The Kingdom of California (or, why I love games like Victoria II) · 11:46pm May 4th, 2015
"What the Hell?!" is what you're thinking. I have an answer...but it's a long one.
In this timeline, in 1836 the Spanish were able to put down the Carlist revolutionaries much faster than in our timeline. While Carlist sentiment would linger for decades, the Carlists were more-or-less broken as a political and certainly as a military force. This, coupled with the Spanish subjugating the native kingdom of Brunei in the Far East and creating extremely protectionist tariffs and several years of positively backbreaking taxes, allowed the Spanish to arrest the generally downward economic trend that had been going on for centuries. Even still, Spain was a very weak and poor nation, almost certainly in no condition to continue calling itself a Great Power, and the Queen of Spain, Isabella II - six years old at the time - was set to reign over a once-great but now faded nation.
But fortune favors the Spanish, it seems. War broke out between the French and the Dutch in 1837 for control of Dutch Guyana. Though the Spanish had nothing to do with the war, the British did, entering the war on the side of the Dutch in 1838 in order to check French expansion. History is unclear about exactly what happened, but the British performed poorly in the war - very, very poorly. Dutch Guyana fell to the French, as did a few small Caribbean islands held by the British.
The French might have been driven from British soil and punished with impunity had history not taken an even more bizarre turn: Russia and the United States of America both declared war on Britain in 1848, perhaps smelling blood in the water. This choice is particularly strange because the Russians had almost no navy and the United States was busy helping Texas fight its war of Independence against Mexico. Nevertheless, the British, already stretched thin against the French, could not also fight a war in Canada against the United States and a war in Russia against the Tsar. The British sued for peace against the French in 1850, forcing the Dutch to accept the loss of Guyana, and turned their attention to Russia and America.
The Anglo-Russian War lasted for four years, from 1848 to 1852. In eastern Canada, the British successfully took much of Russian America (Alaska), helped by the Portuguese for reasons that the Spanish were never able to quite figure out. However, much of western Canada was occupied by the United States. This was harder than the Americans believed it would be, however, and as a result although the Texan War of Independence was won in America and Texas' favor, the Americans settled for just the state of Texas and did not push to acquire more of northern Mexico.
In the end, the British prevailed against both the United States and Russia. A white peace - status quo ante bellum - was settled on between the three powers. However, the effects of the Anglo-Russian War and the War of Dutch Guyana Concession had a profound impact on the balance of power throughout the rest of Europe and, therefore, the world. France was stronger and more confident in its power; Russia and America, both weakened; the Dutch, meanwhile, had bled over a third of their army and navy into the war with the French, crushing the nascent Great Power.
But let us return to the Spanish. The Carlists were soundly defeated and Isabella II's throne was secured. However, as Isabella was only six years old in 1866, her mother, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, served as Queen Regent. Maria Christina took one look at the condition of the world between 1848 and 1852 and said, quite simply, "no," which is translated into English roughly as "fuck that shit." The Spanish remained neutral through the dual wars, despite being entreated by the French, the Russians, the Americans, and the British. Instead, the Queen Regent and Spain used the distraction of the two wars to further Spanish ambitions in the Far East, always careful to avoid threatening the Great Powers by focusing on native nations rather than the admittedly very enticing Dutch and British colonies of the Far East. By the time the dust from the dual wars settled, Spain had subjugated Atjeh, Jahore, and Bali, and the Spanish Army and Navy of the Philippines were transformed from glorified colonial guards and police vessels into a well-organized and trained, if somewhat poorly equipped due to the limits of the Spanish budget, Army and Navy of the Spanish Far East (El Ejército y El Armada del Lejano Oriente de Española)
The next few decades saw Spain opening up trade with practically all the nations of the Far East, securing a foothold in the region before the exhausted powers of Europe could begin to do so themselves. The British, French, Dutch, Belgians and Prussians would arrive in the royal courts of Siam, Dai Nam, Japan, and other such locations to find the Spanish already there. Spanish merchants brought material wealth back to Spain such as she had not seen in centuries - and not mere gold and silver this time, but commodities of great value as well. Silk, coffee, tea, dyes, and other such luxuries enriched Spain. Spain had also learned the hard lessons of maintaining a global Empire. While they thought little of subjugating smaller nations - such as the already mentioned Jahore or Brunei - the Spanish worked hard to establish and maintain cordial and respectful relations with China, Siam, and others.
The money and, just as importantly, the confidence that Spain acquired from the Far East reverberated in Europe. The Spanish annexed Morocco, essentially nullifying the British base at Gibraltar by doing so. A border incident with Portugal gave Spain a casus belli to declare war, but the war was a short and simple affair and the Spanish were eminently kind in their peace dealings - they took nothing from Portugal save the Portuguese colony of Macau, giving Spain a foothold on the Chinese mainland. The Spanish intervened on behalf of the Danish when that nation was attacked by the Prussians, becoming part of a multi-national army made up of herself, Britain, Austria, and a number of lesser German states formed to contain the Prussian menace - but even as it left Prussian dreams of Kleindeutschland stillborn, it aided the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in uniting Italy. Threatened by that action, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Spain, but this action backfired immensely and resulted in the Spanish liberating hard-won Egypt - which the Spanish moved under their influence - and being forced to pay indemnities to Spain for five years. A second attempt at war shattered the sick man of Europe once and for all, as Austria, Spain, and Italy together dismantled the Ottoman Empire between 1855-57, freeing the subjugated nations of Bulgaria, Wallachia, Albania, Greece, Iraq, and others.
