Union and Liberty: An American TL
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
- Start date
Good update, Wilcox!
The Temporal Church would be found in dissonance with the universal nature of the Catholic Church, by focusing on the New World. It is also much less prepared for modernity than the Spiritual Church.
Coughlin belonged to the Congregation of St. Basil.
The Temporal Church would be found in dissonance with the universal nature of the Catholic Church, by focusing on the New World. It is also much less prepared for modernity than the Spiritual Church.
Coughlin belonged to the Congregation of St. Basil.
Interesting development, cool to see how we could well have two Catholic churches for the near future.
As far as the US Southwestern border border, as much as losing Tucson hurts, its the pocket around Silver City, NM that bugs me.
As far as the US Southwestern border border, as much as losing Tucson hurts, its the pocket around Silver City, NM that bugs me.
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I really love this timeline. It's fascinating. I hope you manage to finish it. If not, thanks for the memories.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Five: Progressive Era Miscellany
Next update is done finally! This update is a couple sections I wanted to include in previous updates but couldn't quite figure out how to fit them in.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Five: Progressive Era Miscellany
Canadian Progressivism and the Quebecois Awakening:
As the progressive issues of women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition surged into the national forefront in the United States, so too did these issues become subject to debate to the north in Canada. Also as in the UniteD States, both movements were spearheaded by women's Christian groups. The most prominent progressive movement in all the Laurentian states was led by Edith Archibald of Newfoundland. Archibald was first active in her birthplace of Newfoundland and in Acadia where she lived in Halifax for much of her life. It was in Halifax that Edith Archibald became a founding member of the Laurentine branch of the Women's Christian Union in 1885. For several years, Archibald and the Women's Christian Union worked to promote women's suffrage and temperance in homes throughout Acadia and the isle of Newfoundland. While the issue was soon met with sharp criticism from the British consul in Newfoundland, it gained popularity in Acadia and nearby, and by the end of the century Women's Christian Union chapters were opening up in Canada in Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto.
As in the United States, the Canadian progressive movement was boosted by the arrival of the Great War on the North American continent. The Great War had two two large impacts on the success of the women's suffrage movement in Canada. First, the conscription of men into the militay during the Great War opened up the need and opportunity for women to participate in the economy more, including in more traditionally male factory jobs. Secondly and interestingly, the Great War brought Frederick William Borden and his cousin Robert Borden into the political spotlight. The Bordens had long lived in Acadia, but moved to Ontario shortly after the Irish diaspora. Frederick William returned to Halifax as a military surgeon and officer in the Royal Army of North America, and by 1899 was appointed Canadian Minister of Defence under the Liberal government of Edward Blake. Borden's ministry only lasted until 1905, but his modernization efforts of the Canadian military is often cited as the single most important reason the British dominions resisted the American invasion in the Great War as well as it did. During the war itself, Frederick William Borden returned to Acadia and led the defence of Halifax through the war. Afterward, he returned to Canada and contributed to Robert Borden's election to Prime Minister in 1911. The Borden wing of the Liberal Party rose to prominence as a more progressive wing of Canadian politics, supporting both the causes of women's suffrage and aclohol prohibition that had grown in support in Ontario and Montreal.
At a provincial level, alcohol prohibition had been enacted as a wartime measure in Ontario in 1909 by the province's Liberal government and remained in force following the end of the Great War. Soon after the election of Robert Borden as Prime Minister, Canada was considering prohibtiion on a national level. The effort for both the provincial measure in Ontario and the national campaign for prohibition were led by the fiery Liberal MP and former Methodist minister Hartley Dewart. Dewart's campaign in Canada led to a national referendum on prohibition being held in 1913. The vote was very controversial, being opposed by the Conservative Party as well as the largely Catholic population of the province of Quebec. However, despite the opposition, it gained substantial support in Ontario and Ojibwa[1] and passed with a vote of 56.2% to 43.8%. While the Liberal Party won the ensuing election in 1914 and Borden pushed women's suffrage through by the end of the decade, the passage of prohibition only deepened divisions within the country between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The French speaking, Catholic province frequently found itself on losing side of legislation.
This discontent with Kingston quickly found a home in the form of the Mouvement pour Quebec party led by Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx[2]. The Mouvement's main effort was to "awaken the identity of Quebec", promoting a separate French-Canadian identity through French education in Quebecois schools and appealing to the more conservative and rural farmers in the province. Groulx's influence in the party is primarily seen in the push against the anti-clerical policies enacted by Borden's Liberals. Groulx himself was a Pueblan Catholic by 1916 when the Mouvement was founded, and led proselytizing efforts to bring the majority of the Quebecois clergy under the influence of Puebla. Groulx found support from other Catholics in the province such as Joseph-Napoleon Francoeur, who railed against Prohibition and the perceived anti-French tilt of the nationally dominant Liberal Party. Another early prominent member of the Mouvement was Louis-Alexandre Tascherau, but Tascherau's support was more reluctant. Tascherau was not a member of the Mouvement, but begrudgingly supported the awakening as an opposition to the Liberal protectionism. Louis-Alexandre Tascherau had left the Liberals after Borden became leader as Borden returned to a policy of tariff reciprocity with the United States, raising tariffs following Canada's defeat in the Great War. Tascherau opposed the clericalism espoused by the Mouvement which hampered any attempts to convince the Independent Liberal Tascherau to join the party[3]. However, Tascherau supported French-Canadian nationalism and saw independence for Quebec as moving Quebec toward freer trade and a closer relationship with the United States, which Tascherau saw as vital for Quebec's economy. These divisions in Canada following the Great War would dictate American policy toward Canada. Over the following two decades, tensions in Canada escalated while Washington debated what America's foreign policy toward its neighbors should be.
L. Frank Baum's Mary Louise:
The suffragist movement in the United States saw a flourishing of literature surrounding women in the early 1900s. During the American involvement in the Great War, many women gained temporary employment in traditional male positions as the United States moved to a war footing and many working age men signed up to fight on the front line. Women authors such as Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe had gained some notoriety in the 19th century, but American literature written by women did not gain real traction until the 20th century.
Aside from female authors, a growing number of American novelists around the turn of the century became supporters of women's suffrage and wroter ground breaking works with a more liberated portrayal of women. One of the more prominent authors in this respect is, somewhat amusingly, L. Frank Baum. His most remembered works, the Mary Louise series of novels, were written primarily for children, but the series of children's detective stories did play a role in changing the view of women. As a series aimed at children, the Mary Louise novels had the most impact on the generation growing up in the 1910s rather than his own generation. Baum was politically active in fighting for universal surrage both in the Finger Lakes region of New York where he spent his early life and in Pembina, where he edited the Aberdeen Pioneer newspaper.
The Mary Louise series of books were originally written as stories for his two daughters Joslyn and Matilda. The title charcter, Mary Louise Brewster, is named after one of L. Frank Baum's sisters, and the series of novels features the child detective Mary Louise investigating crimes and solving mysteries[4]. In the first book in the Mary Louise series, fifteen year old boarding school student Mary Louise Brewster discovers that her grandfather has been accused of treason against the United States for alleged actions aiding the Canadians in the Great War. Mary Louise looks into the allegations with the assistance of Emma Van Dyne, the daughter of a New York City detective who was trained to be an investigator by her father. The two heroines eventually prove Mary Louise's grandfather innocent[5]. This first book followed previous themes of young girls and women in more independent roles in previous books written by Baum, but the two independent young heroines took off and quickly became a best seller among teenage girls of the early 20th century.
