The Dead Skunk

Reader mode
In the Heart of a Brunswicker (3)
  • Index

    • Lycaon pictus

    Donor
    The Class of 1821: People Born This Year Who Will Show Up Later​

    Charles Leopold Douglas, born February 7 in Kinmount House, Cummertrees, younger son of John and Sarah Douglas and nephew of Charles Douglas, 6th Marquess of Queensberry. He will be a little more sedate than his older brother William.

    Heinrich Kauffmann, born March 8 in Eutin, an exclave of the Duchy of Oldenburg. A child of a poor family, he will be distinguished by his persuasiveness.

    Samuel George Birney, born May 21 on a plantation in northern Alabama, third son of James G. and Agatha Birney. What’s more embarrassing than being the son of the only abolitionist in northern Alabama? How about being the son of the only abolitionist anywhere who still owns slaves? (He’s nice to them, if that helps any.)

    Augusta Adelaide Fitzclarence, born August 15 in Hannover, oldest child of George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence and Mary Wyndham, and generally considered the beauty of the family.

    Pavel Nikolaevich, born September 20 in St. Petersburg, son of Grand Duke Nicholas and Charlotte of Prussia, who will try to keep a certain distance between their branch of the family and the more exotic aspects of the tsar’s reforms.

    William Jonathan Gibbs, born October 12 in Philadelphia, son of Jonathan and Maria Gibbs. He will be one of the Free School’s top students. As he happens to be black, this will be a grave embarrassment to racial theorists.

    Clarence Harlan Barton, born November 19 in North Oxford, Massachusetts, youngest son of Capt. Stephen Barton (a survivor of Merrymeeting Bay, although he doesn’t like to talk about it) and Sarah Stone Barton. Also a good student, but painfully shy.
     
  • Index

    • Sirius

    Don't know how I didn't read this earlier. Very good stuff. I'm curious to see how lasting this kingdom of Italy is. It seems to have come into being before its time.
     
    Stolengood

    Stolengood

    Banned
    Sirius said:
    Don't know how I didn't read this earlier. Very good stuff. I'm curious to see how lasting this kingdom of Italy is. It seems to have come into being before its time.
    Click to expand...
    Quite, yes. If we could get a damned update from our author, that'd be nice... :rolleyes:
     

    Lycaon pictus

    Donor
    My apologies. Life has gotten out of hand again. (Among other things, I'm rehearsing three different plays at once.)

    I will have some time Friday to work on the next update, which will cover the war in Brazil.
     
    The Sword of Nemesis (1)
  • Index

    • Lycaon pictus

    Donor
    The Brazilian Navy had started the war on the wrong foot. One ship had been lost to a mutiny by its loyalist crew, and two others had been sabotaged. However, this was more than made up for by the sale of French vessels to the aspiring nation. (Ironically enough, the fortissimus Foudroyant was entrusted to Thomas Cochrane[1], formerly of the Royal Navy. Three years after the end of the Second Thirty Years’ War, yet another French warship had found a British commander.) Some of these ships were paid for in specie, others by taking out loans from the Banque de France and the Second Bank of the United States…


    In March of 1822, Portuguese forces held the cities of Recife, Salvador and Montevideo, but were under siege by the Brazilians. Two different military expeditions into the interior — one into Bahía in December and one aimed at Pernambuco in February — had either been defeated outright or been forced to withdraw due to lack of supplies. Another army, under the command of General Madeira de Melo, was camped outside Rio de Janeiro, but had failed to capture it.

    When reinforcements arrived at the end of the month, de Melo decided to try to surround Rio and cut it off. The “Peacemaker Army” guarding the mountains west of the city, under the command of the French mercenary Pierre Labatut[2], seemed small enough to be defeated, with (according to de Melo’s scouts) only about 500 men.

    The event proved otherwise. Labatut’s army of over 1,000 men repelled the attack of April 1. In a classic illustration of the all-for-nothing fallacy,[3] de Melo returned the next day with more men, rather than simply outflanking them to the north and falling upon the city from the northwest. Over the course of the next week, the Peacemaker Army became the stuff of legends…
    E. Rosa, A Short History of Brazil


    [1] Nephew of Alexander Cochrane, whom you may remember from way back at the beginning of this.
    [2] IOTL, Labatut was also there.
    [3] IOTL, the sunk costs fallacy


    Next stop: Santo Domingo and Gran Colombia.
     
  • Index

    • Widukind

    Great to see this TL updated again. With the Portuguese attempts to subdue Brazil failing, I wonder how the Spanish will fare in Santo Domingo.
     
    The Sword of Nemesis (2)
  • Index

    • Lycaon pictus

    Donor
    Bogotá was troubled. No sooner had peace been declared between Gran Colombia, Spain and the Virreinato than the same centralization/federalism dispute that was tearing Argentina in two began to rear its head. José Antonio Paéz, in Caracas, was demanding greater autonomy for the Venezuelan provinces. Francisco de Paula Santander, although Bolívar’s political ally, was pushing for precisely the sort of liberal reforms that would make such demands impossible to suppress. At this point, Bolívar was less afraid of a resumption of the war with Spain than of the disintegration of his nation for want of a common enemy.

