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#81
June 2nd, 2011, 10:48 PM
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I'm liking how this is going, any chance of getting an update on the status of countries Britain, Russia, Sweeden-Norway, etc?
__________________
CLINCH THE FIST! 
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#82
June 2nd, 2011, 11:02 PM
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Quote:
Sweden-Norway has already been covered; there simply wasn't a lot going on there. See Chapter #12. Quote:
Quote:
 Last edited by wolf_brother; June 7th, 2011 at 07:27 AM..
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#83
June 7th, 2011, 08:01 AM
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The Third Law
[Spacing]
"I sit here, and look at Europe sink, first one deck disappearing, then another, and the whole ship slowly plunging bow-down into the abyss; until the nightmare gets to be howling." - Charles Francis Adams, grandson and son of both President Adams,' on the 1848 Revolutions date unknown Chisholm, Hugh. "Switzerland." Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Ed. ... Due to this early, and unsatisfactory, settlement of disputes Switzerland was protected from the general revolutionary movement of 1848, though in later years her political history rivaled that of the powers of Europe during the springtime of peoples as she increasingly felt the weight of industrial and social matters... ... The position of Neuchâtel, as a member of the Confederation, and as a principality ruled by the King of Prussia, whose rights had been expressly recognized by the Congress of Vienna, was uncertain. She had been invaded twice, once by radical-liberal Swiss and a second time by Prussian troops led by Prince Charles. The withdrawal of the Prussians following the 1849 May Revolution, and the subsequent death of Prince Charles, as well as the earlier September Revolution and the death of King Frederick William, made the situation within Switzerland particularly confusing. Would the new Prussian King Frederick III, or his regent the Queen-dowager Augusta, continue to assert the rights of Prussia within the confederation? The test of wills came in late 1849, when a radical uprising, led mostly by German dissenters that had spread throughout Switzerland, toppled the government within the canton. When it became clear, by late spring of 1850, that no reaction would come from the crippled Hohenzollern crown the neighboring canton of Fribourg launched an ambitious amphibious invasion across the Neuchâtel Lake, which touched off a nearly decade-long freischärler campaign between radical and conservative forces within the cantons that lead directly to the Swiss Diaspora... ... A final, royalist, conspiracy in 1856, by which time King Frederick felt comfortable upon his throne, to undo the work of the 1850 revolution caused great excitement and anger in Switzerland, and it was only settled by the mediation of the German Kaiser; though even this could not prevent continued freischärler fighting in the mountainous Alpine region. With the 1863 defection of... Restoration and Degeneration (Switzerland) ... The periods of Restoration and Degeneration in Swiss history lasted from 1814 until 1863, with 'Restoration' referring to the period of 1814 to 1830, which saw the restoration of the Ancien Régime, reverting the changes imposed by Napoléon Bonaparte and his centralized Helvetic Republic and Napoleonic Swiss Confederation. 'Degeneration' refers to the subsequent period following 1830, when in the wake of the July Revolution the conservative order was countered by a growing liberal movement. In the Protestant cantons, the rural population enforced liberal cantonal constitutions, partly in armed marches on the cities, which resulted in a conservative backlash in the Catholic Cantons, leading to an official civil war in 1847 that for many continued for several decades afterward until... ... For many Swissmen perhaps the most controversial aspect of this period was the attempt by some of the liberal cantons to outlaw Reisläuferei (1); this was met by resistance both by the conservatives, who opposed any reformative measures on simple principle, and by the radicals, who by the late 1850s were extensively using the reisläuferei system to train and recruit a large and professional freischärler force through the conflicts of the period. The right of military service is so ingrained into Swiss society (2) that such a movement led to the overthrow of many liberal cantonal governments in the late 1850s, further dividing Switzerland between radical Protestants and reactionary Catholics, so that by the time of the... Reza, Ahmad. Reform: A History. Istanbul: Central Press, 1999. ... Among all of the European governments of the early nineteenth century by far the most liberal was Great Britain's. The British constitutional monarchy had long stood in stark contrast to the autocratic systems prevalent on the continent. Great Britain had therefore served as a source of inspiration to many generations of European liberals, and might have been expected to show considerable sympathy to the revolutionaries in 1848. In fact, however, the British government, for once in accordance with the views of Prince Consort Albert, viewed the revolutions with alarm and did its best to preserve the status-quo in Europe on the selfish ground that the so-called continental balance of power was a paramount British interest (3). Led by Prime Minister Lord Russel and Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, who profoundly feared a rise in the fortune's of Britain then main commercial rivals France and Russia, the two often advised (often vainly) European rulers to grant moderate political constitutions. Neither Palmserton nor Russel much regretted the collapse of the French monarchy in February 1848, but they feared that a new republic might once again become unduly aggressive and rise to challenge British commercial aims. Palmerston though at the least expressed himself ready to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new regime so long as it was prepared to respect existing treaties. More complicated was British policy with respect to the other revolutions which occurred on the continent. By early summer many of the European capitols had been wrought by revolutionary upheavals, excluding only London itself and St. Petersburg entirely, and according to the British view these threatened the peace and stability of the continent. The Victorian British were by nature and conservative people and did not believe in the idea that governments could be dissolved by threats and violence. They felt that constitutions should be conferred from above (divinely) and not extracted from below (the people). Parliamentary leaders emphasized the need for protection private property while resolving to remain neutral. The previous liberal-nationalist uprisings in Greece, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland, and even France's July Revolution, for instance, had consistently won the moral support of the British people. But in 1848 the British upper classes were disturbed by the spread of the revolutionary fervor.. ... Palmerston especially feared the expansion of French influence into North Italy and the Rhineland. This meant, for the most part, supporting the Austrian cause. The Foreign Minister consistently advocated for minimal Austrian reforms with mild constitutional changes, in order to preserve an Austria state that would be capable of serving both as a buffer to French designs in the west and Russian ambitious in the east. He was convinced, however, that Austrians possessions south of the Alps wee a basic source of weakness to the Hapsburg monarchy. On the other hand Great Britain did not favor a united Italy which could pose a serious threat to her considerable interests in the Mediterranean. The British chattering classes also believed that Italian unification could not be achieved without French aid, and worried about extended French influence into such a critical area. Thus when the British supported the Sicilian cause they were hoping to shore up support among what they perceived as, correctly, a separatist revolutionary state that was for the most part uninterested in schemes of national unification. Indeed though Sicily would go on to join the Italian Confederation in late 1850 she continued to maintain treaties with Great Britain allowing the British navy considerable rights on the island, including the use of naval facilities, though this practice was eventually ended with the... ... This was a great deal more than the Hungarians received, as is illustrated by Palmerston's well-recorded statement that he had 'no knowledge of Hungary expect as one of the component parts of the Austrian empire.' Palmerston felt that an Austria bereft of Hungary could not survive as a Great Power, and was reportedly increasing worried with the arriving news of the Magyar's successes until finally... ... Unlike either the French, Italians or Hungarians, none of the German revolutions received much in the way of attention from Great Britain in 1848. The British government was pleased to see so many constitutional liberals states arising only because it was though that they could best preserve the German monarchies. Prussia in particular was viewed as merely another buffer between France and Russia, and with the unification of Germany this view was extended across the new nation. However Palmeston denounced the claims of the German liberals to Schleswig-Holstein, and was even prepared to ally with the Russians in order to preserve the status-quo in the Baltic. This in turn led to a source of chronic dismay at the Court, where Queen Victoria and Albert were considerably offended by Palmerston's lack of respect for their German relatives. The continued discord between the highly influential foreign secretary and the sovereign often undermined British policy in the middle of the nineteenth century and the situation was further compounded by the fact that the multi-faceted Cabinet itself seldom united for any single issue. There was consequently much ambivalence in Britain's approach to the 1848 revolutions. On one hand, she was governed by a basic conviction, held by both the government and the monarchy, that the continental autocrats had brought their misfortunes upon themselves. Conversely though the British were motivated by a profound fear that the upheavals of the period would undo the hard-won victory of 1815. It is clear, however, that the British approach to the European revolutions was both ambivalent and self-motivated. Great Britain did not welcome revolutionary change, either at home or on the continent, and did her best to frustrate the Chartists... Chartism ... Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in Great Britain during the mid-19th century which took its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working-class labor movement in the world, and its leaders have often been described as 'physical force' leaders. The 1838 charter, drawn up by six MPs and six working-class leaders stipulated six main aims;
