Balance of Power

Wait so a independent Texas, that always seems nice to see.

Europe and the Balance of Power, Part I, 1812-1827

In 1812, Viscount Castlereagh is passed over for the leadership of the House of Commons and it is instead given to Charles Bathurst (and later George Canning). This frees Castlereagh having to support Lord Sidmouth's Six Acts in order to retain his position as Foreign Secretary, and instead of slowly withdrawing after the Aix-la-Chapelle Congress, Castlereagh and the United Kingdom maintain a strong presence in the Concert of Europe. Castlereagh is a decisive, intelligent personality with a strong dislike for absolutism, and the other Great Powers welcome the protocols he authors for the Congress of Vienna and it is him we thank for the modern concept of “balance of power”. In addition, Castlereagh had the ear of Alexander I of Russia, though he and the other leaders were suspicious of his religious zeal, and Austria and Prussia also of his seeming Jacobin sympathies.
Klemens von Metternich, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, oddly initially allies himself with Castlereagh. Even though balance of power means the prevention of another Napoleonic chaos in Europe to both powerful men, their ideas on implementation are very different. Metternich is a strong reactionary, intent upon stifling any republican or nationalistic tendency anywhere, whereas Castlereagh is a staunch anti-interventionist who sees the United Kingdom’s obligation to the Vienna Congress resolutions as supporting the territorial boundaries but not political ones. Castlereagh’s relationship with Alexander, though nominally an absolute monarch like the Austrian Kaiser, did not help him in Metternich’s eyes. This difference of opinion eventually leads to the two becoming more and more at odds at later Congresses, most notably Troppau where Castlereagh is able to convince Alexander to denounce Metternich’s protocols for military intervention in other states.


In 1820, Colonel Rafael del Riego y Nuñez leads a mutiny in Cádiz that turns into national revolution which by March leads to King Ferdinand VII restoring the 1812 constitution under duress. Liberals in Portugal, receiving encouragement by the successes of their political brethren in Spain also start a revolution that brings John VI home from Brazil, where he had fled from the invasions of Bonapartist Spain in 1807. John VI’s plight is not nearly so difficult, as the British Navy, which had been in charge since the wars with Bonapartist Spain, helps John VI stay in power though events require him to send both his wife Carlota and second son, Michael, into exile in 1823. When John dies in 1828 his son Peter, who had declared the Empire of Brazil in 1822 after his father left, is abdicates as King of Portugal in favour of his daughter Maria shortly after taking the crown.


When the unrest in Portugal and Spain spreads to the peninsular parts of both the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Castlereagh is adamant in his policy of non-intervention. His relationship with Tsar Alexander I since Aix-la-Chapelle and Carlsbad is sufficient to keep Alexander in a more liberal frame of mind and out of Metternich’s orbit. As a result, Metternich’s desire to answer the calls of the two Italian monarchs was stifled. Ferdinand I and Charles Felix have no choice but to accept the constitutions they or they regents had granted to prevent full-scale revolt.

Metternich views this as insupportable, and when Ferdinand VII appeals to him in 1822 for help in restoring his power, Metternich calls for it to be added to the issues to be discussed in Verona that fall.

Austria and Prussia, absolute monarchies, are for intervention in Spain and restoring Ferdinand to absolute status instead of the constitutional monarch he had agreed to become. Castlereagh and the United Kingdom were against any intervention in Spain, as was Alexander, who had remained in Castlereagh’s orbit since Troppau. The French plenipotentiaries, Montmorency and Chateaubriand, go against the directives of Louis XVIII and his Prime Minister Villèle, and push for France to be allowed to intervene in Spain, trying to gain prestige for the Ultra-Royalist faction. They are humiliated, however, when both Castlereagh and Alexander denounce their plans as “trying to resurrect the shade of Napoleon”. Back home, this humiliation leads to political recriminations and the fall of the Villèle ministry and the restoration of Decazes to the post.


The Cadíz Progresista’s hold on power has never been that strong or pervasive, and their continuing attempts at a Bonapartist-like centralization angers various regions that had retained some autonomy from the Habsburg days when the Spanish crowns were all legally separate entities. In 1825 Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia declare independence from the Progresista Cortes in Madrid as the reconstituted Crown of Aragon and elect Ferdinand Karl Joseph of Austria-Este as their new king. The Progresista Cortes attempt take back Aragon, as well as further ham-fisted ventures in centralization, but in a country still devastated by the Peninsular War, this spells the end of the frail liberal coalition. Within six months, the Andalucian, Leonese, Navarrese and Basque regions have also declared independence. As battalions declare for their local governments the military support that a handful of years earlier had allowed the Progresistas to defeat the absolutists dissolves. Two years later the Castilian rump-state is forced to acknowledge the independence of Aragon, Navarre and Leon. Castile is only able to keep hold of Andalusia because of the alliance between moderate liberals and absolutists, leaving Ferdinand VII with greatly reduced powers. To satisfy the absolutist regimes of Austria, Prussia and Russia, Leon is required elect a King and they choose Leopoldo of Salerno, second youngest brother of the newly crowned King Francis I of the Two Sicilies.

