After the forest of Foixà: a new beginning for the House of Barcelona

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 78: The Second Great War: 1809-1810 (II)

By the fourth year of war Karl VIII of Germany became determined to finish the conflict by all means. He feared, rightly, that the Austrian Empire, conspicuous for its neutrality, in its secret parallel negotiations with both sides (with Germany's enemies, demanding annexations in exchange for ist intervention, and with Berlin, to gain territory if neutral), had reached a deal with London and was preparing to enter the war. In fact, Vienna had reached an agreement with London and Barcelona. By its clauses, Austria was to annex Bavaria and to turn the remaining southern German states into vassals. In exchange for this, the Austrian Empire was to join the war in the Summer of 1810 with an all-out offensive towards Berlin. Karl and Alexander III of Russia were divided on the best strategy for the war, Alexander favoured a concentration of Russian and German forces and an attack could quickly isolate the French in northern France, leaving Paris open for an attack. Karl disagreed because that move would leave the Rhine line almost undefended, so he suggested that the main attack should be launched from the Rhine to maintain. In the end Alexander prevailed, as the Russian force would greatly outnumber the German army, but the disagreement delayed the war preparations by a month. The German plan called for Archduke Karl, with 38,000 troops, and General Levin August von Bennigsen with 20,000 soldiers, to attack Strasbourg. The German center and reserve, comprising 66,000 men of three corps under the overall command of Friedrich Graf von Kleist, would move toward Colmar and guard the army's flank. However, a sizable Russo-German force was kept back in Germany in case Austria attacked. Eventually, the adopted plan had von Kleist protecting the Rhine and launching a feint attack towards Strasbourg while Archduke Karl's army would join hands with Field Marshall Michae Barclay de Tolly, who would mass 140,000 Russian forces. Then, together, they would march towards Paris through Metz.

Buonaparte, however, hit first. In the early morning of 10 April 1810, leading elements of the French and Occitan army crossed the Rhine towards Bavaria. However, bad roads and freezing rain slowed the Allied advance in the first week, but von Kleist gradually retreated towards Baden-Baden. The Allied attack had occurred about a week before Karl and Alexander anticipated, disrupting their plans. Thus, Karl VIII ordered his namesake to attack before 15 April, but the Archduke kept the bulk of his army in place and only launched diversionary raids against the enemy flank. By April 17 Karl VIII realised that the bulk of Buonaparte's army had crossed the Rhine. On April 21 he ordered von Kleist to hold his ground and demanded Archduke Karl to attack with all his forces the invading force. This signalled the beginning of a month of flanking maneuvers as the two armies attempted to overcome its enemy. Karl defeated an enemy corps at Rastadt (April 22) and stopped the enemy advance at Brüchgraben (April 23). Buonaparte then withdrew to avoid being pushed against the Rhine and, once on the other side, waited for the next move of his enemy. After a bloody crossing of the Rhine at Drusenheim (May 3), the German commander realized that the situation had been turned and now Buonaparte was the one blocking the advance of the German army. Thus turn of events had a sobbering effect over the Austrian government, and the mobilization plans were quietly abandoned. There would be no Austrian intervention.

On May 16 and 17 Karl gathered his force along with some Russian reinforcements. Mustering 100,000 men and 120 guns, he launched a frontal assault against Buonaparte's line (May 20-21). He crossed the Rhine but he was attacked and forced back across the river by the Allied army. After losing 25,000 men, Karl returned to its starting line to lick his wounds. Buonaparte, who had lost around 19,000 men, waited for reinforcements while pondering about the next move of his enemy. Karl and Barclay de Tolly took six weeks to plan and prepare contingencies before launching their next offensive. Returning to the original plans of moving towards Paris through Metz, they brought more troops, more guns, and on June 30, with more than 188,000 troops, they marched against Metz. Karl ordered a general advance at noon on 5 July; Buonaparte was forced to race northwards to join hands with Marshal Jean Lannes to block the enemy advance.

What followed was a costly but decisive victory for the German and Russian Emperors. It began on July 11 when the German forces attempted an early breakthrough and launched a series of evening attacks against the Aragonese army. The Aragonese were thinly spread in a wide semicircle, but held a naturally strong position. After the attackers enjoyed some initial success, the withering fire of the defenders decimated the enemy first ranks and the attacks failed. Bolstered by his success, the next day at dawn Buonaparte launched a series of attacks along the entire battle line, seeking to trap the opposing army in a double envelopment. The offensive failed against the German right but nearly broke the Russian left. However, General Pavel Vasilyevich Chichagov countered by launching a Cossack charge, which temporarily halted the French advance. He then redeployed his forces while Barclay de Tolly formed a grand battery, which pounded the Allied right and centre. The tide of battle turned and Karl VIII launched an offensive along the entire line, but Lannes held his ground until his left wing was enveloped, and rendered his position untenable. Towards mid-afternoon on July 12 Lannes was fatally wounded and Buonaparte admitted defeat and led a retreat, frustrating enemy attempts to pursue. When the defeat was known in París, the French government decided to ask for an armistice, effectively ending the war.