But now, we return to the New World. As mentioned, the Anglo-Russian War of 1838-42 forced America to seek a quick, indecisive victory against Mexico. The victory left America with a new state - Texas - but no other spoils of war, and the British had given as good as they got during the war. Even as the American star waved, the rising star of Spain reached out once more to the New World. The Spanish had no imperial dreams here, however - they sought only alliances and partnership with their former colonies, as well as Brazil. Not long after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, the Spanish signed a treaty of alliance with Mexico against future American aggression. In truth, the Spanish feared America above all other powers - most of the great powers of Europe were busy with their own internal squabbles that scarcely concerned Spain. America, however, had openly spoken about dreams of Manifest Destiny, the desire to have a nation stretching not only from the Atlantic to the Pacific - already accomplished with their state of Washington - but also from the northern border with Canada down to the Gulf Coast and the Rio Grande - that is, they wanted half of Mexico, including California, Nuevo México. and large portions of Sonora, Nueva Vizcaya, and what remained of the state of Tejas. The Spanish knew, as well, that American dreams would not stop there - already the Americans had spoken of making war with Spain in order to seize Cuba and Puerto Rico, and perhaps even the Philippines. The Spanish fear of America took on a moral aspect as well when Spain abolished the practice of slavery throughout its empire in 1850, while in America the institution continued.
America was, in other words, the single greatest threat to Spain, the Main Enemy to be defeated. Even as Spain acquired wealth and prestige in the Far East, it focused much of that wealth into the New World, building up its Caribbean holdings and raising and maintaining a large Ejército y Armada del Caribe in anticipation of one day facing America on the field of battle.
The Second Mexican-American War of 1845-1850 came as a surprise to no one. The Spanish honored their alliance with the Mexicans, deploying their army from Cuba into Mexico's Lejano region to stop an American army out of Texas, even as the Mexicans themselves took the bulk of their army north into California to fight the Americans there. The Americans took and maintained strategic advantage against the Mexicans in the north for the duration of the war, but in the south it was a different story. The Americans, though possessing an industrialization and population advantage over Spain, were unable to capitalize on this advantage. The American invasion of southern Mexico was disorganized and piecemeal, perhaps because they were expecting only Mexican irregulars, not trained Spanish divisions. The Spanish Armada del Caribe, meanwhile - by itself nearly as large as the entire American navy combined - blockaded most of the Gulf of Mexico, preventing rapid reinforcement or conter-invasion of Cuba.
The war dragged on for five long years. Though the Americans held the advantage in the north of Mexico and even closed to within sight of the Rio Grande, the Spanish managed to hold the line in the south, and more, push that line forward. American Texas fell to the Spanish advance - with admittedly some Mexican help - and soon the Spanish found themselves attacking and sacking Baton Rouge and New Orleans almost without opposition. In 1850, the Americans were forced to sue for status quo ante bellum.
The Main Enemy had been confronted, but not beaten. Had the Americans been able to reinforce the south faster, or put the bulk of their army against the Spanish in Texas, many historians are certain that the Americans could have defeated Spain. By pursuing a north first strategy, however, the Americans wasted men and material against the Mexicans. The humiliation of the Second Mexican-American War no doubt added fuel to the fire that was already starting to burn in America. A third Mexican-American War in 1856 saw American fortunes improve, as they were able to take the regions of California and New Mexico from Mexico while Spain was still recovering from the previous war and busy with a war of its own in China that would eventually see the Spanish gaining control of the Guangdong province. The American gain, however, proved to be a double-edged sword, as rebellions against American rule were common in California. The Californians didn't want to be Mexican anymore, it turned out, but they had no desire to be Americans, either.
The American Civil War broke out in 1863, pitting North against South, Free State against Slave State, brother against brother. The Southerners, fighting in their homeland and with their war subsidized by British and Spanish money - both countries having a vested interest in weakening America, even if it meant aiding the cause of slavery that the Confederate States of America was fighting for - were able to win a desperate peace against the North by 1865. Alas, the future of the Confederacy would be a short one. An attempt to invade Spanish Morocco in 1867 would end poorly, as the few thousand men sent across the Atlantic fell to dehydration, lack of supplies, and eventually the guns and bayonets of the Spanish Ejército de Marruecos; the Spanish used the incident as an excuse to launch an invasion of the Confederacy themselves and, with Mexican help, liberate Texas and return it to Mexican control. Northern revanchism saw the War of American Reclamation break out in 1869 soon thereafter, and by 1871 the Confederate States were no more.
Perhaps looking to reclaim Texas or searching for some means to distract the continued rebel activity in California, the United States would go to war with Mexico again in 1872. Anticipating the war this time, however, and looking to try and end the American threat once and for all, the Spanish came to the aid of their Mexican allies once again. The American army so painstakingly constructed to reclaim the Confederate States was smashed and beaten, and Spaniards and Mexicans moved with impunity throughout the already war-torn South even as the Spanish launched an invasion of New England and New York from Spain itself.
The Fourth Mexican-American War ended in 1876 with America soundly defeated. America was forced to reduce its army by 50% for five years, as well as pay 25% of its national budget to Spain for the same period. Mexico had, in truth, lost a lot of dead weight with the previous loss of New Mexico and California, and so settled on similar reparations rather than a return of lost land. The Spanish, knowing the material wealth in California and wishing the Americans to have none of it, forced the Americans to surrender California to their control. The Spanish considered annexing the territory, but even with the newly-constructed Panama Canal, maintaining the colony would have been difficult. Instead, the Spanish helped to set up Joshua Abraham Norton as the first King of California.
Time alone will show if the Americans have finally learned their lesson.
TL;DR: Weird stuff happens in games like Victoria II, and I love every moment of it.
