in capturing Almeida. The arrival of British reinforcements, however, prevented a further Spanish advance.
---
Excerpted from The Portuguese Campaign, by general George Townshend (Palmington publishing house, Great-Britain, 1780):
We won the whole thing at Valencia de Alcántara, really. Our forces overran a major enemy supply base, and from there on it was all the way down for the Spaniards. Our boys under col. Burgoyne cleared the whole area of enemy troops, and they even captured one of the Spanish generals. A hefty ransom was paid for his return: a year worth of taxes. Paid in corn, mind you...
It did wonders for Portuguese morale, which was the greatest asset of all. Burgoyne was given a large diamond as a sign of their gratitude, and the Spanish Colours that had been captured. It’s a shame he succumbed to disease only a month later. Then again, illness was the greater foe in that campaign. Fever claimed more lives than all the Spanish bullets fired in the war. Still, sad that it should’ve been Burgoyne among the dead. I feel he would have been of much use to His Majesty in the recent American troubles... [6]
---
Excerpted from The Making of Prussia, by Wilhelm Anrath (Liebgott publishers, Prussia, 1962):
The fifth of january, forever a day of glory for all Prussia! Gone at last was that vilest of women, Empress Elizabeth of Russia. It turned everything around. Her successor, the infinitely wiser Peter III, at once recalled all Russian armies from the war, requesting peace with king Henry, whom he held in high esteem. The king, always a man of noble character, accepted at once, and all previous animosity between the two nations was dispelled fortwith.
Following this most fortunate turn of events, king Henry was able to turn his entire army against his remaining opponents, who were already weakened from the earlier defeats they had suffered at his hands. Dividing his army into two parts, he dispatched one third to occupy all of Swedish Pomerania, while personally leading the remaining two thirds in a renewed Bohemian campaign.
In both instances, Prussia was victorious. The Swedish barely offered resistance, and on the urging of Peter III, they surrendered before long. Bohemia proved a longer fight, but late September, king Henry ultimately crushed the remaining Austrian forces, exposing Prague to his advance.
---
Excerpted from A History of Warfare, by A.J. Steinhower (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, United States, 1941):
At the close of 1762, everything was different from the way it had been the year before. Russia and Sweden were out of the war, Prussia threatened Prague directly, and the armies of Hanover and Brunswick captured the key town of Göttingen and compounded this victory by taking Cassel. In North America the French, who had captured St. John’s in Newfoundland, saw their victory reversed by the Battle of Signal Hill in September. French control of Newfoundland was lost, and the already low morale of the French population reached new depths.
There could be no further doubt that Austria and France had lost the war, and in October, both nations sued for peace. The treaties were signed on Christmas Day, bringing an end to the Six Years’ War.
---
Excerpted from The Christmas Peace, by Dolf Manning (Bisterfeld Books, Prussia, 1904):
For Prussia, of course, the peace treaty held great spoils – chief among them the complete annexation of Meissen [7] and the obligation for the Austrians to pay an annual sum of 25,000 thaler to the Prussian crown in perpetuity. This is well-known history to all self-respecting Prussians.
Oft forgotten in our country is the separate treaty that established peace between Great-Britain and France. During the war, Britain had conquered the French colonies of Canada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tobago, the French trading posts in India, the slave-trading station at Gorée, the Senegal River and its settlements, and the Spanish colonies of Manila in the Philippines and Habana in Cuba.
France had captured Minorca and several British trading posts in Sumatra, while Spain had captured the border fortress of Almeida in Portugal, and Colonia del Sacramento in South America. France and Spain restored all these conquests to Britain and Portugal. Britain, in turn, restored Manila and Havana to Spain, in exchange for permanent ownership of formerly Spanish Florida. (In a further secret agreement, France gave Louisiana to Spain to compensate their ally for the loss of Florida.) Britain also returned Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Gorée, Senegal and the Indian factories to France.
In return, France ceded French North America east of the Mississippi, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tobago to Britain. France aimed to retain fishing rights off Newfoundland as well as ownership of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, two small islands where it could dry that fish, but was rebuffed by Britain. [8]
One more condition of the peace treaty was that France was to pay an annual sum of 20,000 livres to the British Crown for a period of 25 years, resulting in a cumulative payment of 500,000 livres over the period 1763-1788. This, of course, turned out to be very damaging to the French economy. At the time, no-one was aware how debt-ridden the French government already was, so it was not realized how utterly destabilizing the annual repair payments would turn out to be.
Perhaps the most important point of the Anglo-French peace treaty, though, was the absence of a particular point: the British refused to outright confirm the right of its new Francophone subjects to practice the Catholic religion. The Six Years’ War was over, but the peace was an incomplete settlement of accounts, and this would come back to haunt the British even decades after the fact...
END OF PART TWO
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] IOTL, he was hit twice more, and died on the battlefield.
[2] IOTL, the British lost this battle
[3] That is, a month earlier than IOTL.
[4] Wilhelm Anrath: for all your rabid nationalism.
[5] In this case, the rabid nationalist has, however, stumbled onto a bit of a point. ITTL as IOTL, the British got what they wanted from the war, and then largely bailed on Prussia. There’s a reason certain Prussian generals later decided to support the fledgling United States, rather than their erstwhile ally, Britain. When you always look out for number one, and leave all your friends hanging, you’ll end up with very few friends.
[6] Townshend’s remark is not meant to be sarcastic. Burgoyne is often portrayed as a buffoon IOTL after his defeat in the Revolutionary War, but that doesn’t do the man justice. At the time of the Portuguese campaign, he was universally regarded as an excellent officer.
[7] Then called the Electorate of Saxony, ITTL as IOTL, but Manning doesn’t mention that.
[8] IOTL, Britain allowed this concession to France. ITTL, the British position is stronger, and the concession is deemed unneccesary.
GENERAL NOTES
With the war at an end, the next update will at last take us to America. Stay tuned for the next part:
The Road to Revolution
I've currently got the chain of events for this TL worked out through the early 1780's.
Does anyone have any points of criticism, advice & the such? I'm not angling for praise here; working on this TL is, in no small part, an effort to become a better (alternate history-)writer. I could really use the feedback!