With 47,000 casualties, the two-day battle of Metz was particularly bloody, mainly due to the use of 450 artillery pieces on a flat battlefield packed with some 350,000 men. Although Karl and Alexander were the uncontested winners, they were unable to secure an overwhelming victory and the Allied casualties were only slightly greater than theirs. Nonetheless, the defeat was serious enough to shatter the French morale, who could no longer find the will to continue the struggle, and to persuade Taberner to end the war and to cut losses.

The resulting Treaty of Frankfurt (September 6 1810) meant the loss of Alsace and Lorraine while the Champagne and Bourgougne regions were remade as the Duchy of Burgundy. Then Karl made his younger brother Frederick the new Duke of Burgundy. With a single blow, France had lost half of its territory. The new Duchy was then expanded southwards at the expense of Aragon-Occitània: all its lands to the north and west of the Loira and Isèra₁ rivers were annexed to Burgundy.

In the end Tsar Alexander III of Russia had to intervene to stop the dissolution of France, since the next thing that Karl VIII had in mind was the creation of the independent kingdoms of Normandy and Brittany. Fearing that such demands might prompt the French and their allies to restart the war at once, the Tsar had to work hard to persuade the Kaiser to abandon these plans.

France still existed, but for how long?




₁ - OTL Loire and Isère rivers.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 79: After the War (1810-1820)

The end of the war was a blessing for Albert Taberner. The economy of Aragon was in a state of strange flux. The Germans closed their European markets to their former enemies, so Aragon and Britain were forced to look elsewhere. As the French merchants were unable to fill the demands of their former clients, they were replaced by British, Aragonese, as we shall see, German, Italian and Hispanic merchants. However, this state of affairs was to change soon, as we shall see. Internally, the war brought a series of political debates that shaped national politics as the new generations were able to vote; literacy was by then above 65% and newspapers became more and more popular. Taberner government with pragmatism, supported with an efficient, well organised bureaucracy and the support of his party in the Parliament. In spite of the defeat in the war, his popularity and the strength of his administration rose as the world returned to its normal course.

Politically, the National Party remained in power as Taberner was able to win the support of the Conservative parties, depending on the situation. The Reformist schism broke the party, as the “war debate” pushed pacifists against hawks; this split was reinforced by the internal splits over slavery, free trade and taxation thus breaking the party into multiple parliamentary factions, which in turn damaged the support of the party. Furthermore, Taberner followed with the Abolition Act 1811 the British example over slavery: in 1807, the slave trade in the British Empire was abolished. However, the Aragonese Act only outlawed slavery in the Aragonese-Occitan kingdom and the slave trade, but not slavery itself. Furthermore, the law only banned the importation of slaves into the kingdom, but not in the colonies, where one could find the 80% of the slaves of the Kingdom. In addition to this, most of the slaves that were freed in the kingdom would be settled by the government in the Aragonese settlements in the the Gulf de Montserrat (1) and those in India (Nova Valencia , Nova Alcant and Nova Barcelona -2-).

By 1815 the Germans were forced to re-open their markets to their former enemies. The embargo encouraged British and Aragonese merchants to seek out new markets aggressively and to engage in smuggling with continental Europe. The British and Aragonese exports to the Continent fell between 25% and 55% compared to pre-1805 levels. However, trade sharply increased with the rest of the world, covering much of the decline. Also, in turn, they forbade any trade with Germany and its allies. Thus, ironically, the German Empire was hit hard by its own measure as many of his industries that relied on overseas markets, such as the linen industries, were cut from them. With few exports and lost profits, many industries were closed down. The port cities of Hamburg and Bremen suffered from the reduction in trade. Moreover, the prices of staple foods rose in most of continental Europe, Badly hurt by this situation, Russia also chafed under the embargo, and reopened trade with Britain and Aragon in 1817. Thus, in July 1819 Germany opened their borders to limited British trade, and reopened their trade to the Aragonese-Occitan kingdom.

The years of undeclared trade war had left its mark upon the European powers. In 1821 China and Japan closed all their harbours to the European trade but for two outposts, one in Hainan and the other in Kagoshima, respectively. When the Indian princes attempted to take similar measures, this led to several short wars, starting with the Aragon-Travancore war of 1823-1824. The Aragonese, after crushing the Travancorese fleet, landed an expeditionary force in Cochin on February 27, 1824 and defeated the Travancorese army near Nagercoil and Kollam, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. The Maharajah of Travancore, Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma II (1803 – 1846) offered peace terms to the Aragonese ambassador, but, with most of his army deserting or surrendering, he had little to bargain with. Travancore was the first Indian kingdom which reopened its borders to foreign trade after becoming an Aragonese protectorate. Krishnaraja Wodeyar III of Mysore reacted faster than Varma II and in July 1824 he re-opened the trade with Europe, but it was closed again when the Nagar rebellion briefly deposed the Maharaja, who recovered his throne thanks to the British intervention. It was the beginning of the "Trade Wars" (1823-1841) that would led to the Aragonese invasion of the Carnatic Sultanate (1826), and tof the Kingdom of Cochin (1830), which were then turned into Aragonese Protectores, the British conquest of the states of Jaipur (1823), Hyderabad (1833-1834) and Bengal (1835-1840), and the Aragonese alliance with the Rajputana Confederation (1837), the German protectorate over the Balochistani (1839) and the Sindah states (1841).


