Who should become the first president of new england?


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Excellent update and wikibox, but...

I should point out here: modern Sarawak at least is not predominantly Muslim. It's actually known for being the only part of Malaysia where Christianity is the majority religion. Now, while Christianity won't have spread at this point in time, conversions seem to have predominantly been among the animist population, so one could infer that the majority of Sarawakians are animists right now.

Granted, @Al-numbers and @NickBana would be the better people to ask about this, but I thought I should raise that.
Did someone call? ;)

Yes, despite popular misconceptions (and the pro Malay-Muslim policies of the modern Malaysian government), Sarawak was never majority Muslim for the greater part of their history, and it still isn't today! The notion of Islamic rule stems from the coastal Malay and Islamized Dayak communities of the river mouths, of which they owe their allegiances to local leaders and notables, whom then bow to the sultan in Brunei. But these communities are often quite small, and much of historical Sarawak was definitely animist to the core. The interior tribal wars, migrations, and politics of the indigenous Dayaks were very much left alone by the coastal towns and Bandar Brunei - except when they threatened riverine / maritime trade and safety, in which case all bets are off.

I should also point out the Christianity arrived with the Brookes because of quid pro quo between them and the missionaries. The Brookes needed early administrators and people whom could act as intermediaries between themselves and the Dayaks, and missionaries were some of the only people adventurous enough to brave the wilds of Borneo to teach locals. It also helped that common thinking bent towards the 'civilizing hand' of Christianity, providing an extra push for prioritizing conversions.

With that said, the Brookes didn't prioritize too much with the cross as they always thought of themselves as the protectors of the Malays and Dayaks, so they often selectively chose where missionaries could go and which places for them to build schools - helps to not step too much on local customs.

Addendum: if you're following geographical history in regards to Brooke rule, Sarawak originally started out as this big.

sarawak_teeny_weeny_8.png


The reason why it grew to encompass modern-day size is because of the endless punitive campaigns waged by the Brookes against the interior Dayaks over 40 years, and the subsequent capitulation agreements signed between them and Bandar Brunei. If the sultan actually presented James Brooke with everything from Kuching to Miri... I think he might have been forced to do so.
 
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With all the butterflies in motion it seems likely India will have a different fate. Hmm, are we even sre the modern india will be forge by British dominion ITTL? Nepal amd Brunei are already clear from Britain's reach for the forseeable future, others might follow and that will change the dynamic even with those who still end up under the Raj or its equivalent.
 
Chapter 42: The Great Game of Nations
Chapter 42: The Great Game of Nations

***

“Lord John Keane, also 2nd Baron Keane was an able commander and during his time in the East India Company had made a name for himself as a very capable commander. The East India Company was a large company, and maintained a massive army of 220,000, larger than even many standing armies of Europe. Around a quarter of the army were made of Europeans whilst the rest were indian recruited ‘sepoy’ troops. Nonetheless, working in the sepoy ranks was a fine business for many Indians as it gave them employment and money that was not available in many other jobs presented to the Indian community. These sepoys and Europeans formed an army of 21,000 merged from the Bombay and Bengal Presidencies which gave Keane an army to invade Afghanistan from Sindh.

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General John Keane.

Thankfully, the perennial enemy of the British in India, the Sikh Empire was no friend of the Afghans either, and was more than happy to see them brought a notch down by the British and made no move to aid the Afghans. Keane in late 1838 invaded the Afghan Emirate and the lands of the Afghan Emir, defeating the small Afghan tribal garrisons in the region and moved north to reach Kabul from the Sindh area. After a month of marching, the Afghans finally managed to give Keane a challenge at the Battle of Bolan Pass, led by General Hyder Ali, a member of the Afghan Royal Family.

Hyder Ali had chosen the pass to stand and fight for a reason as it negated the British technological and numerical advantage and would allow the Afghans to fight the British on their own terms. Keane wanted no part of it, and after some light skirmishes, retreated from Bolan Pass, and instead moved around the pass, moving through the city of Quetta. Quetta’s garrison gave a good fight, however in a plain area where British advantage could not be negated, the garrison fell and the British flag was hoisted by the city soon after. Hyder Ali was outsmarted by Keane and the man rushed to retake the city and using the element of surprise stormed the city of Quetta and briefly retook the city from the British forces, however the British soon surrounded the city and outflanked his forces, forcing Hyder Ali to abandon the city and retreat back into the Afghan mountains once again.

