El Camino de la Sangre/The Road of Blood

Exactly, though an earlier militarization of the US would mean that a naval tradition would be developed much sooner, and not for any good reason either. 

Anyways, here's the next chapter:

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TURN 002: OF FRIENDS AND ALLIANCES

Excerpts from "The South African Ulcer: Britain and the Boer Nightmare"
by: Hendryk Mulder
Springbok Publishing Company, released on July 2016

Chapter Three: Drastic Change in Strategy

The first few initial victories that Britain had achieved prior to the horrific events of the infamous December Black Week of 1899 was not significant, in that they bought into the hype that the war against the two Boer republics will be over by Christmas. There's a legitimate reason why Britain felt confident about their chances of victory against the Boers: the arrival of fresh troops from the colonies and the British Home Islands, along with much needed ammunition and weapons, month by month, had increased their morale. On the other hand, the head-scratching bellicose rhetoric of Kaiser Wilhelm II's open support for the Boers was the source of hostile tensions between the British and German Empires. Even the funeral of Prince Edward did not ease up on the growing animosity between Wilhelm II and the newly ascended king, George V. In fact, Anglo-German rivalry had now expanded beyond Britain's primordial fear of a single European continental hegemony, and evolved into a colonial competition, as events in China were to demonstrate. In addition, the 1890 Ultimatum had dampened Britain's relations with its oldest ally, Portugal, until the conflict with the Boers led to the Anglo-Portuguese Declaration of 1899. With George V now on the throne, the first thing that he did was to send British diplomats to Lisbon for a chance to not only improve Britain's ties to Portugal but to come up with a bold proposal that would certainly have enraged much of Europe itself. The proposal, originally created by Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, also known as the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, was presented to the Portuguese Prime Minister, Jose Luciano de Castro, in July of 1900. In what would become the Lansdowne Proposal, Portugal would acquire the Kionga Triangle area that Germany had occupied, as well as the entirety of German Southwest Africa, and Britain would acquire German East Africa, in what is now modern Tanzania. Moreover, although Britain did not have any interest in the Belgian-controlled Congo Free State, the region of Katanga had been viewed as a strategic interest by both Britain and Portugal, as it held certain minerals that would be attractive to their respective industries. However, it was the planned partition of German East Africa that eventually became a reality, as the western half of German East Africa would become British Tanganyika, and the eastern half of the GEA eventually merged with the island of Zanzibar, and Britain would also cede the islands of Zanzibar to Portugal. Portugal in turn, would plan on merging Zanzibar with their planned acquisition of eastern Tanganyika to form the Portuguese Zanzibar Protectorate.

By early September of 1900, under the orders of both Lord Salisbury (shortly before the 1900 UK election on September 26th) and King George V, the British Army began to transport several thousand soldiers through the railways that were controlled by private firms to the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The buildup of those forces close to the Limpopo River alerted the Boer commandos, who responded by building a series of small defensive position along the southern banks, followed by larger defensive positions along the densely forested regions of the northern Transvaal. However, the British position in Bechuanaland would be strengthened by the transformation of Palapye and Lerala into important supply hubs that served as forward bases from which they could launch an invasion of the Transvaal without going through the Orange Free State. Because of the growing importance of Bechuanaland as a staging ground for a new front against the Boers, the British military would use most of its mounted infantry regiments to guard the railways and the trains going between the Cape Colony and Bechuanaland. The 1900 British elections however, would prove to be a nailbiter, as Lord Salisbury's Conservative Party ultimately won the election, though they would suffer from the loss of over 13 seats. Thus, the overall number of seats that have won as far as it goes:

1) Conservative Party - 411 seats held since the 1895 UK election (-13) = 398 seats held as of the 1900 election.

2) Liberal Party - 183 seats held since the 1895 election (+8) = 191 seats held as of the 1900 election.

3) Irish Parliamentary - 82 seats since the 1895 election (-3) = 79 seats held as of the 1900 election.

4) Labour Representation Committee - 2 new seats have won, as it is the first ever election that they took part in it.

Lord Salisbury's cautious stance regarding the Boer republics, in sharp contrast to the hardline stance that both the Liberals and the LRC had taken, proved to be the deciding factor in the election, as they feared that a hostile Boer population would cause more trouble to the British Cape Colony than its worth. Additionally, Lord Salisbury also feared that a hardline stance towards the indigenous African population of South Africa may also trigger an ethnic conflict that no one but the Germans would benefit from. However, the news of the Boer atrocities had angered the British public, notwithstanding the British population's own racism towards the Africans. Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury's promise of a total victory over the Boer republics would be tested time and time again as the British would take over five months to prepare for a massive offensive against the Transvaal Republic, coupled with an additional preparation of British forces from Mafeking. The British forces stationed in Mafeking would be tasked with the invasion of the Orange Free State. Unfortunately for the British, the path in which foreign volunteers fighting on the Boer side had come through German Southwest Africa, as evident by the pathways that they often took. For example, the volunteers that joined the Transvaal Foreign Battalions had arrived in the tiny port of Luderitz as early as December of 1899. Most of those volunteers had come from Ireland and the Netherlands, though some of them were either former military personnel or adventurers seeking the thrill of combat. The Irish volunteers who fought for the two Boer republics eventually became the core of the non-commissioned officers of the future Irish Armed Forces when Ireland eventually declared its independence from Great Britain during the 1917 Irish War of Independence as a result of the failure to pass the Irish Home Rule Act due to opposition from both the Conservatives and the Labour Representation Committee.

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Excerpts from 'A New Path for Germany: The Chancellorship of Botho zu Eulenburg'
by: Karl Ludwig von Goertzmann
Koenigstein Publishing Press, released on June 17, 2018

Chapter Two: Outmaneuvering Von Bulow

Botho zu Eulenburg's appointment as the new Chancellor of the German Empire upon the resignation of Chlodwig, the Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, due to his advanced age, was met with a stunning silence from the rest of the Imperial German government. It was expected that Kaiser Wilhelm II was going to nominate Bernhard von Bulow as the Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst's successor. Yet, Eulenburg's appointment was a welcoming sight for the emerging rival political bloc in the industrialist faction. The Krupp family, of which the famous Krupp steel and weapons manufacturing company was known for, had been a well established old money family from the region of Essen. Although their company had been in existance since 1587 (when the Holy Roman Empire was still around), they were practically novices in the political sphere, consigning the power struggle within German politics to the well established Junker class of Prussian nobility. Sensing the growing importance of German industry as the backbone of a later German dominated European and Asian economies, both the Krupp family and Chancellor zu Eulenburg had made a pact, where the latter would become a patron for both the Krupp family and their industrial allies against the Junkers. This pact was necessary in that under zu Eulenburg's leadership, he and his cousin Prince Philip of Eulenburg convinced Wilhelm II that Germany's chances of surpassing Britain militarily might become more of a liability in the long run, mainly because of its massive naval fleet. Instead, what Germany should have done was to build strong commercial and financial links with other European and Asian powers through trade agreements and aiding minor nations in their attempts to industrialize. (1) This proposal would have met a few objectives:

- First, a possible German trade agreement with the Russian Empire would lessen its reliance on maritime traffic in the event of a possible war with Great Britain. The main problem with this kind of proposal was that the German and Russian train gauge were different. Russian train gauge was a bit longer than the German train gauge, and this was done intentionally to prevent the Russian rail transport from being used by enemy forces. Additionally, enhancing the economic ties between Russia and Germany would have lessened the former's reliance on French investment in the Russian economy, although by 1901 the United States under President McKinley was hungry for an American attempt at capturing the Russian market for American goods, as well as American investment.