(1) OTL Walvis Bay.
(2) OTL Vasai, Mumbai and Calicut, respectively

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 80: A Heated Post-War (1820-1830)

The premiership of Albert Taberner came to an end in 1820, when he tendered his resignation to a surprised King Alfons VI of Aragon (1762-1830, r. 1810-1830). Alfons VI was the third son of Jordi III. His elder brothers, Jordi and Federic, had during their childhood, and he had been thoroughly "trained and groomed" to become the next king. Thus, Alfons VI took the Crown more seriously than any of his predecessors and, ironically, this feature was to cause the first crisis of the post-war Aragon. When Taberner resigned in May 1820, Alfons VI successively tried to appoint four men to succeed Taberner, but failed. Sadurní Solanelles, the King's fifth choice for the post, reluctantly accepted office on 8 June 1820., after nearly one month of stalemate. A member of the Conservative party, the new Chief Minister was a surprise to all involved. A pacifist in a militarist party and member of the most "progressive" wing of the Conservatives, Solanelles was an uncanny candidate. Well educated, he had studied in the Royal University of Tolosa. The younger son of Enric Solanelles, Baron of Quertinheux, he became attracted by the local governance and administration first of the lands of his father and then of the cities of the barony. He managed to be elected for the Conservative party as the Major of Quertinheux and became a well-known critic of the government in the Parliament. His tirades made him quite popular within the party and, well nobody wanted to replace Taberner, he was selected by the King, who felt attracted by Solanelles' rhetoric and popular appeal. Supported on the merits of political career, he was selected as the prime candidate for the 1830 General Election and, after his victory, he was invited to meet the King.

Taberner could be proud of himself, as the first General Elections in the history of Aragon was his legacy. It resulted from the Reform Law 1829, the last law passed under his tenure. It reorganized and modernized the electoral system of Aragon, which, until then, had been based in the "Constitució dita de l'Observança" ('the said Constitution of the Observance') of 1481 and the Statutes passed in 1430 and 1432. It also reorganized the political constituencies to address the unequal distribution of seats and expanded franchise by broadening and standardising the property qualifications to vote. Only men were able to vote. Thus, the Parliament that emerged from this Reform Law remained unchanged and comprised 500 members since its last reform, when it was expanded to include the representatives of Aragon and Navarre after the reannexation of those two kingdoms in 1809. The property qualifications of the Reform Law barred most of the working class from the vote. This created division between the working class and the middle class and it would be the cause of several social turmoil during the 1830s and 1840s.

Solanelles was received with a thunderous applause in the first session of the new Parliament with the widespread enthusiasm of its new members, many of whom were entirely new to legislative politics, The newspapers reproduced the first session and were widely read across both sides of the Pyrenees, something that was very helpful for the new Chief Minister, who was still a quite unknown figure. Soon he was to appear in the first pages when he achieved his first political success: an alliance with Sweden. Karl XIV of Sweden (1798 – 1868) still smarted from the loss of Norway in 1751, the price that his family had to pay for Germany to accept their rise to the Swedish and Danish crowns. Thus, Aragon had begun to court Stockholm in 1808 to open a new front against Germany, but Karl XIII of Sweden had been afraid of the German power and refused to be drawn into the war. Now, with the Russo-German split and the new king, Sweden was eager to join the international scene and sided with Aragon and the British Empire. The dream of recovering Norway was behind Karl XIV's move. However, when an Aragonese ambassador landed in Vienna to negotiate an alliance with Austria, he returned empty-handed. The Austrian Empire had his attention fixed on the decaying Ottoman Empire and feared that Russia could move faster to fill the vacuum of power in the Balkans.

In 1821 Germany attempted to dominate the European economy again. Karl VIII had introduced an internal custom union within the Imperial states in 1809 as an extraordinary war measure. However, in 1821 the union still remained in place and the German chancellor, Otto Carl Friedrich von Voß, suggested extending it into those countries under the aegis of the German Empire. It was, again, an attempt to give Germany effective control of the central European economy and to sideline trading powers outside their sphere of influence. However, Karl VIII was baffled when Austria and Russia refused to join the so-called Zollverband, which was established on May 26, 1821. On October 25, 1822, the Duchy of Burgundy and the Great Duchy of Poland were the first nations to join the Zollverband, causing an earthquake in Saint Petersburg and in London. In 1823 it was followed by Norway and, in 1826, by the Dutch Commonwealth. That year Sweden signed a trade treaty with Germany that linked the country to the Zollverband, but without fully joining into the Zollverband. Austria and Russia, however, refused to have anything but their usual reciprocal trade agreements, something that hit Poland hard, as its economy was still strongly linked to the Austrian and Russian one. The reorientation and reform of the Polish economy would be the source of endless troubles in the Great Duchy in the following decades.