The first novel in the Mary Louise series was published in 1910. Baum, wishing to capitalize on the success of the Mary Louise books and the increasingly prominent debate over the role of women in society after the Great War, published twelve more books featuring Mary Louise Brewster and Emma Van Dyne over the next fifteen years. In later books, the two girls traveled around the country with Mary Louise's grandfather and Emma's father. These later books featured not only independent working women as the two heroines aged, but also touched upon other pertinent issues of the time. In Mary Louise in Red Feather Lake, Mary Louise makes a case for an Indian in Pembina to be granted birthright citizenship. This was heavily drawn from Baum's own life experiences running a newspaper in southern Pembina. However, while the books were ahead of their time for their portrayal of women, there were some parts that show Baum still had to acquiesce to publishers' more conservative demands. This is most evident in the last book, Emma Van Dyne Meets Her Match, where Emma at the age of twenty-four meets and marries a man by the end of the book. Baum in private letters expressed dissatisfaction with this conclusion, having wanted Emma Van Dyne to remain single and independent. Even so, Baum's novels and others were an inspiration for a generation of women growing up and reaching adulthood at a time when women were increasingly entering the economy and had just gained the right to vote.
[1] Ojibwa is a Canadian province ITTL consisting of OTL northwestern Ontario north of Lake Superior and south of the Albany River
[2] Lionel Groulx eventually rose through the Pueblan Church ranks and would later be elected Pope Gregory XVIII
[3] I wanted to have Tascherau be supportive of Quebec nationalism ITTL, but realized he wouldn't be a good fit with the Mouvement pour Quebec with the circumstances of its founding here.
[4] The series is loosely based on Baum's OTL series THe Bluebird Books.
[5] This is a clsoe summary to the OTL first in the Bluebird books.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Five: Progressive Era Miscellany
Canadian Progressivism and the Quebecois Awakening:
As the progressive issues of women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition surged into the national forefront in the United States, so too did these issues become subject to debate to the north in Canada. Also as in the UniteD States, both movements were spearheaded by women's Christian groups. The most prominent progressive movement in all the Laurentian states was led by Edith Archibald of Newfoundland. Archibald was first active in her birthplace of Newfoundland and in Acadia where she lived in Halifax for much of her life. It was in Halifax that Edith Archibald became a founding member of the Laurentine branch of the Women's Christian Union in 1885. For several years, Archibald and the Women's Christian Union worked to promote women's suffrage and temperance in homes throughout Acadia and the isle of Newfoundland. While the issue was soon met with sharp criticism from the British consul in Newfoundland, it gained popularity in Acadia and nearby, and by the end of the century Women's Christian Union chapters were opening up in Canada in Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto.
As in the United States, the Canadian progressive movement was boosted by the arrival of the Great War on the North American continent. The Great War had two two large impacts on the success of the women's suffrage movement in Canada. First, the conscription of men into the militay during the Great War opened up the need and opportunity for women to participate in the economy more, including in more traditionally male factory jobs. Secondly and interestingly, the Great War brought Frederick William Borden and his cousin Robert Borden into the political spotlight. The Bordens had long lived in Acadia, but moved to Ontario shortly after the Irish diaspora. Frederick William returned to Halifax as a military surgeon and officer in the Royal Army of North America, and by 1899 was appointed Canadian Minister of Defence under the Liberal government of Edward Blake. Borden's ministry only lasted until 1905, but his modernization efforts of the Canadian military is often cited as the single most important reason the British dominions resisted the American invasion in the Great War as well as it did. During the war itself, Frederick William Borden returned to Acadia and led the defence of Halifax through the war. Afterward, he returned to Canada and contributed to Robert Borden's election to Prime Minister in 1911. The Borden wing of the Liberal Party rose to prominence as a more progressive wing of Canadian politics, supporting both the causes of women's suffrage and aclohol prohibition that had grown in support in Ontario and Montreal.
At a provincial level, alcohol prohibition had been enacted as a wartime measure in Ontario in 1909 by the province's Liberal government and remained in force following the end of the Great War. Soon after the election of Robert Borden as Prime Minister, Canada was considering prohibtiion on a national level. The effort for both the provincial measure in Ontario and the national campaign for prohibition were led by the fiery Liberal MP and former Methodist minister Hartley Dewart. Dewart's campaign in Canada led to a national referendum on prohibition being held in 1913. The vote was very controversial, being opposed by the Conservative Party as well as the largely Catholic population of the province of Quebec. However, despite the opposition, it gained substantial support in Ontario and Ojibwa[1] and passed with a vote of 56.2% to 43.8%. While the Liberal Party won the ensuing election in 1914 and Borden pushed women's suffrage through by the end of the decade, the passage of prohibition only deepened divisions within the country between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The French speaking, Catholic province frequently found itself on losing side of legislation.
This discontent with Kingston quickly found a home in the form of the Mouvement pour Quebec party led by Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx[2]. The Mouvement's main effort was to "awaken the identity of Quebec", promoting a separate French-Canadian identity through French education in Quebecois schools and appealing to the more conservative and rural farmers in the province. Groulx's influence in the party is primarily seen in the push against the anti-clerical policies enacted by Borden's Liberals. Groulx himself was a Pueblan Catholic by 1916 when the Mouvement was founded, and led proselytizing efforts to bring the majority of the Quebecois clergy under the influence of Puebla. Groulx found support from other Catholics in the province such as Joseph-Napoleon Francoeur, who railed against Prohibition and the perceived anti-French tilt of the nationally dominant Liberal Party. Another early prominent member of the Mouvement was Louis-Alexandre Tascherau, but Tascherau's support was more reluctant. Tascherau was not a member of the Mouvement, but begrudgingly supported the awakening as an opposition to the Liberal protectionism. Louis-Alexandre Tascherau had left the Liberals after Borden became leader as Borden returned to a policy of tariff reciprocity with the United States, raising tariffs following Canada's defeat in the Great War. Tascherau opposed the clericalism espoused by the Mouvement which hampered any attempts to convince the Independent Liberal Tascherau to join the party[3]. However, Tascherau supported French-Canadian nationalism and saw independence for Quebec as moving Quebec toward freer trade and a closer relationship with the United States, which Tascherau saw as vital for Quebec's economy. These divisions in Canada following the Great War would dictate American policy toward Canada. Over the following two decades, tensions in Canada escalated while Washington debated what America's foreign policy toward its neighbors should be.
L. Frank Baum's Mary Louise:
The suffragist movement in the United States saw a flourishing of literature surrounding women in the early 1900s. During the American involvement in the Great War, many women gained temporary employment in traditional male positions as the United States moved to a war footing and many working age men signed up to fight on the front line. Women authors such as Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe had gained some notoriety in the 19th century, but American literature written by women did not gain real traction until the 20th century.
Aside from female authors, a growing number of American novelists around the turn of the century became supporters of women's suffrage and wroter ground breaking works with a more liberated portrayal of women. One of the more prominent authors in this respect is, somewhat amusingly, L. Frank Baum. His most remembered works, the Mary Louise series of novels, were written primarily for children, but the series of children's detective stories did play a role in changing the view of women. As a series aimed at children, the Mary Louise novels had the most impact on the generation growing up in the 1910s rather than his own generation. Baum was politically active in fighting for universal surrage both in the Finger Lakes region of New York where he spent his early life and in Pembina, where he edited the Aberdeen Pioneer newspaper.
The Mary Louise series of books were originally written as stories for his two daughters Joslyn and Matilda. The title charcter, Mary Louise Brewster, is named after one of L. Frank Baum's sisters, and the series of novels features the child detective Mary Louise investigating crimes and solving mysteries[4]. In the first book in the Mary Louise series, fifteen year old boarding school student Mary Louise Brewster discovers that her grandfather has been accused of treason against the United States for alleged actions aiding the Canadians in the Great War. Mary Louise looks into the allegations with the assistance of Emma Van Dyne, the daughter of a New York City detective who was trained to be an investigator by her father. The two heroines eventually prove Mary Louise's grandfather innocent[5]. This first book followed previous themes of young girls and women in more independent roles in previous books written by Baum, but the two independent young heroines took off and quickly became a best seller among teenage girls of the early 20th century.