... Chartism, in strictly ideological terms, was by no means a novel movement in British history; it advocated programs which had been suggested by the Levellers as early as the seventeenth century and which had been promoted by radicals even in the Georgia era. Its historical significant lies in the fact that it represented a mass upheaval of the British working classes in response to the social and economic problems created, or magnified, by the Industrial Revolution. Previous British radicalism were dominated by middle- and upper-class eccentrics. As a working-class ideology however Chartism lacked the all-important support of influential sectors of the British elite. Further, lacking the necessary funds, the movement could initially do little to penetrate the formidable wall of opposition and disdain which it encounter in parliament, the press, and elsewhere. Yet despite these limitations the early Chartist movement deserves considerable credit for the manner in which it performed as an extra-parliamentary club (4) for more than a decade prior to the 1848 revolutions. It drew attention to the grievances of the underprivileged and compelled the establishment to discuss, even if unsympathetically, the worrisome 'condition of England' question, and forced the Victorian leadership to acknowledge the social injustices inherent within the then current system. Chartist, often local cells unconnected to any national program asides from a common belief in the People's Charter, organized lectures, public meetings and national conventions which alarmed the local governments in an age when public order was totally dependent upon the cooperation of the local citizenry. While in the main the Chartist agitation was peaceful, there were occasional, violent, clashes with the authorities. Neither bourgeois resistance nor governmental hostility, however, could arrest the momentum of Chartism which profited greatly from the economic distress that plagued the nation during the period... ... the Anglican church in Britain in this period held that it was 'wrong for a Christian to meddle in political affairs,' and was particularly careful to disavow any political affiliation and he was least concerned with the 'affiars of this world' was usually considered almost saintly. However this was at odds with many Christian Chartist, whom to which Christianity was 'above all practical.' Leading Chartist were from within the Church, such as Rev. William Hill who wrote that if a British citizen 'claims rights for himself he refuses to confer upon others, he fails to fulfill the precept of Christ.' As such several Charist churches were founded were Christianity and radical politics were brought together and believed to be inseparable. Indeed during this period British radicals attempted to rehabilitate Jesus Christ as the first radical. Chartists were thus especially harsh on the Church of England for the unequal distribution of state funds it received which resulted in many bishops having grossly larger incomes than other clergy. This state of affairs led many Chartists to question the very idea of a state-sponsored church, and to calls for an absolute separation of church and state... The 1848 Petition ... On 10 April 1848 a new Chartist Convention organized a mass meeting on Kennington Common in London which would form a procession to present another petition to Parliament. The estimate of the number various depending on the source; leading Chartist such as Feargus O'Connor (5) estimate 300,000, while the official government report cited only 15,000. Modern historians believe the most likely figure to have been some 150,000. It was due to these numbers that the government feared an armed revolution, and the authorities were intent upon staging a large-scale display of force to counter this thread. Over 100,000 special constables were recruited to bolster the police force (6). In any case the meeting was peaceful, however the military threatened to intervene in the Chartist made any attempt to cross the Thames... ... In a separate incident on the same day rioters in Manchester stormed the Poor Man Law's workhouse and defeated police in a pitched battle, leading to Manchester being ruled by roaming Chartists until the army was able to quell the uprising three days later... ... The original plan of the Chartist, if the petition was ignored, was to create a separate national assembly and press Queen Victoria to dissolve parliament until the Charter was introduced into law. However without a centralized body the Chartists were plagued by indecision, in-fighting and general confusion, and the national assembly dissolved itself after only a few weeks... ... However the Chartist petition was enough to frighten the government into taking steps to counter the apparent threat. In June that year public meetings were banned, and new legislation redefining and expanding upon the punishments for sedition and treason were rushed through parliament, leading to a rash of radical protests and attempted uprisings throughout London and the other large British cities throughout August... ... The apparent failure of Chartism as a political movement in the mid-19th century proved to be temporary. The success of the liberals and radical revolutions on the continent breathed new life into the organization (7), and middle-class parliamentary radicals continued to press for universal franchise, and were joined by supporters of other radical measures such as the Anti-Corn League and the Reform League. These radicals joined with anti-protectionist Tory Peelites, and, after the downfall of the Russel government in late 1849 (8) to a new Tory government, some sections of the Whig party led to the formation of the Liberal Party in 1856...  The 1848 London Great Chartist Meeting in Kennington Common Merrier, John. Lecture. HIST 202: European Histoy. Yale University, New Haven, CT. ... There was revolution in all these places in 1848; but why not in Britain? Why not? There are two major contexts to the answer. First is the Reform Act of 1832 which opened the gate of voters; suffrage had previously been based upon property qualification. In 1832 with more voters the political arena expanded, slightly, much like the July Revolution in 1830 which roughly doubled the number of people who could in France, but which of course still left plenty of people looking in. So you have the political arena expanding, and you have it expanding through reform. This feeds into the self-image of the freeborn English, tracing back to the 1215 Magna Carta, in which citizens of the British isles reform instead of rebel. The ideal of a respectable, proper, Englishman which aped the ethos of the aristocracy had been well-established by 1848, with a common sight of well-to-do bourgeois taking their wives for a walk in Hyde Park in suits and Sunday dresses. The other context of the 1848 for the British was Chartism, which you should have read about, and... ... But if there had been a revolution, where would it come from? From where would the revolutionaries ranks have come? Now that is an interesting question, that is by far the most interesting question in all of this, because the 1848 period helped reconstruct the contemporary British identity so that there had to be an unwanted 'other' there, that further convinces the respectable British society that they are doing things the right way. I alluded before when I talked of the British identity in the previous century; what they weren't helped determine who they were, and what they weren't was absolutists, and they weren't Catholics. France was an absolutist state, and the French were Catholics, and France experienced revolutions and upheavals of that nature. So who was this unwanted other that both frightened and helped define the upper- and middle-classes of Britain? You should have realized by now; the Irish. It is therefore that during and after the 1848 period British nationalism was recast once again as an anti-Irish doctrine. Therefore what it meant for the upper-classes the unwanted other, they, these unwanted Catholics who flooded the major British cities such as Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and even London during the famine (9) were no longer across the channel but instead in respectable society's yard where they were considered to be too-numerous, dangerous, and if they allied with dissatisfied workers from the Chartist movement all hell was going to break out. So although this potential alliance never occurred, the perceived threat of such a Irish (Catholic)-Worker's movement became the defining aspect of British upper- and middle-class society after the revolutionary period... Famine Rebellion ... The Famine Rebellion was a failed Irish nationalist uprising initially led by the Young Ireland movement. Inspired by the events of the continental revolutions in 1848, and in the midst of the Great Famine, the Young Irelanders broke away from Daniel O'Connel's Repeal Association after his acceptance of of patronage from the British liberals (10). Now calling themselves the 'Irish confederation,' they took an uncompromising stand for a national Irish parliament with full legislative, and even executive, powers. Though not calling for an out-right rebellion, the Young Irelanders would not make absolute pledges for peace. Their hardline stance meant that... ... Longing to see won in Ireland the same liberties achieved on the continent, a deputation, led by William O'Brian and Thomas Meagher, was sent to Paris to beg for their assistance. While O'Brien returned to Éire in the late spring empty-handed, Meagher, who returned just a weeks later, brought with him a new tricolor flag; a symbol of reconciliation between the Gaelic community and supporters of Orange (11) created by French radicals who supported the Irish cause. Fasley believing that the February Revolution had largely been a bloodless one, and returning to their homeland before the June Days, both O'Brien and Meagher agreed that similar results could be easily attained in Ireland, and set out to unite Irish landlords and tenants in protest against British rule. Though rebuffed by Lamartine's government, the Irish were intoxicated by the revolutionary atmosphere in France, and 'confederate' clubs, which practiced drilling, mushroomed throughout the country. The [I]Nation[/] and even the United Irishmen openly promoted guerrilla warfare. However the British government forced the hand by suspending habeas corpus and ordering the arrest of the Young Irish leadership on 22 July. Raising the standard of revolution the Young Irish... ... On the morning of 29 July O'Brien was near the Ballingarry Coal Mines overseeing the erection of barricades by local supporters - miners mostly, unsurprising given the location, but also tradesmen and peasant farmers - as police from Callan approach the crossroads before The Commons from Ballingary. Seeing the barricades before them the police veered right up the road toward Kilkenney, at which point the rebels took chase after them. The police took refuge in widow Margaret's house, taking her five children inside hostage, and barricaded themselves inside. O'Brien hoped to negotiate their release, as the police were Irishmen themselves, and approached the parlor window under a white flag of truce. Reports indicate that he shook hands with those inside through the window, telling them 'We are all Irishmen - give up your guns and your are free to gun.' At this point the constable shot at O'Brien, who had to be dragged away from the window by supporters as a gunfight erupted between the Young Irelanders and the police inside. After several hours the Catholic clergy of the parish, Rev. Philip Fitzgerald, also endeavored to mediate between the two groups. However as the Reverend began to approach the house a party of the local police was seen arriving over the nearby hill. The rebelling Irish moved to intercept them, and in the ensuing gunfight both sides were devastated (12); however it was only after the wounded Young Irish began to move off the field the police in McCormack's house moved against them. As the police inside poured out widow McCormack attempted to rush inside to see her children and a panicked deputy fired, fatally wounded the woman... ... As word spread of the McCormack Massacre the peasantry of the surrounding counties, who were not connected to the Young Ireland movement, rose up in revolution against the British and Anglican Irish, eventually leading to the involvement of the regular British army and... ... Several of the surviving participants later joined the new Fenian movement, which corrected the mistakes of the Young Ireland movement; O'Brien, a considerable landowner, and most of the Young Irelanders were conservatives looking to paternalist class co-operation. They failed to liaise with the anti-landlord peasant ribbon organizations they were common in the period. While In the towns though some of there followers were influenced by Chartism most Young Irelanders were careful to repudiate radical politics... Nieminen, Leevi. Russia, Revolution, and Reform. Helsinki: Moscow Publishing House, 2002. ... The 1848 period did not bring revolution to Russia, which like Great Britain, was not seriously affected by the upheavals that occurred in almost every other European country. However it was a year in which Russia suffered a poor harvest, a major cholera epidemic, an increase in the number of wildfires due to the unusually dry weather, and a Polish uprising in the former Lithuania. The cumulative effect on these disasters on Russia's economy was a serious blow, and lead to a sharp fall in the export of grain which had only began to increase after the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws in Britain... ... On 4 March 1848 the news of the overthrow of King Louis-Philippe and the proclamation of a republic in France finally reached Saint Petersburg. So poor was communications across the continent during this period that even as the word was spread among the Russian elite of the February Revolution Lamartine was issuing his 'Manifesto to Europe,' so that many within the Russian court received the manifesto being understanding its context, and often the memo was discarded as a hoax, rumor, or a mistake. It was not until the following week that the consequences of the revolution were truly appreciated in Russia. Tsar Nicholas I (13) however was not surprised; he had always believed that the recognition of Louis-Philippe by the Great Powers as the lawful ruler of France after the July Revolution had been a fundamental error which had sparked a revolutionary wave in Belgium and Poland. Thus after his ascension the aims of Russian's foreign policy had been to check the spread of revolutionary ideas from France by fostering an alliance with the absolute monarchies of Austria and Prussia, preventing the re-establishment of an independent