In 1828 Aragon-Occitània signed a treaty with Egypt that had recently (in 1822) broke with the Ottoman Empire and declared its independence. Controlling not only Egypt itself but all the North Africa shores up to the Gibraltar Strait and being the key to the trade with the Middle East, Egypt was a very attractive commercial partner. Great Britain followed the Aragonese steps in 1830, by Austria in 1831 and by Russia in 1832. Those trade treaties pushed the Ottoman Empire towards Germany, making the chance of a war more likely due to the Austrian and Russian ambitions over the Ottoman Empire. To counter this move, the new German Kaiser, Frederich VII (1825-1833), pushed to bring the weak Kingdom of Lombardia, in open defiance of Vienna ambitions of supremacy over the North of Italia.

In Africa, Morocco, under the Wazir (Head of Government) Abu'l Hasan Abd al-Malik, moved closer to Germany to escape from the growing influence of Egypt. He had also signed an alliance with Mali and was closely linked to Andalucia by several trade treaties. This move, thus, also brought Hispania into the European scene while the Kingdom of Naples, which had remained neutral during the Great War, remained as an extraordinary exception in the divided Old World.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 81: Hispania in the Post-War (1820-1830)

Ironically, the reforms of Solanelles in Aragon-Occitània were to spark revolution outside its borders. The Republic of Hispania was still recovering from the breakup of the nation. Thirty years later, it's severe negative effects on the Hipanic economic development were still felt, mainly caused by the lost of population and of harbours that severely hampered the Hispanic trade, The over-stressed harbour of Santander could not cope with the Hispanic trade and, eventually, its neighbours had begun to take profit of the situation, severely taxing the Hispanic goods that were exported through their harbours. Severe poverty became widespread, reducing market demand, while the disruption of local and international trade, and the shortages of critical inputs, seriously hurt industry and services. The loss of the colonial empire reduced the already poor overall wealth, and by 1820 Hispania had become one of Europe's poorest and least-developed societies; three-fourths of the people were illiterate. There was little industry beyond the production centers around Santander. Natural resources, such as coal and iron, were available for exploitation, but the reduced transportation system was rudimentary, with few canals or navigable rivers, and road travel was slow and expensive. British railroad builders were pessimistic and did not invest. Eventually a small railway system was built, radiating from Madrid.

The government, nearly bankrupt, resorted to desperate measures, such as selling the last remnants of its Empire. Florida was sold to the United States for $5 million in 1815, followed by Puerto Rico to the British Empire in 1818 for £10 million. Thus, only Cuba remained. However, it was not enough and in 1820 the government, led by Manuel González Salmón, considered selling Cuba to Germany. When this was leaked, the popular uproar could be heard around the world. On January, 18, 1822, González Salmón was deposed by a coup d'etat led by General Francisco Tadeo Calomarde y Arría, 1st Duke of Santa Isabel. However, there was little change. Cuba was to remain Hispanic, but the economic crisis was still in place, worsened by the corruption that helped the old nobility, the rural landowners, and the emerging middle class to control the nation. The unpopular Income Tax introduced by the preceding governments were removed and replaced by a policy of laissez-faire, low-spend governance under the Government led by Pedro de Alcántara y Álvarez de Toledo, 13th Duke of the Infantado. With this change in regime, the government was committed to restrict the growth of the national debt and the protection of property, to keep the status-quo and the institutions of power, like the Nobility, the Armed Forces and the Landowners, something that was deeply resented by the growing bourgeoisie

The refusal to introduce a much needed emergency measure caused a bleeding in the revenues of the state. To replace it, Infantado was forced to take on bonds and print money. This soon led to an open war in the Parliament between the Conservative Party, supported by the Nobility and the Landowners, and the Liberal Party, which was centered mainly about the needs of the Bourgeoisie. Outside of the plans and institutions, the mass of the workers and farmers that were alienated from such a regime as they felt that they were facing the brunt of the crisis. Reformers like Rafael del Riego attracted a massive following with his demands for the restoration of the Poor Law Relief, one of the first victims of the crisis, Lack of relief and the economic conditions caused farmers in León and Salamanca to riot demanding bread in April 1821. The riots would repeat again in 1822. This time the demands were not only for bread, but also for constitutional reform. By then the Reformists had been replaced by the Radical Party led by Evaristo Pérez de Castro y Colomera. In Santander rises a Provisional Government, which calls for a General Strike, The army crushes the strikers. Dozens were killed and hundreds deported to Cuba.