Does anyone have any points of criticism, advice & the such? I'm not angling for praise here; working on this TL is, in no small part, an effort to become a better (alternate history-)writer. I could really use the feedback!
Okay, thanks. Maybe I could revise that. From what I read, Henry in some ways was Frederick-but-better. The idea of the timeline, the whole point, is that certain Enlightenment ideas and developments occur somewhat earlier, of on a larger scale. Seemed to me that getting Frederick to play a role in America, and Henry on the Prussian throne, was a fun way of working that idea out. Perhaps it's too forced.
On the plus side, I'll try to keep things balanced/realistic. What goes up must come down - so Henry and Prussia are on the rise now, but that might just mean more of a crash later.
P.S. I love the phrase "pumpernickel principality".
Okay, thanks. Maybe I could revise that. From what I read, Henry in some ways was Frederick-but-better. The idea of the timeline, the whole point, is that certain Enlightenment ideas and developments occur somewhat earlier, of on a larger scale. Seemed to me that getting Frederick to play a role in America, and Henry on the Prussian throne, was a fun way of working that idea out. Perhaps it's too forced.
On the plus side, I'll try to keep things balanced/realistic. What goes up must come down - so Henry and Prussia are on the rise now, but that might just mean more of a crash later.
P.S. I love the phrase "pumpernickel principality".
too forced.......I never laughed so hard in my life.....
this is one of the biggest loads of unsubstantiated B.C...since the last lot that got banned....and we won't mention their names.
the contrivance to achieve such convergence is laughable. I will say though that is an extremely entertaining bit of fiction...then again isn't that what it all is in any case.
You portrayed Henry as Frederick on steroids....and it plainly wasn't the case.
Until you can sketch out to satisfaction how a boy of 14 with only the briefest of time with the expectation that he would become King can obtain the exact same results as OTL in the earlier WAS....then nothing you've written makes any sense.. Until then I simply cannot buy that it would.
You have jumped straight to the meat of the "six year War" with nary a word on how you got there. Except to say that it happened.... Without which it is not even certain that you would get there....
OTL, Henry had the life experiences of both his elder brothers along with the Generals in the field to shape his military experience. You simply don't have that here...so he cannot be the same person...much less the prescient superman you are portraying him as...
I'm sorry as entertaining as it is yes...its getting to be just a little over the top. I don't mind if it is...as long as I can believe how you got there....but honestly I don't believe you would get there.
Okay, first of all - perhaps you might attempt to be a little more polite. I like and value constructive criticism as much as any writer, but there's no need to be uncivil about it.
That said, you bring two actual points of criticism. One concerns my failure to go into the War of the Austrian Succession / Silesian Wars. You mentioned it before, I admitted I could do better there, I intend to revise it.
The other point, however, I must object to. You say:
and:
But let's take a look at Henry as he was IOTL:
- During the Silesian Wars, at the start of which Henry was, yes, 14, he served as a colonel. By all accounts, he took his duties seriously, and was very capable.
- During the Seven Years’ War, Henry was a general. He never lost one battle, and actually proved to be more insightful than Frederick on multiple occasions. Notably, he counceled Frederick not to be overconfident in the battle of Kunersdorf. Frederick, who believed he’d already won, completely ignored this—and his army was almost completely destroyed, in one of his most shameful defeats. Prussia was for a time defenseless, and only the fact that Austria and Russia overestimated Frederick’s ability to defend himself saved him from being utterly crushed. It was Henry, not Frederick (who’d descended into depression), who reorganized the Prussian forces, and later led them to repeated victory against the army that had crushed Frederick.
- Henry was interested in philosophy his entire life, perhaps more so than Frederick. Unlike his brother, who was more interested in issues of morality & the such, Henry actually wanted to employ philosophical ideas to the good governance of a state. This is reflected in sound and thoughtful the advice on statsmanship he gave to his nephew, Frederick William II of Prussia, near the end of his own life.
I am sorry if you cannot accept the criticism for what it is...
you are GUILTY of projecting what Henry became in OTL through his experiences in a junior subordinate position. Under the reign of Frederick, older, and more worldly even as Crown Prince, because of his cultivation and appreciation of French literature, art and philosophy ( a crime for which Frederick William was singularly disgusted ) and a man raised from an early age in the knowledge that he would be king and expected to act by his father in that capacity. You have taken that person and projected it backwards two decades...when in fact none of the formative learning experiences that would have formed his person OTL will even occur or at least not in the same fashion. He for one will be KING, not a junior subordinate colonel.
In counterfactual history, this is a singular and unforgiveable SIN that cannot simply be excused or hand waved away. It does not mean that all of us at times are not guilty of it to some measure...but you were well and away over the top.
I would agree with you, that Henry has the raw potential to still become a most competent tactician and a man of diplomatic flair above par for his time. Simply not in the 1740's. I'm not sure but wouldn't Prussia end up governed by a Regency for a number of years first. A fact that would preclude an offensive and pre-emptive move on the part of Prussia as what in OTL gave Frederick the upper hand during the First Silesian War. Regency's are by nature conservative and frought with conflicting factions at times on how best to preserve their charge's inheritance until he comes of age to dispense his own responsibilities.
but as I said, that does not mean the Charles Albert or the Saxon Elector will be similiarly restrained and that supported by the French, a WAS would not occur. Only that Prussian action in TTL would likely not kick things off with an unprovoked and undeclared invasion.
Frederick William may conclude his alliance in 1739 with Louis VX upon the French divulgence of Charles VI's prevarication over Julich-Berg and their own promise of Berg for his troubles should he join them in a war against the Austrians. I don't believe that even Frederick William ever seriously considered Silesia itself as a potential prize. Frederick William is well aware that his ancestors had signed away their rights there for a cash settlement previously. Its also though not certain how strong a case the Hohenzollern could make for a piece of Julich-Berg, since the Treaty of Xanten definitively divided the inheritance earlier between Prussia and Palatinate-Neuberg, superceding the co-dominion status that had held previously. With the looming extinction though of the Palatinate-Neuberg line (1742) there is a less risky option for Prussia to pursue should they like with more limited objectives admittedly. A policy that would be in line with Frederick William's 1730's political objectives of containing the influence of both the Wettin's and the Wittlesbach in the North of the empire, and advancing their own. With Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen already occupied, a fait-accompli with or without their blessing could be achieved rather quickly and painlessly.