Poland, and maintain Russia's preponderance over Britain for influence in the Far East. Of these three tasks, Nicholas would fail in but one. The Tsar's first concern was with military preparations, for he feared another round of Revolutionary Wars, and despite the reservations of some of his advisers about adding to Russia's financial burdens he authorized the mobilization of the army and navy reserves as well as an increase in the military budget to the tune of seven million silver rubles. Within three months Russia's army ballooned to 450,000 men; however Nicholas was a cautious man, and in the meantime he announced that although he would not recognize the new government in France he would not interfere (invade) as long as the treaties of 1815 were respected. However, by 28 March he had also banned all publication of news relating to the European revolutions, ordered all Russian subjects abroad to return home, banned anyone from leaving his empire and forbade entry to all foreigners (except merchants and those with his express permission). Nicholas had long cherished the idea of building a wall around Russia, but realized this was a physical impossibility. He further attempted to crush any support for revolution at home on 14 April when, under the advice of Count Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov, the head of the Third Section (14), established a secret committee under the Section to surpervise the state's censors, which Nicholas had found too lax in enforcing his ban. The first, but not last, to feel the stong of this new committee was the Minister of Education, Sergei Uvarov. Though Uvarov was the very author of the regime's ideology of 'official nationality' in which a loyal subject was defined as Orthodox, obedient to the Tsar's autocracy, and fervently patriotic, he was felt to be too 'liberal.' At the same time a number of new, restrictive, measures were introduced in Russia university's with the aim of limiting the number of students and ensuring that instruction in potentially 'dangerous' subjects such as philosophy was subjected to suitable safeguards. Uvarov resigned in protest, though... ... The Tsar's fears about the spread of revolution to Russia were further increased by the outbreak of uprisings across Germany and in the Austrian empire, especially in Italy and Hungary. He was especially concerned by the decision of King Frederick William IV of Prussia to grant a constitution and to organize the Polish Grand Duchy of Posen. On 26 March Nicholas issued a manifesto which he had personally drafted in which he stated unequivocally that Russia would resist any attempt at aggression by the forces of revolution, no matter the source. The diplomatic proclamation causes alarm throughout Europe because of its bellicose tone, but in fact the Tsar had no intention of abandoning his defensive position vis à vis Western Europe and he continued to work on his 'wall' across the Russia border... ... Nicholas' hand however was eventually forced by events in Denmark and in Romania, in which both cases Russian forces took an active role. The conservative counter-reaction of the summer and autumn months of 1848 further reassured the Tsar. General Cavaignac's successful defeat of the French workers at the end of June marked the beginning of a reconciliation between France and Russia which finally led to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations in May 1849. However the Tsar scrapped his plans to stand down the Russian army during the winter months because of his fears of revolution, and indeed the dual defeat of both the Prussians and Austrians in late 1848 further heightened the autocrat's anxieties, to the point that he considered an invasion of Hungary at recently raised Hapsburg emperor Karl V's request, though nothing came of it... ... However Nicholas' repressive regime in Russia was not as secure as he had imagined, and on 23 April 1849 an undercover agent of the Third Section revealed a planned coup d’état being organized by Nikolai Speshnev in which the Tsar was to be assassinated and replaced with his more pliable, and more liberal, son Alexander. Speshnev had been inspired by the European revolutions, and the authorities had been keeping tabs on his movement for months. Most notably Speshnev was a member of the 'Petrashetsy,' a circle of intellectuals led by Mikhail Petrashevsky which were not revolutionaries themselves but which challenged the Tsar's authority in their pressing for constitutional reform. All in all some 252 people were arrested in the Third Section's sweep, all of whom were 'interrogated' by the secret police; a further 51 were exiled, and some 25 more were sentenced to death (15)... ... Russia relative stability was attributed to the few revolutionary groups' inability to communicate with each other. Indeed as 1849 drew to a close it seemed to many contemporary observers that the Tsar's 'paper curtain,' was largely...  The Execution of the 'Petrashevsky' Circle United States and the 1848 Revolutions ... Americans entered the year 1848 flushed from military success in Mexico. The US Senate ratified the Mexican peace treaty only a few days before transatlantic steamers brought the first news of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. The events together seemed to symbolize rising American power and influence across the globe. According to several American newspapers of the time US soldiers still in Mexico rejoiced that the 'refulgence of their glorious stars,' had penetrated the 'noxious fogs of European despotism.' Some northern journalists and Democratic politicians, enunciating this national mission of American republicanism across the globe under the moniker of 'young America' saw the time ripe for an aggressive foreign policy in Europe. They support military assistance to revolutionary governments in Germany, Italy and Hungary, and suspension of diplomatic relations with the reactionary powers such as Austria. As such the United States hastily recognized the French Second Republic, the Italian Confederation, the German Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, being the first foreign power to open embassies in all four of those nations (16). Outside official channels support for 'radical Europe' showed in various ways; Americans paraded, wore revolutionary cockades, and staged banquets to evince sympathy with the European revolutionaries. Protestant ministers preached, especially after the ousting of Pius IX from Rome, that the downfall of Catholicism - and perhaps the beginning of the millennium - was near. Mexican War veterans and recent Irish immigrants organized volunteers and gathered arms and material to send to Europe to assist in 'liberating' the revolutionary states there... ... Yet support for vigorous pro-revolutionary American action in Europe was far from universal. Politically Whigs and many southern Democrats opposed all but the most symbolic of American support for the new European states, while American businessmen took interest in the revolutions only in the hopes that shaken European finances would buy American securities, and that exports of cotton and tobacco would gain in more open European markets. Apologists for slavery also frowned on support for European liberation movements, especially with the abolition of feudal labor in Central Europe and of slavery in the French West Indies... ... While the 1848 Revolutions did not overall foster American involvement in Europe, the revolutions did have an impact in the United States. Advocates of various reform movements - urban and rural labor organization, women's rights, and most prominently anti-slavery - perceived that trans-Atlantic reform was gaining momentum and argued for reforms before a 'second revolution' occurred... ... President Taylor and his Secretary of State, John. Clayton, lacked experience in foreign affairs before Taylor assumed the presidency, and Taylor was usually not involved in diplomacy or the deployment of American foreign policies. However, Taylor took a special interest in the 1848 Revolutions, supporting first the German liberals and than most of the revolutionary states in Europe during the period. Notably, Taylor struck an usual friendship with Hungarian Foreign Secretary Kossuth; indeed the President was late to the groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Monument on 4 July 1850 due to eleventh-hour discussion with Kossuth regarding the budding American-Hungarian relationship...  US President Zachary Taylor (1) Mercenary service, which happened IOTL in 1859. (2) Showing an ITTL cultural stereotype. (3) Our ITTL author is showing considerable bias and more than a little cultural-national animosity here. (4) Referring to political clubs, which ITTL serve largely as advocacy ('lobby') special interest groups in the ATL's modern period. (5) Born into a prominent Irish Protestant family, the son of Irish nationalist politician Roger O'Connor, Feargus studied law at Dublin's Trinity College, though he was disqualified from the Irish bar for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the crown, before inheriting an estate from his uncle in 1820. During the 1830s he emerged as an advocate for Irish rights and was elected to the British House of Commons for Cork County in 1832, though he was disqualified for not meeting the property requirements; in 1835 he was rejected and once again disqualified, though by then he did meet the property requirements. In 1837 he started his own newspaper, the Northern Star, in Leeds, which quickly became one of the most prominent Chartist-radical papers in the period, where O'Connor employed several Owen-socialists as his editors. In 1840 he was imprisoned for his views, including his critics of the National Land Company and for the advocation of peasant proprietorship of small farms (4 acres, or 16,000m squared). (6) Ironically including Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte whom was still in London at the time. (7) Which IOTL largely died after the 1848 Petition. ITTL though with the example on the continent... (8) IOTL of course Russel's Whig government continued until early 1852 as a minority government with the Tories split between Protectionists and Peelites. However the successes of the 1848 revolutions on the continent, particularly that of the radicals in Hungary and some of the Italian and German states, is seen as a blot on British foreign policy and drives Whig support away from Russel while uniting most of the Tories. (9) The Great Irish Famine of 1845-52, also known as the Potato Famine or as an Gorta Mór ('the Great Hunger') in Irish, during which roughly one million people died of starvation and another million emigrated from Ireland causing the island's population to fall by some 25% within less than a decade. (10) This is slightly anachronistic by the author as the Liberal Party does not exist yet, but it still highlights the early merger between moderate radicals and left-liberals in British politics. (11) A green banner had traditionally been been the flag of Ireland, and was used by patriotic groups such the Irish Volunteers and United Irishmen. However in 1795 the Orange Order, a rival, protestant, organization was founded in memory of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 pitted the United Irishmen, supported by the French First Republic, against the Orange Order, supported by the British. (12) IOTL the 'Young Irelanders' retreated from the advancing police instead of putting up a fight, though they numerically outnumbered the authorities over two-to-one. However even by late July of 1848 ITTL the inspiration of armed revolution leading to more liberalized states would be well established on the continent. (13) Who himself had only come to power in the confusion of his older brother, Alexander I's, sudden death, Nicholas' own refusal to swear allegiance to his second eldest brother Constantine Pavlovich, and the attempted Decembrist Revolt. Nicholas largely become Tsar for his efforts in putting down the attempted coup. (14) The Russian secret police, who were fairly inefficient at their jobs. Created in 1825 with only sixteen investigators the organization was never large, and their blue and white uniforms, as well as their attitude against conspiratorial work as 'dishonorable' rendered any secret work impossible. However the 'blue archangels' as they were called were at the forefront of Russian censorship, suppression and surveillance as the image of the Third Section played a larger role in policing the Russian liberals than the actual organization did. (15) IOTL the sentences were commuted to 'only' four years exile in Siberia. However ITTL the paranoid Tsar is not about to let a group of dissidents go free, even to the frozen wastelands of the East. Among those executed is one Fyodor Dostoyevsky. (16) IOTL the US recognized the governments in France, Sicily and Frankfurt, being the only state to do so in the case of the latter two. Last edited by wolf_brother; June 7th, 2011 at 08:27 AM..