- Second, a German economic free trade agreement with Austria-Hungary could help the Austro-Hungarian government gain access to German ports in the North and Baltic Sea for its goods. In return, Germany would gain access to Austro-Hungarian ports in the Adriatic Sea for its own goods, as well as helping to penetrate the tiny Balkan markets. Most importantly, Germany could position itself as a balanced arbiter in any Balkan disputes among those states, as well as any disputes that any Balkan state would have with Austria-Hungary. This was especially important regarding Austro-Hungarian relations with Serbia, which had degenerated into a state of hostility when Prince Mirko of Montenegro was proclaimed as the Heir Apparent to the ruling Obrenovic dynasty, which was now down to just Princess Elizabeth.

-Third, an attempt by the Germans to open up its commercial links to the Ottoman Empire would also allow them to gain access to Ottoman ports in the Mediterranean and Red Seas for its goods. Most importantly, German industrialists would play a significant role in the industrialization of the Anatolian heartland, of which Sultan Abdulhamid II was pushing for.

German-Turkish relations after the appointment of zu Eulenburg would improve, as a few German officers were sent to Constantinople to help train Ottoman troops and modernize its army. Subsequently, the fear of a German-trained and German-equipped Ottoman Army would also lead to Tsar Nicholas's approval of deepening and improving Russia's ties to the United States, as the 1902 Russo-American Defense Collaboration Treaty would be signed. Under that collaboration treaty, Russian officers would be sent to West Point Academy to study American military doctrine, and in return, American officers would be sent to Russian military academies to teach Russian officers studying there, as well as giving them information on counter-insurgency operations. At the same time, Chancellor zu Eulenburg had also pushed for Germany to improve much of its economic and diplomatic ties with the United States, as both nations were more or less involved with the growing internal conflict inside China. However, relations between Germany and America were strained by the former's desire to acquire the Philippine Islands from Spain, and the latter was stuck in a guerrilla war that gained notoriety for atrocities that were committed on both sides.

Zu Eulenburg's domestic policy on the other hand, involved the strengthening of trade unions as a way of sapping their support for socialist parties attempting to gain their votes. However, he and Wilhelm II also formulated several plans centered around stopping the infiltration of trade unions by Marxist and other left-wing radicals seeking to drag Germany into a socialist revolution. Moreover, the anarchist turmoil in neighboring Belgium as a result of the Belgian government's heavy handed tactics in suppressing the anarchists as a result of the assassination of British Prince Edward by Jean Baptiste Sipido, had also garnered public outcry and German police had to break apart several anarchist meetings in the Hannover region between 1900 and 1906. Most importantly, zu Eulenburg's defining legacy lay with his attempts to improve both the working conditions of German industrial and agricultural workers, as well as instituting a 40 hour work week. However, von Bulow was not impressed with how he was being outmaneuvered by zu Eulenburg, and had sought to ally himself with the Junkers as a way of dislodging zu Eulenburg's influence from the German chancellory.

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China - Family Feud Gone Wrong:

The ongoing civil war between the supporters of the Guoliang Emperor's claim on the dragon throne against supporters of the Yongnian Emperor's rival claim had been a series of small skirmishes that was kept bubbling to a minimum, but against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion and the Mongolian War of Independence, it was something that the ruling Manchu Qing Dynasty had feared. At the same time, the soldiers that are fighting for the Yongnian Emperor faced the loss of their morale as they began to question their main reasoning for remaining loyal to the Qing Dynasty, especially since their colleagues in the armies commanded by officers loyal to the Mutual Pact for the Defense of the Southeast were not only better trained, but better armed as well. (2) Mongolian soldiers fighting on either claimant side had also began to defect to the armies of Prince Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren, who was elected as the new Khagan of Mongolia by the recently revived and re-established Kurultai. Said prince would also keep his name, becoming Tögs-Ochiryn Khagan in the process. The intervention of the European powers had also complicated things a bit further, as Germany and Austria-Hungary had backed the reactionary faction around the Guoliang Emperor, while Britain, France, and to a lesser extent, Russia, had backed the Yongnian Emperor's claim. However, Russia would slowly withdraw its support for the Yongnian Emperor after May of 1901, as it finally secured its long coveted buffer zone in Mongolia, while negotiating with the Joseon government for the purchase of a small strip of coastal land in the northeast, centered around the town of Najin. The Sazonov Purchase of 1901 had electrified and infuriated the Japanese government, as it viewed the entirety of the Korean peninsula as their sphere of influence, and nearly came to blows with the Russians. It was only when Mr. Sergey Sazonov himself traveled to Tokyo to meet with Foreign Minister Ito Hirobumi regarding their respective spheres of influence that the former had revealed to the latter that Russia had ceded the control of Port Arthur to the authority of the Yongian Emperor in exchange for gaining a warm water port in northeastern Korea.

What the European powers did not know was that Japan was covertly backing both the Boxer rebels themselves and the armies loyal to the Mutual Pact for the Defense of the Southeast, as a way of keeping the conflict in China alive and boiling. It had no other interest in supporting either claimant on the dragon throne, preferring to instigate an additional collapse of China as a way of acquring influence over the Chinese state by Japan. (3) At the same time, the United States had also started to back the MPDS because the McKinley administration saw them as a better alternative to the monarchists and the Boxer rebels themselves, but the lingering hostility between Japan and the United States meant that war might be a possibility between the two nations. Beginning on July of 1901, Japan would begin its attempts to mend its diplomatic relations with the three powers that formed the Triple Intervention. France, which was interested in maintaining a friendly relationship with Japan, offered a trade deal that would allow Japanese goods and investment into French Indochina, and in exchange, Japan will allow French goods into its market. Additionally, mending the relationship between France and Japan was also in Great Britain's interest, as it too, had a vested interest in propping Japan as a useful buffer and rival to Russian and to a lesser extent, American ambitions in Asia. On the other hand, Russia's improvement of its ties with Japan was crucial for its support of the Russian purchase of the strip of land around Najin. Finally, Germany was keen on improving its own relationship with Japan as a means of preventing the Japanese from siding with Britain and France. Most shockingly though, Germany offered diplomatic support for a Japanese takeover of French Indochina in case Japan were to go to war against Britain and France, and even offered to give up its own colonies to Japan, just to entice them. Crucially, German-Japanese military ties were also crucial, as the Japanese Army had been developed along German lines.