That's an... interesting alt. history. ;)
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I love alternate history. I particularly love it when I stumble across guys like Joshua Norton.
A world map by 1 January 1876, in case you're interested:
Click here for a larger view
i59.tinypic.com/3502yr4.png
The Scramble for Africa has just begun! The Portuguese had a head-start before anyone else, but now everyone seems to be getting the tech needed to settle the Dark Continent. Looks to be that the main contenders will be Britain, France, and Spain - although I've seen a few Brazilian settlers.
It is my intention to befriend Ethiopia and Sokoto, and not dismantle them. Actually in fact I earlier in the game, during a war with Egypt, gifted part of Egypt to Ethiopia in order to give Ethiopia a coastline. They've seemed appreciative, so far.
3045312 Ah, thanks. :) i'm guessing the gray areas are unexplored/unaligned?
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Uncolonized, yeah. The tech needed to colonize the area just didn't exist prior to 1870 or so. Spain is actually in a nice position to start since it begins the game with a fecky little island, Fernando Po, tucked into that bay off the west coast of Africa. Mostly useless from 1836-1870, but if you invest the small amount of money into the place needed to give it a naval base then you've got a great jumping-off point into the Dark Continent.
Evidently we're gonna have a Spanish Congo rather than a Belgian Congo. I'll try to be nicer than the Belgians. Also, because I built and control the Suez Canal, I'm in a great position to found a colony in East Africa, near Ethiopia. Again, gonna play nice with Ethiopia, and with Sokoto, and with all the other natives. Except, perhaps, the Zulu. How I treat the Zulu depends heavily on whether or not Shaka Zulu has stalked me from Civilization over to this game.
First priority now that I have my initial African colony, though, is to finish colonizing the Spanish East Indies before the Dutch or British can beat me to it.
Wow this game looks awesome. How long does it usually take to play? Is it worth buying? (I ask the guy who just wrote a whole minific about the game's exploits
)
This reminds me of the last time I played Vicky II.
I picked Mexico as my starting country, as it seemed like a good balance between "having things to do" and not being so big that a newbie like me wouldn't be able to keep up with all the rules.
Naturally, I started at war with Texas, which I tried to pounce on and snap up quickly. Alas, Texas quickly went running to America for help, and I found myself in a war that I really didn't want to be in. So, in desperation, I threw my diplomatic corps at the US and managed to negotiate a white peace. I then kept the diplomatic corps in the States to keep them friendly and not jumping on me. This allowed Mexico to maintain control of the Southwestern US, just in time for the Civil War.
As I had kept the relations high, I ended up joining the Civil War on the side of the Union...mostly in an attempt and excuse to try and wind up with Texas again by taking it from the Confederacy. Thusly, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna marched across the Rio Grande river, to clash with John Bell Hood's divisions in Texas. With the Confederate cause even more screwed than it was historically, I took Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas before peace was achieved. For some reason, Texas went Union again, but I managed to keep Oklahoma and Arkansas. I gave Arkansas back to the Native Americans to gain some international PR, as I didn't really want it.
The US ended up colonizing Oregon and Washington to complete their race to the Pacific, just in time to get ready to deal with Imperial Russia, who had colonized Alaska and western Canada down to the US border. Alas, the save game got corrupted and I never did get a chance to finish the thing.
Still, hell of a fun AU.
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Worth buying, yes, but I should warn you that this game is not really like Civilization or Age of Empires or Rise of Nations at all. It's a game more about maintaining your empire and carrying out acts of diplomacy, then it is about war. In fact war is a dangerous thing to declare (which is why, as outlined above, I usually waited to have war declared on me than vice-versa). See, you can't just declare war, you have to declare your wargoal, the reason you're going to war. Different wargoals incur different amounts of infamy; generally it's safer to attack weak, non-European or non-American nations than it is to attack European or American ones. If your Infamy reaches 20 or higher, than one or more of the Great Powers - the eight most powerful nations on Earth - will likely declare war on you in order to check your expansion. They're the Great Powers, after all, an exclusive club that they don't want others joining or rising in.
You can add additional wargoals after war has been declared if you are winning the war, but doing so incurs further Infamy. Infamy also decreases at a painfully slow rate - .1 per in-game month, with only a very small number of random events that decrease it any faster than that. It is possible to manufacture a casus belli to give you a reason to go to war without incurring infamy, but there's a chance that your attempt is noticed and called out. You'll still get your casus belli but you'll incur infamy for it.
(If you're the one attacked, you don't incur any infamy, of course - but only if you don't add any war goals other than just defeating the invasion)
Further, the more wargoals you add, the less likely the person you're fighting is to surrender, since you're demanding more from them. Even more, being actively at war eats away at your daily income, particularly if you're in a war against a nation that can fight back. Attacking Brunei or Jahore as Spain, for example, isn't that hard or costly. Spain verses Belgium, the Netherlands, or one of the larger Italian states like Sardinia-Piedmont or the Papal States, on the other hand - to say nothing of fighting another Great Power...which is actually nearly suicidal for Spain, by the way, since they start off in a very bad position in terms of literacy (research rate) and economy. Losing Great Power status within a year or two to Belgium or the Netherlands of Bavaria is practically guaranteed unless the world goes insane like it did above.
Having said all that, the empire management is the thing that I find most fun in games like Civilization or Rise of Nations or the like, and Victoria allows for a scale that I haven't seen in other games I've played. I'm enjoying it immensely now that I've figured it out (its tutorial is terrible, I only figured things out by looking up stuff online and brute force)
As for game speed - the game lasts from 1836 to 1936. You can change the game speed; I have it set up so that each second is 1 day, which is the middle speed. You can pause the game, as well, in order to issue orders n' stuff. At 1 day/second, assuming I didn't pause, a single game would take 10 hours.
