Balance of Power

I think I know the problem now. Neither Mecklenburg-Strelitz nor Mecklenburg-Schwerin are part of Hanover, though I can see how at first glance one might think so. As a counter, look at all the Ernestine Saxe duchies between Saxony and Bavaria how they are all the same colour. Or the Rheinland-Hessian fiefdoms another colour, how Baden and Württemberg another, and Oldenburg and Brunswick another.

Unfortunately, choosing enough colours for a map is not only tedious, but difficult. If you've ever looked at either older maps or academic ones, you may have seen how the various states of the circles of the Holy Roman Empire were often always made the same colours to denote they they were (mostly) descended from the same stem duchies. Probably (no doubt) due also to the difficulties of differently colouring 300+ states of the HRE. :-) I made the stylistic choice to do something similar since it's a style that is occasionally also applied to the post-Napoleon German Confederation even though there's only 35 states.

It's not visible in the Saxe-duchies because they're too small, but see how countries have a darker edge and a paler middle? You can see how Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Hanover both have a darker edge at the Elbe River. Also at that part, see how the Elbe has a dark border unlike it's portions in Prussia, Saxony & Bohemia. Compare to the Rhein between Baden and France.

It's things like that why I chose a different style to emulate for the 1871 map of North America. :-)

  bytor

  The thing is that with the CSA separate it will be outside the US tariffs and be able to import cheaper materials from Europe.  Agreed that with two decades of the American system the economy will be a good bit stronger anyway.  Also that a tariff war with the south will hurt more since so much of the Mid-west depends on exports through the south, at least for bulk goods, as water transportantion is still cheaper than by rail.

  Be interested to see what you do with the south.  Can't really see it surviving with slaves, even without the alternative sources for cotton opening up but how it changes?

  Steve

Nice looking list you made bytor,

Europe and the Balance Power, Part III, 1848-1849

After nearly a decade of relative quiet, 1848 and 1849 are two very chaotic years for Europe.

In January, the island Kingdom of Sicily is wracked by rebellion against Neapolitan control and later that spring declares itself independent of the Kingdom of Naples. King Ferdinand II, initially favoured by the common folk, has become less popular since beginning his reign and is dealing with problems on the peninsula as well. He is forced to grant the Kingdom of Naples a liberal constitution. A force is sent to Sicily and in a bloody war lasting nine months, Frederick II reasserts his control. From then on, both his Kingdoms are the subject of rumour through Europe regarding their mismanagement and poverty which are only given more substance by the stories of repression by the secret police told by the many Sicilian and Neapolitan immigrants to the New World.

Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany also declares a new and liberal constitution in February to quell unrest, as does, unexpectedly, Pope Pius IX for the Papal States, and the French overthrow King Louis-Philippe Orléans and proclaim another republic. Even the long-powerful Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich resigns his post in March as the Foreign Secretary and flees Vienna because of violent unrest across the Austrian Empire.

King Charles Albert of Sardinia is yet another monarch forced to grant a liberal constitution under duress because of rising pan-Italian nationalism, and those same pressures also push him, with Papal, Neapolitan and Tuscan support into invading the Austrian component kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia and take advantage of its rebellion against the Austrian Habsburgs. Initially successful in forcing the General Joseph Radetzky to retreat, the Papal, Neapolitan and Tuscan troops soon withdraw over fears that Sardinia is using the pan-Italian movement to its own ends. With the loss of those troops, French and British pressure is sufficient to make Charles Albert withdraw from Lombardy-Venetia and sign an armistice with Austria at Curtatone in May. Without that external focus of Italian nationalism to capture his citizens attention, he leaves the new constitution in place.