The point being here that it is the experience of Frederick William and his policy direction that will shape Henry when he succeeds his father...not his experiences under his older siblings. This is what you have not accounted for to any significant degree that would get you to the position you describe in the 1750's. it is why I characterized this as an entertaining work of fiction, but nothing more.
Now if you cannot take that critical criticism of the flaw in your presentation, then perhaps you should not be here, because you will be shot down unceremoniously when ever it occurs, and you need to learn to grow a rather thick skin and correct your oversights or simply take the criticism for what it is.
you are GUILTY of projecting what Henry became in OTL through his experiences in a junior subordinate position. Under the reign of Frederick, older, and more worldly even as Crown Prince, because of his cultivation and appreciation of French literature, art and philosophy ( a crime for which Frederick William was singularly disgusted ) and a man raised from an early age in the knowledge that he would be king and expected to act by his father in that capacity. You have taken that person and projected it backwards two decades...when in fact none of the formative learning experiences that would have formed his person OTL will even occur or at least not in the same fashion. He for one will be KING, not a junior subordinate colonel.
In counterfactual history, this is a singular and unforgiveable SIN that cannot simply be excused or hand waved away. It does not mean that all of us at times are not guilty of it to some measure...but you were well and away over the top.
I would agree with you, that Henry has the raw potential to still become a most competent tactician and a man of diplomatic flair above par for his time. Simply not in the 1740's. I'm not sure but wouldn't Prussia end up governed by a Regency for a number of years first. A fact that would preclude an offensive and pre-emptive move on the part of Prussia as what in OTL gave Frederick the upper hand during the First Silesian War. Regency's are by nature conservative and frought with conflicting factions at times on how best to preserve their charge's inheritance until he comes of age to dispense his own responsibilities.
but as I said, that does not mean the Charles Albert or the Saxon Elector will be similiarly restrained and that supported by the French, a WAS would not occur. Only that Prussian action in TTL would likely not kick things off with an unprovoked and undeclared invasion.
Frederick William may conclude his alliance in 1739 with Louis VX upon the French divulgence of Charles VI's prevarication over Julich-Berg and their own promise of Berg for his troubles should he join them in a war against the Austrians. I don't believe that even Frederick William ever seriously considered Silesia itself as a potential prize. Frederick William is well aware that his ancestors had signed away their rights there for a cash settlement previously. Its also though not certain how strong a case the Hohenzollern could make for a piece of Julich-Berg, since the Treaty of Xanten definitively divided the inheritance earlier between Prussia and Palatinate-Neuberg, superceding the co-dominion status that had held previously. With the looming extinction though of the Palatinate-Neuberg line (1742) there is a less risky option for Prussia to pursue should they like with more limited objectives admittedly. A policy that would be in line with Frederick William's 1730's political objectives of containing the influence of both the Wettin's and the Wittlesbach in the North of the empire, and advancing their own. With Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen already occupied, a fait-accompli with or without their blessing could be achieved rather quickly and painlessly.
The point being here that it is the experience of Frederick William and his policy direction that will shape Henry when he succeeds his father...not his experiences under his older siblings. This is what you have not accounted for to any significant degree that would get you to the position you describe in the 1750's. it is why I characterized this as an entertaining work of fiction, but nothing more.
Now if you cannot take that critical criticism of the flaw in your presentation, then perhaps you should not be here, because you will be shot down unceremoniously when ever it occurs, and you need to learn to grow a rather thick skin and correct your oversights or simply take the criticism for what it is.
Last edited:
And your last statement is the most telling of all in why you should not be taken seriously. Everybody, even Henry is a product of their cumulative knowledge and experience. If you cannot see this then you are doomed to fail through your own ignorance every time.
By the 1750's your Henry may be exactly as you describe, but in 1740, he is still full to some extent of his youthful exuberance, curiosity, and to some degree naivete. Which only accumulated experience can ameliorate. He is simply not the man that Frederick was that could obtain the result for Prussia that was obtained in OTL...NOT EVEN CLOSE. Frederick had far more learning and experience under his belt by that time, often at the cruel hand of his own father, precisely because he was expected to rule as much as his disgust with his artistic and intellectual pursuits.
Frederick was prepared for these events, and even he was not fully reconciled to the morality or immorality of the course he had chosen, and even he bungled the opening shots to some degree and there were times when the Prussian endeavour could well have come to nought. Henry has none of this experience and is not yet ready to perform in the concert of great powers to the degree you subscribe to him. the 1730's and 1740's will be crucial and formative time for him and yet you glossed it over. It was your most glaring and singular oversight.
Look, AuroraBorealis - what we have here, it seems to me, is a nature versus nurture debate. You seem to come down firmly on the side of nurture. I'm more of a believer in nature. I think natural ability can be honed by experience and training, but it will show regardless of other issues.
Your idea that without his OTL experience, Henry would apparently have no useful experience, is frankly ridiculous. This is a prince of Prussia we're talking about. He will be extensively educated in the art of war. That's a given.
We clearly have different opinions of what was most relevant to Henry's personality. I notice that you react to a difference of opinion by calling someone who disagrees with you "ignorant". You start yelling "SIN" and "GUILT". That's just ridiculous. Guilt? Sin? In allcaps, no less? You act like I murdered your pet or something. So I’m asking you to cool that down a little.
I certainly appreciate useful advice, criticism, suggestions etc. When you point out something like this
that really helps, and I’ll certainly use that in an edit/rewrite to make the whole deal with the WAS more plausible. But that's about events in the 1740s. It's my firm belief that a man with talent will develop that talent if he can, regardless of other issues, and by the 1750s, will be able to use that talent.
My impression is that you’re conflating two issues you have with my TL. You keep bringing them both up. One is your whole point about the WAS. I’ve conceded your point there, so we can leave that behind, and move on to the other part. That part concerns Henry’s abilities. On that, we simply disagree. For you, a person is the cumulative sum of his experiences. For me, a large part of a man’s abilities and character traits are determined at birth. What you do with those abilities depends on circumstance, of course. But in nurture versus nature, I hold that we are a product of both. And that is the rule by which I will interpret the ATL development of OTL figures.
