Oh and I threw this together, should make the 1892 US election a little clearer.
The Red Crowns: The World of Imperial Socialism
- Thread starter Major Crimson
- Start date
Authors note: Sorry everyone, busy week! Next update out Friday. 
Integration and "equalisation" as everywhere. Plans are still very theoretical and I'll cover this later in more detail but the Fabians' plans for Imperial Federation revolve around a three stage process; first is the "Dominionisation" of as many states as feasibly possible, then comes the creation of a loose "Imperial Council" with monertary union, an integrated military and otherwise roughly current OTL EU levels of government, then step three is final integration into a single "nation", which Dominion parliaments acting as devolved authorities. India will have the same rights as any other portion of the empire but as the specifics haven't been worked out, some suggest 1 domion as a united india, some suggest 2, some upwards of ten, some want the Princely States independant ect ect. Plans are a long way from final but generally they want to bring universal literacy, an elective parliament and gradual but steady "equalisation", probably not quite proportionately but still.
That's great then; glad there'll be some form of competition between ideologies. Hope this continues!
A single united India will quickly dominate due to population advantages, better to just surpress Indian Nationalism and promote regionalism and create multiple dominions, leaving Britain as the largest member.
Ah yes but if you have a parliament like the set amount of delegates (say, ten per dominion) it'd be easier to contain India as one state with equal representation to Westralia.
That system is unlikely but people will definitely be thinking of clever ways to get India involved but weakened.
VI - Roma to Moskva
Chapter Six: Roma to Moskva
Extract from: Nova Roma: The Rise of Italy and their Empire
By: Michel Menchelon, Published 1999
Italy, to the surprise of many modern observers I am sure, was not considered much of a major power come the late 19th century. Her unification came primarily from French encouragement and their support of the Kingdom of Sardinia Piedmont, which had fully united the peninsula by 1870. From this point on is know widely as “Liberal Italy” and indeed by 1880 things had largely continued on a line of liberal monarchism; steady economic growth and minor military build up occurred during a period of peace and stability. For this reason the years 1870 to 1900 are often known as I Decenni Felice, the happy decades.
Italy’s late rise meant that they were rather behind the times in terms of imperial possessions, holding only Italian Somalia by 1885. The following year, however, would see a dramatic change in fortunes. Libya had always been a major aim of Italian expansionists and the Ottoman Empire’s grip on ‘Tripolitania’. The 1886 Italo-Ottoman War was a relatively quick affair and went some way to establish the Italians as a genuine military force (though the Long War was really the main cause of this). The Italians had been looking for a reason to seize Ottoman holdings for a while and, following the death of several Italian citizens in the Constantinople Riots of June 1886, the Italians had the flimsy casus belli they needed, declaring war on July 10th.
The Italians moved to action relatively quickly, having no doubt mobilised weeks before the conflict began, and landed a division of men some 10 miles east of Tripolis as well as three other landings in Benghazi, Tobruk and and Derna. These landings largely took local garrisons by surprise and with heavy naval bombardment lasting for multiple weeks, the coast had largely been captured by September. Throughout the Autumn however, Ottoman and Arab forces fought back against the Italians, who were mostly content to have dominion over the cities and coast of Libya and repeatedly saw off Ottoman attempts at recapture.
After several months of deadlock, the Italians landed in Crete and Rhodes in February 1887 and began shifting materials east. Internal divisions had massively limited the power projection of the Ottomans who, by mid-march, had accepted defeat. In the American moderated Treaty of Benghazi, the Ottoman Empire ceded the entirety of the colony of Tripolitania to the Italian Empire.
Umberto I, now King of a mighty Italian Empire
Following his departure from the Berlin-centred Triple Alliance, the Austrians began to encourage more friendly relations with her eastern neighbour and long time rival, Russia.
The Old Autocrat
Extract from: From Poland to the Pacific: The Height of the Russian Empire
By: Ilya Vasov, Published 2010
The Austro-Russian detente seems a strange development for many; they both had designs on large portions of the Balkans and had been borderline aggressive toward one another for decades. By the time of Nicholas and Karl, however, things were boiling down to the ideological.