In Tuscany, however, further developments cause Leopold II to flee to Neapolitan Gaeta in March of 1849, joining Pius IX who had fled there three months previously and republics are declared in both their realms. Unlike Pius IX, Leopold II is generally well liked by his people and soon receives offers to return. First by counter-revolutionaries afraid of and wishing to prevent Austrian intervention, and later to be president of the new republic when it becomes clear that the Austrian forces remaining in Lombardy-Venetia cannot spare the troops after General Radetzky’s departure for Hungary. Pius IX eventually returns to Rome as well, his temporal power severely curtailed outside the Vatican demesnes, but not absent. The Vatican is given two deputies in parliament and finances the Roman Republic’s debt.

North in Denmark where uprisings were also underway and King Frederick VII joins the list of monarchs forced into granting liberal constitutions to their realms. Banking on the anti-interventionist policies the Concert of Europe has displayed, as well as the parallel rebellious distractions across Europe, he included the mostly German duchies of Holstein, Schleswig and Saxe-Lauenburg in the process, giving them separate but subordinate parliaments in union constitution to integrate them more firmly into the Danish realm while still giving the citizens expanded rights. Duke Christian August II of Augustenborg, also taking advantage of the 1848 uprisings, claims the dukedoms of Schleswig, Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg. Because the three are largely populated by Germans and he himself is mostly German (though with links to the Danish Oldenburgs), Christian August tries to get Prussian support for the Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg duchies to leave Denmark and become full members of German Confederation. Christian August is initially able to attract many pro-German sympathisers as well as Prussian help in the form of an army which enters Schleswig in April. However, after several losses to Danish forces Prussian troops are withdrawn from the three duchies. Prussia gives into to all Danish demands and signs the Treaty of Malmö in August of 1848. In the meantime, the petty nobility and bourgeoisie of the three duchies were withdrawing their support from Christian August after learning of the new Danish constitution and their own local parliaments which gave them expanded rights against the upper nobility like Christian August II. As a result he drops his claims to the three duchies in return for being named heir presumptive to Frederick VII who is childless and believed to be infertile. With Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, as relative of the House of Oldenburg, insisting on the indissoluble union of the two dukedoms and the Danish crown, the Congress of London in January, 1849 accepts the Treaty of Malmö and the naming o Christian August II of Augustenborg as heir, but requires Denmark to join the German Zollverein. This is based in part on the precedent from Luxemburg and Limburg ten years previous and is supposedly to offset any economic losses that would arise from the new constitutions of Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg, being subordinate to the Danish one, only nominally leaving them in the German Confederation. Frederick VII and the rest of the Danish nobility, however, see it as a chance for increased trade and a road to supremacy over their Swedish rivals. Seeing more of the trade from North America, Texian indigo-dyed cotton fabrics become popular among the petty bourgeoisie and lower nobility.

In Austria, Kaiser Ferdinand I has insurrections throughout his empire and in April, 1848 the Hungarian Diet forces him to enact a set of reforms, granting them wide powers. However, even though the Hungarian Prime Minister, Batthyány, is a supporter of Hungary remaining in the Empire, the young Franz Joseph who becomes Kaiser after his uncle and father abdicate in quick succession revokes the new laws in August. As a result, Batthyány declares open revolution in September and hastily gathers an army. The Hungarians are defeated in October at Schwechat when they try to come to the aid of the rebellion in Vienna, but they are able to mostly hold their own inside Hungary to start. Their undoing, though, is two-fold. First, the Kingdom of Hungary is in some ways the Austrian Empire in miniature right down to the mistreated subordinate ethnic groups wanting to rebel, which Austria uses to its advantage. The second, is thanks to the British and French pressures on Sardinia, the Kaiser is able to call General Radetzky and part of his armies back from Italy in August. Because of the difficulties crossing the Alps, Radetzky marches through Trieste, Laibach and Agram and enters Hungary from the south in November, surprising the militarily inexperienced Hungarian head of state Lajos Kossuth who was having problems controlling his generals. By the time Kossuth cedes control to Artúr Görgey in June, 1849, it is too late. Though preventing Hungarian independence, Radetzky’s return is actually a good thing for Hungary in that Austria no longer needed the Russian troops the new Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg was requesting from Tsar Nicholas I for. Letters between the two indicate that Nicholas would have sent 200,000 troops which would have annihilated the Hungarians, and many historians believe the repercussions would have been far worse than the so-called “12 Prisoners of Arad” and other possible reactions. As it is, while Radetzky’s military genius allows the 70,000 troops he brought from Northern Italy to decide things against the otherwise equally matched Austrian and Hungarian armies, Franz Joseph still has to accept many of the April Laws of the previous year when the treaty is signed at Világos in August by Görgey and Radetzky. The Hungarians, as the losers, have to accept the severing of Serbo-Croatian lands from the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, continued though lessened imperial taxation and subordination of the now permanent Hungarian Diet to the Imperial one.