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#84
June 7th, 2011, 08:38 PM
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This latest update will be the last true update for awhile, as I've effectively ended the 1848 volume for this TL. In the coming days I'll post some background information on religion and politics for you dear readers, followed by an Addendum, before entering an interlude phase regarding issues and butterfly effects around the world in the 1850-54 period while I do continue to do research for the next volume of the story which will be set in 1855-60. Hopefully that won't take a further six months to research, but no promises. I hope everyone has been enjoying the ride so far
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#85
June 7th, 2011, 10:04 PM
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Wow
This timeline is such an inspiration for me, it's even inspired me to research for my own 1848 timeline!
My only problem how to learn from your timeline without cribbing offf it far too much. Continue the good work and I'll be watching.
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#86
June 8th, 2011, 12:45 AM
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So far the new German and Italian states look to rock the European stage.
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#87
June 14th, 2011, 09:04 PM
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Opium of the People
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"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions." - Karl Marx in Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right published late 1843 McKnight, William. Trans. W. Scott Haine. The Revolutionary Tradition: France in the Nineteenth Century. 2011 Ed. ... A particularly interesting facet of the the 1848 revolution was the Church-State relationship. The Church had historically been allied with the monarchy, whose traditional powers rested in the restoration of the ancien régime, a key component of which had been the clergy. However with the July Revolution and the ascension of the liberal Orléanist Louis-Philippe this bedrock of support was withdrawn, and by the time of the February Revolution the Church supported the republic. Both the clergy and the Catholic press waxed enthusiastically about the February Revolution. The Archbishops of Paris and Bordeaux pledged their support for the new regime, the latter stating that 'the republican flag will protect the religious flag.' The Cardinal of Lyons, Louis Jacques Maurice de Bonald, echoed this sentiment (1). The Catholic papers Le Correspondant and L'ère Nouvelle welcome the revolution while their editorials promoted 'Christian socialism.' Even the arch-conservative and ultramontanist proponent Louis Veuillot welcomed the demise of the Orléanist regime in his l'Univers. Indeed, throughout the July Monarchy period there had been growing links between populist religion and the radical social-democrats. Reports of the February Revolution are fraught with references to sightings of protesting workers seeking priests to give extreme unction to the dying during the Parisian Revolution, and throughout the Second Republic priests gave blessed thousands of France's now famous Liberty Trees (2)... ... On 24 February 1848 a crowd in Paris seized a huge crucifix from the abandoned Tuilieres Palace and solemnly marched to the Church of St. Roch, symbolically liberating it from the captivity of the monarchy. At the Camp de Mars demonstration of 16 April workers were heard to cry out 'Love live the republic, the true republic of Christ.' Unlike the 1789 Revolution there were few anti-clerical incidents, excepting the notably destruction of convents in Lyons, but generally they were not the rule of thumb. This is because modern republicans views on the Church had morphed in the over half-century since France's first revolution. Republicans and moderate radicals now viewed the Church as a bulwark of stability, especially after the June Days. The Church had not been allied with the July Monarchy, it remained a powerful institution in society, religion was a stabilizing force, and the Church provided a ready-made network for the republicans to disseminate their values. So long as leading Catholics and conservative republicans agreed upon issues, Church-State relations were harmonious. However Catholic leaders loved the Second Republic less than they had disliked the Orléanists, and the spring of 1848 proved to be a rather brief honeymoon for Church-State relations. The April Elections gave the Church a powerful voice in national politics. with the introduction of universal manhood suffrage, rural groups exercised a new power in the national discourse. Unused to voting, and generally loyal to the Church, which alone had a national political organization, they often turned to local clergy for advise. In some of the provinces the provincial Bishop would then in turn provide a list of 'recommended' candidates. The result was that several priests were elected to the chamber; Phillipe Buchez, a leading 'social' Catholic, was elected president of the Assembly. However, while about 35% of the rural provinces voted for the Christian démoc-socs, the chamber as a whole was conservatively moderate and hardly sympathetic to the woes of Parisians workers despite the presence of Catholic social reforms such as Buchez or Pére Jean-Baptiste Lacordaire, who sat on the far left side of the room dramatically clothed in his all-white Dominican cassock. Even as the National Assembly gradually shifted ever right-ward, so too was superficial leftist Catholic unity collapsing, over two prominent issues: the social question, and the Church's role in education. The left of the Church was prominently represented in the press by L'ére nouvelle, with a circulation of about 20,000, which advocated democracy and a 'protective society' which would alleviate the condition of the working classes. In early May Armand de Melun, an associate of the newspaper's editors and writers, introduced a comprehensive national program before the Assembly of hospitals, schools, daycare centers, orphanages, hostels, and worker's associations; the bill died in committee within the week. Afterward L'ére nouvelle's policies were attacked in the Catholic press by her rivals, the liberal [I]L'ami de la Religion[I] and the conservative L'Univers; liberal and social Catholics, who had been allied for two decades, publicly split. While part of the division was due to personal rivalries for leadership of the Catholic 'opinion' among radical Lacordaire, the conservative Felix Dupanloup, and liberal Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, more pressing was the matter of the social question. Liberal Catholics sought freedoms, ironically, in the freedoms of 1789 within a middle-class social order and could not envisage or accept any fundamental changes from that order; further liberal Catholic's primary concern in the early days of the republic was the Church's place in education, and they often did not care for social issues. Montalembert, who had founded one of the first Catholic political organizations om the 1830s around his earlier paper L'Avenir, fought for a Church free of State control and attacked the monopoly of public education by which the monarchy had previously fortified its position. As such in the press and among Catholic circles he argued vigorously for a 'liberty of education,' which included the right of the Church to operate secondary schools. Liberals thus wished for no more than a partnership between Church and State, as equal participants in society. Conservative however, such as Veillot and Joseph Gaume (3), insisted on the dominance of the Church over society, especially in education and politics. The June Days exacerbated these splits within the Church and frightened Catholics about the direction of the republic... ... One last dramatic attempt to save the Church's association with both the republic and the workers died in the streets of Paris when on 25 June the Archbishop of Paris, Denis Auguste Affre, was struck died by a soldier's bullet as he was attempting to negotiate with the insurgents blocking the entrance to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. While his death was but a minor event in the midst of the June Days, it was symbolic of the death of the early relationship between the official Church and the radicals, which was only later rectified by... ... Leading Catholics reading much as other members of the middle-class did to the events of June 1848; with fear and condemnation. All the Catholic press, save for L'ère Nouvelle, condemned the uprisings; however political Catholics also embarked on an internal purge within the Church and the press. Liberal and conservative Catholics, united in an uneasy alliance, uniquely juxtaposed their own faith with the socialism of the radicals - religion became a buttress of social order and the Church the prime defense against 'chaos.' This alliance was further sealed by the December elections, in which the issue of liberty of education loomed large for Catholic leaders. Louis-Napoléon, with whom Montalembert had been in contact, promised the Church its much sought-after 'liberty,' while Cavignac proposed a more state-dominated education system which was, ironically, almost word-for-word copied from that of Melun's earlier proposal. The education issue clinched the election for the Church's leadership, who brought their loyal rural followers to vote in droves for Louis-Napoléon... Bernard, Chung-Ho. Foundations of the Modern World. Seoul: Imperial Directory, 1997. ... Named after Pope Pius IX, the Piusverein (Pius Association) was formed in early March 1848 in the historical Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt by Adam Franz Lennig and Caspar Riffel, two ultramontanists which sought to promote independence of the church from the state and to defend Catholic interests in the public realm. During the Vormärz Mainz had become center of the Ultramontane movement within Germany, which supported the expansion of Papal authority primarily as a bulwark of orthodoxy inside the ever-liberalizing church. It was only after the July Revolution in neighboring France that the mission of the ultramontanists subtly shifted to one of political dominion, as priests began to see the Church as another political tool to use in the public realm either in support of or against the state, depending on the circumstances. Since the Congress of Vienna a circle of priests and theologians at the seminary in Mainz had cultivated the ultramontane movement, publishing the highly influential Der Katholik while training new generations of clergymen in this neo-orthodox movement. Though their paper and the influence of the Mainz circle cells of the Piusverein sprang up throughout southern and western Germany in the spring and summer of 1848. At the beginning of the March Revolution the association claimed little over four hundred prominent notables in Hesse and the surrounding smaller states. However the organization quickly expanded, with membership climbing into the thousands, and by mid-summer there were thirty affiliated clubs in the prominent states of Prussia and Austria alone. However in the radical hubs of the Rhine, Palatine, Baden and Saxony the association only made modest in-roafds against a more progressive, enlightened Catholics as preached by the clergy there. The Piusverein formed a loose union which operated largely independently from Mainz and