Oh, so that's what it is. I keep forgetting about these (the US had to take them off of someone's hands after all
), but it's not what I usually think of when talking about 'the East Indies', so that's why. Thanks for clarification!Union and Liberty: An American TL
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
- Start date
Oh, so that's what it is. I keep forgetting about these (the US had to take them off of someone's hands after all
), but it's not what I usually think of when talking about 'the East Indies', so that's why. Thanks for clarification!With this Great War, denizens of this TL will not debate the question "Do ["functional"] democracies fight wars against each other?" Here, France seems to be a "functional" democracy fighting the democratic governments of Great Britain and Italy. Hungary and Spain seem to have democratic structures with real power. Then the USA enters and beats on Canada, Acadia, and Britain.
There's some serious hot democracy-on-democracy action in this TL.
There's some serious hot democracy-on-democracy action in this TL.
That's the first time anyone's ever said that about something I posted. I think I'm gonna cry.
That's the first time anyone's ever said that about something I posted. I think I'm gonna cry.
Well, it is Sig-worthy.
Next update should be done tomorrow or Wednesday. Just a couple more updates and the Great War will be finished!
Definitely one of my favorite comments from the thread.
No problem.Oh, so that's what it is. I keep forgetting about these (the US had to take them off of someone's hands after all
Yep, everything looks right.
Excellent! That was one of the things I wanted to do with the Great War, to destroy the concept of the democratic peace theory ITTL before it could be brought up.
I have to third the sig-worthiness of this comment.
Definitely one of my favorite comments from the thread.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Eight: A Silence Falls Over Europe
Part One Hundred Twenty-Eight: A Silence Falls Over Europe
The Eagle and the Bear:
For much of 1910, the broad eastern front of the Great War had ground to a halt. After the fall of Warsaw, the Germans paused to strengthen their hold on the territory in Poland that they had gained. Further south, the siege of Budapest continued, but the Hungarians and their Russian reinforcements continued to prevent the capital from falling to Germany. After Illyria joined the war and the fall of Rijeka, the advance south of Budapest quickened. Illyria with small assistance from Austrian regiments joining the combat front pressed eastward across the Illyria-Hungary border. The fresh Illyrian soldiers quickly overwhelmed the Hungarian border garrisons and took the largely Slovene border towns of Kumrovec and Bregana by November of 1910. From Bregana, the Illyrian army moved eastward along the Sava, intent on taking Agram before the end of the year. While the Germans had drawn much of the Hungarian defense in Croatia to the area around Belovár, the road from the Slavonian military frontier remained open and Hungary was able to send a sizable army to defend Agram. After several weeks of skirmishes near Zaprešić as Illyria attempted to cross the Krapina River, the Illyrians were forced to set up a long encampment through the winter. While the Illyrian offensive stalled, the gap cut by the Sava River between the Zagorje range to the north and the Gorjanci range[1] to the south provided a defensible valley that repelled a Hungarian counterattack in late January.
In Poland, the Russian army was still putting up an eager fight and the German push into Russia had mostly ground to a standstill. However, with the Alliance Carolingien[2] making gains elsewhere and the fall of Warsaw to Germany, morale among the Russians started to decline. The Germans, aided by the Illyrians relieving pressure in Hungary, continued to press forward from the line during the winter of 1910, and made considerable gains as the Russian line faltered. Rzeszow in Galizia and Bialystok were the first major cities German forces captured and fell in November. From Rzeszow, the Germans attempted to push on to Lviv, but were unable to breach the fortress of Przemysl after several weeks and halted their advance for a protracted siege. Despite this setback in Galizia, further north the Germans were able to advance further into Russia in early 1911 as more soldiers were moved in from the Italian front. By April of 1911, Germany had advanced as far east as Lutsk and Pinsk, and were poised to capture Wilno. Wilno fell in mid-April, and the Central Army began advancing on Minsk.
While the German army pushed further into Russian territory in the center of the front, the northern front and the Baltic Sea saw a resumption of movement as well. The German Baltic Fleet moved north from Konigsberg once again to blockade several cities on the Russian Baltic coast in the winter of 1910. In a stroke of luck, a large part of the Russian fleet was still in the Gulf of Finland, and a cold snap prevented much of the Russian fleet from engaging the Germans. The German fleet of 24 ships sunk almost a dozen Russian ships off Kotka, and entered the Gulf of Riga on January 12, 1911. The German naval activity and the pending attack on Wilno enabled a final decision to be made by the command in Kaunas to strike north in an attack toward Riga. From Šiauliai, the German Northern Army moved north once again into Latvia. In a second attack on Jelgave in March, the Germans broke the Russian defense there and finally took the city in February. As Wilno fell in April, the Siege of Riga was already several weeks in. While the German army was held south of the Duagava, with a naval bombardment they soon took Jūrmala, reaching the Baltic coast and breaking the supply line to the area of Latvia and Lithuania west of the German line. Riga remained under siege for two more months until the German navy was chased out of the Gulf of Riga by the Russians. However, by the middle of June, all countries in the Great War had begun down the road to peace negotiations. While Riga suffered heavy bombardment, it did not fall before Russia signed a ceasefire with Germany. Unfortunately for the Hungarians, they could not say the same for Budapest, which at long last fell to Germany in August.
Bringing the British to the Table:
While the Alliance Carolingien had convinced many of the partners in the New Coalition to begin peace negotiations and end the war, the British remained stubborn holdouts. While the other major powers in the New Coalition had suffered significant losses, Britain had maintained its naval edge in the English Channel and the far north Atlantic throughout the war, and the British Isles remained safe from invasion. Despite this, there were always fears rampant around Great Britain that the French or Germans were on the verge of landing on British soil. This was part of the extensive propaganda machine by the government during the war to justify continued support for Britain's allies on the continent.