Europe and the Balance of Power, Part II, 1827-1847

In April of 1827, Castlereagh is named Prime Minister when Lord Liverpool resigns after having a cerebral haemorrhage. He names George Canning as his successor as Foreign Secretary, due to former experience in the role, however Canning dies a few months later in August, the shortest term ever for any Foreign Secretary in the United Kingdom. By now, pro-Hellenic opinions in Europe has reversed the Great Powers’ opinion on Greek independence which they had formerly rejected. The Ottoman Empire, on ultimatum from Russia, had signed the Akkerman Convention regarding the Danubian Principalities and Servia and withdrew the troops sent there as a result of the Greek Revolution. When the Ottomans reject mediation by the Five Great European Powers, British, French and Russian fleets combine and destroy the Ottoman Egyptian fleet. Further fighting by the Ottomans results in France and the United Kingdom proposing an independent Greek state, to which Russia reluctantly agrees.


When unrest strikes Europe again in August 1830, as the Belgian Walloons rebell against the Dutch, Castlereagh is still Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but by the time things come to a head in December, the Tories have lost the election and Earl Grey is Prime Minister with Viscount Palmerston as the Foreign Secretary. Palmerston, however, shares many of the same views as Castlereagh with respect to the balance of power. When insurrection breaks out in the Duchy of Parma and the Duchess Marie Louise is forced to flee, her father, Emperor Francis II of Austria, demands to be able to send troops to her aid. In order to secure French acquiescence to the violation of 15 years of non-intervention, Palmerston must agree to allowing the new Belgian Parliament’s choice of king, Louis de Nemours, second son of the newly installed King Louis-Philippe of France. By 1834, however, Castlereagh is Prime Minister once again after Grey is ousted over the Irish question of appropriations and an abortive ministry by Viscount Melbourne.


When Ferdinand VII, formerly King of Spain, now only the King of Castile, dies in 1833, his brother the Infante Carlos takes the throne as Charles V. This adherence to the semi-Salic system established by Philip V of Spain was demanded of the moderate liberals by the absolutists in exchange for retaining the constitution of 1812. Ferdinand’s wife, Maria Christina, tried to convince him to revive the Sanction of Charles IV on his deathbed and she tried to use this to start a rebellion to place her daughter, Isabella on the throne. There were minor skirmishes throughout Castile, instigated by the Izquierdistas though they never amount to anything serious.


In March, 1828, Prince Michael, uncle to the 9 year old Queen Maria II, stages a coup and proclaims himself King Michael I of Portugal. Peter I of Brazil, formerly IV of Portugal and Maria’s father, abdicates his throne in 1830 and returns to Portugal to help his daughter. Unable to get help from the British or French governments due restrictions upon them by the Concert of Europe, Peter raises a private army which trains in the Azores before invading Porto in July 1832 where he remains besieged for a nearly year until he takes Lisbon in July 1833 and succeeds to quash the remaining Miguelites by that fall.
As the Belgian war for independence finally winds down, to the detriment of the Netherlands, Duchy of Limburg is created to compensate the German Confederation’s Grand Duchy of Luxembourg it’s loss of half its territory. Limburg is technically independent but is in personal union with the Dutch crown and is governed as an integral part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
At this point, Europe’s attention turns back towards North America with the arrival of Texian diplomats looking for diplomatic recognition and loans for the cash-strapped republic. Sam Houston, former president, entertains nobles across Western Europe, telling his tales of growing up with the Cherokee Nation. Even the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry eagerly await the next installment of his tales as they are serialized across Europe. In 1844 and 1846, respectively, the Republics of Río Grande and Yucatán are recognized by several European states on the coattails of burgeoning trade with Texas and the United States’ slide into tariffs and protectionism and disinterest in the outside world. France under Louis-Philippe, most especially, looks at the nascent democracies of the New World for ways to expand its influence outside of the stifling environment of the Concert of Europe.

Thanks for posting all of this.

The Rise of North America, Part II, 1849-1871

Henry Clay’s election as president of the United States was the death knell for the Jacksonian ideal of expansion and a domination of the Presidency by the Whigs until Mallard Fillmore’s handling of the Kansez-Nibraska question.