    And now, across the sea to the north, the small colony of Santo Domingo was being fought over by Spain and Haiti. This presented Bolívar with an unpleasant conundrum:
    • Between the Central American colonies and the Virreinato, the Spanish Empire had Gran Colombia virtually surrounded on land.
    • By any reasonable measure, Haiti could only be considered an ally. Haiti had not only taken in Bolívar when he had been forced to flee the continent, but had helped him liberate Gran Colombia from the Spanish.
    • On the other hand, some of the original Santo Domingo rebels had expressed a desire for their colony to become an overseas province of Gran Colombia. These rebels had been suppressed, not by Spain, but by Haiti.

    In mid-April, Bolívar sent a letter to Jean-Pierre Boyer offering terms for an alliance. The city of Santo Domingo would go to Gran Colombia, and the precise boundary between that province and Haiti would be determined by negotiation. This would gain Haiti an ally in the war against Spain (and Haiti at this point had no real allies) and still leave it with more territory than it had at the beginning.

    Generous though this may have appeared to Bolívar, to Boyer it seemed that he was being asked to trade a valuable possession he had already claimed — to say nothing of the strategic advantages of a unified island — for the sake of a promise that might or might not be kept. He replied that he intended to be president of all Haitians, francophone or hispanophone, but that if Bolívar did not trust him to govern the Spanish-speaking people of the island, he should help resettle them in Gran Colombia.

    So began the Bolívar-Boyer letters, which were exchanged throughout the rest of 1822…
    --Dennis Lincoln, A History of the Caribbean (Vol. 2)
     
  • Index

    • Ed Costello

    Hm, I keep forgetting to comment on this.

    Excellent TL; I enjoy how everyone's machinations keep getting in each others' way. You do a very good job of keeping it unfolding at a realistic pace, as opposed to the infodumps of most other TLs*.

    As for this latest update, I'm fascinated to see how the relationship between Bolivar and Boyer unfolds.


    *Not that infodumps are a bad thing in and of themselves; the nature of the medium demands it, and in any case having a big load of allohistory to sink your teeth into can be wonderful. This is just a refreshing change of pace.
     

    The Uchronian

    PulkitNahata said:
    Great news. This is back again. Please continue this time instead of making us wait one month.
    Click to expand...

    Umm.....no offense meant, but this does come off as a little rude-ish(even if not intentionally, of course).....just thought I'd let you know.

    Lycaon pictus said:
    Bogotá was troubled. No sooner had peace been declared between Gran Colombia, Spain and the Virreinato than the same centralization/federalism dispute that was tearing Argentina in two began to rear its head. José Antonio Paéz, in Caracas, was demanding greater autonomy for the Venezuelan provinces. Francisco de Paula Santander, although Bolívar’s political ally, was pushing for precisely the sort of liberal reforms that would make such demands impossible to suppress. At this point, Bolívar was less afraid of a resumption of the war with Spain than of the disintegration of his nation for want of a common enemy.

    And now, across the sea to the north, the small colony of Santo Domingo was being fought over by Spain and Haiti. This presented Bolívar with an unpleasant conundrum:
    • Between the Central American colonies and the Virreinato, the Spanish Empire had Gran Colombia virtually surrounded on land.
    • By any reasonable measure, Haiti could only be considered an ally. Haiti had not only taken in Bolívar when he had been forced to flee the continent, but had helped him liberate Gran Colombia from the Spanish.
    • On the other hand, some of the original Santo Domingo rebels had expressed a desire for their colony to become an overseas province of Gran Colombia. These rebels had been suppressed, not by Spain, but by Haiti.

    In mid-April, Bolívar sent a letter to Jean-Pierre Boyer offering terms for an alliance. The city of Santo Domingo would go to Gran Colombia, and the precise boundary between that province and Haiti would be determined by negotiation. This would gain Haiti an ally in the war against Spain (and Haiti at this point had no real allies) and still leave it with more territory than it had at the beginning.

    Generous though this may have appeared to Bolívar, to Boyer it seemed that he was being asked to trade a valuable possession he had already claimed — to say nothing of the strategic advantages of a unified island — for the sake of a promise that might or might not be kept. He replied that he intended to be president of all Haitians, francophone or hispanophone, but that if Bolívar did not trust him to govern the Spanish-speaking people of the island, he should help resettle them in Gran Colombia.

    So began the Bolívar-Boyer letters, which were exchanged throughout the rest of 1822…
    --Dennis Lincoln, A History of the Caribbean (Vol. 2)
    Click to expand...

    Nice update. Glad this is all back now. BTW, I'm assuming that Dennis Lincoln is an ATL descendant or cousin of Abe Lincoln, possibly? :D;)
     

    Lycaon pictus

    Donor
    It's good to be wanted.:) I'll try to finish the next update within the next week. It will focus on events in the Ottoman Empire.

    (Dennis Lincoln might be distantly related. I hadn't thought much about it.)
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Top
    Top