Among the higher echelons in Paris and Berlin, the schemes for getting Britain to start peace negotiations mostly surrounded a limited invasion of the British Isles to scare the British into an armistice. The earliest concrete plan for an invasion was drawn up by Joseph Leopold von Habsburg in early 1910, when the Habsburgs still held some sway in the German military staff. Joseph Leopold proposed a small invasion force landing at Shetland, while a larger force landed in Scotland on the beaches north of Peterhead. When Joseph Leopold brought the plan to a high ranking member of the German Navy, the plan was immediately scrapped because of the large Royal Navy fleet based at Scapa Flow was too close to provide sufficient time before the British could engage the German navy. In the autumn of 1910 a small fleet went ahead with a landing at Shetland, however, resulting in one of the worst naval defeats for the Alliance Carolingien in the Great War. Four transport ships and nearly five hundred men were lost in the landing, infuriating the German high command.
After the failed landing at Shetland, plans for an invasion of Britain turned from solely a German endeavor to a joint Franco-German operation. As the French secured domination over the Mediterranean, the France and German naval commands began collaborating on a way to launch two simultaneous invasions of the British Isles. By summer of 1911, the final plan of what was known as Operation Hohenlinden[3] was drawn up. The French part of the plan involved the fledgling air force the French and Germans had been building since the Battle of La Rioja in 1905[4]. By 1911, France had a fleet of six airships and Germany had a fleet of ten. In July, fifteen airships set forth across the English CHannel with a large French naval escort. Great Britain intercepted enough French plans to determine the French navy's route in the Channel, and the Home Fleet came out to meet the French. While the battle was a draw, the Royal Navy and the coastal batteries were unable to turn the airships back. The airship fleet dropped bombs on several cities in southern England, with Dover and Portsmouth being the worst hit. One French airship, the Jeanne d'Arc, went as far north as Guildford, but none reached as far as London.
While French and German airships were bombing southern England, Germany launched one of its largest naval operations of the Great War into the North Sea. The German High Seas Fleet, under the command of Frederick III's son Prince Heinrich, set sail from Wilhelmshafen in late June of 1911. On July 15th, the High Seas Fleet reached the south side of Flamborough Head and sent nearly 125,000 troops ashore to the beaches of Bridlington. While the bulk of the fleet was situated near Flamborough Head, a small squadron of minelayers was sent south to lay mines outside the Humber Estuary to delay the mobilization of any warships in Hull or Grimsby. With few coastal forts in this part of England, and with the major Royal Navy bases on the south coast or in Scapa Flow, the British took several days to respond once word arrived of a German landing. The North Sea Fleet at last arrived from Scapa Flow on the 19th, but in the four days the Germans had established a beachhead at Bridlington and had secured a defensive line stretching from Skipsea to Gristhorpe. As the North Sea Fleet, numbering 50 ships with three battleships and ten cruisers, attacked the 103 ship strong German High Seas Fleet, the Germans on the beach dug in. The Battle of Flamborough Head lasted nearly two weeks raging on both land and sea with high casualties on both sides. The Germans were ultimately repelled with nearly 30,000 men lost, but the British lost nearly double that dislodging the Germans from the coast. Additionally, the naval battle was indecisive, destroying the perception of invincibility of the British navy so close to the Isles. The German High Seas Fleet sank the battleship HMS Temeraire, three cruisers, and thirteen other British ships, while only losing nine and only one cruiser, the KMS Leipzig. The evacuation of the remaining German troops from British shores was over by August 6th ending the nearly month-long German occupation of British soil.
The joint Franco-German assault on the British Isles shocked the British population and caused a scandal in Parliament. The impregnability of the British coast and the faith in the navy to protect Britain had become increasingly relied upon by Westminster throughout the Great War as both a military strategy and an assurance to the people. The protection provided by the Royal Navy seemed sound; the last foreign invasion of England was nearly two centuries before in 1719. The shock of invasion was the final straw to the British people, who had been facing rationing since the beginning of the Great War. The rationing was a necessary result of the trade lost to Great Britain from war with many of its largest trading partners, but Parliament had been using the constant threat of invasion as a propaganda tool to support it. Now with the threat of invasion realized, many Britons were simply demoralized and held a defeatist attitude after five years of relative economic hardship. The triumph of the Alliance Carolingien on the European continent and across the globe only hurt British perception of the war even more. Finally in September 1911, with general fatigue from the continuation of the war mounting, the Conservative leadership under Prime Minister Lord Curzon relented to pressure from numerous members of both Houses of Parliament and sought an armistice with France and Germany. On September 27th, 1911, a general armistice was agreed between the New Coalition and the Alliance Carolingien and the final treaty negotiations could begin.
[1]Slovene name for the Zumberak Range
[2]Thank you to bm79 for mentioning it should be Carolingienne. I haven't forgotten, but I'm starting to kind of like it as a minor in-universe translation mistake.