Your idea that without his OTL experience, Henry would apparently have no useful experience, is frankly ridiculous. This is a prince of Prussia we're talking about. He will be extensively educated in the art of war. That's a given.
We clearly have different opinions of what was most relevant to Henry's personality. I notice that you react to a difference of opinion by calling someone who disagrees with you "ignorant". You start yelling "SIN" and "GUILT". That's just ridiculous. Guilt? Sin? In allcaps, no less? You act like I murdered your pet or something. So I’m asking you to cool that down a little.
I certainly appreciate useful advice, criticism, suggestions etc. When you point out something like this
that really helps, and I’ll certainly use that in an edit/rewrite to make the whole deal with the WAS more plausible. But that's about events in the 1740s. It's my firm belief that a man with talent will develop that talent if he can, regardless of other issues, and by the 1750s, will be able to use that talent.
My impression is that you’re conflating two issues you have with my TL. You keep bringing them both up. One is your whole point about the WAS. I’ve conceded your point there, so we can leave that behind, and move on to the other part. That part concerns Henry’s abilities. On that, we simply disagree. For you, a person is the cumulative sum of his experiences. For me, a large part of a man’s abilities and character traits are determined at birth. What you do with those abilities depends on circumstance, of course. But in nurture versus nature, I hold that we are a product of both. And that is the rule by which I will interpret the ATL development of OTL figures.
Moving away from events in Europe, let us now cast our gaze to the western horizon, to the New World... to America.
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
A struggle for freedom is nearly always born of some intolerable oppression. Had the British king not been so tyrannical in his treatment of his—at that time—most loyal subjects, never would a separation have been needed. But Britain realized too late that it had already sowed the seeds of turmoil right at the closing of the Six Years’ War, and when the problematic situation was addressed, the Britons chose to use oppressive force instead of reason and liberty as their instrument.
Even before and during the Six Years’ War, there was a tension in colonial society, caused by British policies that ignored the economic and social needs of the colonists. The British Empire of that time operated under a mercantile system, where all trade was concentrated inside the Empire, and trade with other empires was forbidden. The goal was to enrich the British elite, as is always the case with protectionist trade policies. This lesson has been learned since then, but Britain in those days knew no better than to protect its own incestuous “closed-loop markets”.
Britain implemented mercantilism by trying to block American trade with the French, Spanish or Dutch empires using the Navigation Acts, which the Americans naturally avoided as often as they could. The royal officials responded to smuggling with open-ended search warrants that clearly violated the constitutional and natural rights of the colonists.
When Boston lawyer James Otis Jr. in 1761 argued that these illegal searches violated the fundamental rights of the American people, his case was dismissed, even though all Americans who heard of the case knew that he was in the right. The situation of the colonists was not even considered in London, that was clear to see, and the Americans became increasingly dissatisfied with the constraints of the mercantilist policies.
In 1762, it was Patrick Henry of Virginia who challenged the king’s fitness to rule. In a case where the colonial legislature had passed a law and it was vetoed by the king, Henry declared that the tyranny of the British was revealed: “A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects’ obedience.”
Immediately following the signing of the Christmas peace treaty that ended the war, king George had a proclamation drafted which outlined the division and administration of the newly annexed territory. This Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued on the 10th of January that year, included two provisions that were particularly jarring to the French Americans and the British colonists, respectively.
The French-speaking, largely Roman Catholic population was shocked when the Proclamation carelessly dictated that only English-speaking, non-Catholic subjects of the king would be allowed to enjoy any civic participation. [1] After general Wolfe’s seeming initial tolerance of Catholicism, this sudden reversal came as a shock to many.
Bothering the British colonists particularly was the provision reserving all lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the native population. This demarcation was completely unfeasable, since the natural expansion of the American people across the continent was even at that early point a force of historical destiny. In the end, it proved a needless betrayal of the American subjects of king George. A betrayal that would have enormous repercussions.
---
Excerpted from Sanssouci, by Leroy French (Robinson & Quayle, Confederacy of Southern America, 1950):
Almost from the start, Frédéric—as he steadfastly called himself from then on—was involved in the politics of Francophone America. Frédéric’s political positions quickly made him a popular figure among the people of French America, which was renamed as Montréal Colony by the British. Within a year, he was an informal spokesman of the French-American community, as he was well-regarded by both the French-American colonists and the British authorities. General Wolfe, appointed as colonial governor by king George, moved the capital to Montréal City, where Frédéric had already settled. This put “monsieur Sanssouci” right in the middle of things, and he immediately set out to exploit this position.
While Frédéric was initially on excellent terms with governor Wolfe, their rapport deteriorated signifantly after the royal proclamation was issued in 1763. Frédéric, both as a Francophile and as an enlightened man, opposed the repression of the French-speaking Catholics. Once more, he became a thorn in the side of the British crown, writing essays and pamphlets on the issue. His works of this period contain many references to the works of Montesquieu, incidentally. Perhaps Frédéric was not so different from his brother, after all. At least not when it came to philosophical viewpoints. Particularly of note is the fact that he immediately wrote to his associates in Pennsylvania—where he had, during his years of residing there, met with many prominent individuals—assuring them that the Francophone colonists wished nothing but to live in peace with their British brethren. This, perhaps, was the first major step in removing the distrust between the two groups of colonists…
---
A letter sent by Frédéric Sanssouci, to king George III of Great-Britain, dated 4th of February 1763:
Sire et cher Cousin,
My fondest hope is that this letter reaches you in good health and noble spirit. Readily I must admit my worries, having not yet received a reply to my latest dispatch to Your Majesty. Again, I must urge and advize that you consider the retraction or substantial alteration of your royal Proclamation regarding these American Colonies. The people here, regardless of language, are your most loyal subjects in the world entire, and desire nothing but to serve the interest of Great-Britain. [2]
Considering the great unrest and internal strife that has resulted from their anguish over your Proclamation, it is only in the interest of the Crown to reconsider the currect position. My humble proposal is to retract the Proclamation, and allow all your subjects in America freedom of religion and civil participation. It would only foster their loyalty and gratitude. In light of these observations, I repeat also my offer of my personal service to you, as colonial governor of Montréal, in your name and by your authority, should you have need of me.