As a final note, the game is not designed to be balanced between nations, but rather is trying to accurately reflect the world as it was in 1836. Britain starts the game as the overwhelmingly most powerful nation and it takes actual effort for it to end the game as anything but that. Spain starts the game in the midst of a civil war and will struggle to remain in seventh or eighth place; only a skilled player could ever get it to rise high enough to overtake even Austria or Prussia, nevermind America, France, or Britain (very exacting circumstances were in play that let me overtake America - their North First strategy in Mexico, for example, killed their initial war; and me and Britain subsidizing the CSA when the civil war broke out hurt them further. Even still and even with the loss of California, they'll likely have almost fully recovered in just a few short years). It's also possible to play as a much weaker nation, like Hannover (a German state), Lucca (an Italian state), or even a pre-industrial nation like Egypt or Oman - or, in fact, a very primitive, practically-still-wearing-loincloths nation like Hawaii or Zulu.
I haven't checked, but I've personally assumed that Santa Anna was killed during the Texan War of Independence, thereby explaining at least some of Mexico's increased fortunes.
Man was an idiot...politically skilled enough, at least at staying in power in Mexico, but utterly useless as a general.
My current game plan is to see how I end up as Spain. Then, I'm going to play a game as either Ethiopia, Sokoto, or Zulu, and try and create an African great power.
Then, I'm going to create a save game, methodically move through every nation via saving and reloading into a different one each time, and each time I'll release all the nations held by others - so, for example, as the Ottoman Empire I'll release Iraq; as Spain I'll release Cuba, etc. Balkanize the planet, basically. Then I'll load up either New England or California and see what I can do.
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Heh, are you sure they're not paying you for all this advertising?
All kidding aside, I appreciate the nicely thorough answer. I think I might just pick this up for the summer.
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
…wait a sec’, I’m broke.
Looks like it’s time to stick to canned food again.
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
This is great!
I've always been a fan of these kinds of games myself. Just recently got into Europa Universalis IV myself and I'm loving it. (For those curious EUIV is made by the same people and is set in the previous 'era', mid-1400s to early 1800s.)
Personally I've love to hear more about your future exploits in this game.
Although I do notice the US seems to have taken over the Yukon. Hopefully the British will do something about that.
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To be fair, the war with Texas in my game ended before I could even march his original army into Texas. So by the time the Civil War broke out, he was still around. And all the brilliance of the Southern generals just couldn't stop a Zerg Rush from two directions.
Good luck with the African nations though. They definitely have an uphill battle. But if you can really push the alternate history, grab the throttle and don't let go!
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Whoops, made a small (but, it turns out, amusing) mistake with my timeline. Isabella II was indeed Queen of Spain in 1836 at the start of the Victoria II campaign, having ascended to the throne on the death of her father Ferdinand VII in 1833...but Isabella II was only born in 1830. She was six. Turns out her mother, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, was Queen Regent from 1833-1840. However, shortly after Ferdinand VII's death she had married an ex-seargent of the Royal Guard, Agustín Fernando Muñoz, and had several children with him.
If Maria Christina had officially made the marriage public, she would have forfeited the regency; but her relations with Muñoz were perfectly well known within the Spanish court. Eventually knowledge of her marriage to Muñoz become public and made her extremely unpopular; eventually the army forced her to step aside from the Regency and forced her into exile into France; she was replaced with General Baldomero Espartero, Count of Luchana, the leader of the Army, who was Regent until Isabella came of age in 1843. Isabella II apparently liked Muñoz; once Queen Isabella created Muñoz as a duke, a knight, a marquess, and a captain general.
In this timeline, we'll imagine that the affair with Muñoz wasn't made public until after Isabella II's ascent to the throne, and once she was secure in the position officially consented to the marriage. Maria Christina's remarriage was unpopular but it wasn't enough to seriously threaten Isabella II's position as Queen from 1843 on. In real history Isabella II was unpopular due to her interference in affairs in a wayward, unprincipled way, as well as being somewhat homely, unrefined, cold and indifferent. She was also forced to marry her double-first cousin Francisco de Asís de Borbón (the Spanish Court in the 1830s-40s was a place of intrigue and betrayal). The marriage was not a happy one, though; in this timeline maybe she married someone else. She must also have been more politically astute for some reason. Best guess is that, coinciding with the quick Carlist War in 1836, some enterprising general or admiral or something "cleaned house" in the royal court and "simplified" things. With knives.
What really amuses me, though, is that I didn't know most of that - I got Isabella II's age completely wrong, for example - but I nevertheless helped the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where Maria Christina was from, create Italy.
It's the little things...
I've been playing an awful lot of Crusader Kings. I'm frightened to get into Europa Universalis or Victoria, because then I might have no free time left at all!
Great writeup. Long live the King of California!
My most recent achievement was to have Ragnar Loðbrok convert to Catholicism (thanks to a slave he kidnapped from Ireland who managed to convert him with pillow talk), and then go on to create the Holy Roman Empire, because he wasn't about to stop fighting wars just because he'd been baptised. (I've been on a bit of a Viking kick lately, which is why I'm writing fic about reindeer now.)
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Crusader Kings...Crusader Kings...is that where this is from?
i62.tinypic.com/2pq1d0y.jpg
"I tried to kill myself to prevent myself from killing myself! Kill me!"
Wait, is that a harp? I just noticed the harp. That means he's Irish, doesn't it? I've been mispronouncing his name, then. I've been trying to pronounce it like it was French, but it really should be pronounced something more like Moirev, shouldn't it?
