WI: The Ezo Republic Survives

The Ezo Republic was a US-inspired Republic with suffrage for the samurai class that existed on the island we now call Hokkaido. It was taken by a force of 7,000 IJA troops after the Battle of Hakodate, and the Republic ceased to exist in July. What can be changed to allow this state to survive, and possibly even expand into the rest of the Home Islands?
 
It was France-inspired, actually, and French adventurers did play a prominent role in the Republic.

But, simple enough. Just avoid the Meiji Restoration.

Yeah, IIRC a French officer made a whole bunch of Ezo officers swear loyalty to him. As for the US-inspired thing, I read that the Ezo Constitution was based on the US one.

Also, the ER was founded because of the Restoration--it was effectively a republican remnant of the Shogunate that fled north. How would it even exist if the Tokugawa Shogunate kept hold of power? There would be no reason to found it.
 
The only, and not that plausible, way to prevent the Republic to disappear would be, somehow, imperials slowing down their effort significantly and delaying the attack.
The best chance for that would be Ezo fleet to keep the Kaiyō Maru et le Kanrin Maru, and to delay the arrival of the Kōtetsu in Japan. It could allow Ezo to buy time, since the imperial navy would be relatively inferior to their own.

Preventing the Kōtetsu to come in Japan could be reached with an United States less tending to support the imperials as they did (lending them troop transports, apparently), so how could we make US actually neutral in this civil conflict?

And that's only to delaying an imperial action in the island : I don't think Ezo had this much military capacities to hold off a readied japanese army, even if initial victories can't be written off. All depend of the international support, French (would it be only for a naval support), British and making USA somehow favourable to Ezo and then changing of policy toward Japan.
 
The only, and not that plausible, way to prevent the Republic to disappear would be, somehow, imperials slowing down their effort significantly and delaying the attack.
The best chance for that would be Ezo fleet to keep the Kaiyō Maru et le Kanrin Maru, and to delay the arrival of the Kōtetsu in Japan. It could allow Ezo to buy time, since the imperial navy would be relatively inferior to their own.

Preventing the Kōtetsu to come in Japan could be reached with an United States less tending to support the imperials as they did (lending them troop transports, apparently), so how could we make US actually neutral in this civil conflict?

And that's only to delaying an imperial action in the island : I don't think Ezo had this much military capacities to hold off a readied japanese army, even if initial victories can't be written off. All depend of the international support, French (would it be only for a naval support), British and making USA somehow favourable to Ezo and then changing of policy toward Japan.

For the US, I could imagine that the ER could play up their republicanism and get some publicity.

The Kōtetsu was originally commissioned for the CSA in France, as CSS Stonewall, and she was pursued by Union ships (Sacramento and Kearsarge, for example) for a good amount of time. Could any concentration of Union fire sink her?

Kaiyō and Kanrin Maru could be fairly easily retained (Kaiyō was Ezo already, and Kanrin could probably be taken).
 
The Ezo Republic was a US-inspired Republic with suffrage for the samurai class that existed on the island we now call Hokkaido. It was taken by a force of 7,000 IJA troops after the Battle of Hakodate, and the Republic ceased to exist in July. What can be changed to allow this state to survive, and possib 1930es. ly even expand into the rest of the Home Islands?
I heard something about remnant Samurai lifestyle people in Hokkaido until the 1930es.
 
It should be noted that even if the "country" was called the Republic of Ezo, its establishment wasn't really thought as an an act of secession by its founders. In addition, even if it had "republic" in its name and they chose a president, its founders were in their opinion acting in the Emperor's name and remained loyal to him. The idea seems to have been either to create some sort of personal union between Japan and Ezo, with the Emperor as a ruler of both countries, or the creation of some sort of autonomous area inside Japan for a "national minority", in this particular case for the samurai. This is actually what Enomoto Takiaki had been more or less demanding before the war started.

It should be remembered though that even with fine words about elections and such, this country was meant to be a samurai oligarchy which would have most likely depended on exploitation of the Ainu (as has been the Matsumae way for centuries) and those not belonging to the samurai class.

I heard something about remnant Samurai lifestyle people in Hokkaido until the 1930es.

While many Samurai moved to Hokkaido after the Meiji Restoration, I don't think they really retained any sort of "Samurai lifestyle" while living there but mostly worked as farmers and such.
 
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I think it would be odd for the Ezo Republic to survive purely on Hokkaido, I think it's far more likely that a theoretical "Ezo Republic" goes onto become the "Republic of Japan" as an initially oligarchic republic.
 