The first novel in the Mary Louise series was published in 1910. Baum, wishing to capitalize on the success of the Mary Louise books and the increasingly prominent debate over the role of women in society after the Great War, published twelve more books featuring Mary Louise Brewster and Emma Van Dyne over the next fifteen years. In later books, the two girls traveled around the country with Mary Louise's grandfather and Emma's father. These later books featured not only independent working women as the two heroines aged, but also touched upon other pertinent issues of the time. In Mary Louise in Red Feather Lake, Mary Louise makes a case for an Indian in Pembina to be granted birthright citizenship. This was heavily drawn from Baum's own life experiences running a newspaper in southern Pembina. However, while the books were ahead of their time for their portrayal of women, there were some parts that show Baum still had to acquiesce to publishers' more conservative demands. This is most evident in the last book, Emma Van Dyne Meets Her Match, where Emma at the age of twenty-four meets and marries a man by the end of the book. Baum in private letters expressed dissatisfaction with this conclusion, having wanted Emma Van Dyne to remain single and independent. Even so, Baum's novels and others were an inspiration for a generation of women growing up and reaching adulthood at a time when women were increasingly entering the economy and had just gained the right to vote.
[1] Ojibwa is a Canadian province ITTL consisting of OTL northwestern Ontario north of Lake Superior and south of the Albany River
[2] Lionel Groulx eventually rose through the Pueblan Church ranks and would later be elected Pope Gregory XVIII
[3] I wanted to have Tascherau be supportive of Quebec nationalism ITTL, but realized he wouldn't be a good fit with the Mouvement pour Quebec with the circumstances of its founding here.
[4] The series is loosely based on Baum's OTL series THe Bluebird Books.
[5] This is a clsoe summary to the OTL first in the Bluebird books.
Awesome!!! An update!!! Glad to know this still has some life Wilcox!! And to see how the world is shaping up. It seems you are setting up a possible break up of Canada later on. We might never get to see it though.
Any update on U&L is a treat! So hopefully we get a few more.
That is IF secularism gains strength in TTL. A more nationalistic Quebec might not necessarily have as strong secularism as in OTL.
Any update on U&L is a treat! So hopefully we get a few more.
That is IF secularism gains strength in TTL. A more nationalistic Quebec might not necessarily have as strong secularism as in OTL.
Seconded!
Wasn't Canada never united ITTL? I seem to remember you mention such in the (rather distant, admittedly) past, such as in an update about how Australia and New Zealand united. A recent map DID show a united Canada, but with how convergent the province borders were with OTL, I was assuming the convergence was due to editing an OTL-borders base map and focusing on the US, not Canada.
This is also seconded.
Thanks for the comments all! I'm glad at least a few people are sticking with this despite my erratic update schedule. I've actually already started working on the next update so there should be a lot less time til the next update now.
As jycee said, if secularism gains strength. While I don't think it would survive to the present, the more conservative clericalism present here would form an important part of the nascent Quebecois identity that will probably endure for quite a while.
Yeah, unfortunately the ultimate result for Canada won't be shown in the timeline proper. I may include something about it as an epilogue bit if I think of a good way to show it.
Not all of OTL Canada united, but in TTL "Canada" is a unified dominion of Upper and Lower Canada.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Six: La Mort De Deux Rois
I've actually been on a good roll lately with my writing and got another update done already!
Part One Hundred Thirty-Six: La Mort De Deux Rois
Queen Victoria’s Death and the Albertan Era:
By far, 19th century Britain can be defined as an era by one person: Queen Victoria. THe queen, the longest reigning monarch in the history of the United Kingdom, reigned for over 73 years from 1837 to 1911. Victoria's legacy in Britain was extremely mixed. Positive views of Queen Victoria still remain confined to much of the late aristocracy. The Queen is viewed as a stabilizing force against the popular discontent among the middle and lower classes during the 19th century and consolidated the United Kingdom's hold on her colonial possessions in India, Australasia, and Africa. On the other hand, Britain's loss of the European Wars and the Great War cast a shadow over her later reign, though Queen Victoria was not as directly interested with parliamentary and military matters during this time as in her earlier reign of Albert I's reign after her.
Upon Queen Victoria's death, Albert Edward, Victoria's eldest son, succeeded her as King Albert I[1]. Albert had been more involved in politics as his mother while Prince of Wales, and unlike much of the Lords, Albert was open to increasing enfranchisement of the people. In the aftermath of the British loss in the Great War, tensions between the people and the government escalated as the war showed its true cost in lives, money, and British standing on the international stage. Albert I's reign was brief, barely lasting a few years due to the king's heavy smoking habit and other frequent health issues[2]. However, Albert's reign is notable for the election of 1912 and the crisis over the People's Budget. The 1912 election, following the resignation of the unpopular Lord Curzon in the wake of the Peace of Vienna, saw a drastic swing away from the Conservative Party. The Conservatives had been the dominant party throughout Victoria's reign, but a large swing toward expanding suffrage as calls for reform grew created a political groundswell that ended the party's political dominance. The first significant Liberal government in decades was ushered in in 1913 under Prime Minister Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord Landsowne.
Of course, calling it the Landsowne government is a bit of a misnomer. Lord Landsowne had won a contentious leadership battle within the Liberal Party shortly before his election as Prime Minister, and he was seen as divisive due to his stepping back from the Liberals' free trade policy. Landsowne ended up building a coalition of staunch Nationalists from both parties and was elected with a significant dissent within the Liberal Party and significant support from the Conservatives. He frequently clashed with Albert I over trade issues, although the one thing the Prime Minister and the King agreed upon was the need to extend suffrage to some of the lower classes. Parliament passed the Reform Act of 1914 which repealed the land ownership requirement for eligibility to vote in parliamentary elections. However, other events would cause both Albert I and Lord Landsowne's time in power to be cut short. The increased franchise made many Liberals as well as members of more radical parties itching to cause another general election. In 1915, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposed what became known as the People's Budget that would have vastly increased spending on social programs for the poor paid for by rising taxes on property and other taxes designed to tax the wealthy[3]. Lord Landsowne expressed opposition to the budget and originally intended to use its failure to discredit Lloyd George, who many believed was preparing for another challenge to Landsowne’s leadership of the Liberal Party. Landsowne acknowledged Lloyd George’s competence as Chancellor, but scoffed at the possibility of Lloyd George challenging the established tradition of a Prime Minister coming from the House of Lords. However, the House of Commons passed the People's Budget, undermining his leadership of the Liberal Party. Landsowne was able to garner support from Conservatives and Unionists in the House of Lords to enact the Lords veto of the budget. This led to a constitutional crisis as King Albert I openly encouraged the Lords to pass the People's Budget, but Landsowne and his supporters in the Lords held fast and refused. Amid the arguments over the budget, attacks on the Lords as a whole and Landsowne in particular became frequent in the Commons. Lloyd George resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer with a scathing speech denouncing the House of Lords, and Albert I began to turn against the Liberals in the Commons as their rhetoric became worse. Albert I notably commented on the division within parliament by introducing his son, the future King Albert II, to then Secretary of State for War Viscount Haldane as "the last king of England."[4] This comment would be more prophetic than Albert I could have foreseen.
King Albert I's reign would last only a few years. Albert I had a dreadful smoking habit, often smoking up to a dozen cigars every day. In his later years, he frequently suffered from severe bronchitis and in the final months of his reign was absent from public functions for fear of complications. Albert objected to his retreat away from public life. On March 15, 1917, King Albert I made his final public appearance. It was a brief speech to a large gathered crowd in Buckingham Palace. Even at this stage and with his health problems becoming too difficult to hide, Albert I made fiery statements decrying the political polarization of the era, and called for the Lords to act more in accordance with the will of the people. A month later on April 28, 1917, Albert I died in his bed. His eldest son Albert Victor was coronated a week later as King Albert II.