Karl Franz looked at the countries around him; Republican France, Liberal Germany, Modern Italy and was repulsed. He was an autocrat, through and through, thinking himself the last true godly monarch of Europe. A man that could lead on his own, sparing his people from the horrors of democracy and politicians. Surrounded in many ways by more forward-thinking powers, Karl found an odd friend in the young Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.
The death of his father in 1892 was not much of a surprise to Nicholas but nevertheless he felt too young for rule. By even his own admission, Nicholas had always been more of a family man than a politician. Despite his early fears, however, Nicholas threw himself into his role with even more pomp and circumstance than expected. His coronation on April 2nd 1892 were a matter of huge celebration and was attended by monarchs from across Europe, displaying all the wealth and opulence of the Russian Empire with a grand military parade and national fair. It is notable for being Queen Victoria’s final trip outside of the United Kingdom and one of the final for her son, the Prince of Wales. Beneath the surface however, all was not as golden as Nicholas presented. Russia’s military was no doubt an outdated affair, her economy still lagged behind her western neighbours and the autocratic methods of Alexander II had left much of the peasantry dissatisfied with the state of affairs. Far from a reformer, Nicholas never the less turned to his advisor and tutor Pyotr Stolypin a radical reactionary and conservative thinker.
Pyotr Stolypin, the architect of Young Russia.
From his busy first few months in the second half of 1892, Nicholas immediately fell from the public sphere and began spending almost all of his time with his family and gave Stolypin near total control of the government. As Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Stolypin held a colossal amount of power and immediately began centralising further. He first cut the power of local governments and pushed their power upwards to Governors, who he mostly selected from the ranks of local elites. Stolypin then moved to economic reform; with government owned train lines shooting out from the country’s cities at an increasingly rapid pace. Stolypin slowly but surely reformed each part of the Russian government, modernising and centralising wherever he went. Stolypin hoped to (and in many cases, indeed did) combine modern ideas of meritocracy and more antiquated ideas of paternalistic, aristocratic rule. By heavily investing in Russian Universities, Stolypin hoped to create an elite and well educated class of Russian Aristocrats that started to emerge by 1895. The economy boomed and investment poured in from France and America, factories popping up in Moscow and St Petersburg whilst new cities began to emerge in Southern Russia and the Ukraine. The average life of a peasant genuinely improved with wages and educational opportunities rising however they were increasingly cut off from the political sphere and Stolypin ensured that schools began to spread his “Neoautocrat” ideology. His “Young Russian” campaign hoped to mimic the national renovations of Germany, Italy and Japan and a new, industrialising and efficient Russia was coming out into the world.
Nicholas’ most famous speech came in late 1894, only a few months before the conflict that engulfed him and his country, now they seem rather telling. “I want everyone to know that I will devote all my strength to maintain, for the good of the whole nation, the principle of absolute autocracy, as firmly and as strongly as did my late lamented father."
The New Autocrat
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Trust me there's going to be much more than one global, dominant ideology. This period is called "Liberal" OTL and despite the name of the thread, ImpSoc is going to be one of many ideologies and, spoiler alert, is going to be adopted really only by between 1 and 4 major countries.
How is the interior situation changing in Austria-Hungary?
So Russia is following the Chinese road, or the Meiji one ("economic progress but no democratic liberalisation").
To quibble, there was Democratic Liberalisation in the Meiji reforms, just not to a constitutional monarchy a la the UK or a republic a la France (Post 1873.)