I think it would be odd for the Ezo Republic to survive purely on Hokkaido, I think it's far more likely that a theoretical "Ezo Republic" goes onto become the "Republic of Japan" as an initially oligarchic republic.

You probably would need to change the whole nature of Boshin War in order to achieve such an outcome. The Battle of Toba-Fushimi, coupled with the Emperor's public support for the Imperial forces, more or less doomed the cause of Bakufu's supporters. With the Imperial government's resources going against the rebels, it would have been more or less impossible for them to keep any foothold on the mainland Honshu. If the Bakufu had done better, say, by winning at Toba-Fushimi and the Emperor delaying his support for other side, it is more likely that you would have gotten a "traditional" civil war where both sides would have been proclaiming their loyalty for the Emperor and claiming to be the official government of Japan.
 
You probably would need to change the whole nature of Boshin War in order to achieve such an outcome. The Battle of Toba-Fushimi, coupled with the Emperor's public support for the Imperial forces, more or less doomed the cause of Bakufu's supporters. With the Imperial government's resources going against the rebels, it would have been more or less impossible for them to keep any foothold on the mainland Honshu. If the Bakufu had done better, say, by winning at Toba-Fushimi and the Emperor delaying his support for other side, it is more likely that you would have gotten a "traditional" civil war where both sides would have been proclaiming their loyalty for the Emperor and claiming to be the official government of Japan.

I completely agree, hence why I think it's nigh impossible for the "Ezo Republic" to survive. It was a last desperate attempt by some former Shogunal forces to attempt to survive by a somewhat radical shift.

Hence my point that the "Ezo Republic" could never survive, but either thrives (and becomes a Republic of Japan) or dies.
 

Zachariah

Banned
Could it potentially survive as a protectorate or 'princely state' of France? Back in February 1868, with the help of the French ambassador Léon Roches, a plan had been formulated to stop the imperial court's advance at Odawara, the last strategic entry point to Edo, but Tokugawa Yoshinobu had decided against the plan. As a result, in early March, under the influence of the British minister Harry Parkes, foreign nations had signed a strict neutrality agreement, according to which they could not intervene or provide military supplies to either side until the resolution of the conflict. But after November 1868, with the fall of the Shogunate and the restoration of Japanese Imperial rule, the conflict was officially over, as was the neutrality agreement.

The Republic of Ezo tried to reach out to foreign legations in Hakodate, such as the Americans, French, and Russians, but wasn't able to garner any international recognition or support IOTL. And Jules Brunet had never formally resigned from the French army when he chose to ignore the Japanese Imperial decree for the French military mission to leave Japan, and left for the northern island of Ezo along with the part of the former shogun's navy led by Admiral Enomoto Takeaki, together with several thousand soldiers and his band of French military advisors. And in the Ezo army which Brunet helped organize, while Otori Keisuke was named as commander-in-chief and Brunet was technically second in command, all four brigades were commanded by French officers (Fortant, Marlin, Cazeneuve, and Bouffier). In a letter to Napoleon III, Brunet explained the plan of the alliance, as well as his role in it:

"A revolution is forcing the Military Mission to return to France. Alone I stay, alone I wish to continue, under new conditions: the results obtained by the Mission, together with the Party of the North, which is the party favorable to France in Japan. Soon a reaction will take place, and the Daimyos of the North have offered me to be its soul. I have accepted, because with the help of one thousand Japanese officers and non-commissioned officers, our students, I can direct the 50,000 men of the Confederation."

Brunet demanded (and received) a signed personal pledge of loyalty from all officers, and insisted they assimilate French ideas. And his actions won him great popular support back in France. An anonymous French officer wrote that Brunet had taken charge of everything: "...customs, municipality, fortifications, army; everything passed through his hands. The simple Japanese are puppets whom he manipulates with great skill... he has carried out a veritable 1789 French Revolution in this brave new Japan; the election of leaders and the determination of rank by merit and not birth- these are fabulous things for this country, and he has been able to do things very well, considering the seriousness of the situation..."

So then, how about if the French had decided not to let all their hard work and influence over the region go to waste, counted their losses, and intervened to send military supplies and reinforcements to the Republic of Ezo, in sufficient numbers to dissuade the Japanese Imperial Navy from launching the Hokkaido campaign? Could the Republic of Ezo have endured by being acknowledged as a formal protectorate of France, in a manner akin to Cambodia a couple of years earlier, with an eye to also use it as a staging post for their pre-existing plans to expand French rule over Korea as well?
 
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