Albert II was very much the opposite of his father and shied away from much of political and public life. Albert II as Prince Albert Victor had already endured the ire of the press before his coronation, with his mental health and sexuality frequently being questioned by the then prince's opponents in parliament and the press. Many expected these allegations to cease after his coronation, but they did not. Albert II may have been reticent and rare in public life, but when he did enter himself into an issue he did so with just as much vigor as his father. In a time of revolutionary advances in communication and media, this was often construed as Albert II being an arbitrary ruler, and the propaganda from both his detractors on political issues and from British republicans in general only intensified. Tabloid press and radio programs accused King Albert II of being a homosexual, of fathering a child out of wedlock by a Margery Haddon during his youth while on a tour of India, of being a puppet of his younger brother Prince George Duke of York, among other nefarious claims. These have been investigated by scholars since, but none of the more serious claims against Albert II appear to have any evidence to them. The king's quiet demeanor and difficulty in his early education are often explained by pointing to a statement by one of the king's early instructors that he learned best through listening rather than through reading or writing instruction[5].
In a more prosperous time for Britain, Albert II's troubles during his reign might have amounted to little in the grand scheme of things. But the decades after the Great War were very difficult for Britain. With the conditions imposed on Britain as part of the Peace of Vienna, even at peace Britain's participation in international trade was greatly diminished. France, Germany, and the United States gladly kept high tariffs on British goods, and the Unionists in Lord Landsowne and Neville Chamberlain reciprocated those tariffs in kind. Despite these attempts to stabilize British trade, the restrictions on British trade outside of the colonies continued to hurt the country domestically. The value of the pound fell greatly relative to other currencies. Policies instituting rationing of food and other goods that had been instituted during the Great War, while reduced afterward, remained in place for several years afterward, and hyperinflation drastically stunted any hope of a British economic recovery.
Amidst this, growing discontent among the populace for both the current political system and for the monarchy allowed fringe elements to gain popularity. A strong Labour Party upended the system after the 1918 general election. Labour surged to the third most seats in the party on the backs of wealthy voters in smaller towns and mining regions who held sympathy for the working classes. However, it would be the urban revolutionary elements to ultimately break the stagnant British system. John Maynard Keynes, a vaunted Cambridge economist, had been elected to Parliament from the university constituency in Cambridge as a member of the quickly growing Party for the Common Wealth. Keynes used his economic expertise to argue against the government in the Commons and to publish academic treatises that spread his economic ideas of direct government stimulus for the country's struggling economy. After a time, Keynes' advocacy of more direct government interference and management of the national economy became an advocacy for his own rise to the top of the government as the best man for the job[6]. In 1928, everything came to a boil when a general election produced a hung parliament. Labour and the Party of the Common Wealth attempted to form a coalition as the second and third largest parties in Parliament. However, in one of the few direct entrances of King Albert II into political affairs, the king rejected the appointment and instead asked the Unionist Party as the largest party in Parliament to form a minority government. This was the final straw for many Britons, as riots broke out in struggling port and industrial towns such as Liverpool and Birmingham. John Maynard Keynes and the Party for the Common Wealth quickly rose to the banner of these rioters. With little sympathy for the British government abroad, the brief British Civil War was a largely internal affair, though France and the United States subtly backed the anti-government forces. The civil war lasted three years, but ultimately Keynes emerged victorious and Albert II and other members of the royal family fled to Denmark. What remained of Britain's colonies were granted full independence shortly after Keynes' rise to power as the economist deemed they could handle their own affairs while he fully focused on restoring Great Britain.
King Alfonso XIII's Death and the Third Carlist War:
The conclusion of the Great War also brought about great turmoil in the kingdom of Spain, again through the death of a monarch. Spanish politics had already been through a massive upheaval from the Peace of Vienna. France had established buffers in the independent states of Euskara, Catalunya, and Valencia. The kingdom of Spain was further torn asunder with the declaration of the Spanish Federative Republic in the south of Spain. The recognition of the Spanish Federative Republic led to a remarkable backlash against Alfonso XIII and the Cortes as the kingdom of Spain attempted to recover from its loss in the war. The already unstable political situation in the kingdom would soon be exacerbated as the outrage against Alfonso XIII hit its peak. On June 28, 1914, King Alfonso XIII was traveling in a procession down the Calle Mayor in Madrid. As the carriage containing the king passed a corner, anarchist Mateu Morral threw a bomb at the royal carriage. The bomb exploded underneath, throwing and overturning the carriage as the horses ran out of control. Alfonso was thrown against the side and, along with direct injuries from the explosion, received a fatal wound to the head. Morral was executed by the Cortes soon after, but the lasting damage to the Spanish monarchy was done. Morral, a Catalan who had moved to Madrid shortly before the outbreak of the Great War, was the member of an anarchist group, but some propagandists took advantage of the situation to proclaim the necessity of restoring the kingdom's hegemony over the Iberian Peninsula. This ultranationslist sentiment combined with the ascension of the six year old Jaime I[7] led to one group rising above all others; the Carlists.
The Carlist faction had been dormant since their brief but unsuccessful attempt to prevent the coronation of Alfonso XII in 1872. However, they remained influential among the conservatives within the Spanish government. During the era of the Carlist claimant Carlos VII, the electoral wing of the Carlist faction had sustained strength in the Cortes under the leadership of the Nocedal dynasty. Claudio Nocedal and his son Ramon led a nationalist conservative party in the Spanish Cortes. The Nocedal family led the Partida Nacional Tradicionalista gained a significant following in northern Spain in the decades following the European Wars. During the reigns of Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII, however, Carlism remained for the most part peaceful. The Partida Nacional Tradicionalista regularly gained a dozen or more seats in the Cortes, but mainly acted in support of mainstream conservatism of the era. The only major difference in policy from the Partido Conservador during this time was the continued call to restore the Pueblan Pope in Europe and have the Catholic authorities in Spain break with the Church in Rome. This was ultimately a failure, but gained the Carlists substantial influence in the more rural areas of northern Spain.
During the life of Carlos VII, the Carlist royal line lived in Ljubljana and later London. His son, claimant Jaime III[8], was educated in London and then in the 1890s received a commission in the Russian army. Jaime III served in Odessa and later Warsaw, even seeing combat on the Russian front during the beginning of the Great War. Upon his father's death, Jaime III ended his service in the Russian army and returned to London. When the Treaty of Saint-Denis was signed, Jaime and Carlist politicians started to build up a column of support within Spain and abroad. Jaime published a series of widely distributed articles with scathing attacks on the Alfonsine monarchy for their supposed role in Spain's loss in the Great War. Even through the Peace of Vienna and the Cantonalist secession, Carlist politicians decried the humiliation that Alfonso XIII had brought upon Spain with the Treaty of Saint-Denis as a final nail in the coffin for the Spanish Empire. When Mateu Morral assassinated Alfonso XIII and Jaime I's mother Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg became regent, the Carlists made their move.
Ramon Nocedal may have died in 1904, but the Great War had kept the political wing of the Carlist supporters invigorated and with a large presence in the Cortes. By 1914, the recognition of the Federative Republic's independence had greatly increased the Carlist representation in the Cortes through their strongholds. Cantabria, Galicia, and northern areas of Old Castile consistently elected members of the Partida Nacional Tradicionalista through the 1900s and 1910s. When Jaime I ascended to the Spanish throne, Jaime III (then styled Duke of Madrid) made his move. With a base of support in the north, the Carlist Jaime landed at Suances in Cantabria at the beginning of August of 1914. As word of his return to Spain spread through the Carlist network, the members of the PNT in the Cortes denounced Victoria Eugenia as a pawn of Germany and called for the abdication of Jaime I in favor of Jaime Duke of Madrid. When the grievances aired publicly and Victoria Eugenia refused on behalf of her son, the Carlists rose up against the already battered Spanish government. The Third Carlist War, also known as the War of the Two Jaimes, had begun.