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British troops enter Ghazni Fortress.

On March, 1839, Keane and his army finally reached the infamous Ghazni Fortress, a massive fortress that was said to guard the heart of Afghanistan itself, and according to Afghan propaganda impenetrable. Impenetrable or not, the British engineers recognized the thick walls of the fort and advised Keane to wait until the British heavy guns could arrive before laying siege of the fortress walls. Keane who was an impatient man decided to attack immediately and attacked the fortress head on with scaling ladders being used by the British forces to scale the fortress walls. Unfortunately for Keane and the British troops, the Fortress lived up to its name and the attempts to take the fortress without heavy artillery proved fruitless as the Afghans deflected attempts to do so for a month. Keane, chastened by this defeat instead now opted to take the advice of his engineers and waited for another two weeks until his heavy artillery arrived and then began to bombard the fortress.

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The blasting of Ghazni.

The heavy artillery that Keane had brought with him were new and modern heavy artillery that was constructed in Britain, and made for fighting European enemies. The modern artillery used revolutionary new techniques in engineering and used heavy artillery shells which slowly peeled the fort’s walls with ease. The fortress started to give away and in early May, a gaping hole was blasted through the southern sector of the fortress, allowing the Bengali sepoys to storm through the fortress and slaughter the Afghan garrison of the fortress. Most famously Hyder Ali was killed during the chaos of the melee and battle.

Despite his success and propaganda victory for the British, for they had captured Afghanistan’s ‘impenetrable’ fortress, they had serious problems to face. British reinforcements consisting of men, supplies and equipment had been defeated by Afghan Balochi reinforcements at the Battle of Kalaat and now Keane and his army was dangerously out of reach from British logistical supply. His generals and subordinates advised Keane to retreat back to the Bolan Pass and the city of Quetta for the moment until proper logistical lines could be rebuilt for the British forces. Keane decided to gamble and a took a leaf out of John Coffee, the Vice President of America at the time, and decided to move his army out of the reach of the logistical supply of the army and to ‘live off the land’ before reaching Kabul.

And live off the land his army did. They moved north towards Kabul, and managed to capture the Afghan supply stores in Oadarkhel and Jaghatu before being replenished by the supplies. The British troops then finally met the last Afghan resistance at the Battle of Maidan Shahr. Here the Afghan Army was led by the Afghan Emir, Dost Muhammad himself, and while the Afghan army fought bravely they were fighting on the end of their resources, having used up their supplies and the ones which were not used up having been stolen by Keane and his army. The Afghan army was defeated in the battle in late July and the city of Kabul was surrounded by the British on all sides. Keane knowing that his army would be out of supplies soon led the army into one desperate storm of the capital of Kabul and managed to luckily break the citadel center of the city which broke the resistance of the Afghans. Kabul fell and the British entered victorious. In the aftermath of the chaos of the fall of the Afghan capital, Dost Muhammad was captured by the British troops and brought before Keane, who had been given operational autonomy by the British.

Keane forced Dost Muhammad to sign the Treaty of Kabul which stipulated that southern Afghan Balochistan, as well as the Quetta region would be annexed into the Bombay Presidency of the East India Company, and forced Dost Muhammad to abdicate in favor of his pro-British cousin, Shah Shujha. Shah Shujha was then made Emir of Afghanistan, and Afghanistan was officially made a British vassal state. Britain then withdrew most of the troops from Afghanistan, keeping up and maintaining a strength of 6,000 troops in Kabul.

1613023481572.png

Shah Shuja, the new Afghan Emir, a British puppet.

The Afghans resisted the new British puppet on their throne and the British influence in the country but all for naught. There was little that they could do. Britain and the new pro-British Afghan government controlled all of the urban cities and the passes and routes of the country, and the small rural areas of the country which were under guerilla country were useless countryside territory. In Shah Shujha’s own words “The rebels can keep those useless lands for all I care.”