Clay’s American System had stimulated talks of a transcontinental railroad, especially after the organization of Oregon Territory from the American share of the lands of the Pacific Northwest that had formerly been held in condominium with Great Britain. However, this required enabling acts of organization to facilitate railroad land grants, legislatures to create necessary laws. Of course, this was also necessary as more and more people were illegally settling in the unorganized territory remaining from the Louisiana Purchase.

The California Gold Rush starts, but after almost 15 years of increasing autonomy and home rule, the attempts to impose greater central control in Alta California to drain taxation- and economic-related monies from the gold rush back to the central government prompted Alta California to declare independence. Attempts were made to bring it to heel but were just as toothless and unsuccessful as all the bluster against Texas, Rio Grande and Yucatan was. Since the the Mormon Migration into Mexico had settled on land granted them by Pio de Jesus Pico, Governor of Alta California, Salt Lake City supported Monterey by sending a couple of hundred militiamen to help fight for independence, but the only action they got was helping to chase a disorganized convict army that had already been routed by the Californios back across the Gila River. Nobody yet realized how strained the relationship was to become. Some adventurous Americans, but not many thanks to a solid Whig economy back home, join in with Europeans escaping the Revolutions of 1848 as well as Chileans, Mexicans and Chinese. Most Americans moving west prefered to settle in places like Salem or Portland, and those that chose to emigrate mostly headed north to the Columbia and New Caledonia colonies of Britain. Still, the 150,000 new residents changed Alta California dramatically and set it off on the road to being the successful multicultural nation that today is often referred to as "The Argentina of the North".

In the United States, tensions over the place of slavery in the Union were rising as many Democrats and Whigs in the South wanted the new territories to be organised out west to be given “popular sovereignty”. That is, to decide for themselves whether slavery was to be allowed or not. As most of the territory was north of the Missouri Compromise Line of 36°30’, this angered many. Fillmore’s support for popular sovereignty brought Whig factionalism to the fore that had been pushed into the background since 1844. Having succeeded Clay after his death in office three years into his second term, Fillmore expected to be nominated for his own second term, but the divisions he created resulted in Daniel Webster receiving the most votes after numerous ballots and a push by northern, anti-slavery Whigs against the southern faction’s preference of Fillmore.

Whigs slowly became more and more disaffected over things like the Bleeding Kansez incidents, many joining the Know Nothing movement which made a strong showing in the midterm elections of 1858. During this time, Kansez went through three constitutional conventions before the one was finally provide to the U.S. Congress for approval and pushed through by Daniel Webster with support from a coalition of Whigs, Free Soil Democrats and Republicans. Signing the bill for the creation of the state of Kansez on the 29th of January, 1861, was the last and some say only effective thing Webster was able to do in his fraught and difficult term. The remainder of Kansez Territory is organized in February, adopting the capital city and laws of the extra-legal Washing Territory which had been organised by settlers in western Kansez and southwestern Nibraska because of lack of attention by both territorial governments. Hiram J. Graham, the local delegate to congress, had put forth an unsuccessful bill in 1858 for the organization of a new territory, and this was dusted off, modified and slapped into place as the last successful act of teh coalition before the dissolution of the 36th Congress of the United States.

Many northern Whigs Party joined with some Free Soil Democrats in creating the new Republican Party which also gained seats in the midterms and nominated John C. Frémont for the 1860 presidential election with. The remaining Whigs stick with the Know Nothing movement and form the American Party which selects Fillmore as their candidate. Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas wins the election in 1860 because the similarity in economic platforms causes the Republicans and American Party to split the vote. However, Douglas and the Democrats are forced to absorb some of the Whig economic ideas on internal improvements into their platform though they repudiate the tariffs that were part of the American System.

Over the next four years the American Party and the Know Nothing movement fall apart for basically the same reasons the Whigs did, and when the 1864 Democratic convention falls apart, nominating three candidates (a northern one, a southern one, and a fringe one), Senator William H. Seward wins as the first president from the young, anti-slavery Republican Party in 1864 after gaining the endorsement of prominent Illinois Senator Abraham Lincoln who hopes to convert Seward to the more confrontational wing of the Republican Party. The election is contentious, with Seward’s unabashedly anti-slavery platform alienating what little support the Republican economic platform might have gained them.

In the three months after Seward is proclaimed president-elect, six southern states have successful referendums on secession from the USA and in early February 1864 form the Confederate States of America. The CSA demands that all US Army forts in CSA territory be turned over to them, for which Stephen Douglas starts the process and Seward, unwilling to provoke a military conflict, continues the process after being sworn into office.