Tragically, it was the Yongnian Emperor who would die first, as he was assassinated by a double agent who actually worked for the Guoliang Emperor. While addressing his own troops in the city of Anshan, a hired sniper had shot him in the chest. The infamous Anshan Murder of August 1901 would initially marked the end of the Qing Succession Crisis in favor of the Guoliang Emperor, until the MPDS-aligned armies began to march towards Beijing. The MPDS armies, led by both Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong, had accumulated battle experience from fighting the Boxer rebels, though they were deeply divided over the future of China. For instance, Li Yuanhong had favored the abolition of the Chinese monarchy itself, and the establishment of a Chinese Republic. In contrast, Yuan Shikai had opposed the abolition of the monarchy, and simply wanted to depose the Manchu Qing in favor of restoring a Han Chinese dynasty, with either himself as Emperor, or someone else. (4) The confrontation between the renegade MPDS and the Qing loyalist forces began on August 14th, in the city of Cangzhou. Though the loyalist Qing forces numbered around 37,000, the MPDS forces numbered around 44,000 well armed soldiers equipped with German rifles and cannon. The Battle of Cangzhou lasted for only five hours, in which the Guoliang Emperor would die while attempting a cavalry charge against an entrenched infantry position led by Li Yuanhong. Once the renegade MPDS forces had learned of the Yongian and Guoliang Emperors' deaths, they continued their march towards Beijing. With the deaths of both claimants, the Qing loyalists now rallied around Prince Zaifeng, who now took the name of the Renshu Emperor. Unfortunately, the entirety of the Qing Dynasty's ruling family and their relatives would be arrested on August 26th, amidst the renewed Boxer revolt that now included numerous unemployed Chinese industrial workers and unemployed farmers who were now starving. Both Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong would intern the Qing royal family inside the Forbidden Palace, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. At the same time, the renegade forces also marched into the Forbidden City and proclaimed the First Chinese Republic. Even as the renegades now worked to restore order against the rebellious Boxers and the rioters that were fed up with the Qing dynasty, events outside their control had exploded. At the same time as the proclamation of the First Chinese Republic, the Russian Empire had launched the invasion of northern Manchuria in an attempt to secure the safety of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The Russians would occupy much of northern Manchuria with the help of their Mongolian allies, in exchange for letting the Mongolians annex the areas of Manchuria where their ethnic brethren had resided. At the same time, the Uyghur revolt would break out by September of 1901, with the forces loyal to the now self-proclaimed independent Kumul Khanate marching into Xinjiang with the sole intention of conquering that region in the name of an independent Uyghur state.

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"I learned to hide my political opinions the moment I enlisted in the navy in 1899, mostly because they were not tolerant of anyone with a socialist mindset. Yet, there were many people who were like me: those of the working and peasant class who had no future in the factories and farms, and had to join the military to escape the drudgery of their daily lives. Yet, I eventually fell in love with what I do at sea, first working as a naval gunnery loader from 1900 to 1903, and promoted to the position of a chief gunnery loader. However, the Imperial Russian Navy at that time, began to experiment with a new invention that was gifted to us by the United States. They called it a submarine, and one of those things, the Som as we called it, was assigned a crew of 18 people. 2 of them were officers, and the other 16 were non-commissioned officers. By this time, the United States and our Motherland had cultivated a sense of friendship, out of mutual hatred and contempt for the upstart Japanese Empire, even though our Tsar wanted to improve relations with them. It was because of this kind of relationship that the Som-class often participated in helping the American Navy operate outside the waters of the Philippine Islands. For one thing, the Som-class only participated in the patrolling of the Philippine Sea for any Japanese cargo vessel or warship and relayed their positions to the Americans. The Japanese themselves were unaware of our position, and we kept it that way. It was not until 1904 that the Som-class would go on a seventh month journey from the port of Vladivostok to Sevastopol on the Black Sea. We constantly drilled during those long journeys, and kept an eye on the open seas for any hostiles, as if we were at war. By the time we arrived in January of 1905 at Sevastopol, my superior officer recommended to me that I attend the naval academy in Petrograd. I would study there from 1905, until the following year when war clouds gathered around Europe and the Middle East. Unfortunately, 1906 would also be the year when Odessa started to burn, mostly because the Jews grew smarter in response to our retaliations against them. Back in 1903, the Kishinev Pogrom had been on the news around the world, but it was the infamous incident in Slonim in the same year that nearly costed the Motherland of its friendship with Europe. Our Tsar received a letter from his cousins, the King of Great Britain and the Kaiser of the German Empire, condemning Russia for its treatment of the Jewish population. Yet, it was the events in 1906 at Odessa that ultimately triggered a general revolt against the Tsarist government, with those Jewish self-defense groups now confronting the army and the navy. We were tasked with suppressing the revolts there, and we performed admirably in this case.

There was one interesting caveat from the 1906 Jewish rebellion against the Tsarist government though: the borders of the Pale of Settlement shrunk, until the entirety of Novorossiya Governorate became excluded from the new border of the Pale of Settlement. Upon the Ekaterinoslav Declaration of August 1906, all the Jews living within Novorossiya Governorate had exactly 48 hours to relocate to the new zones, or they would be hunted down and slaughtered. It was this declaration that triggered the propaganda campaign against not only our Motherland, but our Tsar as well. Both the British King and the German Kaiser now started to work together on finding a solution for those Jews, and even the French have begun to distance themselves from our nation. Still, they were more concerned with the British and the Germans surrounding them that they were forced to keep their ties with us. However, it was the Ottoman massacre of the Armenians in 1909 that ultimately triggered the Armenian uprising against the Ottoman Empire, and the Christians that chafed under the Turkish Sultan had now began their revolt as well. In addition, the Balkan states had now justified going to war against the Sultan, with Italy joining the fun as well, especially as they had their eye on Tripolitania. It was at that moment that Britain and Germany would now blackmail the Turkish Sultan with the collapse of his empire unless he agreed to create a Jewish Vilayet within the region of Palestine. Yet, the Sultan at that time, Mehmed V, had insisted that Jerusalem would remain open to all three faiths instead of being assigned to the Jewish Vilayet. It was the only thing that he demanded to the British and the Germans. That was how Russia would suffer from the intrigues of those three powers and we responded by coming closer to the French and now the Americans. The impudent Japanese would later join the British and Germans too, but were pragmatic enough to not get themselves involved in a war, either against the Americans, or against us." Boris Savinkov, from his memoirs, released by 1952.

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"One of the most intriguing conspiracy theories within the Philippine-American War was General Antonio Luna's fling with a Japanese nurse that arrived alongside the 900 Japanese volunteers that fought alongside him. (5) Originally named Kitamura Michiko, she eventually married General Luna in 1900 and bore him a daughter named Gabriela. However, their meeting proved real, as evident by Paco Roman's account on how he encountered the pair. In addition, both he and Artemio Ricarte eventually went to Japan to study in the Japanese military academy and also fell in love with the local women there. Although it was scandalous that the two other Filipino officers would abandon their duties in the Philippines for love in Japan, their romantic escapades had given them connections to various pan-Asian organizations that saw the conflict between the Philippines and the United States as an opportunity to test their theories on the racial struggle of the Asiatic peoples against European and American colonialism. To this end, the Philippine revolutionary government under President Apolinario Mabini and Prime Minister Jose Alejandrino had proposed to invite over 10,000 Japanese immigrants and 15,000 Korean peasants to settle in the Philippines, in exchange for their service in the Philippine Republican Army. Not only was this offer accepted by Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi of Japan and Prime Minister Yoon Yeong-seon (6) of the Joseon Kingdom. Additionally, over 5,000 exiled Boxer rebels fleeing from China after Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong's coup against the Manchu Qing Dynasty had arrived in the Philippines, in addition to the numerous Spanish Army deserters that defected to the Philippine Republican Army. The Boxer rebels, now embittered by their defeat at the hands of the military forces belonging to the Mutual Pact for the Defense of the Southeast, had not given up on their struggle against the foreign powers that had now raped their Chinese homeland. In fact, a few Boxer leaders, namely Cao Futian, relocated to Japanese Taiwan first, and then the Philippines, alongside 6,000 of his fighters. Most of these men under his command would become the core of the Chinese anti-imperialist group, the Blood and Soul Society, of which Zhang Jinghui would become its most prominent member.