Nonetheless, whilst the Anglo-Afghan War had been a victory for the British, the embarrassing defeats at the Battle of Kalaat and the loss of logistical support in Afghanistan raised massive eyebrows in the War Ministry back in London, and the British Army was forced to undergo reforms as a result of the Anglo-Afghan war.” A Brief History of the Anglo-Afghan War: The Graveyard of Afghan Freedom. University of Bombay, 1999

“Prince Felix of Schwarzenburg, the Minister-President of the Austrian Empire had made great strides in the Austrian Empire ever since he had been able to become the leader of the government of Austria. After the death of Emperor Francis I of Austria, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, who was to put it mildly, unhealthy to rule and govern personally unlike his father, had tacitly agreed to aid Prince Felix’s reforms. The successful endeavor of the Austrians in the island of Madagascar also made the country all the more proud, and the Austrian population was reaping the benefits of economic prosperity as the country slowly industrialized alongside the rest of the European great powers as well.

Prince Felix, was a conservative, yet modern man. He knew that the world was entering the age of Nationalism, and considering the Austrian Empire was chock full of various nationalities, feared that the age of nationalism would dismantle the centuries old Habsburg Empire. As such he tried to work against the age of nationalism by appealing the moderates of all nationalities, and making a unitary federal structure in the empire. The Congress of Salzburg in 1829 gave the provinces of the empire more autonomous power, and increased the representation of all ethnicities in the local diets based on population proportion rather than plain old nobility.

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The 1st Congress of Salzburg

The Educational Reform of 1833 also decreed that Austrian German would be studied alongside the ethnic language of the people, in order to please the population, which it did. The government made schools a nationalized matter of the state, and the curriculum was nationalized as well, so that the government could implement its educational reforms on a better platform. Of course sectarian schools which taught in Latin continued to exist, but other forms of education in the Austrian Empire was now controlled directly by the government.

However whilst Felix knew that he would have to please the nationalists of the empire, he didn’t wish to give them too much power either. The famous idea of dividing the provinces of the empire based on ethnic maps of the empire was shot down by Felix. He argued that dividing the empire’s provincial boundaries based on ethnic lines would simply give the ethnic groups a platform to secede later on. On this matter, he was correct. So, in order to subvert such topics, he began laying the foundations of reforming the provinces of the empire along the lines of making no single ethnic group a majority in one province. The only places where he could not apply this principle was in the Province of Graz and the Province of Buda, where Germans and Hungarians made up the majority of the population with no other ethnic groups present, however other than that all other proposed provinces had no single ethnic majority. Instead Felix espoused the ‘Right of Individual’ which stipulated a ‘National Personal Autonomy’ Law.

In the second Congress of Salzburg before the important members of the Austrian state in 1835, Prince Felix defined his National Autonomy Law.

Let us consider the case of a country composed of many several national groups, for example, Poles, Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Jews etc. Each national group would create a separate nationalist movement. All citizens belonging to a given national group which would join a special organization that would hold cultural assemblies in each region and a general cultural assembly for the whole country. The assemblies would be given financial powers of their own: either each national group would be entitled to raise taxes on its members, or the state would allocate a proportion of the overall budget on all of them based on population. Every citizen of the state would belong to one of the national groups, but the question of which national movement to join would be a matter of personal choice and no authority would have any control over this decision on part of the citizen. The nationalist movements would subject to general legislation of the state, but in their own areas of responsibility they would be autonomous and none of them would have the right to interfere in the affairs of the other.” – Prince Felix during the Second Congress of Salzburg in 1835

Basically, Prince Felix was stating that ethnicity was tied to the person and not to land. For the reformist minded, liberal minded and moderate minded people of the empire, this was a revolutionary new theory and philosophy. For the radicals of course, this theory was bad, however we will get to them in a bit.

Within the empire itself, the Czechs, the Jews, Poles, Austrian Germans, rural Hungarians, Croats and Romanians alongside the Jews were the fiercest proponents of the National Personal Autonomy law. The urban Hungarians, Italians and Ukrainians were however not exactly enthused with the idea, as the proposed law would basically strip them off their power.