Your friend and loyal subject, a citizen of Montréal,
[signed]
Frédéric Sanssouci
---
Excerpted from Sanssouci, by Leroy French (Robinson & Quayle, Confederacy of Southern America, 1950):
When king George politely but coldly refused Frédéric’s offer of serving as colonial governor, the relationship between the two men soured permanently. While George III had initially been on better terms with Frédéric than his father had been, the king was still not inclined to indulge the wishes of a man he considered a political radical. Frédéric thereupon became far more direct in his publications, openly criticizing British colonial policy, and hinting at the need to resist. It made him a hero to the French-Americans; already their unofficial spokesman, he soon became their undisputed leader and figurehead. Frédéric’s essays and pamphlets galvanized the various French-American resistance movements.
In a letter to Benjamin Franklin, written in early 1763, Frédéric suggested that the American colonies should organize a convention of representatives, in order to “take matters into their own hands”. This letter has been the subject of some historical debate, with some arguing that Frédéric meant his suggestion as a veiled reference to American independence, while others hold that he only meant that the colonies should become more pro-active. Whatever the case may have been, in Montréal at least, calls for open resistance and independence from British rule became ever more frequent.
---
Québec City, British Montréal, 21st of March 1763
“There is nothing left for us here.”
The fatalism in his father’s voice was what got to him the most, and he longed to offer some consolation – but there was none to be had. “Oh, Paul...” his mother said, looking at her husband with that same defeated sadness in her eyes, “our home...”
“This is no longer our home.”
Maurice looked at his parents, and he knew his father was right. Formerly a magistrate, Paul Lansquenet wasn’t even allowed to hold any office anymore, nor could he find other work. The British had seen to that. They were doing everything they could to weaken the original population of this country, to drive everyone away. Moving the capital to Montréal, changing the name of the colony itself, deciding that only the British colonists would have any say in political decisions...
It was too much. Many had already left, and now his parents were also going. Maybe to Nouvelle-Orléans, his mother had said. If they could find passage. Otherwise to the motherland. The British had started deporting the people of Acadia as soon as they had established control there, and many people formerly of those parts had ended up in Nouvelle-Orléans or back in France. Maurice couldn’t bear the throught that grand cities like Québec or Montréal would be emptied out as well, turned into redcoat country.
“I wish you’d come with us,” his mother pleaded. Maurice shook his head. “Non. I must remain. I must try whatever I can to preserve this land for our people.”
His father frowned. “It’s hopeless,” he muttered. “Do you think those little gangs of rebels out in the woods stand a chance against the redcoats? If you join up with them, you’ll get the noose.”
Maurice knew it wasn’t a very unlikely prospect, but he refused to back down now. He grinned. “It’s not whether you die – it’s how many redcoats you take with you.”
His mother looked stricken, so he hastily amended: “Don’t worry! Efforts at more… structural organization are underway. Monsieur Sanssouci, in Montréal City, is providing us with money and supplies, and he has set up a training facility. We’ll be taught the art of war by a prince.”
It was more than he could have hoped for, considering the circumstances. Monsieur Sanssouci had hinted at discontent among the British colonists as well… Perhaps one day, all the colonists of America could rise up against Great-Britain, and establish a whole new world order…
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] IOTL there were restrictions on Roman Catholic participation, but less so than ITTL, and language wasn’t really an issue. The slightly easier victory of Britain over France has made the British crown just a bit more confident ITTL.
[2] Blatant lies.
Part Three
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION
“The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman—or any man—are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.”
—James Otis jr.
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION
“The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman—or any man—are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.”
—James Otis jr.
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
A struggle for freedom is nearly always born of some intolerable oppression. Had the British king not been so tyrannical in his treatment of his—at that time—most loyal subjects, never would a separation have been needed. But Britain realized too late that it had already sowed the seeds of turmoil right at the closing of the Six Years’ War, and when the problematic situation was addressed, the Britons chose to use oppressive force instead of reason and liberty as their instrument.
Even before and during the Six Years’ War, there was a tension in colonial society, caused by British policies that ignored the economic and social needs of the colonists. The British Empire of that time operated under a mercantile system, where all trade was concentrated inside the Empire, and trade with other empires was forbidden. The goal was to enrich the British elite, as is always the case with protectionist trade policies. This lesson has been learned since then, but Britain in those days knew no better than to protect its own incestuous “closed-loop markets”.
Britain implemented mercantilism by trying to block American trade with the French, Spanish or Dutch empires using the Navigation Acts, which the Americans naturally avoided as often as they could. The royal officials responded to smuggling with open-ended search warrants that clearly violated the constitutional and natural rights of the colonists.
When Boston lawyer James Otis Jr. in 1761 argued that these illegal searches violated the fundamental rights of the American people, his case was dismissed, even though all Americans who heard of the case knew that he was in the right. The situation of the colonists was not even considered in London, that was clear to see, and the Americans became increasingly dissatisfied with the constraints of the mercantilist policies.
In 1762, it was Patrick Henry of Virginia who challenged the king’s fitness to rule. In a case where the colonial legislature had passed a law and it was vetoed by the king, Henry declared that the tyranny of the British was revealed: “A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects’ obedience.”
Immediately following the signing of the Christmas peace treaty that ended the war, king George had a proclamation drafted which outlined the division and administration of the newly annexed territory. This Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued on the 10th of January that year, included two provisions that were particularly jarring to the French Americans and the British colonists, respectively.
The French-speaking, largely Roman Catholic population was shocked when the Proclamation carelessly dictated that only English-speaking, non-Catholic subjects of the king would be allowed to enjoy any civic participation. [1] After general Wolfe’s seeming initial tolerance of Catholicism, this sudden reversal came as a shock to many.
Bothering the British colonists particularly was the provision reserving all lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the native population. This demarcation was completely unfeasable, since the natural expansion of the American people across the continent was even at that early point a force of historical destiny. In the end, it proved a needless betrayal of the American subjects of king George. A betrayal that would have enormous repercussions.