The populace, already angry at the monarchy for the Peace of Vienna and wanting a return to stability, saw the majority of support garnered by Jaime Duke of Madrid and largely supported him over Jaime I. From his base in Santander and Cantabria, Jaime Duke of Madrid used his military means gained from the war in Russia to gather a popular army in a March on Madrid. Jaime Duke of Madrid quickly overran Torrelavega and snuck his army through the mountains to march on Burgos. In Madrid, Carlist sympathizer Juan Vázquez de Mella garnered political support and relayed propaganda throughout the Spanish kingdom to assist the Carlist coup. De Mella had a powerful position in the Cortes, and combined with monetary support from the Carlist Jaime's ties to Russia and to Puebla, support quickly grew for the Carlist side in the war. As Jaime Duke of Madrid led his supporters to a victory over the government force in Burgos and a simultaneous capture of territory was undertaken by Carlists in Galicia, popular support for the Carlists swelled. De Mella gathered pictures of Jaime Duke of Madrid speaking to the soldiers now under his command and published them, lauding Duke Jaime as fighting for his countrymen while Victoria Eugenia and Infante Jaime cowered in Madrid. The tide quickly turned in favor of the Carlists, and by the summer of 1915 Duke Jaime was nearing Madrid. Victoria and Infante Jaime fled the country to Portugal, while Jaime Duke of Madrid was installed as King Jaime III of Spain on August 7, 1915. Juan Vazquez de Mella was elected the Prime Minister of Spain, but with the struggle of governing a weary nation much of the more reactionary aims of the Carlists remained unfulfilled as the more pressing matters of Spain’s governance took precedence.
[1] Albert Edward is OTL Edward VII. He chose Edward as his regnal name in OTL to not undervalue the name of his father Prince Albert. With Prince Albert living longer, there isn’t that motivation to choose Edward.
[2] As in OTL, Albert Edward is a heavy smoker and suffers from increasingly common bouts of bronchitis in his later years.
[3] This is similar to what was also called the People’s Budget in OTL in 1909.
[4] An OTL quote by Edward VII during the People’s Budget crisis, also to Lord Haldane.
[5] The accusations against Albert Victor and the remark about the prince being an auditory learner are all taken from OTL. Also, in TTL he does not die of tuberculosis in 1892.
[6] Here I have Keynes taking the leap from “the government needs to manage the economy” to “I should manage the economy”
[7] Jaime I is OTL Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, Alfonso XIII’s second son.
[8] Jaime III is OTL Jaime Duke of Madrid, the Carlist claimant from 1909 to 1931. He is numbered Jaime III because the Carlists include the monarchs of Aragon in their title numbering.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Six: La Mort De Deux Rois
Queen Victoria’s Death and the Albertan Era:
By far, 19th century Britain can be defined as an era by one person: Queen Victoria. THe queen, the longest reigning monarch in the history of the United Kingdom, reigned for over 73 years from 1837 to 1911. Victoria's legacy in Britain was extremely mixed. Positive views of Queen Victoria still remain confined to much of the late aristocracy. The Queen is viewed as a stabilizing force against the popular discontent among the middle and lower classes during the 19th century and consolidated the United Kingdom's hold on her colonial possessions in India, Australasia, and Africa. On the other hand, Britain's loss of the European Wars and the Great War cast a shadow over her later reign, though Queen Victoria was not as directly interested with parliamentary and military matters during this time as in her earlier reign of Albert I's reign after her.
Upon Queen Victoria's death, Albert Edward, Victoria's eldest son, succeeded her as King Albert I[1]. Albert had been more involved in politics as his mother while Prince of Wales, and unlike much of the Lords, Albert was open to increasing enfranchisement of the people. In the aftermath of the British loss in the Great War, tensions between the people and the government escalated as the war showed its true cost in lives, money, and British standing on the international stage. Albert I's reign was brief, barely lasting a few years due to the king's heavy smoking habit and other frequent health issues[2]. However, Albert's reign is notable for the election of 1912 and the crisis over the People's Budget. The 1912 election, following the resignation of the unpopular Lord Curzon in the wake of the Peace of Vienna, saw a drastic swing away from the Conservative Party. The Conservatives had been the dominant party throughout Victoria's reign, but a large swing toward expanding suffrage as calls for reform grew created a political groundswell that ended the party's political dominance. The first significant Liberal government in decades was ushered in in 1913 under Prime Minister Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord Landsowne.
Of course, calling it the Landsowne government is a bit of a misnomer. Lord Landsowne had won a contentious leadership battle within the Liberal Party shortly before his election as Prime Minister, and he was seen as divisive due to his stepping back from the Liberals' free trade policy. Landsowne ended up building a coalition of staunch Nationalists from both parties and was elected with a significant dissent within the Liberal Party and significant support from the Conservatives. He frequently clashed with Albert I over trade issues, although the one thing the Prime Minister and the King agreed upon was the need to extend suffrage to some of the lower classes. Parliament passed the Reform Act of 1914 which repealed the land ownership requirement for eligibility to vote in parliamentary elections. However, other events would cause both Albert I and Lord Landsowne's time in power to be cut short. The increased franchise made many Liberals as well as members of more radical parties itching to cause another general election. In 1915, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George proposed what became known as the People's Budget that would have vastly increased spending on social programs for the poor paid for by rising taxes on property and other taxes designed to tax the wealthy[3]. Lord Landsowne expressed opposition to the budget and originally intended to use its failure to discredit Lloyd George, who many believed was preparing for another challenge to Landsowne’s leadership of the Liberal Party. Landsowne acknowledged Lloyd George’s competence as Chancellor, but scoffed at the possibility of Lloyd George challenging the established tradition of a Prime Minister coming from the House of Lords. However, the House of Commons passed the People's Budget, undermining his leadership of the Liberal Party. Landsowne was able to garner support from Conservatives and Unionists in the House of Lords to enact the Lords veto of the budget. This led to a constitutional crisis as King Albert I openly encouraged the Lords to pass the People's Budget, but Landsowne and his supporters in the Lords held fast and refused. Amid the arguments over the budget, attacks on the Lords as a whole and Landsowne in particular became frequent in the Commons. Lloyd George resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer with a scathing speech denouncing the House of Lords, and Albert I began to turn against the Liberals in the Commons as their rhetoric became worse. Albert I notably commented on the division within parliament by introducing his son, the future King Albert II, to then Secretary of State for War Viscount Haldane as "the last king of England."[4] This comment would be more prophetic than Albert I could have foreseen.
King Albert I's reign would last only a few years. Albert I had a dreadful smoking habit, often smoking up to a dozen cigars every day. In his later years, he frequently suffered from severe bronchitis and in the final months of his reign was absent from public functions for fear of complications. Albert objected to his retreat away from public life. On March 15, 1917, King Albert I made his final public appearance. It was a brief speech to a large gathered crowd in Buckingham Palace. Even at this stage and with his health problems becoming too difficult to hide, Albert I made fiery statements decrying the political polarization of the era, and called for the Lords to act more in accordance with the will of the people. A month later on April 28, 1917, Albert I died in his bed. His eldest son Albert Victor was coronated a week later as King Albert II.
Albert II was very much the opposite of his father and shied away from much of political and public life. Albert II as Prince Albert Victor had already endured the ire of the press before his coronation, with his mental health and sexuality frequently being questioned by the then prince's opponents in parliament and the press. Many expected these allegations to cease after his coronation, but they did not. Albert II may have been reticent and rare in public life, but when he did enter himself into an issue he did so with just as much vigor as his father. In a time of revolutionary advances in communication and media, this was often construed as Albert II being an arbitrary ruler, and the propaganda from both his detractors on political issues and from British republicans in general only intensified. Tabloid press and radio programs accused King Albert II of being a homosexual, of fathering a child out of wedlock by a Margery Haddon during his youth while on a tour of India, of being a puppet of his younger brother Prince George Duke of York, among other nefarious claims. These have been investigated by scholars since, but none of the more serious claims against Albert II appear to have any evidence to them. The king's quiet demeanor and difficulty in his early education are often explained by pointing to a statement by one of the king's early instructors that he learned best through listening rather than through reading or writing instruction[5].