Despite the economic panic and the widespread repression, the small electorate elected José María Pando in 1826, and the Liberals returned to power. Despite their promises, the Liberals continued the previous policy with little changes. The strikes of 1828 forced Pando's resignation, and its replacement, José Luyando y Díez, only enjoyed a spell of calm thanks to the Conservative split between the so-called Traditionalist branch led by Antonio de Saavedra, who stood for a nostalgic vision of Spain that traced back to El Cid and the Catholic Kings, and those led by Francisco de Paula de Cea, who many considered a pawn of the Duke of the Infantado, who represented the reformer faction of the Conservatives. Thanks to this, Pando was able to introduce a series of small reforms, free trade and a reduced Relief for the Poor System, but, after his death in 1828, the reforms did not outlive him. His successor, Pedro de Alcántara Álvarez de Toledo, would stop the reforms and return to the policy of laissez-faire. In 1830, the strikes returned in May 1830 with the workers demanding higher wages. Only the lack of an organised leadership kept the strike from becoming a revolution. Álvarez de Toledo resorted, once more, to repression: 250 strikers were killed, 640 were jailed and 740 deported to Cuba.

However, the strike proved to be the bane of Álvarez de Toledo, who resigned in November 1830 and was replaced by Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, which had no better luck. His proposed "Reform Act" was voted down in the Parliament in March 1831, and Martínez de la Rosa dissolved the Parliament, hoping that another election would give him a majority that would push for the planned reforms. However, he was defeated by a vote of no confidence. His successor, José María Queipo de Llano, had no better luck, with an uncooperative Parliament and the angered mass of angered farmers and workers. The revolution was only nine months away.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 82: Hispania in the Post-War - II (1830-1831): A Very Hispanic Coup.

The fall of Queipo de Llano worked as a rallying point for those who wanted to bring down the regime. The Radical Party demanded new elections while even more radical citizens created councils in Ávila, Salamanca, León and Toledo, purging the Conservatives from the local governments and making unstable alliances with the Liberals. In the Parliament, Carlos Martínez de Irujo y McKean (1802 - 1855), 2nd Marquis of Casa Irujo, the Conservative leader claimed that "we have lost Hispania". While the radicalisation was least pronounced in the Eastern Part of Hispania, it was most pronounced in the west, where the biggest and richest cities were. As the Parliament became stalled by the unwillingness of the Conservatives to accept a reform, talk began of convening an interim Assembly to discuss the real grievances of the political question from middle-class and working-class members alike. Thus, on June 17, 1831,, the Reformists and Radical sections of the Parliament left the building and gathered in the Cathedral of Burgos (from all possible places...) and there they declared themselves to be the National Assembly of Hispania. Two days later, one third of the Conservative parliamentarians had joined them and elected Juan Álvarez Mendizábal as the President of the Assembly.

Shaken by this challenge, Martínez de Irujo was quickly appointed prime minister and announced that he would lead an commision with all parties involved to determine their reforms that were to be applied at once. To his (and many more) shock, the National Assembly announced on June 20 that they had drafted a new constitution for Hispania. The new Prime Minister announced a series of tax and other reforms and stated that no new taxes or loans would be implemented without the consent of the Parliament, but, at the end of the session, hardly a quarter of the Parliament remained by his side. The rest had joined the National Assembly. Defeated, Martínez de Irujo resigned on June 24. Meanwhile, chaos was slowly spreading. New political formations sprung and created around them their own armed guards after several radical leaders were murdered by unknown attackers. Legions of armed men raided the countryside and patrolled the cities as the nobility had their own small armies again as in the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, the National Assembly of Hispania used the small army to keep control of the main cities. However, when on July 18 a meeting of Cathars in Ávila was violently broken up by the local Militia, leaving 6 men dead, Mendizábal wanted to make an example of the soldiers and officers involved, but he had to drop the idea when he was told that this could damage the loyalties of the army. Later that day, he tendered his resignation, naming the Secretary of Defence, Francisco Javier de Istúriz, as his replacement.

August brought a change, when the usual public meetings vanished and were replaced by gatherings in the inns and taverns of every city and every village, where Liberal, Conservatives and Radical exposed their ideas and plans for the future. With politics reaching the streets, the Liberal held a meeting in Toledo on September 16 to plan for the future. On his part, de Istúriz attempted to help the public meetings in the inns and taverns as much as he could, as he considered them key elements to support the Republic. The flood of ideas and slogans that invaded the streets took place at the same time that the violence subdued and the armed militias began to disarm. Agitators saw the meetings as their time to encourage rebellion. Soon the workers began to go to strike again, asking for higher pay and better conditions. De Istúriz, then, decided to call for elections on October 15, but, when a quarrell on a tavern spiralled out of control and the army unit sent to put it down ended up firing on the crowd, events got out of hand. A series of public meetings, organized in defiance of magistrates and the Army, helped to fuel the anger and protests began to start up, with the support of the Catholic Church. With reports of mutiny from the ranks of the police and the army, of armouries being ransacked around the country and with private armies rising everywhere, de Istúriz condemned the violence in public speeches and letters, and promised to form a new cabinet and to call for elections. However, he was soon convinced by the growing violence across the Republic that nothing short of a military dictatorship would save the situation. However, with the Army being reduced to a shell and with men like Alonso Antonio Osorio y de Silva, 14th Duke of Alba commanding stronger armies that the government himself, de Istúriz turned to the only Peninsular power willing and able to save the situation, the United Kingdom of Aragon and Occitania. However, before he could do that, on October 22, the angered mob of Toledo attacked the former royal palace at the Alcázar, now turned into a fortress and an armoury. Even if the assault failed by the spirited defence of the small garrison still loyal to the government, it shocked many. The Duke of Alba was the first to offer his help (and his army) to de Istúriz. A week later, with the bulk of the nobility rushing to support the government before a revolution could do worse than the one of 1799.