was thus soon co-opted by conservative and reactionary laymen who began to exercise real power within the organization. The directing board of the Cologne Pius Association, for example, consisted of eleven attorneys, eleven businessmen, three priests, and two local officials. As one of the largest, though surrounded by a sea of radicalism, Cologne's club publishing its own journal, Pius IX, which was self-described as a 'Christian democratic journal' with a circulation of three thousand - mostly Prussians living in the Rhineland... ... In general the Piusverein favored a Großdeutsche Lösung with a constitutional monarchy; however the association also attacked the national assembly in its press, accusing Frankfurt of intolerance towards Catholics while carping at Protestants, liberals, Jews and Poles. Only a few clubs associated with the Piusverein demanded a fully democratic state. In Trier, a combination of anti-Prussian sentiment and the economic downturn helped radicalized the local club. Advocating universal male suffrage, the Trier Piusverein engaged in what local Prussian police labeled as 'democratic agitation,' and was accused of collaboration with subversive parties. Indeed it was largely the work of the Trier Piusverein that allowed the radical Rhenish revolutionaries to capture the city without a single shot being fired... ... This left-right split eventually undermined the Piusverein. Conservatives associates largely ending up joining other Associations in Prussia, Austria and Bavaria, while the radicals in the Rhineland, learning from the example of their French cousins across the border, increasingly began to integrate their Catholic faith with their socriocratic message, eventually leading to the Katholikentag (4), while many others eventually were incorporated into the synodal movement (5) which sought direct participation of lower clergy and educated laymen in the church's decisions while opposing Papal authority. These new Synoden also advocated internal reforms of the Church such as religious services in the German language and a married clergy... Shart, Stephanie. A History of the Jewish Struggle. Addis Ababa: British Imperial Publications, 1997. ... On one side Jews stood shoulder to shoulder with non-Jews in their fight for emancipation; two out of five victims in Vienna in March 1848 were Jews, while at least ten Jews died in the fighting in Berlin. Yet on the other side the 1848 Revolutions ushered in a new, more intense, anti-Jewish hostility as many Christians feared emancipation could, and could, lead to Jewish domination of the business industries. However there was no question that in all of states which liberated themselves in 1848 Jews played an active role. Equal rights for the Jews were inextricably tied with demands for constitutions and civil rights, and consequently the vast majority of Jews sided with the revolutionaries... ... Only in France and the Netherlands had Jews been emancipated earlier, and thus the events of 1848 had little influence on their legal status in those two nations. Nonetheless two Jews, Adolphe Crémieux (6) and Michel Goudchaux, were active in the French government, while one Rabbi Aron joined the Bishop of Strasbourg and the Protestant clergy in 1848 to bless liberty trees planted in the province. Previous to the revolutions most countries had been gradually debating and removing the restrictions against Jews in the previous half century, with Britain notably abolishing all legal restrictions in the well-timed 1846. This piecemeal move towards emancipation largely coincided with greater Jewish assimilation into the surrounding cultures; as the barriers to citizenship fell Jews began to play a prominent role in public life, and further began to associate themselves as Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, and etc. first and as Jews second. This subtle shift speed along the process as the Jews were seen to be less 'alien,' gradually leading to them being accepted b their fellow countrymen. This is not to say that there were not troubles throughout the process however; even during the 1848 revolution there was anti-Jewish violence in France, Germany and Hungary, though in the latter thankfully nothing as terrible as the Verbunkos... ... Most Jewish and non-Jewish liberals hoped that with one broad stroke all social and economic inequalities could be abolished. Gabriel Riesser (7), a prominent Jewish spokesman in the German assembly, believed that the eradication would erode the social gulf between Jews and gentiles by allows Jews to be treated no different than Protestant or Catholic Germans; "A consequence of our new law will be that marriages will be mixed, and that religion will no longer be a permanent and insuperable dividing wall." This sentiment was taken further by David Strauss (8) who hoped that emancipation would inevitably lead to mixed marriages which would 'bring about the disappearance of peculiarities and ossified traits which have so far made of the Jews such a burden on our civil society." There were some Jews nevertheless who feared such an assimilation, believing that it was only the restrictions on Jews which continued the very existence of the Jewish community as a separate institution. Many Orthodox Jews thus feared and even attempted to work against emancipation, most notably when the Jews of Austria outside of Vienna sent a petition to Emperor Ferdinand in August 1848 beginning for him not to relieve the restrictions upon the Jews, though of course this motion was ignored and... (1) Of course all three of those cities just happened to be centers of French republicanism and radicalism. (2) 'Liberty trees' became symbols of revolutionary republicanism after the Sons of Liberty made one such elm tree in Boston famous during the opening days of the American Revolution by tarring and feathering two tax collectors under it. The trees spread throughout the colonies during the revolution, and across the Atlantic during the French Revolution, though many were chopped down there during the Napoleonic period. During the 1848 Revolution several thousand more trees were planted in the provinces, though OTL they were once again chopped during in the Second Empire. (3) Who was paramount for being one of the first 19th century scholars to discuss the 'decline' of European civilization. Gaume believed that the Renaissance, and its 'resurrection' of the paganism of antiquity, had paved the way for not only the French Revolution, but also the Industrial Revolution, and was the prime source of all contemporary evil. (4) Originally a 'Catholic Congress,' the first of which took place in Mainz in 1848, IOTL in the following decades the Katholikentag grew in popularity and fame, becoming less politicized and more an opportunity for Catholics to discuss and celebrate their faith, and eventually morphed into a yearly celebration now translated as 'Catholic's Day.' ITTL roughly the same process will occur for the left-radical Catholics, though of course within a different context. (5) Historically a council of the church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application, synods were fairly common the early centuries of Christianity before the Catholic church became a state-sponsored institution. With the Reformation interest in such 'council churches' was renewed and the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Reformed rites all use synods to one degree or another. (6) A lawyer who had become involved in politics following the 1830 Revolution, forming connections with numerous political personages - including King Louis-Philippe - Crémieux became well known as a brilliant defender of the liberal stance both in the courtroom and in the press. Elected as a deputy in 1842 he lead the campaign against the conservative ministry of Guizot, and served as Vice-President of Consistoire Central des Israélites de France ('Central Consistory of Jews of France'), the administrative agency for all French Jews. A member of the February provisional government, he served as ministry of justice and successfully abolished the death penalty for political offenses and also make the office of judge immovable. He resigned following the June Days and became an advocate of Louis-Napoléon, though IOTL he arrested following the 1851 Coup for his republican tendencies. (7) Both of Riesser's grandfathers were Rabbis, though his father was a merchant in Hamburg, while Riesser himself studied law in Kiel and Heildelberg. After being denied the position of a university lecturer in Hamburg because of his religion Risser took up the cause of Jewish emancipation, publishing and monthly Der Jude, as well as taking part in the emancipation debates in Baden in 1833 and writing the Jüdische Briefe which was well-received in Prussia of all places. However his real turn of fortune came in 1840 when the Jewish notary to the Hamburg City-State Council, Meyer Israel Bresselau, died while in office. Bresselau had been installed during the French annexation in 1811 and kept on after the defeat of Napoleon, becoming a prominent member of the local community. After his death the council had a somewhat change of heart and allowed up to two Jews to serve on the council; Riesser was elected immediately and served until 1847 when he was sent to the Frankfurt Parliament as part of Hamburg's deputation. (8) Who was noted for his controversiality in Chapter #1. Last edited by wolf_brother; June 14th, 2011 at 09:11 PM..
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#88
June 14th, 2011, 11:35 PM
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Interesting religious roles there.
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#89
June 15th, 2011, 04:17 PM
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#90
June 15th, 2011, 04:39 PM
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#91
June 15th, 2011, 04:42 PM
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EDIT: IOTL the big social-liberal Catholic split came with the June Days, which saw the liberals join forces with reactionary conservatives. However after Louis-Napoléon's Coup of 1851 the liberals turned away from the new regime; though by that point the republicans, for the most part, didn't wish to join with them again. This played a large role in the radical-republican, liberal-republican/liberal-monarchist & reactionary-conservative monarchist vote in French politics throughout the 19th century. ITTL though Louis-Napoléon's rise to power as the Empereur-Président is less dramatic, slightly more constitutional, and close on the heels of the June Days. Plus the French left is generally, for the moment, weakened in France after the Conservatory Massacre & Lyon Commune, so the radical-liberal split is an easier divide to heal, while the liberal-conservative alliance is on somewhat stronger ground due to a more moderate rule by Louis-Napoléon. In generally ITTL it is the liberal Catholic vote that is split between two diametrically opposing ends instead of a somewhat clean-cut three-way partition of French politics. Last edited by wolf_brother; June 15th, 2011 at 04:51 PM..
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#92
June 20th, 2011, 08:17 AM
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Addendum
The Smallest Possible Difference  Italia and Germania by Johann Friedrich Overbeck, 1828 Addendum to Book One: Springtime of the Peoples
 Flags the 1848 Revolutionary States  USC World Map of TSPD, circa spring 1850 Last edited by wolf_brother; June 22nd, 2011 at 06:02 PM..