In a more prosperous time for Britain, Albert II's troubles during his reign might have amounted to little in the grand scheme of things. But the decades after the Great War were very difficult for Britain. With the conditions imposed on Britain as part of the Peace of Vienna, even at peace Britain's participation in international trade was greatly diminished. France, Germany, and the United States gladly kept high tariffs on British goods, and the Unionists in Lord Landsowne and Neville Chamberlain reciprocated those tariffs in kind. Despite these attempts to stabilize British trade, the restrictions on British trade outside of the colonies continued to hurt the country domestically. The value of the pound fell greatly relative to other currencies. Policies instituting rationing of food and other goods that had been instituted during the Great War, while reduced afterward, remained in place for several years afterward, and hyperinflation drastically stunted any hope of a British economic recovery.
Amidst this, growing discontent among the populace for both the current political system and for the monarchy allowed fringe elements to gain popularity. A strong Labour Party upended the system after the 1918 general election. Labour surged to the third most seats in the party on the backs of wealthy voters in smaller towns and mining regions who held sympathy for the working classes. However, it would be the urban revolutionary elements to ultimately break the stagnant British system. John Maynard Keynes, a vaunted Cambridge economist, had been elected to Parliament from the university constituency in Cambridge as a member of the quickly growing Party for the Common Wealth. Keynes used his economic expertise to argue against the government in the Commons and to publish academic treatises that spread his economic ideas of direct government stimulus for the country's struggling economy. After a time, Keynes' advocacy of more direct government interference and management of the national economy became an advocacy for his own rise to the top of the government as the best man for the job[6]. In 1928, everything came to a boil when a general election produced a hung parliament. Labour and the Party of the Common Wealth attempted to form a coalition as the second and third largest parties in Parliament. However, in one of the few direct entrances of King Albert II into political affairs, the king rejected the appointment and instead asked the Unionist Party as the largest party in Parliament to form a minority government. This was the final straw for many Britons, as riots broke out in struggling port and industrial towns such as Liverpool and Birmingham. John Maynard Keynes and the Party for the Common Wealth quickly rose to the banner of these rioters. With little sympathy for the British government abroad, the brief British Civil War was a largely internal affair, though France and the United States subtly backed the anti-government forces. The civil war lasted three years, but ultimately Keynes emerged victorious and Albert II and other members of the royal family fled to Denmark. What remained of Britain's colonies were granted full independence shortly after Keynes' rise to power as the economist deemed they could handle their own affairs while he fully focused on restoring Great Britain.
King Alfonso XIII's Death and the Third Carlist War:
The conclusion of the Great War also brought about great turmoil in the kingdom of Spain, again through the death of a monarch. Spanish politics had already been through a massive upheaval from the Peace of Vienna. France had established buffers in the independent states of Euskara, Catalunya, and Valencia. The kingdom of Spain was further torn asunder with the declaration of the Spanish Federative Republic in the south of Spain. The recognition of the Spanish Federative Republic led to a remarkable backlash against Alfonso XIII and the Cortes as the kingdom of Spain attempted to recover from its loss in the war. The already unstable political situation in the kingdom would soon be exacerbated as the outrage against Alfonso XIII hit its peak. On June 28, 1914, King Alfonso XIII was traveling in a procession down the Calle Mayor in Madrid. As the carriage containing the king passed a corner, anarchist Mateu Morral threw a bomb at the royal carriage. The bomb exploded underneath, throwing and overturning the carriage as the horses ran out of control. Alfonso was thrown against the side and, along with direct injuries from the explosion, received a fatal wound to the head. Morral was executed by the Cortes soon after, but the lasting damage to the Spanish monarchy was done. Morral, a Catalan who had moved to Madrid shortly before the outbreak of the Great War, was the member of an anarchist group, but some propagandists took advantage of the situation to proclaim the necessity of restoring the kingdom's hegemony over the Iberian Peninsula. This ultranationslist sentiment combined with the ascension of the six year old Jaime I[7] led to one group rising above all others; the Carlists.
The Carlist faction had been dormant since their brief but unsuccessful attempt to prevent the coronation of Alfonso XII in 1872. However, they remained influential among the conservatives within the Spanish government. During the era of the Carlist claimant Carlos VII, the electoral wing of the Carlist faction had sustained strength in the Cortes under the leadership of the Nocedal dynasty. Claudio Nocedal and his son Ramon led a nationalist conservative party in the Spanish Cortes. The Nocedal family led the Partida Nacional Tradicionalista gained a significant following in northern Spain in the decades following the European Wars. During the reigns of Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII, however, Carlism remained for the most part peaceful. The Partida Nacional Tradicionalista regularly gained a dozen or more seats in the Cortes, but mainly acted in support of mainstream conservatism of the era. The only major difference in policy from the Partido Conservador during this time was the continued call to restore the Pueblan Pope in Europe and have the Catholic authorities in Spain break with the Church in Rome. This was ultimately a failure, but gained the Carlists substantial influence in the more rural areas of northern Spain.
During the life of Carlos VII, the Carlist royal line lived in Ljubljana and later London. His son, claimant Jaime III[8], was educated in London and then in the 1890s received a commission in the Russian army. Jaime III served in Odessa and later Warsaw, even seeing combat on the Russian front during the beginning of the Great War. Upon his father's death, Jaime III ended his service in the Russian army and returned to London. When the Treaty of Saint-Denis was signed, Jaime and Carlist politicians started to build up a column of support within Spain and abroad. Jaime published a series of widely distributed articles with scathing attacks on the Alfonsine monarchy for their supposed role in Spain's loss in the Great War. Even through the Peace of Vienna and the Cantonalist secession, Carlist politicians decried the humiliation that Alfonso XIII had brought upon Spain with the Treaty of Saint-Denis as a final nail in the coffin for the Spanish Empire. When Mateu Morral assassinated Alfonso XIII and Jaime I's mother Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg became regent, the Carlists made their move.
Ramon Nocedal may have died in 1904, but the Great War had kept the political wing of the Carlist supporters invigorated and with a large presence in the Cortes. By 1914, the recognition of the Federative Republic's independence had greatly increased the Carlist representation in the Cortes through their strongholds. Cantabria, Galicia, and northern areas of Old Castile consistently elected members of the Partida Nacional Tradicionalista through the 1900s and 1910s. When Jaime I ascended to the Spanish throne, Jaime III (then styled Duke of Madrid) made his move. With a base of support in the north, the Carlist Jaime landed at Suances in Cantabria at the beginning of August of 1914. As word of his return to Spain spread through the Carlist network, the members of the PNT in the Cortes denounced Victoria Eugenia as a pawn of Germany and called for the abdication of Jaime I in favor of Jaime Duke of Madrid. When the grievances aired publicly and Victoria Eugenia refused on behalf of her son, the Carlists rose up against the already battered Spanish government. The Third Carlist War, also known as the War of the Two Jaimes, had begun.