[3]Named after the French victory over Austria at Hohenlinden in 1800
[4]From Part 111
The Eagle and the Bear:
For much of 1910, the broad eastern front of the Great War had ground to a halt. After the fall of Warsaw, the Germans paused to strengthen their hold on the territory in Poland that they had gained. Further south, the siege of Budapest continued, but the Hungarians and their Russian reinforcements continued to prevent the capital from falling to Germany. After Illyria joined the war and the fall of Rijeka, the advance south of Budapest quickened. Illyria with small assistance from Austrian regiments joining the combat front pressed eastward across the Illyria-Hungary border. The fresh Illyrian soldiers quickly overwhelmed the Hungarian border garrisons and took the largely Slovene border towns of Kumrovec and Bregana by November of 1910. From Bregana, the Illyrian army moved eastward along the Sava, intent on taking Agram before the end of the year. While the Germans had drawn much of the Hungarian defense in Croatia to the area around Belovár, the road from the Slavonian military frontier remained open and Hungary was able to send a sizable army to defend Agram. After several weeks of skirmishes near Zaprešić as Illyria attempted to cross the Krapina River, the Illyrians were forced to set up a long encampment through the winter. While the Illyrian offensive stalled, the gap cut by the Sava River between the Zagorje range to the north and the Gorjanci range[1] to the south provided a defensible valley that repelled a Hungarian counterattack in late January.
In Poland, the Russian army was still putting up an eager fight and the German push into Russia had mostly ground to a standstill. However, with the Alliance Carolingien[2] making gains elsewhere and the fall of Warsaw to Germany, morale among the Russians started to decline. The Germans, aided by the Illyrians relieving pressure in Hungary, continued to press forward from the line during the winter of 1910, and made considerable gains as the Russian line faltered. Rzeszow in Galizia and Bialystok were the first major cities German forces captured and fell in November. From Rzeszow, the Germans attempted to push on to Lviv, but were unable to breach the fortress of Przemysl after several weeks and halted their advance for a protracted siege. Despite this setback in Galizia, further north the Germans were able to advance further into Russia in early 1911 as more soldiers were moved in from the Italian front. By April of 1911, Germany had advanced as far east as Lutsk and Pinsk, and were poised to capture Wilno. Wilno fell in mid-April, and the Central Army began advancing on Minsk.
While the German army pushed further into Russian territory in the center of the front, the northern front and the Baltic Sea saw a resumption of movement as well. The German Baltic Fleet moved north from Konigsberg once again to blockade several cities on the Russian Baltic coast in the winter of 1910. In a stroke of luck, a large part of the Russian fleet was still in the Gulf of Finland, and a cold snap prevented much of the Russian fleet from engaging the Germans. The German fleet of 24 ships sunk almost a dozen Russian ships off Kotka, and entered the Gulf of Riga on January 12, 1911. The German naval activity and the pending attack on Wilno enabled a final decision to be made by the command in Kaunas to strike north in an attack toward Riga. From Šiauliai, the German Northern Army moved north once again into Latvia. In a second attack on Jelgave in March, the Germans broke the Russian defense there and finally took the city in February. As Wilno fell in April, the Siege of Riga was already several weeks in. While the German army was held south of the Duagava, with a naval bombardment they soon took Jūrmala, reaching the Baltic coast and breaking the supply line to the area of Latvia and Lithuania west of the German line. Riga remained under siege for two more months until the German navy was chased out of the Gulf of Riga by the Russians. However, by the middle of June, all countries in the Great War had begun down the road to peace negotiations. While Riga suffered heavy bombardment, it did not fall before Russia signed a ceasefire with Germany. Unfortunately for the Hungarians, they could not say the same for Budapest, which at long last fell to Germany in August.
Bringing the British to the Table:
While the Alliance Carolingien had convinced many of the partners in the New Coalition to begin peace negotiations and end the war, the British remained stubborn holdouts. While the other major powers in the New Coalition had suffered significant losses, Britain had maintained its naval edge in the English Channel and the far north Atlantic throughout the war, and the British Isles remained safe from invasion. Despite this, there were always fears rampant around Great Britain that the French or Germans were on the verge of landing on British soil. This was part of the extensive propaganda machine by the government during the war to justify continued support for Britain's allies on the continent.
Among the higher echelons in Paris and Berlin, the schemes for getting Britain to start peace negotiations mostly surrounded a limited invasion of the British Isles to scare the British into an armistice. The earliest concrete plan for an invasion was drawn up by Joseph Leopold von Habsburg in early 1910, when the Habsburgs still held some sway in the German military staff. Joseph Leopold proposed a small invasion force landing at Shetland, while a larger force landed in Scotland on the beaches north of Peterhead. When Joseph Leopold brought the plan to a high ranking member of the German Navy, the plan was immediately scrapped because of the large Royal Navy fleet based at Scapa Flow was too close to provide sufficient time before the British could engage the German navy. In the autumn of 1910 a small fleet went ahead with a landing at Shetland, however, resulting in one of the worst naval defeats for the Alliance Carolingien in the Great War. Four transport ships and nearly five hundred men were lost in the landing, infuriating the German high command.
After the failed landing at Shetland, plans for an invasion of Britain turned from solely a German endeavor to a joint Franco-German operation. As the French secured domination over the Mediterranean, the France and German naval commands began collaborating on a way to launch two simultaneous invasions of the British Isles. By summer of 1911, the final plan of what was known as Operation Hohenlinden[3] was drawn up. The French part of the plan involved the fledgling air force the French and Germans had been building since the Battle of La Rioja in 1905[4]. By 1911, France had a fleet of six airships and Germany had a fleet of ten. In July, fifteen airships set forth across the English CHannel with a large French naval escort. Great Britain intercepted enough French plans to determine the French navy's route in the Channel, and the Home Fleet came out to meet the French. While the battle was a draw, the Royal Navy and the coastal batteries were unable to turn the airships back. The airship fleet dropped bombs on several cities in southern England, with Dover and Portsmouth being the worst hit. One French airship, the Jeanne d'Arc, went as far north as Guildford, but none reached as far as London.