The days that followed the failed assault were quiet, too quiet. The debris of the battle was removed from the streets. The government and people's response was to carry on as normal. No one was more apparently calmer that the members of the Reformist party, as some of them had led the failed revolt. Bitter resentment boiled under the surface when they began to notice how Alba and Pedro de Alcántara Téllez-Girón, 11th Duke of Osuna, became the main supporters of the government. Seeing that their failure had brought tyranny over Hispania, they were determined to act new and further vigour, and when the acute social differences proved the bane of the tyrant, they would be ready to take the chance. In that situation, Alba was fast to see that de Istúriz was living on borrowed time and began to look for a replacement. This was the genesis of the "soft" coup of November 16, 1831. Alba was thus able to seize the moment thanks to de Istúriz's exhaustion. The Prime Minister was still recovering from the stressed days and relied too much on Alba and Osuna, thus was hardly able to notice the conspiracy around him. Thus, when he attempted to introduce a reform of the Parliament that would reduce its membership by half, de Istúriz was stormed by a group Reformists who termed the measure of not only eligeal, but also of being seditious. Álvaro Gómez Becerra (1771-1855) a former lawyer that had risen to lead the Progressive Party in Cáceres, caught the eye of Alba after speaking for his party after the Reformist revolt against de Istúriz. As in the following days of debate Gómez Becerra was one of the main speakers with his continued demad of reform to prevent chaos. His speeche were simple and direct to the point: his energy and deluge of proposals offered a stark contrast to the stillness and impassivity of de Istuiz and his ministers. Eventually, when the Parliament resumed on November 16, Gómez Becerra had the support of eighty members of the Parliament, and was to attract the support of almost one hundred more by the end of the day, when he bluffed that he was to present a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, moving in the shadows, Alba bought the support of the main group of Conservative and Reformist Parlamentarians and then "leaked" the information to a frightened Osuna, who wasted no time to persuade de Istúriz to resign. Thus, by November 17, the Republic of Hispania had a new Prime minister.

Álvaro Gómez Becerra​

​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 83: A Cultural Rennaisance

A seemingly distant affaire, the death of Oda Katsunaga, the fifteenth and longest-serving shōgun of the Oda shogunate of Japan, was to bring havoc not only to that distant country, but also in Europe, where the last embers of the last conflict had not yet cooled. The death of Ienari's heir in 1835 had caused great worry about the succession of the Shogun, as Katsunaga's grandson was only 8 years old then. The lack of central authority after the death of Katsunaga (March 18. 1837) in spite of the best efforts of the Oda Loyalists led to a continued deterioration of the political situation, The quarrels between the Tokugawa and the Ishida clans only helped to accelerate the crisis and,eventually, when Ishida Sakichi, the head of his clan, became the leader of the Loyalists, His rival, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, supported by some disaffected nobles, claimed he had more rights to lead the Oda Regency, Tensions between Sakichi and Ieyoshi boiled into open hostilities, with relations eventually degenerating into the conflicts that led to the Battle of Zenkoji (1838), which opened the Second Sengoku Period (1838-1870).

In Europe, the death of Katsunaga was hardly taken into account by the European rulers. Many remembered when, in 1821, Japan closed all their harbours to European trade but for a trade outpost at Kagoshima. Only Portugal had any trade interest in Japan, so the question was overlooked. In Aragon, Sadurní Solanelles sent a diplomatic mission to Japan (1831) following a request from Oda Katsunaga with the goal of modernizing the Japanese military. This mission was also to negotiate the Aragonese support for the construction of the Yokosuka Shipyard,. Katsunaga had additionally requested both the United Kingdom and Germany to send a military mission for training in Western warfare. The missions were dismissed by the Oda Regency after the death of Katsunaga. In 1832 Solanelles, who was by then 64 years old, resigned and was replaced by Amadeu Baget (Cardedeu, December 26, 1781 - Barcelona, January 23, 1865). the former Minister of Industry. Baget was very well received by the Aragonese-Occitan society, as he was considered the soul of the continued modernisation of the economy and the expansion of the industry and the colonial markets. This, along with the new king, Lluís I ( October 6, 1773 – 26 August 1850, r. 9 August 1830 – 24 February 1850), was considered the beginning of a new golden age of the country.