However two groups found the proposed law absolutely dreadful. The Hungarian Magnates and the Venetian Oligarchs found the proposed bill absolutely dreadful, as it would basically topple them from power. Felix had included some clauses to make them calm down, such a diet of magnates and a guild charter for the Venetian oligarchs and elites, however the two factions blinded by their anxiety simply did not read those clauses properly. Seeking to protect their power, the Hungarian magnates gathered in Pest on August 16th, 1839 and declared the union between Austria and Hungary annulled and declared the independence of the State of Hungary.

The Venetians followed suit on August 20th, 1839 and declared the secession of the Sublime Republic of Venice.

1613023648517.png

The Hungarian Magnates

Hilariously, or ironically, many people in the government, and within Venice and Hungary itself thought that the declaration was a joke. The authority of the Magnates within Hungary extended nowhere out of the province of Pest, and the Venetian oligarchs only had power in the city of Venice itself, and nowhere else in Venetia.

Prince Felix however soon found out that the situation was indeed serious. On September 15, 1839 during a ball in Vienna, a Magyar supporter of the magnates crept up to the Austrian empire, and in broad daylight with many of the nobles of the realm and Europe watching in abject terror, stabbed Emperor Ferdinand I multiple times across the chest before being shot by the Count of Transylvania, an Austrian Romanian nobleman from Transylvania. Emperor Ferdinand I who had always been beset with ill-health had managed to stave off his madness for a few days, and had managed to come to the social gathering only to get assassinated.

The assassination stunned the Austrian realm and Europe. Prince Felix denounced the assassination and fired the inspector general of Vienna for the assassination, as it was the duty of the inspector-general to take care of the security in Vienna. Prince Felix rushed the succession and the heir to Ferdinand I, his brother Franz Karl was declared Franz II of the Austrian Empire.

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Francis II of the Austrian Empire.

Francis II who was more of a kind type, and who did not wish to get involved in court politics, and instead remain above politics, gave authority to Prince Felix to ‘take care of the magnates and oligarchs as he saw fit’. Francis II instead sought to do damage control in the public arena, conducting reassuring public visits in the empire. Prince Felix turned his vengeful eye of the magnates and oligarchs. The Hungarian assassin of Emperor Ferdinand I was found to be the son of a minor Hungarian magnate supporting the secession and this made him all the more angrier.

The Austrian IV Army was mobilized and invaded the province of Pest. The problem for the Magnates however was that the Magnates were expecting the normal Hungarian population to aid them and support the secession. This did not happen. The Hungarian population was horrified at the assassination of Ferdinand I and was supportive of the reforms proposed by Felix. As such, the Hungarians in the province did not resist the invading IV Army and many even joined the army and aided them. The IV army reached the city of Pest on December 4, and laid siege to it. The urban population of the city rebelled against the magnates and the Magnate secession was over the next day as the Austrians restored their authority in the city. The rebelling magnates were stripped for their noble titles and holdings and the highest offenders were thrown to jail while the rest were sent to house arrest.

The Venetians however proved to be a higher challenge than the Hungarians. The Venetians had closed themselves to the mainland under Austrian rule and had stockpiled for a long siege. General von Radetsky was called out of retirement and he led an army of 20,000 to lay siege on the city of Venice itself. An epic 7 month long siege waited for the city and the army and the city finally surrendered on March 25th, 1840 and Austrian rule was restored to the city.

1613023580682.png

The Siege of Venice.

This short term instability had made the economy of the country fumble and stop its previous impressive progress, and Austria’s enemies of Prussia and France considered Austria to be a fragile power now. And this situation made Felix extremely angry. He lambasted the radicals at the 3rd Congress of Salzburg and basically handed the congress an ultimatum on May 28th, 1840. It was time to make a decision. The Felixian Ultimatum was delivered.” The Great Ultimatum and Compromise of the Danubian Empire, Imperial University of Vienna, 1991.

“Under the goading of King Carlos II of Argentina, the Mapuche population of Patagonia found themselves at war with the New English, starting the 1st Mapuche War.

Prime Minister Joseph Smith managed to organize a semi-war economy in the nation pretty fast and began preparing an expeditionary army to the southern cone of the south American continent. 10,000 troops were gathered, and the Commonwealth Navy began to transport them to the south cone.