While French and German airships were bombing southern England, Germany launched one of its largest naval operations of the Great War into the North Sea. The German High Seas Fleet, under the command of Frederick III's son Prince Heinrich, set sail from Wilhelmshafen in late June of 1911. On July 15th, the High Seas Fleet reached the south side of Flamborough Head and sent nearly 125,000 troops ashore to the beaches of Bridlington. While the bulk of the fleet was situated near Flamborough Head, a small squadron of minelayers was sent south to lay mines outside the Humber Estuary to delay the mobilization of any warships in Hull or Grimsby. With few coastal forts in this part of England, and with the major Royal Navy bases on the south coast or in Scapa Flow, the British took several days to respond once word arrived of a German landing. The North Sea Fleet at last arrived from Scapa Flow on the 19th, but in the four days the Germans had established a beachhead at Bridlington and had secured a defensive line stretching from Skipsea to Gristhorpe. As the North Sea Fleet, numbering 50 ships with three battleships and ten cruisers, attacked the 103 ship strong German High Seas Fleet, the Germans on the beach dug in. The Battle of Flamborough Head lasted nearly two weeks raging on both land and sea with high casualties on both sides. The Germans were ultimately repelled with nearly 30,000 men lost, but the British lost nearly double that dislodging the Germans from the coast. Additionally, the naval battle was indecisive, destroying the perception of invincibility of the British navy so close to the Isles. The German High Seas Fleet sank the battleship HMS Temeraire, three cruisers, and thirteen other British ships, while only losing nine and only one cruiser, the KMS Leipzig. The evacuation of the remaining German troops from British shores was over by August 6th ending the nearly month-long German occupation of British soil.
The joint Franco-German assault on the British Isles shocked the British population and caused a scandal in Parliament. The impregnability of the British coast and the faith in the navy to protect Britain had become increasingly relied upon by Westminster throughout the Great War as both a military strategy and an assurance to the people. The protection provided by the Royal Navy seemed sound; the last foreign invasion of England was nearly two centuries before in 1719. The shock of invasion was the final straw to the British people, who had been facing rationing since the beginning of the Great War. The rationing was a necessary result of the trade lost to Great Britain from war with many of its largest trading partners, but Parliament had been using the constant threat of invasion as a propaganda tool to support it. Now with the threat of invasion realized, many Britons were simply demoralized and held a defeatist attitude after five years of relative economic hardship. The triumph of the Alliance Carolingien on the European continent and across the globe only hurt British perception of the war even more. Finally in September 1911, with general fatigue from the continuation of the war mounting, the Conservative leadership under Prime Minister Lord Curzon relented to pressure from numerous members of both Houses of Parliament and sought an armistice with France and Germany. On September 27th, 1911, a general armistice was agreed between the New Coalition and the Alliance Carolingien and the final treaty negotiations could begin.
[1]Slovene name for the Zumberak Range
[2]Thank you to bm79 for mentioning it should be Carolingienne. I haven't forgotten, but I'm starting to kind of like it as a minor in-universe translation mistake.
[3]Named after the French victory over Austria at Hohenlinden in 1800
[4]From Part 111
Awesome!
The thing is that unlike Spain and Italy who were crumbling, it seems the UK and Russia could theoretically still prolong the war if they were willing to do so (though Hungary was done for). Whatever the treaty ends up being France and Germany need to take this into consideration during the peace talks.
I am still curious on how Ottoman neutrality will affect the post-war years. Clearly they are better off than in OTL, but if Russia looses in the Baltics it might get greedy in the Balkans and without Austria to counter it (and with Hungary virtually out of the game) I can see Russia and the Ottomans butting heads quite soon after the war.
As far as the war in the Americas is concerned it seems that is only a side theater. And while the American public might be a bit disillusioned if the US only gets a small bite out of Canada and/or California it might be the best solution. The US hasn't advance much in either front so far (so it can't claim too much territory and expect to hold it) and Britain is about to call for an armistice. I expect the US to get good economic concessions but territorially we are talking about a few islands in the Caribbean, and small border adjustments to the US favor.
Keep it up Wilcox!!! So glad you got the urge to continue the TL.
The thing is that unlike Spain and Italy who were crumbling, it seems the UK and Russia could theoretically still prolong the war if they were willing to do so (though Hungary was done for). Whatever the treaty ends up being France and Germany need to take this into consideration during the peace talks.
I am still curious on how Ottoman neutrality will affect the post-war years. Clearly they are better off than in OTL, but if Russia looses in the Baltics it might get greedy in the Balkans and without Austria to counter it (and with Hungary virtually out of the game) I can see Russia and the Ottomans butting heads quite soon after the war.
As far as the war in the Americas is concerned it seems that is only a side theater. And while the American public might be a bit disillusioned if the US only gets a small bite out of Canada and/or California it might be the best solution. The US hasn't advance much in either front so far (so it can't claim too much territory and expect to hold it) and Britain is about to call for an armistice. I expect the US to get good economic concessions but territorially we are talking about a few islands in the Caribbean, and small border adjustments to the US favor.
Keep it up Wilcox!!! So glad you got the urge to continue the TL.
Well, I seem to remember that the US wanted to annex all of New Caledonia, could that be possible?
Also I hope that you could come up with an independent Slovakia.
We don't seem to get much love in AH generally. It be the easiest part to annex, but the US hasn't quite made progress there. It seems.