VII - Guns Along the Congo
Chapter Seven: Guns Along the Congo
Extract from: I Bless the Rains: Modern War in Africa
By: Connor Yeng
Colonial Africa had always been a messy affair and the region had been attacked in stages, pre-1870 came the spotty coastal land grabs; the Dutch and later British in the Cape, the Portugese with their trading ports on either coast and of course the slaver/trader colonies in west Africa, held by a small menagerie of European powers. Dutch, Danish, Swedish, French, British, Spanish, the list went on. Only the creation of quinine, as well as ramping economic interest in the Dark Continent, allowed more general and widespread colonisation to occur. The second period (1870-1880) is one of bold explorers plunging into the heart of Africa; men such as Dr Livingstone, Serpa Pinto, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Hermenegildo de Brito Capelo and of course, the famous rivals; Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza and Sir Frederick Russell Burnham. Burnham was the favourite of the British crown; knighted by Queen Victoria for his exploration of the Congo and Nkutu rivers, making contact with the local and planting the first Union Jack in the basin, making contact with and willing the respect of the Luba, who would later pledge their allegiance to the British Crown. Meanwhile de Brazza was a hero of the French Republic, exploring the Congo on the North Side and staking French claims to the land of the Mongo people, he reached further into the jungle than Russell ever did but failed to make as much meaningful contact with the locals. As the popularity of the two sowly rose, they became friends and pen pals, writing to each other in the friendly spirit of cooperation and competition. The congolese lands of Brazzaland and Great Burnham would bear their names even till today. Both went on to serve in the Short War but despite this opposition, retained their friendship and only cooperated further. During the 1870s large claims were staked, almost all overlapping and conflicting and poorly enforced. With the failure of King Leopold of Belgium's initiative with the International African Association, it was primarily governments that led the charge. Only by the third stage of African colonisation would true rule begin to be established.
The friendship between de Brazza and Sir Frederick would be immortalised in the 2004 epic, "Hearts of Glory".
The 1880s started with real conflict began; aggressive Anglo-French expansion towards the centre of Africa, Swedish and Spanish grabs in the Congo only complicated matters as the Germans, Italians and Portuguese all staked large enough claims of their own. The British, in the First Treaty of the Cape, had negotiated a successful long term peace with the United Boer Republic of South Africa and used the economic exploitation of the region to fund more northerly expeditions. Britain and France slowly moved north and south respectively, as the Cape and Algeria became their main capitals on the continent. It was in the Congo that they came to clash but on the surface, conflict seemed avoidable. The British were genuinely contented to sit on the south side of the Congo and, likewise, the French on the north. The real conflict lay not as many see it on the river but simply on the axis of Africa itself. The British aimed for a north-south, Cape to Cairo string of colonies whilst the French aimed for an East-West Guinea to Eritrea line. The Congo Basin, it just so happened, was the region best suited for both to centre their empires upon.
They were late to the party however and by the time of the 1889 Stockholm Conference, which regulated the borders of European colonies in Africa, three countries had attempted to seize the region. The Spanish made the second poorest attempt while the Swedes, who held strong sway over the river itself, had done a little better. The greatest failure of the three was the Belgians whose claims revolved entirely around the IAA who, with a lack of funding and effectively being "too early to the Congo party", collapsed entirely due to economic woes. Anglo-French interest in the Congo peaked when the Belgians began to auction off their claims and forts in 1891. The chaos of these sales, which were rushed in an attempt to salvage the flagging Belgian economy, would create many, many issues down the road.
During the Belgian’s initial forays into the region three forts were constructed; Fort Belgium, Fort Christian and Fort Leopold. Whilst the first two would fall into general disrepair after the IAA went bankrupt in 1890, the later was situated at the mouth of the Congo and as such was manned irregularly by traders, mercenaries and the odd adventurous local, all following the smell of cash. The Fort was modern and European in style, large and comfortable, well position and (most importantly) unclaimed. The confusion over the fort came about in 1891 wherein it was purchased, confusingly, by both the British and French governments. The British, in direct contact with the Belgian government and monarchy, purchased the Fort from them for a sum of £10,000 on the 3rd of March, whilst the French, in contact with the remnants of the IAA who also claimed to be the true owners of the Fortress, purchased it two months later for nearly double that fee. Neither really followed up on the claim for four years when, following the organising of the British Central African territory, the Fort was occupied by the then Lieutenant Winston Churchill and a detachment of the 17th Lancer Regiment. Churchill had been serving under his commander, one Colonel Herbert, who had died of Yellow Fever on the trail toward the fort. The French, alarmed and outraged at the staffing objected diplomatically and dispatched a full regiment of Infantry to claim the fort in the name of the republic…
Si, Japan is actually slightly more liberal than OTL, following the British model of government closer than in our history.