Soon the international scene suffered a shock when the British Prime Minister, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, gave a short but fiery speech discussing the European scene and stating that it was time for a “new age of unity against the German foe”. It was an embarrassing incident that was to outlive Grey's resignation (November 14, 1834) and to plague the tenure of the next British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, who was to turn his attention from Europe to the British colonies in the New World. The waves caused by the collapse of the Hispanic Empire reached the shores of the British colonies. After the complains of the representatives of the Thirteen Colonies over a variety of issues, including the Stamp and Townshend Acts that resulted in withdrawal of the the so-called Intolerable Acts in 1780 and the tax reforms of 1788 and of 1812, a new call for self-government was pushed forward in 1827 the growth of political reform movements in the Colonies. Thus, after the Governor General of the British North America₁, Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, wrote his famous Report on the Affairs of British North America, which contains the famous description of "four nations warring in the bosom of a single state." For Aymler, the French settlers of the Quebec had to be assimilated by the English-speaking settlements, while the Southern Colonies (the New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies, the Southern Colonies, the Floridas, Cuba and the Caribbean) were considered to be a different entity with its own subdivisions. Thus, Aymler suggested a similar process to unify them, even if he admitted that there were too many differences between them. This question would not eventually be solved until the late years of the 1830s.

With London focused on America, Berlin centered on solidifying his hold over Europe and Russia looking for a way to expand into the Balkans and the Middle East, Amadeu Baget, on his part, spent the first years of his tenure in expanding the Aragonese economy, and the United Kingdom of Aragon and Occitania went through a Silver Age, The cultural centers of Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza and Toulouse produced wave after wave of not only educated men for the bussiness and government worlds, but also artists that became the nucleus of the so-called Renaixença (Renaissance), a cultural revival movement (1833-1892) which began in Catalonia in the first third of the nineteenth century, thus paving the way for the contemporary period of Catalan literature which soon expanded to the Occitan, Valencian, Aragonese, Navarrese, Neapolitean and Sicilian literatures. This process gained momentum when the growing interest of the moment in history, stimulated an awareness, between elegiac and assertive, of the deterioration of the former social prestige of the language and literary vitality (which was so stimulating in both political and literary terms) of Catalonia during the 15th and 16th centuries. However, as Baget was soon to realize, it led to a national consciousness in Naples, Sicily and Navarre, which began to resort to their cultural traditions as a reaction against the Catalan/Occitan cultural reform. In the whole kingdom, this cultural process promoted the most urgently-needed cultural instruments (such as grammars and dictionaries) and extended its influence beyond erudition and lyric poetry in an attempt to Catalanise other fields such as philosophy, science, art and law, but it also created its own political myths, as the national myth built in Naples, which were centered around the Norman (1130–1198), Hohenstaufen (1198–1266) and the Angevin periods (1266–1282). Apart from expressing the desire for an autonomous culture, the Renaixença in Sicily and Naples was also a particular form of seeking this end, with a style and themes rooted in romanticism, either academic or archaic linguistic criteria, and a moderate, liberal standpoint in keeping with its bourgeois roots.

This Silver Age, which was in great part funded by the emergent middle class and growing bourgeoisie, also saw extensive works in the expansion and reconstruction of the big cities like Barcelona, Tolosa, Zaragoza, Valencia, Monpelhière, Bordeu, Marselha and Pamplona. This age was also marked with the commerical and cultural exchange with Egypt, that underwent by that time the so-called Egyptian Regeneration, which sank its roots in this Pharaonic past and took place after the victorious war against the Ottoman Empire (1823-1825), which turned all the Levant into an Egyptian protectorate, something that was deeply resisted by the Ottomans. The Egyptian Regeneration is mainly remembered by the efforst devoted by the Egyptian government to the restorian of the Gizah Pyramids and the temples of Abu Simbel, Karnak and Luxor and of the city of Memphis, and by the Ancient Egyptian obelisk placed at Plaça Cinc d'Oros in Barcelona.

However, this era of complacency created by cultural and economic progress was going to be shaken by the Second Sengoku Period.

The Egyptian obelisk of Barcelona.​

₁ - ITTL, the name given to the British Empire's colonial territories in North America (including the Floridas and the Caribbean area). chosen by the Crown after the suppression of the Intolerable Acts in 1780.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 84. The Rising Sun and the Crescent Moon (1830-1842)

After being defeated by Tokugawa Ieyoshi, Ishida Sakichi found refuge in an Aragonese ship that was anchored in the Portuguese of Nagasaki. It caused a diplomatic crisis that was solved when Ieyoshi's men stormed the ship and executed Ieyoshi on the spot on May 22, 1838. Ōtani Sakon, the former Gyōbu-shōyū (Junior Assistant Minister of Justice), at the head of about 600 men, rose in arms against Tokugawa and managed to utterly destroy an enemy army of 5,000 troops led by Fukushima Takatora (Battle of Marune, September23, 1839). This outstanding feat signalled a general uprising in the country against Tokugawa, who, nevertheless, managed to defeat Sakon at Terabe ( July 10, 1840). Several Loyalist commanders died during the battle or were executed by Tokugawa later (Ukita Yoshitsugu, Shima Morichika and Gamō Yoshihiro), but, on December 16 of that year, Tokugawa was murdered by one of his own commanders, Kuroda Shigekado, and the war broke out again.