The Germanies were not free of strife either with everything from protests to outright armed insurrection breaking out in many of the states.. The Diet of the German Confederation is dissolved and the Frankfurt Parliament is called to creat a unifying constitution for a German Empire. It is populated by deputies from across the German Confederation but from the beginning is rife with the combination of regional politics, Austro-Prussian rivalries and moderate/radical dissension causing serious problems in talks to ostensibly unify the states. The Frankfurt Parliament ultimately fails and the constitution, without an emperor, it produces is only recognized the smaller states but not by Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover or Saxony.

In Baden, Bavaria’s Rhenish Palatinate exclave and Saxony as a result of the failed Parliament, there are significant armed insurrections in the spring of 1849. While Baden’s and the Rhenish Palatinate’s rebellions are successful, the Saxon one was disorganized, being mostly students, and lacked weapons. In spite of not being able to receive Prussian assistance, the Saxon army was still able to crush the rebellion and continue the constitutional monarchy which had been in place since 1830. Because Austria’s own internal issues were under control, through not resolved, by this time, it stood with great Britain and France against Prussian assistance of local monarchs across the confederation under the guise that these were independent states and the Concert of Europe had a tradition of maintaining the balance of power by preventing such intervention as in Italy and Iberia. In reality, though, this was just another facet of the Austro-Prussian rivalry.

As a result, the new Republic of Baden and the Rheinland Republic are the only significant political changes in Central Europe, though the high emigration to the new countries in North and South America lessening the workforce population did what the Frankfurt Parliament could not - increase the pace of industrialization and economic integration and thus favourable views of unification across Germanized Central Europe.

Not even France is immune to revolution, no matter how liberal King Louis-Philippe was compared to previous French monarchs, and in December the reconstituted French Republic elects Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as president who is popular thanks to his support for the universal male suffrage now granted.

Even though things are no longer violent, that doesn’t mean Europe itself had calmed down. Nationalist and democratic sympathies, as a result of the republican successes in Baden, France, the Rheinland, Rome and Tuscany, are often displayed in newspapers and heard in coffee houses and taverns across the continent. Many people hope or fear the changes they feel are coming.

Europe and the Balance Power, The Hessian Question, 1850

While Europe is, on the surface, much calmer in in 1850 than it was only a year or two before, it doesn’t take much to bring them to the fore.

During the revolutions, Elector Frederick William IV of Hesse had been forced to dismiss the government which, under the direction of Prime Minister Hans Hassenpflug since 1832, had been oriented toward subverting constitutional controls through manipulating elections, packing the judicial bench, and persecution of political enemies. But on February 23rd, 1850, Frederick William once again appoints Hassenpflug as Prime Minister of the Electorate. That September the Electorate’s Diet is dissolved, taxes are continued and the country is placed under martial law. The Electorate erupts in rebellion and the Frederick William and Hassenpflug are forced to flee as the the armed forces of Electorate were clearly supporting the rebellion. They eventually end up in Erfurt, where Prussia has called for an assembly of the German states to replace the German Confederation which had been inactive since the dissolution of the Frankfurt Parliament.