In Tennessee, the seventh state to hold a referendum on secession and on the same day the Confederacy is proclaimed, the vote is 51% in favour of remaining. Over the next week riots break out across Tennessee often inflamed by anti-Republican newspaper editorials. Six days after, three people die in a riot clash between unionists and secessionists, portrayed by the Nashville Daily Gazette as a deliberate, planned attack by the unionists and as well as alleging voting and counting fraud by unionist groups. Pro-slavery demonstrations in Kansez, Kentucky and Missouri turn violent when copies of the Nashville Gazette arrive by mail over the next few days. Anonymous circulars from Tennessee start appearing across The South and get reprinted in many newspapers, alleging the Union government of President Seward is behind the riots and attacks on secessionists in Tennessee, Missouri, Kansez and Kentucky.

After months of unrest and five weeks after Seward takes office, Virginia becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. The western counties of Virginia, long disconnected from the elites in Richmond, see the outbreak of pro-union riots and a shadow government repudiating Virginia’s secession is set up in Wheeling. Seward, however, refuses to explicitly acknowledge Wheeling, only referring to “the elected and appointed gentlemen from Virginia” in a speech before the House and Senate on the violence and secession.

The day after Arkansas secedes, Tennessee holds a second referendum on secession in early May which succeeds after months of propaganda and violence supposedly perpetrated by unionists against secessionists, or so papers across the South claim, echoed by members of the new Confederate legislatures. Shortly afterwards North Carolina, considered by the Republicans to be a Union supporter in spite of its slave-holder status, declares secession from the Union, citing the violence in Tennessee as clear proof the Union does not recognize states’ rights to make their own decisions on items within their purview.

Eventually the riots die down, only occasionally boiling over, usually in response to to what both governments call “irresponsible reporting” in major newspapers. Relations ate strained but the Confederate government in Richmond knows that it must stay on the good side of France and Britain. After two years worth of the negative effects of of high tariffs on both sides designed to curtail trade plus heavy pressure by Britain and France, both the Confederacy and Union recognize the economic links between them are too deep to sever without causing severe problems. Talks are held in the Ottawa, capital of the newly independent Canada to normalize tariffs and trade as well as a swapping the rebellious counties in western Virginia for the unorganized territory south of Kansez that had been claimed but never effectively controlled by the Confederacy.

During this same period, four of the eight colonies making up British North America agree to come together as a single nation with the assent of the British Crown. Profoundly affected by the violence of the creation of the USA almost a century earlier that caused many British Loyalists to flee north, the four colonies pledge to base their confederation on “law, order and good government” as a direct counterpoint to the convulsions seemingly on the verge of civil war and a potential second wave of immigrants from the south. Britain transfers all of the territories governed by the Hudsons Bay Company to the young nation two years later, and a year after that allows the western colonies of Columbia and New Caledonia to join Canada as well creating the largest nation by land area in the Americas.

Mexico, plagued by continuing instability thanks to the struggle between conservative and liberal facts, refuses to recognize the breakaway republics of Texas, Río Grande, Yucatán and Alta California as anything other than rebellious provinces. However, though internal conflicts make them unable to do much more than talk. Santa Anna, in exile for almost a decade, returns in 1853 when the Conservative factionalistas invite him back and his autocratic style and its aftermath eventually throw the country into civil unrest and rebellion that erupts into actual civil war in 1858. The four Republics unofficially help the losers in the Mexican War of Reform and Leonardo Marquez's guerrilla operations after 1861. In order to stop Marquez and gain some solidity of control, President Benito Juarez agrees to a recognition of the four Republics in early 1862 as a concession to the British, French and Spanish fleets that had arrived off the coast of Veracruz after he suspended payment on debts from the civil war. Juarez is able to consolidate power from the conservatives with the support of French troops that remain behind to assure Mexico continues its debt payments. He continues liberal reforms based on the model of the French Empire until his death in office in 1872, by which time he had managed to almost completely turn things around. With urban Mexicans debating national identity, the rejection of indigenous cultures, a new passion for French culture, the challenge of creating a modern nation by means of industrialization and scientific modernization was under way. Following Juarez's death, his successors were only notable for the 1876 failed attempt at rebellion by a general-turned-minor-politician from Veracruz named Porfírio Díaz who had mistaken the bemoaning over changes in traditional ways and influence of France as a lack of confidence in the continuation of the economic reforms of the so-called "Juarezato" faction of liberals.

The last map you have posted is of a high quality.

Bytor

Another question with regards to the US is what happens to the states in the union with slavery? Such as Kentucky and Maryland. Only very small numbers but will there be a legal position to ban it quickly?

Also will they still keep Washington as the capital? Its now on the border with the CSA which makes it vulnerable in a future conflict and also no longer centrally position even amongst the east coast original states.

Steve