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#93
June 20th, 2011, 08:21 AM
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Cherchez la Femme
[Spacing]
"England is an empire; Germany a race; France is a person." - Jules Michelet in History of France published summer of 1845 Morrow, Francis. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte: A Biography. Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1892. ... Louis-Napoléon's victory during the 1849 plebiscite led to several changes in his personal life. First, he was now granted an income of a million francs a month, a rise which freed him from the financial troubles which had plagued him throughout his career. Second, he was faced with the task of providing an heir to empire he intended to establish in the future. After his advances towards his cousin Mathilde to rekindle their earlier romance were rebuffed Louis-Napoléon's next candidate was Princess Carola Vasa of Sweden. Here there was family 'pull,' for Carola was a grand-daughter of Stéphanie de Beauharnais - the adoptive daughter of Napoléon I and Joséphine de Beauharnais (1). It was an ambitious plan which would have strengthened old ties between France, Russia, and Austria, and even establish new ones between the French and the Prussians, Swedes and British. It nearly came off; Louis-Napoléon sent an emissary to Bavaria, where the House of Zähringen had retreated to following the defeat of royalist forces in the May Revolutions, as well as one to Sweden. Princess Carola, although still only seventeen at the time of the proposal, agreed to marry the forty-four year old bachelor. 'Au revoir. A Paris,' were reportedly her last words on the subject to the French envoy as he departed. The Empereur-Président personally paid her a visit in early 1851, and the couple, though conscious of the rather large age difference, got along fairly well; likely due to the fact that Carola was considered the most beautiful royal princess in Europe at the time. Her suitors were not lacking, and when Louis-Napoléon returned to France convinced the wedding was on-track he was shocked only two days later when he received a letter from Sweden, which, given the relative lack of easy communications across the continent at the time, could only have been written the very night he had departed Stockholm, breaking off the engagement. Both Carola, and her father Gustavus, had been under pressure St Petersburg and from Vienna, who was seeking to regather her strength in international affairs after the disaster of 1848...  Princess Carola of Sweden ... Carola was quickly married off to Albert of the Wettins, another royal house that had been forced from power in the May Revolutions. Although Albert was below Carola's station, both the Russians and Hapsburg Austrians supported the move as they hoped to replace the republican government in Saxony with a restored Wettin crown; under either Hapsburg or Romanov influence, of course. However Carola was a staunch Lutheran, and Albert was Catholic; although Carola was forced to convert for the wedding the marriage was an unhappy, childless one, and by... ... It was a slap in the face for Louis-Napoléon, however he was philosophical about the affair; "If the royal families of Europe do not want me among them, it is better for me. It certainly is hardly consistent for us Napoléons, who are of plebeian origin, to seek alliances with families whose distinctions come to them by Divine right." Of course this comment both ignored the exact royal marriages made by Napoléon I, and an ironic foreshadowing of events soon to happen... ... Louis-Napoléon was a man who always learned the lessons of a defeat. The farces of Strasbourg and Boulogne led to the triumph of his election. He did not lower his eyes when he lost, but them raised them higher yet. No he focused them on the woman whom he saw as the future star of Europe and the world - Queen Victoria of Britain... Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007. ... Derby (2) formed a minority government in January 1850 following the collapse of Lord Russell's Whig Government. With many Conservatives ministers having followed Peel, Derby was forced to appoint many new men to office - of the Cabinet only three were pre-existing Privy Counselors. When the aged, and largely deaf, Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, heard the list of ministers being read aloud in the House of Lords he shouted out "Who? Who?" as each new cabinet member was announced; the name stuck, and the short-lived conservative Who? Who? Ministry would gain infamy for its plethora of new and relative inexperienced members. As such, though traditionally Derby's ministers were thought to have been dominated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, in foreign policy Derby, and his Foreign Secretary James Harris, 3rd Early of Malmesbury, pursued a course of action that was aimed at building British power through financial strength and seeking to avoid wars at all costs... ... Among the information supplied to Queen Victoria in early 1851 by Harris was an ominous detail from France: Louis-Napoléon was restoring the imperial eagles to the flags and uniforms of the French arm and navy. Victoria wrote it off as 'rather nonsense' but fears of French aggression soon swept over the country. Prime Minister Derby proposed to deal with the Bonapartist 'hordes' by simply strengthening the local militia; however Palmerston saw his chance for revenge, and argued that nothing short of a national militia would do. Parliament agreed with him and Lord Derby's government fell within two months of Palmerston's own removal from power. 'I have had my tit-for-tat' the jocular ex-Foreign Secretary remarked... ... To the Queen, though she secretly sympathized with Palmerston's tough attitude on defense, a change of government and its attendant alarms and excursions always meant a period of anxiety. How she longed for an end to party confusion and instead of 'this sorry Chamber,' a strong government. Her faith was further shaken not-long after when the Duke of Wellington died on 28 January 1852 (3). Victoria's nerves were frayed following Wellington's passing so soon after the deaths of Melbourne and Peel. It was not long before the lack his fatherly wisdom was felt by the Queen as she had to face the first political crisis without the Duke's advice. The problems were manifold; the Peelites refused to serve under their old tormentor, Disraeli. The Queen rejected Derby's suggestion that her old enemy, Palmerston, should be brought in as a leader. Lord Derby in turn rejected her counter-suggestion of Mr. Gladstone. In her Journal Victoria set out Derby's reply: "Mr. G. was in his opinion quite unfit for it. He possessed none of that decision, boldness, readiness, & clearness so necessary for leading a party." At last a necessary compromise was reached, and on 24 December the Queen was told with 'immense relief and pleasure' that Lord Aberdeen (4) had formed a 'Liberal-Conservative Government,' the basis of which largely laid the foundations of the later Liberal Party. Only the news that Palmerston was Home Secretary could diminish her pleasure and... Morrow, Francis. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte: A Biography. Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1892. ... Although Victoria and Louis-Napoléon got along famously the few times they met, expressing a certain attraction between the couple, the covetousness of Prince Albert and nationalistic obligations of both their states forbade the notorious womanizer from coveting the large wooden bed at Windsor Castle. However, Victoria had a niece of seventeen named Adelaide who was said to take after her aunt both in spirit and form who neatly fitted the role of bride (5). By 10 December 1852 Queen Victoria found on her desk at Osborne a quest from the Empereur-Président, channeled through his ambassador and the Foreign Office, that he be allowed to marry her niece Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Rarely had Victoria received such a shock, and immediately she summoned Prince Albert and... ... Even since the plebiscite of 1849 the chief topic in the field of international politics between Victoria and Albert had been the aims of Louis-Napoléon. While the Queen regarded him in a rather friendly manner, remembering his support during her earlier years, Albert saw him as the pinnacle of sin and danger. Although partially jealousy, in this Albert was largely influenced by his uncle, Leopold I, King of the Belgians. To King Leopold, now sixty, this was a family problem; in the business 'taking over' thrones the Coburgs had been the leading operators since Waterloo. They had gained power in Belgium, Portugal, and Britain, and had other deals in mind. Now however the eagle of the Bonapartes had risen from the ashes and threatened their plans. Albert did what Leopold told him to do, as the former had been largely responsible for Albert's own marriage to Queen Victoria, and by 1852 Victoria was doing what Albert told her to do. Since the 1848 period Leopold had let off a constant volley of letters, both warning and offering 'suggestions,' to his fellow sovereigns exaggerating the danger of attack by a reborn Napoleonic France. In one such letter he described himself as being "in the awkward position of persons in hot climates who find themselves in company, for instance in their beds, with a snake; they must not move because that irritates the creature, but they can hardly remain as they are without a fair chance of being bitten." The true issue of contention between the Bonapartes and the Coburgs, and between Leopold and Louis-Napoléon specifically, was the different approaches taken to the palaces of power. The Bonapartes rode, alone, up to the steps of the front door and demanded admission; the Coburgs sneaked in through a side-door and took over the best bedroom. (6) While the Coburgs regarded money as a prerequisite of power, the Bonapartes put power first and collected money as necessary. The Bonapartes believed in achievement, in 'doing things,' while the Coburgs preferred to slide into success with the least possible risk and effort. So it was that, through the insistence of Leopold and Albert, Britain became convinced that her shores were open to invasion by a new Napoléon. In fact though nothing was further from Louis-Napoléon's thoughts; he both liked and admired the country which had given him shelter years before, and he counted many of his friends within the British intelligentsia. His mistress was British, his cousin was the Duchess of Hamilton; he had even made plans to return to Britain if his plebiscite had failed. However Albert and many British politicians, particularly within conservative circles, refused to believe and their call to arms was answered by those diehards who recalled the threatened invasion by Napoléon I. Indeed the memory of that scare continued to linger in the popular British consciousness for decades well affect the fact, with many a child warned 'Boney will get you if you don't behave!' A general cry was head, that the time had come not to merely augment Britain's naval force but also to strengthen an 'inner lining' of defense. A movement for the establishment of Volunteers was encouraged by the government (7). However apart from the miscalculation regarding the intentions of Louis-Napoléon, the re-awakening process was apposite for there had been little military advancement, either in weapons or tactics, since Waterloo. Now overly fat young men were lured from office jobs and the clubs made to 'double-march' - at least as close as an approximation to as they could. Albert himself went so far as to spend a night in a tent - the nearest he ever came to the rigors of a soldier's life. However the year passed without sign of aggression by France... ... The proposal both embarrassed and annoyed Queen Victoria. She objected to being placed in a position where a yes or no reply was asked for regarding another woman's marriage, and so she tartly informed her Foreign Secretary, relaying that it was solely a question for the girl's parents. But she did add that she considered the Princess' age and religion weight against the idea. Meanwhile however Louis-Napoléon had sent an emissary to Langenburg, putting the same proposal to Adelheid's father, Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Ernst replied that he could not dispose of his daughter's hand without her consent, that she was now visiting relatives in Britain, and that he would leave the entire matter into her hands. At sweet seventeen Adelaide was both gay and pretty, and the thought of escaping the boredom and relative poverty, for nobility, of Langenburg thrilled her. She told a close confident that she was 'dying to be Empress.' However, playing quietly and cagily behind the scenes, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and King Leopold were determined that the marriage would not take place. Count Walewski, the French Ambassador to London and an illegitimate son of Napoléon I by his mistress Countess Marie Walewska, traveled to Langenburg to interview Ernst via Paris; however there he learned, to his horror, that Louis-Napoléon was still deeply involved with his mistress, Harriet Howard. Calling on his cousin the next morning he was told Mon cher, je suis pris ('My dear, I'm caught'). Walewski put forward his case, and Louis-Napoléon agreed that he would do nothing more about Harriet until he received word from Adelaide. Mistress Howard knew about Adelaide and suspected the worst. 