3046481 Hmm. That might be Crusader Kings. It mentions murder but not incest, so call it an 80% chance?
Something like that. I love all the names from various cultures, like when I played Sultana Taneen the Holy of Arabia.
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*falls over laughing*
Oh. My. God. That is freaking hilarious!
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Crusader Kings II has some glorious AU fun. I've done more than a few different games, but it's hard to tell which one is actually my favorite. I think that the Empress of a united pagan Scandinavia is really up there though.
I really, really hope that after HoI IV Paradox reveals that they've been working on Victoria III.
Don't get me wrong, CKII is fun, and I love EUIV (next update looks very exciting), but Victoria has always been their best series.
Great writeup, by the by.
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So I finished the Spain game. Short version is that no, the USA did not learn its lesson, so I went to war one final time before the 20th century dawned and just tore the place apart - established a Kingdom of America in former Confederate territories as well as an independent Kingdom of New England, Kingdom of the Manhattan Commune, and Kingdom of Canada (former Alaska), but I also took some States for myself. Later on USA declared war against the Kingdom of America and gobbled it up, and Mexico reclaimed the Kingdom of California, but the point is that the USA never again challenged Spain after that and in fact spent most of the rest of its existence dealing with partisans in one form or another.
Spain's later history for the 1900s through the end of the game in 1936 basically became a big game of France Is An Asshole. They got a good chunk of Africa during the scramble but Spain got all the best parts, so they kept going to war with me for them - the thing is, though, that I was allies with literally all of their neighbors (Prussia, Italy, Belgium, Bavaria) except for Britain (who was neutral), but France was allied with Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Russia. So what ended up happening was three Great Wars, the first one about France trying to gain Spanish colonies in Africa, then the remaining two about France being pissed off with Spain taking some of mainland France from France during the War - but because it kept losing the wars I kept taking more land.
The final Great War was during the last part of the game, 1929-35. This time I was able to get Britain involved, and China, too. End result was a world that looked like this (I figured out Vicky II's own screencap system). I closed out the game as overall #2, with only Britain more powerful. Not bad for a power that started the game in a state of creeping decay.
img12.deviantart.net/9cfe/i/2015/138/4/6/victoria_ii__spain__by_neorogueshadows-d8tvur2.jpg
Oh, I also ended the game with literally every country in South America in my Sphere. Yosh.
(I have no idea what happened in the Kingdom of Canada to make it gain so much of British Canada)
3079002 Eh... congratulations. I think. ;) You won, I believe?
Aaaand in other news, I've started my Ethiopia game. Current in-game year is 1867, I have just Westernized, and am currently in 52nd place. I'm actually keeping a play-by-play of major events, too, with suitable artistic flourishes. BEHOLD!
(Sahle Dengal and Ali II of Yejju were real people who were really in charge of Ethiopia in 1843. but Negasi Esra Melesse and his son Ahemed Negasi Esra are completely made-up dudes, and all names for generals and admirals below come from the game itself. This is because Ethiopia will need some wildly different people in play to become a truly powerful nation)
img05.deviantart.net/8baf/i/2015/138/a/9/victoria_ii___ethiopia__1867_by_neorogueshadows-d8tvwjc.jpg
FIRST WAR OF THE NILE (1841-42)
Something of a misnomer as little if any fighting took place on the Nile, but the popular name for the war in Europe. This war, fought between September 13, 1841 through June 10, 1842, saw fighting break out between Ethiopia and Egypt over the Asmara region of Africa, controlled by Egypt but claimed by several Ethiopian princes, or Ras, in a desire to have access to the Red Sea; the effort was spearheaded by the Ras of Hararghe, Negasi Esra Melesse. Although the Egyptians had a larger and somewhat more modern army, the Ethiopians were able to utilize the terrain of the area to their advantage. Several crushing defeats against an Egyptian counter-attack in Ethiopian Aksum and Antalo forced the Egyptians to turn to their old Ottoman masters for aid in April of 1842. The entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war, and later the Russian Empire as well, forced the Ethiopians to seek status quo ante bellum with the Egyptians and rescind their claims to the Asmara region.
The First War of the Nile is nevertheless notable as being one of Ethiopia's first steps towards action on the larger world stage.
ETHIOPIAN CIVIL WAR (1843-45)
Breaking out on July 23, 1843, the Ethiopian Civil War was fought between Royalists nominally loyal to the Emperor, Sahle Dengal, and a number of rebel Ras (princes) united behind the Ras of Hararghe, Negasi Melesse. However, it is worth noting that at this point in time the Emperor of Ethiopia was largely a figurehead and the real power lied in the hands of the Ras of Begemder, Ali II of Yejju, Enderase (Regent) of Ethiopia. The rebels blamed Ethiopia's white peace in the War of the Nile on the weak, practically nonexistent central rule of the Emperor and the Enderase, believing that Ethiopia should not have capitulated to Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Empire, particularly when the latter two had not yet even taken the field of battle. The rebels also opposed, at least on paper in order to gain popular support, many pro-Western reforms that had been instituted by the Enderase in order to make Ethiopia more Western. Ras Negasi found most of his support in southern Ethiopia at the start of the civil war, but lead his forces in several decisive battles against the Royalists, and on April 8th, 1844, was able to take control of the capital city of Gonder. Ras Ali and Emperor Sahle were able to escape, but the Royalist forces found themselves in a state of disarray from which they never recovered. A final decisive battle in Antolo in March of 1845 spelled doom for the Royalists; the Enderase fled the country, first into Egypt and then Yemen, while the Emperor was killed during the fighting. Negasi Melesse was soon thereafter installed as the new Emperor of Ethiopia.