Meanwhile in New English Patagonia, the island of New Eire (otl Tierra Del Fuego) was the bastion of New English resistance to Mapuche attacks.

On the Patagonian mainland, the Mapuche led by fierce generals and war chiefs managed to fight the small petty New English garrison of 2000 pretty easily. The first major battle of the 1st Mapuche war took place on January 27, 1839 during freezing conditions near the small New English settlement of St. Gregory. St. Gregory was a small but burgeoning town in New English Patagonia, and the small platoon of 80 New English troops in the town were besieged by 300 Mapuche troops, armed with Argentinian arms and guns. The New English troops gave battle trying to desperately fight their way out of the town and to regroup with the New English troops at the frozen shore. However the Mapuche were ruthless, and cut the New English down without mercy as they fought desperately in the cold snowy weather of the southern cone.

The Mapuche defeated the New English platoon and took control of St. Gregory, forcing the small population of people living there to flee the town and back to New Eire.

The New English presence on the western end of the Patagonian cone was much stronger, and 800 New English troops led by Colonel James Cooper managed to flank the Mapuche forces and moved north where they met a major Mapuche detachment of 1000 troops at the Battle of Lake Blanca. Here it was that the Mapuche handed the most embarrassing defeat for the New English. The Mapuche divided their forces, and a force of 400 went towards the east to reinforce their lines whilst a force of 600 gave battle near Lake Blanca to the New English forces led by Colonel James Cooper.

The numerically superior New English troops were pushed back by the Mapuche, and the Mapuche slowly started to move their stance and positions to the west much to the confusion of Cooper. What Cooper did not know was that the Mapuche was forcing the New English forces to have their backs to the cold freezing lake. After they managed to reach a proper position, the Mapuche roared forward, taking the new English by surprise, and many New English troops were drowned in the lake. In the cold and freezing temperatures, such a fate was instant death. The New English troops, humiliated withdrew back to Port Zebulon, the last New English port on the Patagonian mainland.

1613023687012.png

The Battle of Tehuelches

At Port Zebulon, the New English mounted a desperate defense, with the remnants of the 2000 troops being reduced to just a meager 250. The 250 troops defended the port fiercely and using barricades, and the cold weather to their advantage they managed to hold the Mapuche onslaught off and sallied out of the city and managed to win a battle at the Battle of Tehuelches. Even though this battle was in reality a draw, it was a tactical New English victory as it bloodied the Mapuche enough for there to be a manpower shortage to siege Port Zebulon. For now Port Zebulon was safe.

And then on July, nearly half a year after the 1st Mapuche war began, the expeditionary forces sent by Smith landed ashore on Port Zebulon, ready to take revenge for their embarrassing defeats during the starting of the 1st Mapuche War.” The Mapuche Wars of Patagonia, Forged in Blood, University of New Eire, 1998, Republic of Patagonia.

“The invitation of the Qing Dynasty to the British, inviting British advisors managed to offset the loss of manpower for the Qing dynasty as so many troops defected after the loss of Formosa to the British. However the Tian Dynasty was also all the more willing to play the proxy game, and this time, invited French advisors from French india, (mainly Pondicherry) and promised the French commercial and economic rights in Tian china in return for aid.

King Louis XIX of course knew the implications of such an endeavor. Having China under French influence would a massive boon to the informal French empire that was slowly being cultivated under his rule and the rule of his father. Louis XIX agreed to the trade and the Treaty of Guangzhou confirmed French economical, commercial and entrepreneurial access to Tian China and in return France sent advisors and weapons as well as equipment to Tian China.

During this now proxy conflict between Britain and France, the British were caught by absolute surprise in regards to the French. The French advisors and equipment slowly started to turn the tide, and Prime Minister Zhang Lexing, using French advice, led a daring assault on the capital of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, and in a move that surprised everybody, managed to capture the city. The Qing Royal Family, barring the Xianfeng Emperor had managed to escape to the north and managed to escape to Harbin safely however the Xianfeng Emperor was captured by Zhang Lexing.