The pan-Asian organizations in Japan had also began to realize that the Philippines, as a nation being founded solely on European colonialism, could be turned into an instrument and symbol of a greater cooperation between the various ethnic groups of Asia. It was because of this realization that led to the accepting of the proposals to invite those Japanese and Korean immigrants to the Philippines. The presence of the Boxer rebels turned volunteers however, had angered the long established Chinese-Filipino business community, as the differences between the upper class Tsinoy families and the predominantly lower class Boxer volunteers were apparent. Some of the Boxers still kept their Manchu style queue, despite being far from Qing authority, while others have cut theirs off to symbolize their rejection of Qing rule. Overall, an emerging social conflict has broken out between the old money upper class Chinese-Filipino families and the poverty stricken former Boxer rebels. The presence of those Boxer rebels in the Philippines had driven the Chinese-Filipino families into the arms of the Americans, who now saw them as a useful ally in suppressing the Filipino rebels, mainly by cutting off their source of funds needed to sustain their war effort. Now that the pan-Asian organizations have begun to funnel foreign volunteers into the Philippines, it was only a matter of how they would be trained. Most of the ex-Boxer rebels were used by General Luna to strike at American supply depots and occassionally killing any pro-American collaborators that they've come across. The guerrilla attacks also helped slow down the American advance throughout Luzon, while hampering much of their operations in Visayas and Mindanao as well. It was not until the 1902 Battle of Tacloban between a reinforced 50,000 American soldiers against under 32,000 Filipino rebels that the Americans finally won another major battle after constantly coming under guerrilla attacks. Yet, the casualty rates of the US military had started to reach 10,000, mainly due to disease and complications related to their wounds by 1902." From 'The Role of Foreign Volunteers in the Philippine-American War'

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(1) What Mitteleuropa was supposed to achieve.

(2) The OTL Beiyang Army that Yuan Shikai commanded was one of the best trained Chinese armies to have been fielded.

(3) Japan becoming a major influential power in China also occurred IOTL, only this time around they don't have the 21 Demands to issue.

(4) What Yuan did IOTL, though there was significant opposition to his ascension as Emperor.

(5) Based on an unproven rumor of Antonio Luna's fling with Ysidra Cojuangco.

(6) It was extremely difficult to find the list of the Prime Ministers of the Korean Empire since there was a large gap between the period when Shim Soon-taek was in power from August 1 to December 10, 1987, and when Han Kyu-seol took power in 1905 of OTL.

TURN 004: CLASH OF WORLDS

Philippines - A Battleground of Civilizations

By late 1901, the conflict inside the Philippines had grown more dangerous as the American government had steadily began to increase the number of soldies being deployed into this troubled hotspot. Initially, the US Army only had over 126,000 soldiers fighting the Filipino rebels, but other areas within the Philippines had also been affected by the revolt as well. Even President McKinley's plea in his letter that he sent to Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II was ignored by the Turkish government (1), especially in light of increased Ottoman diplomatic overtures to the Japanese Empire and the Pan-Asian cause that they're propagating. McKinley's plea for Sultan Abdulhamid II to issue a fatwa to the Philippine Moro Muslim rebels to not resist the American occupation of the Philippines had apparently fallen on deaf ears, as the Sulu Sultanate rightly pointed out that it was already a sovereign state before the American conflict in the Philippines had began. Additionally, the presence of the Boxer exiles in the Philippines also created another kind of socio-political confusion and headache, when it became apparent that the Boxer exiles are picking fights with long established families that share their blood and heritage. Cao Futian, the exiled leader of his band of exiled rebels, had also played a role in the class conflict that defined the early 1900s inside the Philippines, with the pogroms launched against those same Chinese merchant families. On one occassion, three Boxer exiles had entered the town of Paniqui in Tarlac and looted the home of a Hokkien-speaking family that traced their lineage to Kho Giok Hwan, or Xuyuhuan in modern Mandarin Chinese. (2) The Boxers, who mostly spoke Mandarin, with a few minority exiles speaking Cantonese and Hokkien as well, demanded money from that family, but refused. As a result, the exiled Boxers slaughtered them and took most of their money. As the now discovered Cojuangco family were also long standing Catholics, and the Boxers's own anti-Christian sentiment as a result of numerous Christian missionaries carrying out their work inside China, the class conflict between the Boxer exiles in the Chinese Filipino families also had a religious angle in it.

Within the US Army however, racial tensions between the predominantly white soldiers and their black counterparts had never been cordial, primarily due to the well established prejudices at this time period. Out of the 7,000 African-American soldiers that served in the US Army, over 800 of them would defect to the Philippine side, giving this conflict a much more confusing side to it. Yet, within the Philippines, there were a few non-Tagalog minority groups that actually joined the American side, eager to prove their loyalty to them. The Kapampangan ethnic group was deeply split between those who supported a unified Philippine state, and those who prefer to become independent. The ones that opposed a unified Philippines had joined the informally built Philippine Scouts, and those soldiers were often targeted for torture and summary execution. The African-American deserters that defected to the Philippine side was led by an obscure Floridan corporal by the name of David Fagen. (3) Fagen, who eventually became known for his advocacy to resettle much of America's black population in the Philippines, made his mark by participating in ambushes and attracting the attention of General Antonio Luna himself. Pleased with what he saw as a walking source of knowledge of American military practices, tactics, strategies, and traditions, General Luna would promote Fagen to the rank of Captain and gave him the task of helping to train the next batch of Filipino soldiers, though Fagen would work alongside the Pan-Asian volunteers that have arrived from Japan to the Philippines. It is also worth noting that Japan did not yet have any contacts with African independence leaders until the 1940s, when class and ethnic consciousness had awakened the populations of Africa and the rest of Asia to the reality of white colonialism, and have started their struggle. Still, the guerrilla campaigns that have forced the McKinley administration to send more troops to the Philippine quagmire would bear an unexpected fruit when Japan would make a similar attempt to intervene in the Philippines with its own soldiers, precipitating the hostile animosity between the United States and Japan that eventually led to the Japanese-American War of 1904-07.

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Excerpts from "The South African Ulcer: Britain and the Boer Nightmare"
by: Hendryk Mulder
Springbok Publishing Company, released on July 2016

Chapter Four: All Out Attack

The preparations for an all out British offensive into the two Boer Republics were constantly delayed by the Boer guerrilla raids on their supply lines, especially the railway lines that connected the Cape Colony to Rhodesia through Bechuanaland. Both sides were aware of the imminent British offensive into those Boer republics, though in the case of the Boers, they took the necessary precautions to fortify the supply routes that they used to bring in the necessary reinforcements. Between January and June of 1901, the British focused mostly on bringing in those reinforcements to South Africa, including the much needed artillery pieces and the much needed Maxim machine guns and other artillery pieces the British Army needed. On the other hand, the Boers had lacked any kind of machine gun needed to defend their positions against any incoming British position, which did play a key role in the much vaunted Limpopo-Tugela Offensive launched on June 22nd, 1901. (4) In that offensive alone, the British army now had over 630,000 soldiers under arms, of which a few of them were recruited from the colonies. Moreover, a small number of Portuguese military officers were present as observers in South Africa on the British side, as well as a few American officers interested in counter-offensive and counter-insurgency operations. The Portuguese officers that showed up, included the veteran of the Angola and Mozambique campaigns named Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Cabral Couceiro. Though only a captain prior to the events of the Second Boer War, Couceiro would eventually be promoted to Major after he personally saved the life of General Redvers Buller during the first phase of the Tugela Theater by shooting at the Boer soldier attempting to kill the officer leading the British infantry across the Tugela River. However, his promotion was done under the supervision of the other British and Portuguese officers that were present at the British camp a few miles away from the battlefield, and it was eventually recognized and confirmed by the Portuguese royal government.