The populace, already angry at the monarchy for the Peace of Vienna and wanting a return to stability, saw the majority of support garnered by Jaime Duke of Madrid and largely supported him over Jaime I. From his base in Santander and Cantabria, Jaime Duke of Madrid used his military means gained from the war in Russia to gather a popular army in a March on Madrid. Jaime Duke of Madrid quickly overran Torrelavega and snuck his army through the mountains to march on Burgos. In Madrid, Carlist sympathizer Juan Vázquez de Mella garnered political support and relayed propaganda throughout the Spanish kingdom to assist the Carlist coup. De Mella had a powerful position in the Cortes, and combined with monetary support from the Carlist Jaime's ties to Russia and to Puebla, support quickly grew for the Carlist side in the war. As Jaime Duke of Madrid led his supporters to a victory over the government force in Burgos and a simultaneous capture of territory was undertaken by Carlists in Galicia, popular support for the Carlists swelled. De Mella gathered pictures of Jaime Duke of Madrid speaking to the soldiers now under his command and published them, lauding Duke Jaime as fighting for his countrymen while Victoria Eugenia and Infante Jaime cowered in Madrid. The tide quickly turned in favor of the Carlists, and by the summer of 1915 Duke Jaime was nearing Madrid. Victoria and Infante Jaime fled the country to Portugal, while Jaime Duke of Madrid was installed as King Jaime III of Spain on August 7, 1915. Juan Vazquez de Mella was elected the Prime Minister of Spain, but with the struggle of governing a weary nation much of the more reactionary aims of the Carlists remained unfulfilled as the more pressing matters of Spain’s governance took precedence.
[1] Albert Edward is OTL Edward VII. He chose Edward as his regnal name in OTL to not undervalue the name of his father Prince Albert. With Prince Albert living longer, there isn’t that motivation to choose Edward.
[2] As in OTL, Albert Edward is a heavy smoker and suffers from increasingly common bouts of bronchitis in his later years.
[3] This is similar to what was also called the People’s Budget in OTL in 1909.
[4] An OTL quote by Edward VII during the People’s Budget crisis, also to Lord Haldane.
[5] The accusations against Albert Victor and the remark about the prince being an auditory learner are all taken from OTL. Also, in TTL he does not die of tuberculosis in 1892.
[6] Here I have Keynes taking the leap from “the government needs to manage the economy” to “I should manage the economy”
[7] Jaime I is OTL Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, Alfonso XIII’s second son.
[8] Jaime III is OTL Jaime Duke of Madrid, the Carlist claimant from 1909 to 1931. He is numbered Jaime III because the Carlists include the monarchs of Aragon in their title numbering.
That does not sound right.
Wouldn't such a sudden decolonisation seriously hurt British trade or were the economic ties to the colonies already severely weakened by the civil war?
Great update. revolutionary John Maynard Keynes was a surprise. I wish we had more on the British Civil War. Please go into more detail about republican Britain. What does their flag look like?
Good update, Wilcox!
There's a small typo, where it reads "Partida Nacional Tradicionalista", it should be "Partido Nacional Tradicionalista".
Assuming the Common Wealth is an offshoot of the Liberal Party, what happened to the old Liberal Party and to the Unionist Party after the revolution?
There's a small typo, where it reads "Partida Nacional Tradicionalista", it should be "Partido Nacional Tradicionalista".
Assuming the Common Wealth is an offshoot of the Liberal Party, what happened to the old Liberal Party and to the Unionist Party after the revolution?
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Yeah, reading that through again it doesn't, although compared to the English Civil War is would be pretty brief. I couldn't really decide on how long the British Civil War should be.
Yeah. I hadn't seen many modern republican UK, and even fewer ones where the monarchy didn't just set up shop in one of the dominions.
I definitely plan on going into a bit more detail on what Keynesian Britain looks like in a later update. I think I have some rather interesting ideas for things based off of some of Keynes' writings.
I haven't really given any thought yet as to what the flag looks like.Thanks, I always forget whether it's Partido or Partida. Also the Common Wealth grew more in conjunction with the likes of the Labour Party than as an offshoot of the Liberals. I still need to work out what the political structure of Britain looks like under Keynes, but if it's still a multiparty state the Unionists at least would be much reduced in power. Not sure about the Liberals, they might have enough support even with a universal franchise to make up a significant portion of Parliament.Good update, Wilcox!
There's a small typo, where it reads "Partida Nacional Tradicionalista", it should be "Partido Nacional Tradicionalista".
Assuming the Common Wealth is an offshoot of the Liberal Party, what happened to the old Liberal Party and to the Unionist Party after the revolution?
Part One Hundred Thirty-Seven: The Great War Census
Finally got the 1910 census update finished!
Part One Hundred Thirty-Seven: The Great War Census
The 1910 Census:
In the first decade of the 20th century, the United States was still in flux as a nation. The country was still urbanizing rapidly as the industrial economy continued to outpace the growth of agriculture in many of the Northern states. This was greatly reflected in the 1910 census, as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, and other industrial states continued to grow at a larger rate than much of the rest of the country. The biggest milestone of the census, however, was in the national figure. In 1910, for the first time, the population of the United States as a whole surpassed one hundred million people. At the time, the total population of the country as recorded by the census was 103,867,000.
While these states did grow, New York grew at a noticeably slower rate than the other major industrial states. The Great War had a large part to play in this, as it did in the reported population of many other states that bordered British North America. The war had diverted some potential routes for immigrants away from the northernmost states as they became fronts on the war between the United States and Great Britain. However, this was not the only reason in New York's case. For the Empire State, the changing economic landscape of the county also played a significant role. With railroads having thoroughly supplanted rivers and canals as the primary means of transporting goods, the Erie Canal saw its importance decline. Coupled with the tensions along the Great Lakes, cities such as Syracuse and Rochester that had boomed during the height of the Erie Canal's traffic began to stagnate and decline in the early 20th century. New York City, Brooklyn, and Long Island continued to grow steadily through inertia as the largest urban area in the country. However, the 1890s and 1900s would be the peak of the Brooklyn-NYC area's growth. Economic activity continued to move south to better rail-connected ports such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, and a significant portion of exports from the Old Northwest and Great Plains would go through those ports and the Gulf of Mexico in future decades. As such, New York perhaps passed its height of economic importance with the 1910 census. Though the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn would continue to grow in population for another half century, the rate of growth of the population in that region would enter a steady decline after 1910.
The greatest focus when examining the 1910 census, however, is the impact the Great War had on its conduct and results. This was the first national census in the United States conducted during serious wartime. With the largest threat to the United States coming from its northern border during the Great War, the census of those states that bordered the more populated regions of British North America are believed to have been undercounted during this census. This certainly was the belief at the time following the Great War, and is the commonly held belief by population historians now. Stories of census workers avoiding towns sitting close to the border for fear of British raids, plus the American territorial gains in the Great War, created a controversy when it came time to apportion the seats in the House of Representatives and the electoral votes to each state.
The underreporting of the population on the northern border would certainly explain some apparent oddities that showed up in the 1910 census. For instance, Colorado with its 1.22 million people had supposedly surpassed both Itasca and Marquette in population in 1910. It is clear that the silver rush had led to a boom in Colorado's population, coupled with the state being the western edge of the more southerly railroads in the United States until the acquisition of California. However, there is a healthy skepticism as to the figures for the populations of Itasca and Marquette as reported by the 1910 census. Surely, the boom in iron and copper in that region in the two decades previously produced a similar population boom as the silver rush in Colorado had. The numbers for both states, hovering just above 1.1 million, produced complaints by politicians from those two states to Congress almost as soon as they were reported. The figures do seem small, especially as the census showed neighboring Demoine as having 1.47 million people when all three states had been roughly equal populations the decade prior. Frank Kellogg, attorney general of Itasca at the time, brought a case against the Census Bureau for alleged underrepresentation in 1912 following the end of the Great War. Itasca believed that the 1910 Census had undercounted Itasca's population by enough that the state deserved one more representative in the House and one more vote in the electoral college. Ultimately the case did not affect the 1912 election as the Supreme Court ruled in 1913 that the issue was a political matter and non-justiciable. Kellogg ended up bringing up the issue again in 1914, having been elected Senator from Itasca in 1912. During his term as Senator, Kellogg and other Congressmen from border states pushed legislation through to hold a special mid-decade Census to correct the population count. It would also account for the addition of the territory annexed from Great Britain during the war. This change to the census was coupled with an increase in the size of the House of Representatives, which also had not occurred in the aftermath of the census of 1910 due to the bickering among Congress as to the appropriate size of the chamber.