'But,' she told a friend, 'he suffers from indigestion and I know he will come back.' She would not let him go though Louis-Napoléon made matters very plain, offering to pay her off to the tune of an earldom, a castle and a French husband of high rank... ... As is natural on such occasions opinions were sharply divided as to where lay the future of the Empereur-Président; the younger statesmen and diplomats favored Adelaide, and in this they were backed by the British Ambassador to Paris, Lord Cowley. A link between France, Britain, and one of the German states could but prove an asset in the future, and the reasons behind their thinking were later to become only too clear... ... The old guard, headed by ex-King Jérôme Bonaparte, would have preferred Louis-Napoléon remain single and leave the, rather only potential, succession to Jérôme's own son Jérôme-Napoléon. However this position was checked by none other than Princess Mathilde, who was in favor of Louis-Napoléon continuing his domestic relationship with Harriet Howard, and reportedly threw his self at her cousin's feet begging him to discard 'the German.' Ultimately however the allure of wealth and power was too much for Adelheid, while for Louis-Napoléon's part he only thought of a 'legitimate' 'heir' to his future empire which he planned to take his leisurely time in forming - seeing no need to rush before him at the moment. Thus, though opposed by the major players, no one individual or government would step forward and directly disapprove of the arrangement, and on 30 January 1853 the couple was engaged... ... Louis-Napoléon hated domestic rows, and they now loomed up before him like black clouds, threatening to blot out the sunshine of the wedding; the news of which could not be withheld from Harriet Howard. He therefore devised a ruse by which she would be well out of the way during the vital days ahead. Harriet's former lover, the gambler James Fitzroy, had seized the chance of Louis-Napoléon's elevation to make discreet demands for money in exchange for certain letters of a compromising nature. Louis-Napoléon dispatched Harriet in the case of Mocquard, his secretary and devoted friend, to London with instructions to but the letters. On the evening of 1 February Harriet read of the engagement to Adelheid while in Le Harve awaiting for a boat to cross the channel. Furious, she returned to Paris immediate; however on arrival at her house she found that her rooms had been searched. The Prefect of Police had faithfully carried out his orders to ensure that no incriminating documents remained; Howard's drawer's were in chaos and all of her papers, even those not relating to Louis-Napoléon, had been taken. There was a 'terrible scene' but Harriet realized that Louis-Napoléon was fully committed and there was little else she could do. Eventually she removed herself to London and historical obscurity... ... Not surprisingly people commented that President Bonaparte appeared pale and strained, for with one hand he was warding off Harriet Howard and with the other repulsing the attacks on Adelheid. On 22 January he faced the National Assembly, and in a long and eloquent speech put the case forward for his chosen bride; "I have preferred a woman whom I know and respect to a mysterious one, an alliance with whom might with its lack of advantages have brought the necessity for further sacrifices. Without disrespect to anyone, I yield to my inclinations" (8). Louis-Napoléon won the day, however the many monarchists in the Assembly were not pleased to hear their ruler refer to himself as a parvenu. The civil wedding was fixed for the evening of Saturday, 19 February 1853, with the religious ceremony the following day at Notre Dame. As part of the latter Adelheid was to convert to the Catholic faith, which was, fortunately, no large matter for the bride-to-be. However it was still a busy week. There was the trousseau to arrange, the costumiers working overtime; Madam Vignon provided thirty-four dresses and Mlle Palmyr another twenty. The point d'Alençon lace used was valued at 40,000 francs alone. Further there were wedding present to inspect and acknowledge. The City of Paris proposed to give a diamond parure valued at 600,000 francs; Adelheid declined, instead asking that the money should go to charity; the bride's popularity within France rose overnight... ... People began arriving in Paris from all over France, for there had not been such a glittering occasion since the days of the Empire. For many of them, taking advantage of the newly built railways, it was there first sight of the capitol. Following the Second June Days Louis-Napoléon had appointed the Seine prefect, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, to rebuild and modernize the city. Thus Haussmann did to a drastic extent, demolishing much of the old city with its narrow streets that had contributed so well to the revolutionary barricades of 1848 with a network of wide, straight boulevards and radiating circuses. The Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes in particular were both transformed into large publc parks. Haussmann's project encompassed all aspects of urban planning, both in the center of Paris and in the surrounding districts; streets and boulevards, regulations imposed on the facades of buildings, public parks, sewers and water works, city facilities, and public monuments. Hassmann's approached to urban planned had been strongly criticized by many of his contemporaries; however the wedding visitors were largely curious by the new Paris, whose long straight, wide boulevards with their cafés and shops determined a new type of urban scenario and that was to have a profound influence on the everyday lives of Parisians... ... In Britain the wedding was the talk of the day. Queen Victoria wrote to the Queen-Dowager of Prussia, Augusta, who was a close confident: 'The big event of the day is the incredible marriage of President Nap. The future bride is beautiful, clever, very coquette, passionate and wild.' The little, and somewhat dowdy, Queen was seeing in Adelheid the qualities which, deep down inside herself, she would have liked to posses. She made certain that she knew all about the wedding from the woman's angle by arranging that Lady Augusta Bruce, lady-in-waiting to her mother, the Duchess of Kent, should send an eye-witness account... ... After the civil ceremony there was now placed before the couple, for signature, the famous register in which Napoléon I had recorded events in the Bonaparte family story, fromt he adoption of Prince Eugène de Beauharnais as his son on 2 March 1806 tothe birth of his only legitimate child Napoléon-François, the King of Rome, on 20 March 1811. The guests were intrigued by the behavior of who came up to add their names as witnesses. Old Jérôme-Napoléon 'bowed as he passed the President, but took no notice of her. His son, 'Plon-Plon,' 'bowed to neither one nor the other.' Princess Mathilde, who had had an important role to pla in the ceremony, had been persuaded to hide her emotions and behave herself. On Sunday morning as the bells were ringing out all over Paris Louis-Napoléon arrived at the Élysée Palace, where Adelheid was being housed, for breakfast, thus breaking the customary rule of the wedding day. She put on her gown for him to see and she placed a crown upon her head. At noon Adelheid left for the Tuileries; there she joined Louis-Napoléon in the same gilded coach which had carried Napoléon I and Joséphine to Notre Dame in 1804. The spectacle was stupendous - the decorations in the streets, the troops in their new, full dress uniforms, the long line of carriages, the cuirassiers and carabineers, all enriched by the clamor of the bands and the bells and the guns. Yet the dense crowds were strangely silent, too intent on catching a glimpse of the bride to indulge in patriotic enthusiasm. However Adelheid still stole the day; tribute after tribute came from those who saw her pass. No more beautiful picture graced the nineteenth century (9)...  A rare photograph of Princess Adelheid, Mme le Impératrice-Président of France, in mourning circa 1860 ... For a time Louis-Napoléon and Adelheid were very much in love. An official entering a room at the Tuiliers was surprised to see her sitting on his knee. In company, when they wished to say something private to one another they used both English and German, sometimes not realizing that there where others who were familiar with either or even both languages who were, rather quite accidentally, eavesdropping on their private endearments. Away from her mother Adelheid was like a girl escaped from school - or from a nunnery. By that summer Adelheid revealed to Louis-Napoléon that she was pregnant; suddenly now the time to found his empire seemed not so far away... (0) Cherchez la Femme literally translates to 'Look for the woman.' Coined in the 1854 novel The Mohicans of Paris by Alexandre Dumas, the author of several other classics such as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers; Dumas' implication was that a man behaves out of character, often in an inexplicable manner, because he is trying to gain favor with a woman. (1) Stéphanie de Beauharnais was the daughter of Claude de Beauharnais, the 2nd Count des Roches-Baritaud, brother-in-law of Empress Joséphine. On the death of her mother Stéphanie was taken in by the Imperial Family, and subsequently formally adopted by Napoléon. In 1806 she married Karl, the Grand Duke of Baden, whose sisters had married into the ruling houses of Bavaria, Sweden, and Russia. Karl and Stéphanie themselves had three daughters who also married into royal houses; the eldest, Louise, to Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden, and Carola was their only child. Stéphanie's other two daughters, Josephine and Marie, become the wives of Charles Anthony of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and William Douglas-Hamilton, 11th Duke of Hamilton, respectively. (2) Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Early of Derby, who had been elected to Parliament as a Whig in 1820. Returning to power along with his party in 1830, Derby became Chief Secretary for Ireland before moving to the position of War Secretary in 1833; however he broke with his party in 1834 over the reform of the Church of Ireland. Derby took with him several other MPs who, as conservative Whigs, attempted to steer a middle course between liberal Whigs and the Tories; however by the 1840s the so-called 'Derby Dilly' had largely merged into Robert Peel's Conservative Party. In 1841 Derby was Peel's Colonial Secretary, and it was he that largely broke the Conservatives over the repeal of the Corn Laws, leading to the split between conservatives and Peelites, who would go onto to join the Liberal Party both IOTL and ITTL. (3) IOTL Arthur Wellesly, Duke of Wellington, died of a stroke in September 1852; however the ITTL events of 1848 Revolutions had a profound affect on Wellington's well-being in his turbulent later years - especially as he continued to remain involved in government. (4) George Hamilton-Gordon, the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, who had taken his seat as a Scottish Tory in the House of Lords in 1805. Made an Ambassador to Austria in 1812 he was a central player in the 1814 Treaty of Paris. After remarrying in 1815, his first wife having died the same year he joined the Foreign Service, Aberdeen withdrew from politics until 1828 when he become Foreign Secretary under the Tory Government of 1828-1830. He was then Secretary of War from 1834-35, and again Foreign Secretary between 1841 to 1846 under Robert Peel. Resigning with his PM over the repeal of the Corn Laws, after Peel's death in 1850 Abderbeen became the de-facto leader of the Peelites. (5) IOTL after the failure with Carola Louis-Napoléon thought that securing his role as Emperor in a Second Empire would aid his chances of receiving a royal wife. It was during this process that he met Eugénie de Montijo, whom he eventually married. However ITTL Louis-Napoléon already has both his title and his empire all but in name, and so he moves ahead with his plans regarding Adelaide without having take the time to plan and stage a coup d'etat. (6) Our author is expressing views, particularly anti-Belgian and pro-action attitudes, which foreshadow attitudes prevalent among educated Frenchmen at the time of his work's publication. (7) Which IOTL, following the numerous military failures on the part of the British Army, led to the creation of the Volunteer Force. (8) This speech is only slightly changed from OTL; however the shift brings about a remarkable transformation in the meaning of Louis-Napoléon's arguments. (9) Again, more patriotic attitudes common among French writers at the dawn of the 20th century ITTL. (10) IOTL Eugénie, who was twenty-seven at the time of the wedding, was pregnant by mid-March; however on 27 April she had a miscarriage, following which she became seriously ill and was bed-ridden for weeks after. Louis-Napoléon, to his credit, was concerned only for the health of his wife - however he did not comprehend her difficulties; his previous experience of fatherhood had come from his much younger mistress during his earlier time locked up in Ham. This quickly lead to Louis-Napoléon returning to his womanizing ways; though he did love and continually return to Eugénie. ITTL Adelheid is young, bountiful, full of energy, and ever curious. Not only would she provide legitimate children for Louis-Napoléon, she would always match his endless depravity; IOTL Eugénie found sex disgusting and only served the purpose of creating children. Last edited by wolf_brother; June 21st, 2011 at 02:01 AM..