Also I hope that you could come up with an independent Slovakia.
This could be cool. An independent Slovakia, a small but independent Poland, and the existing Galicia (which would wrestle itself out of Russian influence) could form a nice buffer zone between Germany and Russia. And if all three stick together they could form a good economic bloc / alliance to avoid too much German influence.
It seems the US was making slow progress in Canada, it has the upper hand there but hasn't quite made it to Montreal or Toronto and was begging to get bogged down. It was making some progress on the other side of the Great Lakes, but British forces in New Caledonia had moved into the Butte Valley in Washington and were successfully blockading Astoria and Langley (Seattle).
The US was making better progress in California, with US forces recently reaching the Sacramento Valley and landing in the San Francisco peninsula.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Nine: Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Here's the next update!
Part One Hundred Twenty-Nine: Revolutions and Revolutionaries
The Philippine Revolution:
The Republic of the Philippines was the first independent republic to be formed in East Asia, and the first Asian country to be free of European influence. The Philippine independence movement was led by the nationalist Katipunan group, formed in the 1890s mainly by members of the Filipino intelligentsia. Over the next decade, Katipunan grew as nationalist sentiment surged among educated Filipinos, or ilustrados, following increased taxes imposed on Filipinos and other perceived transgressions by the Spanish colonial administration. Even Filipino members of the Spanish colonial government including Emilio Aguinaldo and Mariano Trias. Once the Great War started, the Katipunan had gained a wide network around the Philippines and even with Filipino emigrants in Spain and California. In 1908, bolstered by this international support and the faltering Spanish government, the Katipunan movement launched its revolution.
With the disorganization of the Spanish colonial government, the Katipunan movement quickly captured much of the area north of Manila as the revolution spread. By the end of the year, much of the provinces of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, and Zambales had been captured by the Katipunan. The first major rebel activity south of Manila occurred on December 12, 1908 in one of the most celebrated events of the Philippines. Antonio Luna, a Filipino junior officer in the Spanish army and member of the Katipunan movement, launched a mutiny at the arsenal in Fort San Felipe south of Manila. Within two days, the fort had been captured and the revolution had spread through much of the city. Fort San Felipe's fall supplied the Katipunan with weapons and ammunition that allowed the revolution to launch offensive attacks on Spanish positions. Through the rest of the Great War, the Katipunan rebellion gained control over a large area of central Luzon and by the Treaty of Saint-Denis had surrounded Manila, thought the Spanish colonial government remained safe within the city.
The transfer of the Philippines from Spain to a joint Franco-German administration provided the window the Katipunan sought to declare an independent republic. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Katipunan, formed a national assembly at Malolos and declared independence on May 1, 1911. Aguinaldo directed the Katipunan army to move on Manila as the Spanish colonial governor and much of the colonial government slipped out of Manila harbor under cover of night. Even after the occupation of Manila, Aguinaldo kept Malolos as the seat of government of the Philippines. Many of the higher ups in the Katipunan formed the cabinet of the early Philippine government. For example, Aguinaldo appointed Mariano Trias Minister of Finance and appointed Antonio Luna Minister of War. Aguinaldo soon consolidated independent control over the entirety of Luzon. The Franco-German joint administration never materialized in Luzon, partly because Aguinaldo always refused French and German prospective governors entry into Manila, and partly because the two countries never settled on who would have what authority. Meanwhile, the revolutionary movement spread from Luzon to Visayas. After three years of bickering and little progress in much of the archipelago, the French and German governments finally determined that the endeavor of administration was too expensive and recognized the Philippines as an independent republic. Today, the little remnants of the French and German colonial efforts can be found in the French regional office in Taytay on the island of Palawan, and the remains of a German fort on Samal Island near the city of Davao[1].
Morelian Mexico:
For the decades after the breakup of Mexico, the Mexican Republic was the only state to still retain any connection with the old government, owing mainly to its possession of Mexico City. Even so, the Mexican Republic still fell into the same corruption as the republics to its north. A succession of elite landholders dominated politics in the Mexican Republic and the peasants who worked the hinterlands continued to work for little. Resentment toward the wealthy owners of the haciendas, many of whom lived in Mexico City itself and rarely visited their rural estates, grew among the poorer peasantry. In 1905, two mestizo community leaders in the eastern hills of the Mexican Republic met to begin a demonstration for true land reform. These men were Pascual Claudio[2] and Emiliano Zapata.
As a string of feuds in Mexico City led to no less than three coups in as many years in the capital, Zapata and Claudio drafted their Plan de Anenecuilco, which denounced the leaders in Mexico City and sought to bring land rights to the people and the village councils. Zapata had been influenced by socialist teachings, and adopted an ideology that would come to be known as Morelismo after the region of Morelos that Zapata operated in. Zapata and Claudio organized with other village leaders in Morelos and Tlacotepec to launch an insurgency against the Mexican government. The rebel movement swelled as Zapata's reforms were implemented and villages began to plant staple food crops instead of cash crops for export, and news of the rebellion spread. By 1910 the Mexican Revolution had consumed the country in a brutal civil war, but the Zapatistas had a majority of the population on their side. In March 1910 Mexico City was largely surrounded by Zapata's forces, and a famine broke out in the capital. When the citizens heard of how well the villages under Zapata and Claduio's control were eating with their subsistence crops, the citizens of Mexico City joined the revolt and ousted the president of Mexico and the mayor of the city. Many hacienda owners fled to neighboring republics, while Zapata and Claudio set up their new revolutionary system as the Mexican Peasant's Republic.