While the northern border states saw questionable growth during the first decade of the 20th century, the Mid-Atlantic and the states along the Ohio saw a continuation of the previous decade's growth. The reorientation of trade to the Confluence area and to harbors further south on the Atlantic seaboard continued as the Great War was fought further north benefiting the states in the middle of the country. Cities such as Baltimore, Saint Louis, and Cairo saw increased commercial opportunities as the mining and forestry industries further north continued the flow of natural resources to them. The Great War also saw a boom in manufacturing in these cities as the United States ramped up its war production.
In addition to the growth of the "Middle American" cities as the cities between the 38th and 40th parallel began to be known[1], the states further west also benefited from the growth of the United States in the early 20th century. The profitable logging and mining industries in the northwest led to massive growth in Oregon, Kootenay, and Champoeg during this time as settlers from back east flocked to the Pacific coastal states. While they were on the border with British North America and California, the front in terms of the American side of the border was relatively quiet compared to the rest of the Great War. Washington experienced a brief decline in population due to the fear of more British raids. However, the other northwestern states continued to experience a flood of settlement and many cities in the region saw a doubling or tripling of the population between 1900 and 1910. Similarly, Colorado continued to grow quickly despite the war with California and the decline of the silver boom. Many mining towns switched to more utilitarian operations producing coal, lead, and nickel and their supply centers in the foothills saw a rejuvenated economic boom as these goods were sent east to help with the industrial war economy.
[1] I'm not quite happy with this name for the region, but I couldn't think of anything better.
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And as a bonus, here's the list of United States cities over 500,000 people in 1910. Notably, New York City has surpassed two million people and Boston has dropped out of the ten largest cities. Boston has been replaced by Louisville, KY which is benefiting from the shifting economy.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Seven: The Great War Census
The 1910 Census:
In the first decade of the 20th century, the United States was still in flux as a nation. The country was still urbanizing rapidly as the industrial economy continued to outpace the growth of agriculture in many of the Northern states. This was greatly reflected in the 1910 census, as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, and other industrial states continued to grow at a larger rate than much of the rest of the country. The biggest milestone of the census, however, was in the national figure. In 1910, for the first time, the population of the United States as a whole surpassed one hundred million people. At the time, the total population of the country as recorded by the census was 103,867,000.
While these states did grow, New York grew at a noticeably slower rate than the other major industrial states. The Great War had a large part to play in this, as it did in the reported population of many other states that bordered British North America. The war had diverted some potential routes for immigrants away from the northernmost states as they became fronts on the war between the United States and Great Britain. However, this was not the only reason in New York's case. For the Empire State, the changing economic landscape of the county also played a significant role. With railroads having thoroughly supplanted rivers and canals as the primary means of transporting goods, the Erie Canal saw its importance decline. Coupled with the tensions along the Great Lakes, cities such as Syracuse and Rochester that had boomed during the height of the Erie Canal's traffic began to stagnate and decline in the early 20th century. New York City, Brooklyn, and Long Island continued to grow steadily through inertia as the largest urban area in the country. However, the 1890s and 1900s would be the peak of the Brooklyn-NYC area's growth. Economic activity continued to move south to better rail-connected ports such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, and a significant portion of exports from the Old Northwest and Great Plains would go through those ports and the Gulf of Mexico in future decades. As such, New York perhaps passed its height of economic importance with the 1910 census. Though the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn would continue to grow in population for another half century, the rate of growth of the population in that region would enter a steady decline after 1910.
The greatest focus when examining the 1910 census, however, is the impact the Great War had on its conduct and results. This was the first national census in the United States conducted during serious wartime. With the largest threat to the United States coming from its northern border during the Great War, the census of those states that bordered the more populated regions of British North America are believed to have been undercounted during this census. This certainly was the belief at the time following the Great War, and is the commonly held belief by population historians now. Stories of census workers avoiding towns sitting close to the border for fear of British raids, plus the American territorial gains in the Great War, created a controversy when it came time to apportion the seats in the House of Representatives and the electoral votes to each state.
The underreporting of the population on the northern border would certainly explain some apparent oddities that showed up in the 1910 census. For instance, Colorado with its 1.22 million people had supposedly surpassed both Itasca and Marquette in population in 1910. It is clear that the silver rush had led to a boom in Colorado's population, coupled with the state being the western edge of the more southerly railroads in the United States until the acquisition of California. However, there is a healthy skepticism as to the figures for the populations of Itasca and Marquette as reported by the 1910 census. Surely, the boom in iron and copper in that region in the two decades previously produced a similar population boom as the silver rush in Colorado had. The numbers for both states, hovering just above 1.1 million, produced complaints by politicians from those two states to Congress almost as soon as they were reported. The figures do seem small, especially as the census showed neighboring Demoine as having 1.47 million people when all three states had been roughly equal populations the decade prior. Frank Kellogg, attorney general of Itasca at the time, brought a case against the Census Bureau for alleged underrepresentation in 1912 following the end of the Great War. Itasca believed that the 1910 Census had undercounted Itasca's population by enough that the state deserved one more representative in the House and one more vote in the electoral college. Ultimately the case did not affect the 1912 election as the Supreme Court ruled in 1913 that the issue was a political matter and non-justiciable. Kellogg ended up bringing up the issue again in 1914, having been elected Senator from Itasca in 1912. During his term as Senator, Kellogg and other Congressmen from border states pushed legislation through to hold a special mid-decade Census to correct the population count. It would also account for the addition of the territory annexed from Great Britain during the war. This change to the census was coupled with an increase in the size of the House of Representatives, which also had not occurred in the aftermath of the census of 1910 due to the bickering among Congress as to the appropriate size of the chamber.
While the northern border states saw questionable growth during the first decade of the 20th century, the Mid-Atlantic and the states along the Ohio saw a continuation of the previous decade's growth. The reorientation of trade to the Confluence area and to harbors further south on the Atlantic seaboard continued as the Great War was fought further north benefiting the states in the middle of the country. Cities such as Baltimore, Saint Louis, and Cairo saw increased commercial opportunities as the mining and forestry industries further north continued the flow of natural resources to them. The Great War also saw a boom in manufacturing in these cities as the United States ramped up its war production.
In addition to the growth of the "Middle American" cities as the cities between the 38th and 40th parallel began to be known[1], the states further west also benefited from the growth of the United States in the early 20th century. The profitable logging and mining industries in the northwest led to massive growth in Oregon, Kootenay, and Champoeg during this time as settlers from back east flocked to the Pacific coastal states. While they were on the border with British North America and California, the front in terms of the American side of the border was relatively quiet compared to the rest of the Great War. Washington experienced a brief decline in population due to the fear of more British raids. However, the other northwestern states continued to experience a flood of settlement and many cities in the region saw a doubling or tripling of the population between 1900 and 1910. Similarly, Colorado continued to grow quickly despite the war with California and the decline of the silver boom. Many mining towns switched to more utilitarian operations producing coal, lead, and nickel and their supply centers in the foothills saw a rejuvenated economic boom as these goods were sent east to help with the industrial war economy.
[1] I'm not quite happy with this name for the region, but I couldn't think of anything better.
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And as a bonus, here's the list of United States cities over 500,000 people in 1910. Notably, New York City has surpassed two million people and Boston has dropped out of the ten largest cities. Boston has been replaced by Louisville, KY which is benefiting from the shifting economy.
Code:
1. New York, NY 2,117,053
2. Philadelphia, PA 1,677,391
3. Brooklyn, NY 1,525,840
4. Chicago, IL 1,381,524
5. Saint Louis, MO 953,969
6. Baltimore, MD 882,115
7. New Orleans, LA 667,333
8. Indianapolis, IN 695,276
9. Havana, CU 612,275
10. Louisville, KY 564,014
11. Boston, MA 541,923
12. Cleveland, OH 527,587
13. Pittsburgh, PA 507,352