President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte of France had seen an opportunity in 1848 with Baden and the Rhenish Palatinate Republic and had set up diplomatic ties with them right away and had done as much as possible to bring them into the French political orbit. Because the two republics also remained a part of the German Zollverein, the synergy with the new trade links to France allowed them to become one of the most swiftly industrializing regions of Germany. Subtly encouraged by France, they also tried to set up their own networks of influence and were most successful in smaller states to their north and northeast.

When rebellion breaks out the Electorate of Hesse, it spreads to Grand Duchy of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau, the principalities of Hesse-Homburg and Waldeck-Pyrmont, and the Free City of Frankfurt through subtle and sometimes not so subtle agitations by Baden, the Rhenish Palatinate and France. These countries had long had ties from being part of the old Upper Rhenish Circle of the defunct Holy Roman Empire and had all had a taste of reforms during the brief existence of the Confederation of The Rhine, another puppet of a previous Napoleon. When their dukes and electors are also forced to follow the example of Frederick William and flee or abdicate.

With Prussia and Austria both being asked for help by the various nobles who have fled from the Hessian states, the two along with Russia meet in Warsaw to deal with the question of assistance. To the dismay of Prussia and Austria, however, Tsar Nicholas I Russia invites the foreign ministers of France and Great Britain to the meetings as well and it becomes one of the Concert of Europe conferences that were started by Viscount Castlereagh in 1815 at the defeat of Napoleon.

The conference is initially tense and undecided with no clear division of support.

King Frederick William of Prussia, no friend of republicanism, is on the one hand for intervention so that he does not lose his treaty access to roads through the Hessian states to his Westphalian Province, yet on the other hand wishes to deny Austria any increased influence thus maintains that Austria has no right of intervention since the Diet of the German Confederation had been dissolved by the calling of the failed Frankfurt Parliament.

Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, who has historically supported the directions of Great Britain as a continuation of his brother Alexander’s relationship with Viscount Castlereagh, is nevertheless an anti-republican himself and it is unknown which side he will come down on.

Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, seeing a chance for further influence in a reconvened Diet of the German Confederation, contending it had never been dissolved, sends troops to restore the monarchs of both the Electorate and Grand Duchy of Hesse, Nassau, and the others as away of deflecting from the Hungarian question back home.

Only France and Great Britain are solidly on the same side, preferring no intervention since the princes and dukes were expelled by their own subjects rather than foreign armies.

During the conference, the rebels with support of their local armies and bourgeoisie proclaim the Republic of Hesse-Nassau, the news of which seems to push Tsar Nicholas I into the Austrian side away from Great Britain. When France sees an opening and promises to use its diplomatic recognition of Hesse-Nassau to be the guarantor of Prussia’s treaty rights to roads through the Hessian states, this brings Prussia reluctantly to the side of non-intervention. When Prussia orders the troops it sent to the Hessian borders originally to support Elector Frederick William to march along the treaty roads ostensibly to test the treaty of passage by meeting French troops, the two armies clash with Austrian and Bavarian troops that had crossed in into Hessian territory near Fulda and Bronzell.

Austria, not wanting a war with both France and Prussia, backs down. At renewed Conference session in Olmütz, Hesse-Nassau, France and Prussia sign a new treaty of passage to affirm and update Prussian passage rights through the new republic to reach the Westphalian Province. A parallel treaty is also signed by those three one side and Bavaria and Austria on the other hand acknowledging the new republic. The dukes and princes are allowed to return to their homes and keep their properties until they die after which a portion will go to their children but most to the state. This is seen as a humiliating defeat for Habsburg ambitions in Germany as they are forced to accept the dissolution of the German Confederation and their presidency of it.

Left hanging, though, are small Saxon duchies and intermingled principalities in Thuringia. They experienced significant unrest during the Hessian rebellion with many student protests over their nobility’s support of intervention. After it became clear that the Great Powers would not only not intervene in Hesse but also would also pledge to affirm the existence to new republic, that did little to quell the social unrest, even in places like the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. If revolution comes to them, what help, if any, can they expect? Or what must they do to forestall it?

Wonder what you have in store for Europe, especially with the Prince-President in control of France.