Ironically, just as Tokugawa's heir, his son Tokugawa Tadanaga, took the place of his father, an Aragonese tradesman offered to one of his commanders a present for the new Shogun: a dozen Nock guns and a hundred Pattern 1805 Infantry Rifles, also known as the Barcelona Rifle, as it was mass produced there. The Pattern 1805 was being withdrawn from service in the Aragonese armed forces and that tradesman, a man called Miguel Solsona, had bought a great number of them hoping to find a client for that weapon. Tokugawa's men were still using the old-fashioned Belton flintlocks, so the Pattern 1805 received a warm welcome and soon Solsona found himself selling the rifle to Tokugawa by the hundreds, as fast as the Aragonese army was selling them and he was able to purchase and to send them to Japan. Of course, the massive selling of rifles did not go unnoticed and soon the Chief Minister was informed about this development. Baget was still not too keen on foreign adventures but, as Solsona had opened the Japanese market for the Aragonese guns, Baget used the chance ot send a diplomatic mission to meet the new Shogun.

By the time that the Aragonese mision reached Kyota on the late Autumn of 1840, Tokugawa Tadanaga had defeated his enemies in the battle of Tanegashima (September 2, 1840) and forced them to withdrawn to their bases, in spite of being defeated at Tamiya (September 18, 1840). Soon, armed with the Patern 1805 Rifle, the new army mustered by Tadanaga, moved north to confront the rebels. Two battles would follow, and by the end of the second (Ochiaimiano, (October 21, 1840), the rebels were decimated by the precise fire of Tadanaga's riflemen. After this battle, the war was over and Tadanaga prepared to rule. Much to Baget's dissapointment, the Shogun was hardly interested by his proposals. Japan was to turn its back to Europe once more.

More close and more concerning where the events that were taking place in North Africa. The Hafsid Sultanate had been a valuable ally that had helped Aragon to protect Sicily since the 1570s. After several dinasty changes, the actual rulers, the Hafsid-ibn-Hassans, had proved to be most ineffective, corrupt and iddle in all the history of the sultanate and, by the 1840s, they had been forced out of the Gulf of Béjaïa by the Moroccan Sultan and had to withdraw to their fortresses around Chott el Djerid under the pressure of the Egpytian rulers. However, in July 1842 the Egyptian army invaded the Hafsid lands and the Sultanate collapsed in a matter of weeks after his army was utterley devastated ini the battle of Akarit. With their former ally gone, Baget wondered what would happen next. However, the last Hafsid ruler, Abu Abdallah Muhammad XIII, had made a clever move before the Egyptian onslaught came on him: he named Moulay Abd al-Rahman bin Hisham of Morocco as his heir. Thus, with the enemy calling at his gates, Muhammad XIII had poisoned himself, giving this the crown to the Moroccan ruler, who claimed his right to the lands of the Hafsids.

With Aragon and Germany siding with Morocco and Britain and Russia with Egypt, many feared that an international conflict was comming, but, in the end, the question was settled in the Treaty of Tripoli. Tunis itself and the lands to its east were to pass to Morocco while the former Hafsid dominion of Libya was given to Egypt. Baget, on his part, was relieved by the turn of events, even if he was less than pleased to be alligned with Germany against Britain and Russia. However, he was not to face this problem, as he resigned at the end of his second term. The new Aragonese Chief Minister, the Conservative Miquel Bosch (Sitges, September 21, 1792 - Monpelhière, January 23, 1871), was a crude dissapointment for many, as he was known for being a religious fanatic. Thus, the Neo-Cathar Church feared that, with him in power, violent religious pogroms were to follow. Aware of this, Lluís I of Aragon consulted his advisors first about the steps to remove the Chief Minister and then met Bosch. The king was a modern, open minded fellow, a fan of industry, progress and enlightenment ideas, while Bosch was deemed to be the complete opposite. Thus, the Chief Minister was warned by the king about the consequences of uttering a single word about religion in the Parliament, something that surprised Bosch, as he did not expect the monarch to be defending what he considered a church of heretics. In any case, Bosch promised that he would refrain from making any religious statement and that he would leave the matter to the Official Churches of Aragon-Occitania.

Nevertheless, the country prepared itself for a rule of terror as the papers announced a crusade against the "unbelievers". The Progressive party geared up for war, as many of its leaders gave for granted that Bosch would end up facing a vote of no confidence in a few meeks and thus he would inevitably be forced into an election. However, Bosch was no food and he moved swiftly to secure his position. He contacted wealthy businessmen and bankers and forged alliances with the main leaders of the party. He then surprised friend and foe alike by not only openly debating all the topics with the official opposition, but also by listening to their suggestions and criticism with an open mind. Thus, he let off some of the steam both in the Parliament and in the legislature. His enemies, who had worked hard in the press to present his flaws (his rage and his shameful prejudices, etc) found themselves out of the game by the passionate and determined Chief Minister, who kept most of his predecesor's cabinet.

Soon fate would test the habilities of the new head of the Aragonese government.