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#94
June 20th, 2011, 08:21 AM
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Splendid map. What will be in store for Book II?
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#95
June 20th, 2011, 08:41 AM
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In all seriousness there'll be about eight more interlude chapters while I keep doing my research and then we'll start Book II, which is tentatively titled 'Glorious Summer by this Son of York.'
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#96
June 20th, 2011, 12:28 PM
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I feel like the previous section was interesting. Rarely do weddings interest me.
And a princess in mourning in 1860? I think there's something spoilerrific there.
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#97
June 20th, 2011, 04:13 PM
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Hey, I don't know much of anything about European history of this period and am thus unable to offer much in the way of constructive criticism or informed comment, but I did want to let you know how much I'm enjoying this timeline. It's well-researched and wonderfully detailed. Keep on writing; this is great stuff!
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#98
June 20th, 2011, 11:11 PM
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 The 1850s will be a very... transitional period for Europe, and the world, ITTL.Quote:
That means a lot to me coming from someone as prolific on the boards as you are.EDIT: Which is not to say all my other readers and commentators are not appreciated - far from it! Especially you, SavoyTruffle, who have followed this TL at its every step so far, asking questions and pointing out my flaws where needed; I thank you Last edited by wolf_brother; June 21st, 2011 at 02:11 AM..
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#99
June 23rd, 2011, 06:11 AM
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The Final Frontier
[Spacing]
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.." - William Shakespear's Hamlet Lopez y Reyes, Tomás. The Solar System. Mexico City: Editorial Mazatlan, 1901. ... In 1821, Alexis Bouvard published astronomical tables of the orbit of Uranus, which had been discovered some forty years earlier; however subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesize that an unknown body was perturbing the orbit. Some twenty years later, work continued, as John Couch Adams began to study the orbit of Uranus using his own data. Via James Challis, he requested from Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who sent his data in February 1844; Adams continued to work on this throughout the late 1840s and produced several different estimates of a new planet, but did not respond to requests from Airy about the orbit of Uranus. In 1845-46 the French mathematician Urban Le Verrier, independently of Adams, developed his own calculations while also experiencing difficulties in stimulating any enthusiasm in his compatriots. In June of 1846, upon seeing Le Verrier's first published estimate of the planet's longitude and its similarity to Adam's estimate, Airy persuaded Cambridge University director James Challis to search for the planet. Meanwhile, Le Verrier urged Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle to search with the observatory's refractor (1). On 23 September 1846, the night following his receipt of the letter, Galle and his student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest discovered a planet within 1° of where Le Verrier had predicted it to be, and about 12° from Adams' prediction. Challis later realized that he had observed the planet twice the previous August, but had failed to identify it owing to his casual approach to work. In the wake of the discovery there was much nationalistic rivalry between the French and the British over who had priority and deserved credit for the discovery. However there remained some slight discrepancies in the Jovians' orbits (2). These were taken to indicate the existence of yet another planet... ... Some speculated that one planet alone would not be enough to explain the discrepancy. As early as 1838 the British astronomers Rev. Thomas John Hussey and George Biddel Airy, and the French Alexis Bouvard suggested that the unusual motion of Uranus might be due to the gravitational influence of a yet undiscovered planet, a subject to which the German director of the Seeberg Observatory in Gotha, Peter Andreas Hansen, replied that a single body could not adequately explain the motion of Uranus, and theorized that two planets lay further out in the cosmic void... ... In 1848 Jacques Babinet raised an objection to Le Verrier's calculations, claiming that Galle's and d'Arrest's discovered planet, then known as simple as 'the planet exterior to Uranus', or even 'Le Verrier's planet,' had an observed mass smaller and its orbit larger than Le Verrier had initially he predicted (3). Babinet postulated, based largely on simple subtraction from Le Verrier's calculations, that another planet of roughly twelve times Earth's mass must exist as well. In 1850 James Ferguson, an Assistant Astronomer at the US Naval Observatory, observed a heavenly body, noted by the US Navy as GR1719k, to which his commanding officer, Lt. Matthew Maury, believed was evidence of a new planet postulated by astronomers in the wake of the 1846 discovery. Subsequent searches by other astronomers across Europe, particularly Babinet in France, quickly revealed a planet (4); the scientific community was aflutter with two such impressive discoveries in such a short amount of time. Truly it seemed to many that science was pushing the edge of mankind's known world. Quickly however the same nationalist rivalry arose across the Atlantic between France and America over the right to 'claim' the new planet, while the French and British continued to quarrel over the 1846 discovery, which had... ... The contention between the nations also extended into the naming rights of such planets. Claiming the right to discovery, Le Verrier proposed to name for the ninth planet (5) 'Neptune,' after the Roman god of the sea, who was identified with the Greek equivalent Poseidon, while falsely claiming that such a name had been approved by the French Bureau des Longitudes. However Le Verrier swiftly changed his position, and instead sought to name the planet 'Le Verrier' after himself; though this was met with stiff resistance outside of France. As the Franco-British rivalry over the new planet continued, French almanacs of the period reintroduced the name 'Herschel' for Uranus, after that planet's discoverer Sir William Herschel. The name was still undecided when the tenth planet, or 'Planet X,' was discovered, and soon the naming argument extended there as well, with early suggestions such as 'Pluto,' the Roman term for Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, as the planet was expected to be a cold and dark place so far removed from the sun, and 'Hyperion,' after the Greek Titan who was considered the lord of light and distance horizons before the Titanomachy and his replacement by Sol (the Sun). However... ... With the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park the scientific community gathered, and over the entirety of the twenty-six week world's fair an international consensus was reached which set the tradition in which the world's fairs were used not only to show cases the nation's latest industrial inventions, but also to reach international agreement on scientific matters - a tradition that remains to this day. Under the 1851 consensus both Le Verrier and Adams were credited for the discovery of 'Planet IX,' while Babinet and Ferguson were jointly ascribed to have discovered 'Planet X.' Far more contentious though was the final naming of the two heavenly bodies; with over one thousand suggests submitted in the opening round of voting alone. However, by the fall of that year the names were decided, with the demand for mythological names the deciding factor, as this would seem to be in keeping with the nomenclature of the other planets, all of which, except for Earth, were named for Roman mythology. Thus the 9th planet was termed Janus, after the Roman god of time and gateways, while the tenth planet was baptized Caelus after the supreme Roman god of the sky. Indeed, the initial calculations of the two newly-discovered planets, especially that of Caelus, were widely overly optimistic about their masses, a discrepancy that was not discovered until... ... Although there was some resistance to the accord reached in London in 1851, particularly from the French (6), by the 1853 great exhibitions in Dublin and New York the credit of discovery, and the new names, were well accepted by most of the attending scientists, a position that was only further reinforced by the 1854 exhibit in Munich. Within less than decade of both their discoveries the consensus of their discoverers and their names were so widespread that even the unexpected cancellation of the 1855 Paris 'Exposition Universelle' was not enough to...  Queen Victoria opening the Great Exhibition in 1851 (1) A refracting telescope, which although originally invented by Galileo in 1609 had been constantly revised and improved upon over the two hundred year since its creation. By the 19th century achromatic refractors, invented in 1733 though not patented until 1758, were in widespread use, which limited the effects of chromatic and spherical aberration by using 'crown' and 'flint' glass, ground and polished, to bring two different wavelengths (typically red and blue) into focus in the same plane. The so called 'great refractors' of the 19th century used this design in many of the largest observatories ever built. (2) ITTL term for gas giants. (3) IOTL the planet in question eventually was named Neptune, after the Roman god of the sea, and following the Roman mythological naming sequence of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Latinized Uranus. (4) IOTL this didn't happen as the US Naval Observatory was the only one looking. ITTL though with successful liberal states in Europe, which are on good terms with the US, and an earlier and expanding scientific community, more astronomers, using very large and, for the time, high-tech equipment are able to find the planet; OTL Pluto. (5) According to the Titius-Bode Law a planet was expected to exist between Mars and Jupiter roughly where the asteroid belt is known as 'Phaeton,' after Phaëton, son of the greek sun-god Helips, who attempted to drive his father's chariot with disasterous results - he was ultimately destroyed by Zeus. Accordinly, after the discovery of Ceres in 1801 and Pallas in 1802 it was then believed, in a theory advanced by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, that these objects were the largest fragments of a planet that had formely revolved around the sun in an eccentric orbit before being destroyed by Jupiter's gravity. The further discovery of Juno and Vesta in 1804 and 1807, respectivelly, only cemented this theory. Between 1847 and 1860 alone a further fifty-five bodies were discovered, all of which neatly fit into the Titius-Bode Law and Olber's theory. It was only discredited IOTL with the discovery of Pluto in 1930 which led to all of the aforementioned bodies being downgraded to asteriods; though Ceres was later redefined to 'dwarf planet' in 2006. ITTL though these redefinitions never occur due to "Pluto's" earlier discovery; the asteroid belt is thus collectively known as Phaeton and considered a destroyed planet. (6) Showing an ITTL cultural stereotype of the French.
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#100
June 24th, 2011, 05:46 AM
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Bump
I don't want to be that guy, but I will admit I was hoping for more comments in general and to the latest update.
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