The Limpopo Theater of this offensive was much more difficult, as the Boers had inflicted significant damage to a large number of colonial troops leading the charge against them. Francois-Louis Lessard, one of the colonial officers that led the advance into the Boer positions inside the first Boer defense line at Sandbult, was wounded in action by July 7th. Much of the other colonial officers that surrounded the wounded Lessard, protected him with their lives, and as a result, Lessard was able to retreat away from Sandbult, giving the Boer armies their first victory during the Limpopo Theater of the conflict, but among many other victories they've won. However, another thrust came from the British position at Mafeking, forcing the Boer armies to stretch their forces to the breaking point as the British military leadership communicated with their front line officers constantly by messengers riding horses between the front lines and the officers' camp. Additionally, the British in the Tugela theater of the offensive had advanced a bit quicker than their counterparts on the Limpopo Theater, though it was a slow march all the same. There is a major reason why the Limpopo-Tugela Offensive was one of the longest offensives the British had carried out during the Second Boer War: the Boers' constant harassments and raids against the advancing British forces had forced men like Buller to adopt the strategy of chomping down on the territories that they've taken by establishing new attack positions, as well as creating new supply lines that are guarded by other colonial troops. The slow and steady approach that General Buller and the other British generals had adopted for this increasingly three pronged attack on the two Boer republics had paid off in their favor, and it also helped minimize their losses in the supply trains as well. On the other hand, the British army also sent troops to the borders that they shared with German Southwest Africa to prevent any foreign volunteers from joining the Boer cause, although there were secret ways that other foreigners seeking the thrill of fighting the British could get into South Africa. However, the increasing casualties taken by the British forces involved in the Limpopo-Tugela Offensive resulted in Field Marshal Paul Methuen's decision to expand on the medical corps that are attached to the British forces in the region. Field hospitals were built, often far away from the front lines and were staffed by female nurses and foreign doctors. In August of 1901, King Carlos I of Portugal had offered to send around 200 Portuguese Army medics to help their British counterparts in South Africa as a gesture of goodwill for the diplomatic overtures that King George V of England had done when he came to power.

It is also worth noting that prior to the 1901 British offensives, the British were constantly on the defensive as they kept waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. In addition, they also kept an eye on the 1900 British elections, though either outcome would not have any influence on the military situation in South Africa. It was also important to add that the additional work done on the railways throughout both South Africa and Bechuanaland also played a role in the eventual success of the Limpopo-Tugela Offensive, but the British forces were not in a hurry to defeat the Boer commandos. They knew that as time went on, they would eventually have the advantage in both personnel and supplies, something that the Boers were well aware of. Additionally, the commandos' families opted to join them instead of staying in their homes, for fear of being massacred by the British or vengeful African natives itching to get back at them for the Slangrivier Massacre that their compatriots had committed. The slow march through the two Boer republics also had an effect on British logistics, as they were able to build up additional forward bases in areas that they've occupied. Luckily for the British forces, the Boer families that ran off to join the commandos had forgotten to burn down their own homes, but they did take all the food that they've stored and donated it all to the commandos, depriving the British forces of much needed food supplies as well. (5) In areas where the Boer families had abandoned their houses, they were requisitioned by British troops, who then sent in their own engineers to expand on the captured Boer houses and turned it into military bases. That such an act also became controversial, as those makeshift bases also included blockhouses that oversaw the security of those captured Boer houses.

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France - Unresolved Anger

The infamous Dreyfus Affair, in which a French Army captain by the name of Alfred Dreyfus, had been a scandal that rocked French political affairs. It exposed the deep rift between the secularists and the traditionalists, with the latter consisting of reactionaries and violent anti-Semites. Though every time Captain Dreyfus was tried and sentenced to 10 years on the charge of sending military secrets to the German Embassy, it turned out to not only be baseless, but that they have already captured the real spy who was responsible. Yet, the French republican faction had grown irritated at the French military's tradition of holding such anti-Semitic beliefs. The legacy of this infamous affair was that France under the Republican government had to reform much of its judicial system, both in the civilian and military areas, as its main core of the problem was not just judicial in nature, but in prejudices. Although Dreyfus had accepted the pardon in 1899, he still felt that his honor could never be regained. Furthermore, the Dreyfus Affair had become intertwined with the bigger struggle that faced the global Jewish community, as the anti-Semitic pogroms that have been a part of European life was now becoming more dangerous. Theodor Herzl, one of the founders of the Zionist ideology, proposed to Dreyfus that he should seek asylum in the Ottoman Empire, where the Jews there have been treated rather well. In October of 1901, Dreyfus attempted to sneak out of his Paris home and into the Ottoman Embassy, but was captured by French police. As punishment for violating the terms of his house arrest, Dreyfus would be exiled to the island of Madagascar, where French colonial authorities would be responsible for his incarceration there. Madagascar was where Captain Dreyfus would serve the remainder of his sentence there, and he would spend the last years of his life in Madagascar, without ever being exonerated for the crimes that he did not commit. However, Dreyfus's exile to Madagascar also triggered the collapse of President Emile Loubet's government, triggering one of the most hotly contested elections in France's history.

In the aftermath of President Loubet's government collapsing and with it, the resignation of several ministers connected to the Loubet cabinet, the November 1901 elections was dominated by Dreyfus's violation of his conditions of house arrest, which the leader of Action Francaise Charles Maurras had used for propaganda purposes. Additionally, Maurras also began to criticize the Republican factions for their perceived 'anti-nationalist perfidy' regarding the calls for Dreyfus's exoneration, although when asked about a possible restoration of the monarchy in France, Maurras was torn between supporting the Bourbons and throwing his support behind the Bonapartist faction. Although the Bourbons had the bigger claim on the currently defunct French throne, they were weakened by the two factions within the movement: the Legitimists and the Orleanists. The Bonapartists on the other hand, was widely reviled because its last Emperor of the French had been on the throne when France lost the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 that led to not only the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, but the rise and formation of the German Empire as well. However, the Republicans themselves were becoming more vulnerable to Socialist and Syndicalist infiltration from the emerging left wing parties that have been formed in France. The right-wing factions on the other hand, had not only called for the restoration of the French monarchy, but also called for France to be purged of so-called subversives: leftists, liberals, Jews, and other enemies they deeply disliked. Even more significantly, Charles Maurras's Action Francaise would throw their support behind Jacques Piou, one of the moderate conservatives that was running in the election for the seat of Prime Minister. Yet, in addition to the 1901 election, Maurras convinced Piou that if he was elected as Prime Minister, Piou should call for a referendum on whether or not France should remain a Republic or restore the monarchy. Before Piou could deliver on the promise of such a referendum, tragedy would strike. On November 12th, Jaques Piou was shot by an assassin connected to the Radical Party while on his way to vote in the election for the first round in Paris. Furious at the tragedy, vigilantes connected to Action Francaise would assassinate Emile Combes three days later, along with violent attacks on suspected leftists in the regions of Brittany, Picardy, and Gascony.