---
Excerpted from Sanssouci, by Leroy French (Robinson & Quayle, Confederacy of Southern America, 1950):
Almost from the start, Frédéric—as he steadfastly called himself from then on—was involved in the politics of Francophone America. Frédéric’s political positions quickly made him a popular figure among the people of French America, which was renamed as Montréal Colony by the British. Within a year, he was an informal spokesman of the French-American community, as he was well-regarded by both the French-American colonists and the British authorities. General Wolfe, appointed as colonial governor by king George, moved the capital to Montréal City, where Frédéric had already settled. This put “monsieur Sanssouci” right in the middle of things, and he immediately set out to exploit this position.
While Frédéric was initially on excellent terms with governor Wolfe, their rapport deteriorated signifantly after the royal proclamation was issued in 1763. Frédéric, both as a Francophile and as an enlightened man, opposed the repression of the French-speaking Catholics. Once more, he became a thorn in the side of the British crown, writing essays and pamphlets on the issue. His works of this period contain many references to the works of Montesquieu, incidentally. Perhaps Frédéric was not so different from his brother, after all. At least not when it came to philosophical viewpoints. Particularly of note is the fact that he immediately wrote to his associates in Pennsylvania—where he had, during his years of residing there, met with many prominent individuals—assuring them that the Francophone colonists wished nothing but to live in peace with their British brethren. This, perhaps, was the first major step in removing the distrust between the two groups of colonists…
---
A letter sent by Frédéric Sanssouci, to king George III of Great-Britain, dated 4th of February 1763:
Sire et cher Cousin,
My fondest hope is that this letter reaches you in good health and noble spirit. Readily I must admit my worries, having not yet received a reply to my latest dispatch to Your Majesty. Again, I must urge and advize that you consider the retraction or substantial alteration of your royal Proclamation regarding these American Colonies. The people here, regardless of language, are your most loyal subjects in the world entire, and desire nothing but to serve the interest of Great-Britain. [2]
Considering the great unrest and internal strife that has resulted from their anguish over your Proclamation, it is only in the interest of the Crown to reconsider the currect position. My humble proposal is to retract the Proclamation, and allow all your subjects in America freedom of religion and civil participation. It would only foster their loyalty and gratitude. In light of these observations, I repeat also my offer of my personal service to you, as colonial governor of Montréal, in your name and by your authority, should you have need of me.
Your friend and loyal subject, a citizen of Montréal,
[signed]
Frédéric Sanssouci
---
Excerpted from Sanssouci, by Leroy French (Robinson & Quayle, Confederacy of Southern America, 1950):
When king George politely but coldly refused Frédéric’s offer of serving as colonial governor, the relationship between the two men soured permanently. While George III had initially been on better terms with Frédéric than his father had been, the king was still not inclined to indulge the wishes of a man he considered a political radical. Frédéric thereupon became far more direct in his publications, openly criticizing British colonial policy, and hinting at the need to resist. It made him a hero to the French-Americans; already their unofficial spokesman, he soon became their undisputed leader and figurehead. Frédéric’s essays and pamphlets galvanized the various French-American resistance movements.
In a letter to Benjamin Franklin, written in early 1763, Frédéric suggested that the American colonies should organize a convention of representatives, in order to “take matters into their own hands”. This letter has been the subject of some historical debate, with some arguing that Frédéric meant his suggestion as a veiled reference to American independence, while others hold that he only meant that the colonies should become more pro-active. Whatever the case may have been, in Montréal at least, calls for open resistance and independence from British rule became ever more frequent.
---
Québec City, British Montréal, 21st of March 1763
“There is nothing left for us here.”
The fatalism in his father’s voice was what got to him the most, and he longed to offer some consolation – but there was none to be had. “Oh, Paul...” his mother said, looking at her husband with that same defeated sadness in her eyes, “our home...”
“This is no longer our home.”
Maurice looked at his parents, and he knew his father was right. Formerly a magistrate, Paul Lansquenet wasn’t even allowed to hold any office anymore, nor could he find other work. The British had seen to that. They were doing everything they could to weaken the original population of this country, to drive everyone away. Moving the capital to Montréal, changing the name of the colony itself, deciding that only the British colonists would have any say in political decisions...
It was too much. Many had already left, and now his parents were also going. Maybe to Nouvelle-Orléans, his mother had said. If they could find passage. Otherwise to the motherland. The British had started deporting the people of Acadia as soon as they had established control there, and many people formerly of those parts had ended up in Nouvelle-Orléans or back in France. Maurice couldn’t bear the throught that grand cities like Québec or Montréal would be emptied out as well, turned into redcoat country.
“I wish you’d come with us,” his mother pleaded. Maurice shook his head. “Non. I must remain. I must try whatever I can to preserve this land for our people.”
His father frowned. “It’s hopeless,” he muttered. “Do you think those little gangs of rebels out in the woods stand a chance against the redcoats? If you join up with them, you’ll get the noose.”
Maurice knew it wasn’t a very unlikely prospect, but he refused to back down now. He grinned. “It’s not whether you die – it’s how many redcoats you take with you.”
His mother looked stricken, so he hastily amended: “Don’t worry! Efforts at more… structural organization are underway. Monsieur Sanssouci, in Montréal City, is providing us with money and supplies, and he has set up a training facility. We’ll be taught the art of war by a prince.”
It was more than he could have hoped for, considering the circumstances. Monsieur Sanssouci had hinted at discontent among the British colonists as well… Perhaps one day, all the colonists of America could rise up against Great-Britain, and establish a whole new world order…
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] IOTL there were restrictions on Roman Catholic participation, but less so than ITTL, and language wasn’t really an issue. The slightly easier victory of Britain over France has made the British crown just a bit more confident ITTL.
[2] Blatant lies.
Last edited:
It's because all the fictional books I'm pretending to quote from are written in TTL's future (well, still the past from our perspective, but the future from where the TL is at right now - you get the point). The fact that a Confederacy of Southern America keeps getting mentioned means that, at some point ITTL, a country will be established with that name. I could tell you when and how (I've already worked out the chain of events) but that would rather spoil all the fun getting there, don't you think?