Emperor Negasi reversed several of the Regent's decisions concerning Westernization. However, he also ended the Zemene Mesafint, or "Era of Princes," a time that had lasted since 1769 during which Ethiopia lacked any true central authority. Each Ras was required to swear loyalty to the Emperor, with Negasi enforcing this decision by force whenever necessary.
The Ethiopian Civil War is also notable for ending the Solomonic Dynasty in Ethiopia; Emperors of Ethiopia had claimed their descent from Menelik I, the son of Solomon and Makeda, Queen of Sheba. Emperor Negasi could make no such claims, and nor did he attempt to, a fact that rankled some of the more conservative members of Ethiopian nobility but against which they could do little due to Negasi's popular support.
SECOND WAR OF THE NILE (1845-47)
Breaking out on the 5th of August 1845, using veteran troops from the civil war, the Ethiopians made a second go at the Asmara region. Emperor Negasi was additionally perhaps motivated by a rebel uprising within northern Egypt that served to distract Ethiopia's northern rivals. With the Egyptians distracted by the events up in their heartland, the Ethiopians were essentially unopposed in southern Egypt for most of the war, occupying all of the Asmara region as well as Khartoum to the east. The war lasted until March 16th, 1847, at which point Egypt was forced to sue for peace in order to devote its full attention to its rebel problems in the north. Ethiopia gained control of the Asmara region, finally giving the previously landlocked nation an avenue to maritime trade.
LAND REFORM OF 1848 AND THE RESTORATION OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
Not every event of importance for Ethiopia in the 19th century involved wars. Emperor Negasi in 1848 instituted a policy of land reform that reorganized the various provinces of Ethiopia, redistributing some of the land back to the Ethiopian people in order to increase the productiveness of Ethiopia's farms and mines. Though met with resistance from the nobility, the reforms fulfilled their intended goal of increasing the output of Ethiopia's raw materials market. Partially to quell the disquiet from the nobility, but also with an eye towards attracting Western technical experts and increasing the literacy rate of the Ethiopian people, Emperor Negasi also invested a large portion of Ethiopia's money into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with the understanding that the Church would use the money to open schools across the country to educate the populace.
THE ASMARA SLAUGHTER (1849)
On August 18th, 1849, a planned uprising by marginalized Tigre nobility against Ethiopian rule in Asmara turned into something else entirely - the people rose up against the nobles in Asmara, responding to calls of loyalty to Ethiopia. The peasants quickly gained the upper hand against the nobles. On learning of the attack, Emperor Negasi sent in troops to restore order - eventually, and not until some weeks after most of the fighting had died down. No Asmaran peasant was ever tried or punished for their crimes, and most historians - noting that the Asmaran nobles were made up largely of the Ras who had not fully accepted Negasi's rule - believe that the Emperor either engineered the incident himself, or at the very least took advantage of it in order to secure his own power base. In either case, the last vestiges of independent Ras power were largely broken in 1849.
GONDER INCIDENT (1850)
On the morning of 14 October, 1850, the Austrian ambassador to Ethiopia, Leon Dreher, was found dead in an ally in the Ethiopian capital. It was never determined whether the act had a political motivation or if instead it was simply a common mugging; however, the diplomatic crisis nevertheless loomed. Though Austria had little ability to prosecute a war against Ethiopia over the incident, the murder nevertheless jeopardized the hard work that Emperor Negasi had been putting into building up Ethiopia's reputation with the Europeans. On the other hand, the Emperor knew he had to maintain the support of Ethiopia. In the end, the nation formally apologized to Austria for failing to ensure the safety of their dignitary, but went no further than that. Ethiopia gained a reputation in Europe as a dangerous and wild country, hurting its national image.
THIRD WAR OF THE NILE (1852-1855)
Erupting with a surprise declaration of war on the 1st of June, 1852, the Third War of the Nile was an Egyptian attempt to regain control of the Asmara region. The timing of the war was extremely unfortunate for Ethiopia, as only a month earlier a wave of typhoid fever has swept through the country; as well, recent budgetary concerns meant that the Ethiopians had downsized their military somewhat. The Egyptians occupied the province of Akordat in Asmara with little resistance, though a poor supply train soon forced their army to withdraw up the Nile in January of 1853, and the Ethiopians were able to reclaim the province by the 10th of April. A long stalemate ensued as the Egyptians sorted out their supply woes. The war heated back up in June of 1853, when an Ethiopian scout force sent into Egypt's Kassala province ran into the main Egyptian army. The scout force was quickly overwhelmed, but not before word got back to the Army of Ethiopia, still waiting in the neighboring Akordat province.
The counterattack went poorly, however, and the Ethiopians were forced out of Kassala and back into Akordat; a follow-up strike by the Egyptians forced the Ethiopian army into further retreat to Gonder. The Egyptians re-occupied Akordat, and then sent their army under the generalship of Halil Pasha south, besieging Ethiopia's capital city. A second attempted counterattack was a disaster for Ethiopia. The Egyptian army, under the leadership of Halil Pasha, roundly defeated the Army of Ethiopia under the leadership of Demissie Selassie. By November Gonder was taken and occupied, and the Ethiopians forced to retreat with the Emperor into the neighboring province of Antalo. Demissie Selassie was sacked by the Emperor, and a new general, Tewoderos Kassa, promoted in his place.
General Kassa reorganized the Ethiopian army, taking cues from a number of foreign advisors. While Gonder was being occupied by the Egyptians, and though Emperor Negasi was breathing down General Kassa's neck to counter-attack, the general instead took the time to train up the Ethiopian irregulars into a large, well-organized fighting force.