Pascual Claudio died soon after the victory, and Zapata appointed fellow revolutionary Plutarco Elias Calles[4] the mayor of Mexico City, effectively making Calles the second most powerful person in the new government. Calles' popularity among the urban labor movement gained him favor from Zapata. Additionally, as Zapata's expertise lay in agrarian socialism, Calles had largely free reign to adapt the socialist ideas to the more dense and urbanized capital. Morelian Socialism was largely characterized in the Mexican Republic by the breakdown of the hacienda system and its replacement by smaller plots of land collectively owned by each village through its council. The village councils were granted a high level of autonomy, and they were expected to be self-sustaining through the growth of staple crops such as maize. Calles, meanwhile, looked toward the Viennese Workers Republic in the reorganization of Mexico City, creating an odd mix of state centralization in the capital and decentralization in the rest of the country.
The success of the Mexican Revolution caused a shockwave through the entire Mexican region. Jalisco and Granidalgo immediately sought an alliance to try and isolate any revolutionary expansionism that Calles and Zapata were harboring. Zapata had long written of the need to expand the revolution and reunite greater Mexico under a liberated banner and free the workers in the north. Small rebellions flared up in other states, but the Mexican Peasants' Republic was too weak to grant them any support. President Álvaro Obregón of Sonora was one of the more receptive leaders to Zapata's ideals and enacted a series of land reforms and labor laws in Sonora including dismantling a large portion of his own family's substantial landholdings. The Mexican Republic and Sonora would remain close ties, which would become crucial for the two states in the following years during the Second Mexican War. Interestingly, Zapata and Calles' anticlericalism actually created a boost for the Temporal Catholic Church in Puebla, as much of the elite in the other Mexican republics began to increase support for the church to combat the perception of godlessness of socialism in their midst. This effort revived Temporal Catholicism as a whole and Tlaxcala with it, which became a bulwark against the threat of New World socialism.
The Birth of the Hawaiian Republic:
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian archipelago was one of the last places in the world to be colonized during the 19th century. The united islands were governed under an independent monarchy and received limited but growing interest from European and Asian merchants throughout the 1800s. In 1892, a class of wealthy immigrants had gained substantial power in the archipelago and overthrew the native monarchy to protect their business interests, largely in sugar and fruit plantations. The islands were divided between Japan and California, with Caliifornia gaining the more populated and wealthier islands east of and including Oahu. California controlled Hawaii for nearly two decades, but with the Great War and strict Californio policies regarding trade and tariffs from the islands, foreign control of Hawaii did not last very long.
The leader of the Hawaiian Revolution was a Chinese immigrant by the name of Sun Yat-Sen. Sun Yat-Sen grew up in southern China before moving to Honolulu in 1878 to live with his brother Sun Mei[4]. The family's wealth grew over the years and after receiving a degree in medicine, Sun Yat-Sen became active in liberal clubs in Honolulu advocating the abolition of the monarchy. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1892 and California took ownership of the islands, Sun Yat-Sen praised the new government as a step toward liberalizing the islands. However, the government in Monterrey began passing laws favoring Californio businesses over others and swiftly alienated many of the prominent businesses on the islands. Sun Yat-Sen and a cadre of wealthy Honoluluans formed the Society for Hawaiian Independence in 1894, and began petitioning Monterey to grant Hawaii self-governance. During the next decade, Sun Yat-Sen made several trips to California as well as to China to lend support to liberal organizations in his birth country. The Society's members included both former Hawaiian leadership including William Charles Lunalilo[5] and a large immigrant elite, including Filipinos, French, and Americans. After Monterey was occupied by American forces in November of 1910, the Society proclaimed that the Californio administration was no longer valid.
While the token Californio presence in the islands had mostly departed to the mainland as the United States invaded, a brief skirmish between militia forces loyal to the Society and the garrison in Honolulu Harbor killed six men and prevented the coup from being completely bloodless. The Society for Hawaiian Independence soon established control over the rest of the islands and, with support from the American consulate in Honolulu, proclaimed the country independent once again. Sun Yat-Sen and the aging William Charles Lunalilo led the constitutional convention that drafted a new, more liberal constitution, but disagreement arose on whether to restore the monarchy. Lunalilo's age caused him to turn down the kingship, but the Society were unwilling to support other candidates for the position. Despite opposition from some of the former royalty, the constitution was ratified and on May 14, 1911 the Republic of Hawaii was created. The United States and Japan soon recognized the restored nation, and elections were held in August of that year. The major parties reflected the divide that had long pervaded Hawaiian politics. Native Hawaiians and pro-restorationists put forth Keolaokalani Davis Bishop[6] as the presidential candidate of the National Revival Party. Sun Yat-Sen was nominated by the Liberal Party, which had support from the business elite and the significant non-native population. The Liberal Party won the elections, and Sun Yat-Sen became the first president of the Republic of Hawaii in 1911.
[1] The Germans tried to establish their main port in Zamboanga but Vicente Alvarez' Republic of Zamboanga controlled much of western Mindanao at the time.
[2] I couldn't find much info about Pascual Claudio, other than he was a revolutionary leader in Guerrero and there are schools naned after him.
[3] Not entirely sure if Calles works in this role, but I had trouble finding people actually from Mexico City.
[4] This is OTL. Sun Yat-Sen lived in Hawaii for much of his early life and organized his first revolutionary activities in the 1890s with Chinese expatriates in Honolulu.
[5] Lunalilo in OTL was the last king of the Kamehameha dynasty, reigning from 1873 to 1874. ITTL he lives longer but doesn't become king after Kamehameha V.