1613023731958.png

Tian troops enter Beijing. The French advisor can be seen clearly.

Meanwhile other things were happening that hurt Qing legitimacy. The Russian Empire had long coveted the Tuvan region and the Amur region of the Qing Empire, and 9,000 Russian troops invaded Tuva and annexed the region into the Russian Empire on September 12, 1839. 2,000 Russian troops also annexed northern Amur into the Russian Empire in the far east, with the small Manchurian tribes in the region unable to do anything about it.

As news of these reached the people, the people started to revolt with more intensity and on December 18, 1839 after months of goading under house arrest, the Xianfeng Emperor finally abdicated the Celestial throne to Kong Fanhao, declaring him the new emperor of the Middle Kingdom. In return the Qing Dynasty would be granted the title, the Duke of Manchus, an honorary title within the new Tian Dynasty.

Qing loyalists fought on after the surrender, and last Qing remnant army was defeated at the Battle of Kashagar in the Sinkiang Province on March 1840. The Rule of the Qing Dynasty was over, and the Tian Dynasty took power in the middle kingdom.”
Rise of the Tian Dynasty, Royal University of Peking, 1896.
 
The Afghans have been defeated! The Austrians have fallen into instability and Felix wants reform! The Mapuche embarrass the New English and the New English desperately hold onto land in Patagonia and a new era has started in China under the Tian Dynasty. Thoughts? Predictions?
 
Did someone call? ;)

Yes, despite popular misconceptions (and the pro Malay-Muslim policies of the modern Malaysian government), Sarawak was never majority Muslim for the greater part of their history, and it still isn't today! The notion of Islamic rule stems from the coastal Malay and Islamized Dayak communities of the river mouths, of which they owe their allegiances to local leaders and notables, whom then bow to the sultan in Brunei. But these communities are often quite small, and much of historical Sarawak was definitely animist to the core. The interior tribal wars, migrations, and politics of the indigenous Dayaks were very much left alone by the coastal towns and Bandar Brunei - except when they threatened riverine / maritime trade and safety, in which case all bets are off.

I should also point out the Christianity arrived with the Brookes because of quid pro quo between them and the missionaries. The Brookes needed early administrators and people whom could act as intermediaries between themselves and the Dayaks, and missionaries were some of the only people adventurous enough to brave the wilds of Borneo to teach locals. It also helped that common thinking bent towards the 'civilizing hand' of Christianity, providing an extra push for prioritizing conversions.

With that said, the Brookes didn't prioritize too much with the cross as they always thought of themselves as the protectors of the Malays and Dayaks, so they often selectively chose where missionaries could go and which places for them to build schools - helps to not step too much on local customs.

Addendum: if you're following geographical history in regards to Brooke rule, Sarawak originally started out as this big.

sarawak_teeny_weeny_8.png


The reason why it grew to encompass modern-day size is because of the endless punitive campaigns waged by the Brookes against the interior Dayaks over 40 years, and the subsequent capitulation agreements signed between them and Bandar Brunei. If the sultan actually presented James Brooke with everything from Kuching to Miri... I think he might have been forced to do so.
wow that's a lot of information, thanks! Will take them into account when writing on the White Rajahs.
 
maybe it does not get deindustrialised
With all the butterflies in motion it seems likely India will have a different fate. Hmm, are we even sre the modern india will be forge by British dominion ITTL? Nepal amd Brunei are already clear from Britain's reach for the forseeable future, others might follow and that will change the dynamic even with those who still end up under the Raj or its equivalent.
It would actually be a massive spoiler to divulge. It will come in the future.
 
Go Mapuche!! But probably this is best they can do and everything will go down hill from now. Still..... it will be nice to see some sort of Mapuche state exist even if it just end up as a protectorate of Argentina or somekind of dual kingdom between Argentina & Mapuche (at least there are some recognition for them).
 
Go Mapuche!! But probably this is best they can do and everything will go down hill from now. Still..... it will be nice to see some sort of Mapuche state exist even if it just end up as a protectorate of Argentina or somekind of dual kingdom between Argentina & Mapuche (at least there are some recognition for them).
The mapuche do have an interesting future ahead of themselves.
 
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