The first Ethiopian counter-attack on the Egyptians at Gonder, in late February of 1854, inflicted grievous losses on the Egyptians but was turned aside. The second attack in March, however, destroyed the beleaguered Egyptian army. The Ethiopians then pushed north, arriving in Akordat in early April 1854 and regaining control by July. General Kassa then went on the offensive into Egypt's Kassala province, linking up with a small number of reinforcements from Ethiopia's Matamma region. The Ethiopian army then broke up into smaller bands that spread into Wad Madani and Sennar, looting and plundering the provinces at will. The Egyptians eventually accepted peace on 12 January, 1855.
AFAR UNREST (1856)
The most populous ethnic groups in Ethiopia are the Oromo and the Amhara, together comprising around 60% of the total population. However, Ethiopia has a number of other ethnicities in it, including the Tigre, the Somali, and the Afar. The last, comprising about 1% of the total population, is mostly found in eastern Ethiopia, particularly in Awsa. The Afar have long languished under Amhara and Oromo rule, but lack the numbers to instigate any kind of large-scale uprising against the ruling ethnic groups. In 1856, a young Afar by the name of Latif Rahat Hussain spoke out against Ethiopian rule in Aswa and the plight of the Afar people, in particular that the schools of Aswa favor the Amhara minority in the Aswa province instead of creating a more balanced curriculum; he also spoke out against the dominance of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in provincial affairs, calling instead for a more balanced approach to religion and acceptance of Muslim and anamist minorities. He did not call for an uprising, and in fact his words were reported to be rather soft-spoken; nevertheless, the Aswan authorities had him arrested and jailed. However, Emperor Negasi did institute some reforms following Hussain's arrest that loosened the strict Amhara hegemony over the province.
SECOND GONDER CRISIS (1856)
On the 28th of June, 1856, the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ethiopia was found dead, much as the Austrian ambassador had been back in 1850. This time, there was no mistaking the political intentions of the murder. Arrests were made and the Emperor once again apologized on behalf of Ethiopia to the United Kingdom, however no greater restitution was made.
CHOLERA OUTBREAK (1857)
The disease cholera broke out in Debre Markos in October of 1857, perhaps as a result of the increased population or industry in the area. Rapidly fatal and extremely contagious, the entire province was quarantined by the government for nearly a year, even as relief efforts were sent in to try and stymie the progress of the disease. In the end, the cholera outbreak would claim several thousand Ethiopian lives; however, the disease was prevented from spreading beyond Debre Markos.
WAR OF THE RED SEA (1859-1860)
Ethiopia gained and held onto the Asmara region through three wars with Egypt, but over the past decade the Ethiopians had found their attempts to establish trade networks beyond the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean stymied by the Sultanate of Yemen. Tensions were high between the two nations ever since Ethiopia first gained the Asmara region in 1847; the 1858 attack and seizure of an Ethiopian merchant vessel looking to trade with Oman proved to be the final straw, and war was declared on the 2nd of February, 1859. This was Ethiopia's first attempt at prosecuting a war beyond its immediate borders, and indeed its first maritime adventure at all.
The War of the Red Sea pitted Ethiopia against not only Yemen, but also their fellow Muslim allies in Hedjaz. The larger, more organized, and more modern Ethiopian army, comprised mainly of veterans from Ethiopia's three wars with Egypt, was able to crush the Yemeni army in the Battle of Sana, before splitting in two, the 2nd Army of Ethiopia dispersing throughout Yemen and taking control of major cities and ports while the 1st Army of Ethiopia moved to the north and swiftly defeated the Hedjezi in the Battles of Abha and Mecca.
The nascent Red Sea Fleet, meanwhile, found itself largely unopposed - the Yemeni navy more used to interdicting merchant vessels than opposing dedicated warships - and swiftly blockaded the Hedjazi and Yemeni coasts. The one naval "battle" of the war, the Battle of Bal el Mandeb, pitted two Ethiopian vessels against one Yemeni ship. The Ethiopians won, and the lead captain of the battle, Berihun Makonenn of the Lalibela, was promoted to the position of First Admiral of the Empire of Ethiopia.
An attempted Yemeni late August counterattack with a hastily-raised army in Hodeida backfired miserably. Hedjaz sued for peace in October, abandoning their Yemeni allies, and Yemen itself fell in February of 1860.
The Ethiopians did not formally annex Yemen, but they did depose the ruling Sultan, Ali I ibn Muhsin al-Abdali, and installed a puppet ruler, Mohammed Khaled ibn al-Aziz, who was styled Sheik rather than Sultan.
FOURTH WAR OF THE NILE (1859-1861)
The Egyptians, perhaps looking to take advantage of Ethiopian forces being occupied in Yemen, declared war on Ethiopia once again in November of 1859. By then, however, the Ethiopian army dispatched to Hedjaz had returned to its homeland and was able to take up the defense of the nation until the 1st Army of Ethiopia had secured Yemen and returned to Africa.
Once again, the Egyptians were able to quickly seize control of the Akordat region. This time, however, the Ethiopians actively pursued a strategy of drawing the Egyptian army into the mountainous terrain of the Ethiopian highlands, which favored defense over offense. The Egyptians and Ethiopians clashed at the Battle of Matamma in August of 1860, and the numerically superior Egyptian army was encircled and crushed by a combination of the entrenched 2nd Army of Ethiopia and the reinforcements provided by the 1st Army of Ethiopia. Once again, the Ethiopians thereafter went on the offensive into the Khartoum region, this time not merely plundering the province but actually occupying the entire region by February of 1861. March saw the defeat of another Egyptian army attempting to reclaim Amsara, and by April the Ethiopians were moving into the Kordofan region of Egypt.