Razgriz 2K9
Banned
Totally seconding that subscription...
Would love to see what future would hold for our wayward ex-Hohenzollern.
Would love to see what future would hold for our wayward ex-Hohenzollern.
Badshah and Razgriz 2K9, thank you for your kind words.
Here is Part III, continued.
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
British colonial policy further antagonized the Roman Catholics in the colonies and West and East Florida, carved out of the formerly Spanish territory now held by Great-Britain. Faced with rebel movements in Montréal, [1] the British administrators sought to prevent similar troubles in the previously Spanish—and therefore Catholic—Floridas. Prudence and common sense dictate that simply giving the Catholics some breathing space would have released the building pressure, but the British characteristically opted for the reverse of this sensible approach.
The British takeover of Spanish Florida had already resulted in the emigration of a large portion of its Spanish Catholic population. These people expected to be deported or oppressed anyway, so they opted for voluntary emigration. Most went to Spanish Cuba. Still wary of insurection movements, as in Montréal, the British strongly encouraged Anglophone, Protestant colonists to settle in the Florida colonies, enticing settlers with grants and temporary exemptions from duties and imposts. Lured by opportunity, settlers from the Carolinas and Georgia began to trickle south, into the Florida colonies. [2]
---
Excerpted from American Enlightenment, by Elizabeth Clarence (Fontaine Publishing House, Confederacy of Southern America, 1942):
Even as the war was still going on, the Enlightenment ideals were already spreading throughout the American colonies. Carried across the ocean by immigrants (some common, some very distinct, such as the inestimable Frédéric Sanssouci), new notions of philosophy and political theory started to permeate the various communities of North America. Even the British officers, who were often gentlemen of intellect, were carriers of new ideas from Europe into the New World. Many of these new ideas eventually proved to be decidedly problematic for the British government.
This work is not to be a history of the finer points of economics and finance, but it must be understood that such factors played a key role in the events that were about to take place. France and Britain had both suffered financially because of the Six Years’ War, with significant consequences for their respective economies. Britain had seen its national debt nearly doubled over the course of the war, and the government eagerly sought new seeking sources of revenue to pay off that debt. Instead of trying to find an equitable solution, Britain simply attempted to put the burden of the debt squarely on its American colonies, by trying to impose new and disproportionally high taxes on these colonies.
This is where the Enlightenment ideals come into play. The works of Montesquieu were by that time widely read among the educated class in the colonies, and the philosophical arguments derived from works such as The Material Conditions served as a basis for ideological resistance to the oppressive British colonial policy. What right, the colonists demanded, did the British have to levy taxes on them? The colonists had eagerly adopted the notion that every people had a natural right to form its own government—and taxation of the colonists without granting them any representation in the British government was entirely contrary to this widely-held belief.
These very same ideas were at that time causing severe unrest in Ireland, where the Catholics were oppressed as much as in the colonies. Faced with resistance based on the idea of self-government, the British became increasingly determined to secure their authority over the colonies. And in doing so, increasingly oppressive. That in itself became the cause of further dissatisfaction—a sentiment shared by the Anglophone colonists and the Francophone, Catholic population. Before long, their distrust for each other became secondary to their shared hatred of the British oppressor...
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
After the end of the Six Years’ War, the already tense situation in North America rapidly became worse. The British methods of oppression mainly had the unintended effect of turning popular opinion in the colonies against the king’s rule. The insurrectionist movement in Montréal proved difficult to crush, as the rebels enjoyed broad popular support. At the same time, dissatisfaction among the British colonists continued to grow as well, prompting the British crown to respond by tightening their hold on the colonies even further.
Protests erupted against the taxes levied on the colonists. It wasn’t the principle of contributing to the cost of their defense to which the colonists objected—it was the fact that the money was being wasted, and they themselves had no say in the matter. Following the war, the british simply had more officers than they knew what to do with, and many of them were stationed in the colonies. The colonists felt that they could provide for their own defense, using their own militias. As such they considered it injust that they should be forced to pay for the presence of British troops they neither desired nor needed.
Instead of recognizing these grievances, the British instead deployed steadily more troops in North America throughout 1763, as the violence in Montréal became ever worse. British troops began to be quartered in the homes of colonists, leading to further dissatisfaction and resentment: the colonists were essentially paying taxes for the “privilege” of having troops (that they didn’t even want in their colonies) stationed in their own homes. What they wanted was a say in the decision-making process. The slogan “No taxation without representation” summed up their position. [3]
In 1764, The British parliament enacted the Sugar Act and the Currency Act, which further restrained the economic freedom of the colonists. These were followed the next year by the Stamp Act: the first direct tax levied on the colonies by the British government. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets—even decks of playing cards!—were required to have the stamps. Representatives of the colonies protested vehemently. Popular leaders such as Patrick Henry in Virginia and James Otis in Massachusetts rallied the people in opposition. A secret group, the Sons of Liberty, became active in many towns and threatened violence if anyone sold the stamps. No-one did. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice-admiralty court and looted the home of the chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765.
The British reacted in alarm. The violence in Boston and the political activities in New York led the British cabinet to believe that the British colonists were on the verge of revolting in the same manner as the French in Montréal. The British government responded to the situation by passing several Acts in january 1766, which collectively became known to the colonists as the Tyrannical Acts. They consisted of four laws enacted by the British parliament:
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] These also existed in OTL, but active resistance by Catholic insurgents is more widespread ITTL.
[2] Such incentives for Protestant settlers were not offered IOTL, during the time Britain controlled Florida. They made some half-hearted attempts to ship people there (under coersion), but that came to nothing.
[3] The quartering of troops in American homes ITTL begins two years earlier than IOTL, mainly due to continued unrest and rebel activity in Montréal (and the fear of those probles spreading to the other colonies).
Here is Part III, continued.
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
British colonial policy further antagonized the Roman Catholics in the colonies and West and East Florida, carved out of the formerly Spanish territory now held by Great-Britain. Faced with rebel movements in Montréal, [1] the British administrators sought to prevent similar troubles in the previously Spanish—and therefore Catholic—Floridas. Prudence and common sense dictate that simply giving the Catholics some breathing space would have released the building pressure, but the British characteristically opted for the reverse of this sensible approach.