Mostly as OTL, the butterflies haven't hit too hard yet. The compromise is holding and the Hungarians are mostly in check but the tension is always there.
And yeah the Russians are modernising rapidly but if anything becoming more authoritarian as time goes on.
Well that would be spoilers but he definitely runs
Given the name of one of the places is English, does it means Britain took the larger part of the Congo?
HmmmmWell that would be spoilers but he definitely runs
Winnie starting trouble. I wonder if he is the same as OTL or he's now full retro reactionary.
VIII - Things Fall Apart
Chapter Eight: Things Fall Apart
Extract from: The Price of Greatness - My Victories and my Defeats
By: Winston Spencer-Churchill, published 1950 by Cambridge University Press
When we arrived we had been on the path for a few weeks, though the fort was located only a hundred miles or so from the coast, the often non-existent roads impeded our advance continually, disease took 9 men, which out of some 600 I thought to be very acceptable. Of greatest tragedy however that among these 9 numbered my superior officer. The Colonel was a good and patriotic man but of weak temperament and the Congo Fever took him barely a week into the expedition. Though some of my NCOs (and later my superiors) would object to my actions in the coming weeks, I have no doubt that I did that which was best to the Empire. Reaching the Fort not two days after the death of the Colonel, we quickly began to restore the dilapidated place. Barely a decade and a half old but abandoned for 11 years now the restoration was perhaps harder than it should have been but the men were unused to the climate. We received no information that the French were inbound, in fact Whitehall had not even seen fit to inform me that the French held a claim to the fort. Nevertheless a month into our occupation they arrived and, with great insistence, demanded we evacuate immediately and cede the fort to them. Then we had no clue how many French there were although of course once all was said and done we counted about 2000, considerably more than our own.
Negotiations were brief, impolite and scarcely extant. While much of the blame for this has fallen on my shoulders, I refute that the fault of the conflict lay with myself or the Empire. It was the French who unfairly demanded our exit, the French who gave us a brutal and barbaric ultimatum and the French who sent a man to make an attempt on my life….
Lieutenant Winston Churchill, of His Majesty's Horse
Extract from: The Brightest Flame - The Origins of the Short War
By: Robert Clarke, published 1999 by Penguin Publishing
...and the famous account of Churchill personally dispatching a French assassin with his own pistol is almost certainly an exaggeration, sadly as the senior officer on the scene as well as, to the dismay of modern Historians, the first “Historian” to chart the events of the Short War from beginning to end, there simply are no surviving accounts other than Churchill’s. Nevertheless, Churchill no doubt proved himself a skilled if unsubtle officer and following the killing of the French infiltrator (which by all accounts did take place, though his true motives remain unknown) made moves to reinforce the British position with great haste, fearing an attack. An immediate fight did not come in the Congo however, as the British and French government scrambled to double down on their various negotiations. A multitude of solutions were put forward; two dozen new borders, a buffer state in Egypt, non-militarised zones, even an offer of Codominion was at one point tabled. As they dragged on, however, the world continued to turn. Matters were complicated by the private endorsement of the British position by Kaiser Frederich which was reported by the French press.
As negotiations dragged on, Churchill and the Light Horse stewed in Fort Leopold.
The Russians, in apparent response to this, doubled down on their alliance with Paris and promised "unconditional support" whilst the Austro-Hungarians, whilst leaning towards the French position, remained strictly neutral. Meanwhile, a division of smaller European states called for international mediation, led by the Swedish and Italian governments, they hoped to give the region to a third party or set it up as an International territory. Over the course of a month, Churchill's delegation sat and stewed with a superior French force outside their walls. The militaries of Europe began subtle moves to mobilisation and a thousand secret treaties were conducted behind closed doors. Despite all of this, peace still seemed the probable outcome; the French had bigger fish to fry and the Liberals in Britain wanted a clean run to pass their Irish Home Rule Bill. Unfortunately, things got complicated and in what seemed a fairly run of the mill affair, Tsar Nicholas II made a now infamous speech in St Petersburg Square.