Fearing that the crisis would escalate out of control, the headless French government was powerless as several French Army officers would launch a coup against it. The fact that there was no clear winner in the 1901 election had made it easier for the French generals to take control of the government, with Maxime Weygand becoming the interim leader, until new elections could be organized. The Hundred Twenty-Day Junta, as it was now known in France, had occurred from November 21st until sometime in March of 1902, was the only period in French history when a military junta had temporarily ruled France, notwithstanding the first coup back in 1799 that propelled Napoleon Bonaparte to power. It was during the Hundred Twenty-Day Junta that Marechal Weygand presided over one of France's most vicious political purges ever seen until the 1940s. Within those hundred twenty days, over 21,000 suspected leftists were arrested, including the French sympathizers of known Belgian assassin Jean-Baptiste Sipido. Unfortunately, Maurice Sarrail, who was among the few openly socialist military officer within the French Army, had managed to escape from among the purges and would only resurface in French Algeria in March of 1902 as he and a few lower ranking officers with socialist and syndicalist sympathies now called on the French people to revolt and overthrow the junta. The attempted Marseille Revolution of March 1902 had not only ended in failure, but it alerted Marechal Weygand to who his true enemy really is. Yet, at the same time, Marechal Weygand's inability to suppress additional leftist revolts throughout France had now escalated where civil war was inevitable. (6)

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"The French Civil War of 1902-07 was the first civil war in the 20th century that broke out over political and ideological differences. The mishandling of the Dreyfus Affair had led to such fury and rage from within the French reactionary factions that now coalesced around Action Francaise's Charles Maurras and Marechal Maxime Weygand as the prime leaders of the reactionaries. Yet, these reactionaries were also backed by three major royalist factions: the Legitimists, which remained faithful to the idea of an absolutist French monarchy, the Orléansists, which favored a constitutional monarchy as the best system for France and to adopt certain trappings from the British constitutional monarchy, and the Bonapartists, which traced their lineage to Napoleon Bonaparte. The royalists were the backbone of the Reactionary factions, although their support among the general French public was constrained to the rural areas of France only. All of the royalist factions did unite around the idea of France keeping much of their colonies, but as the civil war dragged on, financial expenditures were becoming more prominent. Since France needed more financial aid in their civil war, they had no choice but to sell off some of their colonies that are extremely far flung. The French West Indies for example, was placed for sale by the pro-Republican Council of National Emergency, for over 35 million US dollars. The only nation that was interested in buying the French West Indies was the United States. (7) Not only that, the McKinley Administration would also express their interest in buying other French colonies in Oceania and North America as well, but Britain had beaten the Americans to the punch with the French cession of Saint Pierre and Michelon to the British Empire, which then placed it under the jurisdiction of the Colony of Newfoundland. Those sales were conducted in 1903, at a time when the civil war had escalated a bit further, but by the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908, France was facing an economic crisis that threatened the economic stability of the European continent. Luckily and surprisingly for France, Japan was interested in acquiring French Indochina, as well as the Leased Territory of Guangzhouwan, though the other colonial powers in the region, namely Great Britain and to a lesser extent, Germany and even Thailand for that matter, had wanted to take control of French Indochina as well. (8) In May of 1908, the French government would cede Guangzhouwan to Japan, in exchange for Japanese financial aid in restoring France's economy. However, the French Civil War also affected other European powers as well, especially Russia, which relied on French investments in its economy. By 1903, the United States would replace France as the number one investor in the Russian economy, and American corporations have established themselves inside Russian territory.

Both factions inside the French Civil War started off in such economic disadvantage that there were numerous individuals that wanted to finance the war efforts. For the royalist and reactionary sides, it was primarily German banks and businessmen that financed the royalist war effort as a way of preventing the Republicans from winning. British financiers on the other hand, also joined in the financing of the royalist war effort, as King George V had wanted European stability more than any other monarch in the world. For the Republican side, American corporations also funded the Republican war effort, though the American finance and corporate sector were bitterly divided on ideological grounds. Bankers such as Jacob Schiff had decided to bankroll the French Republican war effort as a way of getting revenge on the reactionaries over the Dreyfus affair. Shockingly enough, all of the five major houses of the Rothschild banking family had also decided to finance the Republican war effort for reasons similar to that of Schiff's. (9) However, JP Morgan, the Rockefellers and Astors had bankrolled the reactionary faction's war effort, due to their fear and hatred of the leftists that have come to dominate the French Republican side. It is also worth noting that the Astors and Rockefellers also had business dealings with the Tsarist government as well. John Thayer, whose business grew with the Russian government's plea for assistance in double tracking the Trans-Siberian Railway, had doubled his profits from the construction of several new rail tracks in the Russian Far East, as well as connecting the city of Vladivostok to Magadan. Using those profits made in the Russian Far East, Thayer would invest that in the construction of new arsenals in French North Africa. Unlike the Second Boer War though, the French Civil War opened up new opportunities for foreign volunteers to join through legal channels, instead of illegal channels as it happened in the Second Boer War. Royalists from all over the world, including Latin America, where factions loyal to the Latin American pretenders like the loyalists of the Mexican pretender Agustin de Iturbide and the loyalists that were embittered by the downfall of the last Brazilian Emperor. (10) On the republican side, socialists, syndicalists, and anarchists of all kinds, had also joined up, including the colonial volunteers from France's overseas colonies. Those foreign volunteers would be organized according to their place of origin, followed by the ideological strain of their unit." From 'Bloodied Lily: the French Civil War', released by France24 on September 15, 2017.

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United States - The Second McKinley Administration

By the time that the US Army had become more accustomed to the sluggish advance through northern Luzon, there were more problems that required the President's attention. The long line of maritime logistics needed to bring in troops from one end of the Atlantic to one end of the Pacific was one of the most difficult problems that the McKinley had to solve, and while shipbuilding activities were mainly done in the Atlantic coast, he quickly realized the importance of the American Pacific as a supply hub in which he could bring in more ships and soldiers to the Philippines. To this end, another round of diplomatic meetings between American and Russian diplomats were launched between 1901 and 1903, when President McKinley ended the diplomatic talks with the Russians because of the Kishinev and Slonim Pogroms. Although the President was obliged to order American businessmen to cease their economic and commercial activities inside Russia after the pogroms had ended, many of these very same businessmen chose to ignore the order. Consequently though, McKinley could not punish the businessmen without triggering a backlash from within America's business community. Still, they did eventually pay over $700,000 in fines for ignoring the President's orders to cease their activities in Russia. Additionally, the growth of America's Chinese population that contributed to the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had now expanded beyond the simple exclusion of the Chinese people. The Asiatic Exclusion Act of 1903, which now replaced the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, was one of the harshest anti-Asian laws that have been passed down in the American Congress. Unlike the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Asiatic Exclusion Act of 1903 had barred all immigrants of Asian origin from immigrating to the United States. (11) Additionally, the supplementary law that was passed down, namely the Asiatic Expulsion Act, had given state and municipal governments broad powers to forcibly expel all Asian migrants from the continental United States. Those infamous, racist laws that have been preserved, was not repealed until 1995, and those racist bills came under the White America Policy bill.