The British takeover of Spanish Florida had already resulted in the emigration of a large portion of its Spanish Catholic population. These people expected to be deported or oppressed anyway, so they opted for voluntary emigration. Most went to Spanish Cuba. Still wary of insurection movements, as in Montréal, the British strongly encouraged Anglophone, Protestant colonists to settle in the Florida colonies, enticing settlers with grants and temporary exemptions from duties and imposts. Lured by opportunity, settlers from the Carolinas and Georgia began to trickle south, into the Florida colonies. [2]
---
Excerpted from American Enlightenment, by Elizabeth Clarence (Fontaine Publishing House, Confederacy of Southern America, 1942):
Even as the war was still going on, the Enlightenment ideals were already spreading throughout the American colonies. Carried across the ocean by immigrants (some common, some very distinct, such as the inestimable Frédéric Sanssouci), new notions of philosophy and political theory started to permeate the various communities of North America. Even the British officers, who were often gentlemen of intellect, were carriers of new ideas from Europe into the New World. Many of these new ideas eventually proved to be decidedly problematic for the British government.
This work is not to be a history of the finer points of economics and finance, but it must be understood that such factors played a key role in the events that were about to take place. France and Britain had both suffered financially because of the Six Years’ War, with significant consequences for their respective economies. Britain had seen its national debt nearly doubled over the course of the war, and the government eagerly sought new seeking sources of revenue to pay off that debt. Instead of trying to find an equitable solution, Britain simply attempted to put the burden of the debt squarely on its American colonies, by trying to impose new and disproportionally high taxes on these colonies.
This is where the Enlightenment ideals come into play. The works of Montesquieu were by that time widely read among the educated class in the colonies, and the philosophical arguments derived from works such as The Material Conditions served as a basis for ideological resistance to the oppressive British colonial policy. What right, the colonists demanded, did the British have to levy taxes on them? The colonists had eagerly adopted the notion that every people had a natural right to form its own government—and taxation of the colonists without granting them any representation in the British government was entirely contrary to this widely-held belief.
These very same ideas were at that time causing severe unrest in Ireland, where the Catholics were oppressed as much as in the colonies. Faced with resistance based on the idea of self-government, the British became increasingly determined to secure their authority over the colonies. And in doing so, increasingly oppressive. That in itself became the cause of further dissatisfaction—a sentiment shared by the Anglophone colonists and the Francophone, Catholic population. Before long, their distrust for each other became secondary to their shared hatred of the British oppressor...
---
Excerpted from Road to Revolution, by Thomas J. Fields (Rockwell Books, Confederacy of Southern America, 1970):
After the end of the Six Years’ War, the already tense situation in North America rapidly became worse. The British methods of oppression mainly had the unintended effect of turning popular opinion in the colonies against the king’s rule. The insurrectionist movement in Montréal proved difficult to crush, as the rebels enjoyed broad popular support. At the same time, dissatisfaction among the British colonists continued to grow as well, prompting the British crown to respond by tightening their hold on the colonies even further.
Protests erupted against the taxes levied on the colonists. It wasn’t the principle of contributing to the cost of their defense to which the colonists objected—it was the fact that the money was being wasted, and they themselves had no say in the matter. Following the war, the british simply had more officers than they knew what to do with, and many of them were stationed in the colonies. The colonists felt that they could provide for their own defense, using their own militias. As such they considered it injust that they should be forced to pay for the presence of British troops they neither desired nor needed.
Instead of recognizing these grievances, the British instead deployed steadily more troops in North America throughout 1763, as the violence in Montréal became ever worse. British troops began to be quartered in the homes of colonists, leading to further dissatisfaction and resentment: the colonists were essentially paying taxes for the “privilege” of having troops (that they didn’t even want in their colonies) stationed in their own homes. What they wanted was a say in the decision-making process. The slogan “No taxation without representation” summed up their position. [3]
In 1764, The British parliament enacted the Sugar Act and the Currency Act, which further restrained the economic freedom of the colonists. These were followed the next year by the Stamp Act: the first direct tax levied on the colonies by the British government. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets—even decks of playing cards!—were required to have the stamps. Representatives of the colonies protested vehemently. Popular leaders such as Patrick Henry in Virginia and James Otis in Massachusetts rallied the people in opposition. A secret group, the Sons of Liberty, became active in many towns and threatened violence if anyone sold the stamps. No-one did. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice-admiralty court and looted the home of the chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765.
The British reacted in alarm. The violence in Boston and the political activities in New York led the British cabinet to believe that the British colonists were on the verge of revolting in the same manner as the French in Montréal. The British government responded to the situation by passing several Acts in january 1766, which collectively became known to the colonists as the Tyrannical Acts. They consisted of four laws enacted by the British parliament:
- The first was the Massachusetts Administration Act, which abolished the Massachusetts charter and forbade all town meetings. The whole colony was to be placed under direct military rule until such a time that the “rebels” (i.e. the fledgling Sons of Liberty) had been dealt with.
- The second Act, the Administration of Justice Act, ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. To the colonists, this implied that British soldiers would not be punished for the crimes they were certainly about to commit against innocent colonial citizens.
- The third Act, the Rebellious Sedition Act, further strengthened this pessimistic opinion: it explicitly allowed British soldiers to summarily execute any rebel they captured, as well as anyone aiding the rebels.
- The fourth Act was the Quartering Act of 1766, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without requiring permission of the owner (which had previously been a prequisite).
---
FOOTNOTES
[1] These also existed in OTL, but active resistance by Catholic insurgents is more widespread ITTL.
[2] Such incentives for Protestant settlers were not offered IOTL, during the time Britain controlled Florida. They made some half-hearted attempts to ship people there (under coersion), but that came to nothing.
[3] The quartering of troops in American homes ITTL begins two years earlier than IOTL, mainly due to continued unrest and rebel activity in Montréal (and the fear of those probles spreading to the other colonies).
Razgriz 2K9
Banned
You know, with an even stronger Enlightenment, we could see an even worse American Revolutionary War down the road...though I have a few theories onto the Confederacy of Southern America, (one such theory about to come to place soon.) I will hold off and see if I am right or not.