[6] Son of Bernice Paulani Bishop.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Nine: Revolutions and Revolutionaries
The Philippine Revolution:
The Republic of the Philippines was the first independent republic to be formed in East Asia, and the first Asian country to be free of European influence. The Philippine independence movement was led by the nationalist Katipunan group, formed in the 1890s mainly by members of the Filipino intelligentsia. Over the next decade, Katipunan grew as nationalist sentiment surged among educated Filipinos, or ilustrados, following increased taxes imposed on Filipinos and other perceived transgressions by the Spanish colonial administration. Even Filipino members of the Spanish colonial government including Emilio Aguinaldo and Mariano Trias. Once the Great War started, the Katipunan had gained a wide network around the Philippines and even with Filipino emigrants in Spain and California. In 1908, bolstered by this international support and the faltering Spanish government, the Katipunan movement launched its revolution.
With the disorganization of the Spanish colonial government, the Katipunan movement quickly captured much of the area north of Manila as the revolution spread. By the end of the year, much of the provinces of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, and Zambales had been captured by the Katipunan. The first major rebel activity south of Manila occurred on December 12, 1908 in one of the most celebrated events of the Philippines. Antonio Luna, a Filipino junior officer in the Spanish army and member of the Katipunan movement, launched a mutiny at the arsenal in Fort San Felipe south of Manila. Within two days, the fort had been captured and the revolution had spread through much of the city. Fort San Felipe's fall supplied the Katipunan with weapons and ammunition that allowed the revolution to launch offensive attacks on Spanish positions. Through the rest of the Great War, the Katipunan rebellion gained control over a large area of central Luzon and by the Treaty of Saint-Denis had surrounded Manila, thought the Spanish colonial government remained safe within the city.
The transfer of the Philippines from Spain to a joint Franco-German administration provided the window the Katipunan sought to declare an independent republic. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Katipunan, formed a national assembly at Malolos and declared independence on May 1, 1911. Aguinaldo directed the Katipunan army to move on Manila as the Spanish colonial governor and much of the colonial government slipped out of Manila harbor under cover of night. Even after the occupation of Manila, Aguinaldo kept Malolos as the seat of government of the Philippines. Many of the higher ups in the Katipunan formed the cabinet of the early Philippine government. For example, Aguinaldo appointed Mariano Trias Minister of Finance and appointed Antonio Luna Minister of War. Aguinaldo soon consolidated independent control over the entirety of Luzon. The Franco-German joint administration never materialized in Luzon, partly because Aguinaldo always refused French and German prospective governors entry into Manila, and partly because the two countries never settled on who would have what authority. Meanwhile, the revolutionary movement spread from Luzon to Visayas. After three years of bickering and little progress in much of the archipelago, the French and German governments finally determined that the endeavor of administration was too expensive and recognized the Philippines as an independent republic. Today, the little remnants of the French and German colonial efforts can be found in the French regional office in Taytay on the island of Palawan, and the remains of a German fort on Samal Island near the city of Davao[1].
Morelian Mexico:
For the decades after the breakup of Mexico, the Mexican Republic was the only state to still retain any connection with the old government, owing mainly to its possession of Mexico City. Even so, the Mexican Republic still fell into the same corruption as the republics to its north. A succession of elite landholders dominated politics in the Mexican Republic and the peasants who worked the hinterlands continued to work for little. Resentment toward the wealthy owners of the haciendas, many of whom lived in Mexico City itself and rarely visited their rural estates, grew among the poorer peasantry. In 1905, two mestizo community leaders in the eastern hills of the Mexican Republic met to begin a demonstration for true land reform. These men were Pascual Claudio[2] and Emiliano Zapata.
As a string of feuds in Mexico City led to no less than three coups in as many years in the capital, Zapata and Claudio drafted their Plan de Anenecuilco, which denounced the leaders in Mexico City and sought to bring land rights to the people and the village councils. Zapata had been influenced by socialist teachings, and adopted an ideology that would come to be known as Morelismo after the region of Morelos that Zapata operated in. Zapata and Claudio organized with other village leaders in Morelos and Tlacotepec to launch an insurgency against the Mexican government. The rebel movement swelled as Zapata's reforms were implemented and villages began to plant staple food crops instead of cash crops for export, and news of the rebellion spread. By 1910 the Mexican Revolution had consumed the country in a brutal civil war, but the Zapatistas had a majority of the population on their side. In March 1910 Mexico City was largely surrounded by Zapata's forces, and a famine broke out in the capital. When the citizens heard of how well the villages under Zapata and Claduio's control were eating with their subsistence crops, the citizens of Mexico City joined the revolt and ousted the president of Mexico and the mayor of the city. Many hacienda owners fled to neighboring republics, while Zapata and Claudio set up their new revolutionary system as the Mexican Peasant's Republic.
Pascual Claudio died soon after the victory, and Zapata appointed fellow revolutionary Plutarco Elias Calles[4] the mayor of Mexico City, effectively making Calles the second most powerful person in the new government. Calles' popularity among the urban labor movement gained him favor from Zapata. Additionally, as Zapata's expertise lay in agrarian socialism, Calles had largely free reign to adapt the socialist ideas to the more dense and urbanized capital. Morelian Socialism was largely characterized in the Mexican Republic by the breakdown of the hacienda system and its replacement by smaller plots of land collectively owned by each village through its council. The village councils were granted a high level of autonomy, and they were expected to be self-sustaining through the growth of staple crops such as maize. Calles, meanwhile, looked toward the Viennese Workers Republic in the reorganization of Mexico City, creating an odd mix of state centralization in the capital and decentralization in the rest of the country.