The American Pacific Coast subsequently became a hub of economic activity as the military necessities of the conflict in the Philippines took up more military expenditures, and after 1902, the French Civil War forced the American public to build even more factories and arsenals where they could create their own weapons for both American and French use. Most significantly, the state of California, Oregon, and Washington have pleaded with the federal government for additional funds needed to create more jobs in the shipbuilding sector. Yet, the McKinley administration was slow to respond to the needs of the American West, as communications were slow at this time. When France descended into civil war over the reactions to the mishandling of the Dreyfus Affair, the US government feared that the instability of the French mainland would spread into its colonies. Luckily, the French Republican government that is fighting against the reactionaries were more than willing to sell much of its colony as they needed extra cash to fund their war effort. US Secretary of State John Hay, who kept his position when McKinley was re-elected, had approached the French Republican government on talks of purchasing the entirety of the French West Indies from France. While Hay's French republican counterpart agreed to the sale, the price that the French Republican government asked was around $35 million dollars. Hay was instructed by McKinley to raise the price to $37 million, before settling for $36.5 million instead. Though the McKinley administration was successful in buying the French West Indies, they failed to purchase Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which ended up being bought by the British instead. However, when it came to the issue of France's Oceanian colonies, the Secretary of Treasury warned that the funds that would be used to purchase all of the French Oceanian territories would be better used instead for expanding and developing the three American Pacific states as a new manufacturing hub for the military. However, it was under McKinley's successor Francis Cockrell who would eventually push for a two ocean navy program (12) that called for the establishment of three additional US naval bases in the Pacific coast of the continental United States, plus the creation of a forward base in what was then Hawaii Territory.

However, it was US Vice President Theodore Roosevelt who was behind much of America's growing progressive legislations that was unfortunately rolled back by the NatSynd dictatorship, such as increased immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Yet, the Asiatic Exclusion and Expulsion Acts had become rather controversial, in that the Yellow Peril propaganda had reached its zenith. From the Japanese involvement in their aid of the Filipino rebels during the conflict in the Philippines to the continued Chinese immigration, hardline extremists on the right had called for curtailing Asian immigration in favor of domestic natalist policies that could strengthen the American family. Although immigration from northern and western Europe continued apace, the succeeding American presidencies from McKinley, until the Van Horn Moseley dictatorship had to also scale back immigration from their preferred regions of Europe, as less northern and western Europeans are emigrating in this time period.

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Japan - The Path to a War No One Wanted

The events of the Philippine-American War had greatly alarmed the Japanese government to the danger of American encroachment into the wider Asia-Pacific region, despite the initial friendliness that both America and Japan shared together. Yet, the collapse of America's Open Door Policy regarding China, plus Japan's double dealing with both the Boxer rebels and the renegade generals that formed the Mutual Pact for the Defense of the Southeast was surprisingly not discovered until when Japan and the United States eventually went to war against each other over the worsened situation in the Philippines. More importantly, France's descent into civil war had opened a golden opportunity for Japan to eye the region of French Indochina as a suitable place to expand their influence. However, Japanese naval officers were keenly aware of the growing power of the American navy in the Philippines and proposed to Emperor Meiji to authorize the expansion of Japan's fleet before they could get involved in the conflict against the United States. Additionally, the Imperial Japanese Army also increased the number of soldiers to over 1.3 million, though of those numbers, over 655,000 of them were in reserve, and the remainder were in active service. (13) Japanese military officers also played a role in helping to train and modernize the armies of a few independent nations that remained uncolonized. Siam (now modern Thailand) had been one of those states that resumed its diplomatic relations with Japan, and Japanese military officers like Maresuki Nogi was posted to the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok, where he was infuriated by the presence of the so-called Karayuki-san, or Japanese female prostitutes that were sent overseas for various 'favors' and 'work' done in major Asian cities and Western colonies elsewhere. Initially, General Maresuki wanted to shut down the network of the Karayuki-sans, as it denigrated the honor of the Japanese woman, until he was told by a local Siamese official that those Karayuki-sans often came from burakumin families. (14) Even so, General Maresuki suggested that those Karayuki-sans could instead be sent to the Philippines as female settlers where they could marry local men, or immigrant males that settled there.

Labor disputes between workers and their employers had been present in Japan, prior to the rise of Shumei Okawa, who became one of the fathers of Japanese left-wing movements that became influential within Japanese society. (15) before, the workers managed to resolve much of their minor disputes with their employers, but after 1904, many more labor related disputes and strikes would break out. However, one of the main figures of Japanese leftism, Shumei Okawa, had carefully studied much of the works of known leftist figures like Karl Marx, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Pyotr Kropotkin, and many others. He believed that left-wing ideologies could be carefully tailored to suit his main preferred ideology of Pan-Asian cooperation, especially in areas of anti-colonialist rhetoric. In one of the essays that Okawa wrote, he argued that as the newest empire in Asia, Japan must become a different kind of empire from the traditional empires of the past. Given its long standing ambitions for regional supremacy in Asia, it was difficult to reconcile imperial goals with Pan-Asian rhetoric. Another influential left-wing Japanese writer, Sen Katayama, had initially opposed any kind of conflict between Japan and another nation, until a debate with Shumei Okawa had resulted in his gradual conversion towards left-wing anti-colonialist struggle for the colonized nations of the world. However, that conversion was difficult to start with, as Katayama, like many other leftists facing their own ideological turmoil, could not reconcile his political differences altogether. Even more troubling for Japanese leftists, there was also hunger for their own territorial expansion as well, which would have been seen as hypocritical on their own part as well. Later generations of Japanese leftists and left-wing nationalists would continue to argue about the ideological animosities between Japanese imperialism and Japanese leftism as something unnatural. The Japanese military on the other hand, tried its best to remain aloof from political intrigues, but some officers who traveled to the Philippines as a part of the foreign volunteer contingent had been exposed to the anti-colonial struggle of the Philippine rebels seeking to stop the Americans from conquering them. Their ultimate challenge however, would come when over 15 Japanese warships attempted to sail to the port of Aparri, along with 150,000 soldiers, as a show of force against the American forces in the region in 1904. The US Navy, confident of its victory against a non-white nation, commenced a naval attack on the incoming Japanese ships, forcing Admiral Ito Sukeyuki to retaliate. The Battle of Batanes Island as it was now called, resulted in a stalemate, but a Japanese strategic victory as they were able to land most of the surviving soldiers into the port of Aparri, triggering the conflict between Japan and the United States.

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(1) IOTL, President McKinley's plea to Sultan Abdulhamid II to issue a fatwa to the Muslims of the Sulu Sultanate and Bangsamoro had been successful in bringing the two entities in question on the American side.

(2) Kho Giok Hwan, or as we now know it today, Clan Cojuangco.

(3) The only known African-American US soldier who deserted his unit to join the Filipino revolutionaries, it is not known if he was successfully captured. Had he been caught, racial tensions between whites and blacks within the US Army would have ruptured, but not broken permanently.

(4) As far as I know, the Boer commandos didn't carry any kind of machine guns during their conflict with the British. They were only armed with rifles and artillery pieces.

(5) Thereby avoiding the PR nightmare that was the internment of the Boer families, which was summed up by Emily Hobhouse's photo of a starving Boer girl in her deathbed.

(6) This is the reverse situation of the scenario and events that led to the OTL 1936-39 Spanish Civil War.

(7) Given that the Monroe Doctrine would still be in force, the US might naturally be eager to take control of the entirety of the Caribbean. Their possession of Puerto Rico and protectorate of Cuba is the definite proof of that.

(8) The 1893 Franco-Siamese War had resulted in Siam losing much of Laos and bits of what is now western Cambodia. In OTL 1907, Siam would regain Chanthaburi and Trat.

(9) James de Rothschild was the head of the French Rothschild branch, while Karl Rothschild founded what was then the Neapolitan Rothschild branch that eventually became the Italian branch. Solomon Rothschild founded the Austrian branch, while Nathan founded the British branch, and Amschel took over his father's Frankfurt, or the German branch of House Rothschild. The entire Rothschild family's reasons for funding the French Republican war effort was primarily due to pragmatic and ethnic reasons: the French Republic was slowly becoming a beacon for French's Jewish minority, and also because of Dreyfus as well.