The success of the Mexican Revolution caused a shockwave through the entire Mexican region. Jalisco and Granidalgo immediately sought an alliance to try and isolate any revolutionary expansionism that Calles and Zapata were harboring. Zapata had long written of the need to expand the revolution and reunite greater Mexico under a liberated banner and free the workers in the north. Small rebellions flared up in other states, but the Mexican Peasants' Republic was too weak to grant them any support. President Álvaro Obregón of Sonora was one of the more receptive leaders to Zapata's ideals and enacted a series of land reforms and labor laws in Sonora including dismantling a large portion of his own family's substantial landholdings. The Mexican Republic and Sonora would remain close ties, which would become crucial for the two states in the following years during the Second Mexican War. Interestingly, Zapata and Calles' anticlericalism actually created a boost for the Temporal Catholic Church in Puebla, as much of the elite in the other Mexican republics began to increase support for the church to combat the perception of godlessness of socialism in their midst. This effort revived Temporal Catholicism as a whole and Tlaxcala with it, which became a bulwark against the threat of New World socialism.
The Birth of the Hawaiian Republic:
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian archipelago was one of the last places in the world to be colonized during the 19th century. The united islands were governed under an independent monarchy and received limited but growing interest from European and Asian merchants throughout the 1800s. In 1892, a class of wealthy immigrants had gained substantial power in the archipelago and overthrew the native monarchy to protect their business interests, largely in sugar and fruit plantations. The islands were divided between Japan and California, with Caliifornia gaining the more populated and wealthier islands east of and including Oahu. California controlled Hawaii for nearly two decades, but with the Great War and strict Californio policies regarding trade and tariffs from the islands, foreign control of Hawaii did not last very long.
The leader of the Hawaiian Revolution was a Chinese immigrant by the name of Sun Yat-Sen. Sun Yat-Sen grew up in southern China before moving to Honolulu in 1878 to live with his brother Sun Mei[4]. The family's wealth grew over the years and after receiving a degree in medicine, Sun Yat-Sen became active in liberal clubs in Honolulu advocating the abolition of the monarchy. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1892 and California took ownership of the islands, Sun Yat-Sen praised the new government as a step toward liberalizing the islands. However, the government in Monterrey began passing laws favoring Californio businesses over others and swiftly alienated many of the prominent businesses on the islands. Sun Yat-Sen and a cadre of wealthy Honoluluans formed the Society for Hawaiian Independence in 1894, and began petitioning Monterey to grant Hawaii self-governance. During the next decade, Sun Yat-Sen made several trips to California as well as to China to lend support to liberal organizations in his birth country. The Society's members included both former Hawaiian leadership including William Charles Lunalilo[5] and a large immigrant elite, including Filipinos, French, and Americans. After Monterey was occupied by American forces in November of 1910, the Society proclaimed that the Californio administration was no longer valid.
While the token Californio presence in the islands had mostly departed to the mainland as the United States invaded, a brief skirmish between militia forces loyal to the Society and the garrison in Honolulu Harbor killed six men and prevented the coup from being completely bloodless. The Society for Hawaiian Independence soon established control over the rest of the islands and, with support from the American consulate in Honolulu, proclaimed the country independent once again. Sun Yat-Sen and the aging William Charles Lunalilo led the constitutional convention that drafted a new, more liberal constitution, but disagreement arose on whether to restore the monarchy. Lunalilo's age caused him to turn down the kingship, but the Society were unwilling to support other candidates for the position. Despite opposition from some of the former royalty, the constitution was ratified and on May 14, 1911 the Republic of Hawaii was created. The United States and Japan soon recognized the restored nation, and elections were held in August of that year. The major parties reflected the divide that had long pervaded Hawaiian politics. Native Hawaiians and pro-restorationists put forth Keolaokalani Davis Bishop[6] as the presidential candidate of the National Revival Party. Sun Yat-Sen was nominated by the Liberal Party, which had support from the business elite and the significant non-native population. The Liberal Party won the elections, and Sun Yat-Sen became the first president of the Republic of Hawaii in 1911.
[1] The Germans tried to establish their main port in Zamboanga but Vicente Alvarez' Republic of Zamboanga controlled much of western Mindanao at the time.
[2] I couldn't find much info about Pascual Claudio, other than he was a revolutionary leader in Guerrero and there are schools naned after him.
[3] Not entirely sure if Calles works in this role, but I had trouble finding people actually from Mexico City.
[4] This is OTL. Sun Yat-Sen lived in Hawaii for much of his early life and organized his first revolutionary activities in the 1890s with Chinese expatriates in Honolulu.
[5] Lunalilo in OTL was the last king of the Kamehameha dynasty, reigning from 1873 to 1874. ITTL he lives longer but doesn't become king after Kamehameha V.
[6] Son of Bernice Paulani Bishop.
Finally caught up with the updates - Can't wait to see how the world map changes with the war! Fingers crossed that the USA takes California and a healthy chunk of Canada!
You do have an interesting talent for creating unconventional nations too.
You do have an interesting talent for creating unconventional nations too.
Wow, that bit with President Sun Yat-Sen of Hawaii was surprisingly plausible when OTL is taken in to account. Talk about a melting pot.
I'm pretty sure Sonora is part of California. Or did they declare indepence during the War?
Otherwise I'm liking the diversity of this update, but cannot really say anything specific with the amount of knowledge I have about these regions.
Maybe just: Keep 'em comin'!