(10) The Latin American royal houses are still alive and kicking today.

(11) The Yellow Peril propaganda ITTL would be much worse than IOTL, which would now be combined with TTL's so-called Brown Plague. Think the OTL White Australia Policy turned up to 13.

(12) Given the difficulty of moving warships at that time before the Panama Canal would be built, it isn't surprising that it will take until the 1930s for a two ocean navy to become a reality.

(13) This number was based on the estimated number of soldiers that were deployed during the OTL Russo-Japanese War.

(14) Karayuki-sans are basically the forerunner to the much more infamous comfort women that were adducted or tricked into working as war prostitutes for the Japanese military IOTL.

(15) Okawa initially flirted with socialism IOTL as well, but unlike TTL, he eventually became a nationalist writer and a sympathizer of Pan-Asianism. ITTL, his experience with socialism, along with Pan-Asianism, would become the bedrock of a Pan-Asian anti-colonialist struggle.

a) I'll probably address that in the upcoming update, but the main weakness of guerrilla warfare is that eventually the army engaged in such warfare would run out of supplies and constantly be forced to carry out attacks with less and less cohesion. The fact that the Boer families chose to flee to the hills instead of staying backfires on the commandos, as they won't have any source of supplies to obtain from. Britain on the other hand, while it may seem that they're taking their time with the conflict despite the advantage in men and materiel that they have, there's also the logistical issues that they needed to solve if they're aiming for a huge offensive in three directions into the Boer republics.

b) Most likely true, and let's not forget that the US of 1900 isn't the same as the US of even 1941, let alone 1936. They don't have a current two ocean navy, and the Panama Canal has yet to be built. That means that the two ocean navy wouldn't be feasible until the 1930s, both TTL and OTL. Likewise, the US Army at this point isn't as strong as the US Army of WW1 since they're still in the phase of the late American Civil War. 

c) I would have to address the issue regarding China, but from what we can tell, the Qing ruling dynasty was overthrown by the same generals that were fighting the Boxers. However, I would suspect that a new government would be hard pressed to retake much of its lost territories, now that Mongolia (which ITTL now includes both Outer and Inner Mongolia) is free, and the Uyghurs would have a separate state. Given that the Second Boer War and now the civil war in France is taking up the UK's attention, it is going to be more problematic that the border situation between Tibet and British India would be unresolved, but Tibet would become independent as well.

d) The House of Orleans would most likely to be the kind of French ruling dynasty that the British would rather see on the throne instead of the absolutist Legitimists or the nightmare that was the Bonapartists. The German financing of the royalist faction would also be helpful for propaganda purposes in that the French Republicans would declare the royalists as German puppets that sold out Alsace-Lorraine, but from a security perspective, any form of instability within the western borders between France and Germany would be more of a liability to the Kaiser than the divided French factions. Given that the Republicans would also paint the royalists as raging anti-Semites as well (let's not forget that Charles Maurras and Action Francaise were certainly anti-Dreyfusards), they would be more willing to allow Jews and other minorities into its political system.

In the event that the Orleanists end up on the throne, they would basically copy the same constitutional monarchy that Britain has, but they would also have to recreate the various French appanages that existed before the French Revolution abolished them. The heir to the throne if the Orleanists become the ruling dynasty would receive the title of Dauphin d'Orleans, or Dauphin of Orleans. If the Legitimists win, then the heir would have the title of Dauphin d'Anjou, or Dauphin of Anjou. If the Bonapartists win, the heir would instead be granted the title of Prince Imperial, although said Prince Imperial could either be granted the title of Dauphin of Burgundy, Dauphin of Aquitaine, or Dauphin of Normandy (the British possession of the Channel Islands would be a major headache, but there could be some compromise). 

e) True to an extent, but just as the US of the 1900s isn't the same as the US of 1941 or 1936 for that matter, Japan of the 1900s isn't the same as the Japan of 1937 or even 1941. For one thing, Japan doesn't have any control of Korea at all. While they do have a shorter logistical line and possible support from the Filipino rebels, the Japanese also wouldn't have the financial support of Jacob Schiff (he'd be too busy funding the French Republican side to care about Japan, and since it's the US the Japanese would presumably fight, he wouldn't be able to fund the Japanese war efforts anyways). In addition, Germany and the US don't have any hostile relations, and would be fools to sacrifice that in exchange for propping up Japan. Likewise, the British would be torn between showing support for Japan and siding with the United States, even if they're improving ties with one another. Technically, the French Civil War might become the factor in how and why the US and Japan would have a harder time fighting against one another (after all, money is extremely important when waging war).

The logistical challenge that the US would face during the Philippine-American War will be a handicap that hurts them in the short run, though not sure how much in the long run. However, if war did break out between the US and Japan, it might also depend on Russia's stance since if the Russians could give the US navy access to their ports, they could easily attack Hokkaido from Sakhalin or Vladivostok, but that runs the risk of dragging Russia into the war between the US and Japan. Technically, they would stay neutral in this case. And as I have given some hints, Japan would become a bit more interested in French Indochina if either French factions end up getting far more bankrupt.

Plus at this point the Panama Canal is still in the middle of construction, and won't be finished for a while. Yet, Japan doesn't have a large economy yet, so that might be a disadvantage. But they would have the support of the Philippine rebels all the same. However, there might also be another path for Japan to end up annexing Korea. As hinted in the last update, Korea now has political tensions between the Gaehwa Party, which is basically a liberal-progressive political party that is more or less a pro-Japanese party, which is opposed by the conservatives that are pro-Russian. IOTL, Korea became overtly pro-Russian until Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War that paved the way for Japan's annexation of Korea. ITTL, if that political tension eventually erupts into a civil war, it may end up becoming a proxy conflict between Russia and Japan, giving us the proxy version of the OTL Russo-Japanese War. 

About the British defeat of the Boers, I know that a speedier victory would be in the cards, but at the same time they're also thinking of how to avoid getting involved in another Boer war in the future. I'm also setting TTL's South Africa to be a small copy of OTL Canada in terms of the constant complaining about multilingualism as official policy. In the case of the future Dominion of South Africa, imagine the non-Boer population having to learn Afrikaans as a second language in addition to English.

There is also a psychological angle to the whole slow and steady approach, even if the British have the advantage. I would have to cite the Spanish Civil War as an example of how a war of attrition eventually saps the morale of the defender, in this example that I'm using, the support for the Spanish Republic declined as the war dragged on. Going back to the Second Boer War, this approach could possibly result in the decline of support for the two Boer republics, and as mentioned in one of the earlier updates, the Boer massacre of the KwaZulus in Slangrivier eventually comes back to haunt them, as the indigenous Africans would now be itching to pay the Boers back, essentially siding with the British de facto. I would also say that relations between Anglo-South Africans and Afrikaners would remain frosty, and there would constantly be a push for the independence of the Boer republics, or a unified Volkstaat.

To provide an example, OTL Canada's high school students dread at the idea of taking French as a mandatory second language course from Grades 8 to 10, and making it optional starting in Grade 11. Transplant that to TTL's South Africa where as you've said, the majority black population would be angry at the thought of having to learn Afrikaans as a mandatory second or third language in addition to English, while the Anglo-South Africans may somehow be irritated at such a thing. One other thing too would be that the tensions between the mercantile Anglo-South Africans and the agrarian Afrikaners would be the major headache of South Africa.