Finally, in July of 1861, the Fourth War of the Nile ended with an Ethiopian victory. The Ethiopians took control of Egypt's Khartoum region, gaining control of a vast region full of fertile farmland and nearly doubling the size of Ethiopia herself.
The Ethiopian victories in Hedjaz, Yemen, and Egypt, further, finally put Ethiopia into the public consciousness within Europe. No longer considered to be a backwards, primitive nation of tribal savages indistinguishable from any other, Ethiopia was acknowledged in at least some circules within the Western world as a rapidly industrializing and advancing nation, a growing power just far enough away from European concerns to not be worthy of European hostility, but close enough to be worth European attention - and, by extension, investment.
SPANISH-ETHIOPIAN WAR (1862-1865)
Not all European powers, however, looked kindly upon Ethiopia's actions. Ever since Egypt had broken away from the Ottoman Empire, the various powers in Europe had been vying for favor and prestation within Egypt, located as it is at a strategic point in the Mediterranean and perhaps looking to one day build the Suez Canal. The Spanish were, further, concerned with their increasingly faltering empire. While most of Europe's Great Powers saw little threat in Ethiopia's carving out patrimony for itself from southern Egypt - the important part to control was in the north, after all - Spain declared war on Ethiopia in March of 1862, ostensibly to liberate Egyptian Khartoum and Amsara, but also looking to curry favor with the Egyptian Sultan.
However, the Spanish were not even able to begin their war effort until September, and that effort amounted to a Spanish "blockade" of the Ethiopian coastline - by four Spanish frigates, a flotilla commanded by Admiral Mateo Cano. While the frigates were more powerful and better crewed than their Ethiopian equivalents, the four frigates simply lacked the ability to effectively patrol even the small coastline. Trade with the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean was notably hurt, but Ethiopia, a landlocked nation for most of its history, did not depend upon maritime trade to keep its economy afloat.
The next step the Spanish took was somewhat more impressive. A large Spanish army, consisting of some six thousand cavalry, a like amount of artillery, and fifteen thousand infantry, was shipped from Spain to the Massawa province of the Amsara region, arriving in July of 1863. The Ethiopians, lacking as they did meaningful cavalry or artillery, did not attempt to fight this force, but rather once again fell back into the Ethiopian highlands and waited.
At sea, meanwhile, Admiral Berihun Makonenn lead a flotilla of two newly-completed man'o'wars (the Seyum and the Tatadum, modeled on designed provided by the British), and three frigates (Lalibela, Yekuno Amlak, and Tigray) against the Spanish flotilla of four frigates blockading the Ethiopian coast, looking to cut off Spanish supply lines. The two flotillas engaged each other in August.
The battle did not go well from the start. Admiral Makonenn was killed in one of the opening volleys. Command passed to his son, Geteye Makonnen, who had never before been in a combat situation and who had previously only commanded a squadron of transport clippers during the Ethiopian invasion of Hedjaz and Yemen. During the battle, the Ethiopians, unfamiliar with true naval combat and facing up against a flotilla commanded by a nation that had once been the greatest maritime power on Earth, were in a constant state of disarray. After only a few hours of combat - not very long by the standards of the time - all five Ethiopian vessels were sunk, while the Spanish lost only a single frigate.
On land, things were fairling little better. The Spanish took control of Massawa, and quickly moved on to Amsara province itself before taking control of Aksum, within the borders of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian plan of drawing the Spanish in and exhausing their supply lines was dashed by both the defeat of the Ethiopian navy, and the arrival of an additional twelve thousand Spanish infantry. The Spanish were soon forced with withdraw from Aksum due to supply issues, but it became increasingly obvious that the Ethiopians needed help to win this war against a Western nation. Emperor Negasi sentout diplomats to the courts of Europe looking for aid, one of the first instances of Ethiopia reaching out to foreign governments rather than waiting for foreigners to come to them.
The Ethiopians found help in the court of Abdulaziz I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, having recently concluded a war with Egypt to reclaim all of Anatolia rather favorably and looking to further reassert themselves on the European stage, were successfully courted for alliance by May of 1864, and formally entered into a state of war with Spain one month later, on June 1st.
The Ottomans could do little to directly help the Ethiopians down in Africa; however, they were able to engage the Spanish in the Mediterranean and in Spanish Morocco, pulling supplies away from the Ethiopian front. The Ethiopians, meanwhile, switched tactics. They never directly engaged the Spanish army, but rather moved in circles around it, shadowing its movements and exhausting its supplies; however, an accidental engagement in Aksum left the Ethiopian army decimated.
The Spanish flotilla in the Red Sea, meanwhile, victorious though it had been against the Ethiopian's own flotilla, was pulled away when the Ottomans threatened an invasion of the Spanish Balaeric Islands. The war ended on November 22nd, 1865, with a decree of status quo ante bellum. Ethiopia had been able to keep Khartoum and Amsara, but the cost was high: the loss of several thousand Ethiopian men at both land and sea, as well as the entire nascent Ethiopian fleet. The war had also all but bankrupted Ethiopia, and Emperor Negasi was forced to cut down on the size of the army not due to foreign demand, but rather simple necessity: he couldn't pay the large standing army that had once been able to invade and occupy all of Yemen and Hedjaz at once.
The war did have one positive effect, however. It finally and completely demonstrated to Ethiopia the dangers presented by European powers, and just how large the industrial and technological gap between Ethiopia and the West was. For years, the Ethiopians had believed that being able to defeat Egypt meant that they were a match for anyone who might come after them; the Spanish-Ethiopian War firmly demonstrated that that was not the case. Ethiopia had become a big fish in a small pond; beyond Africa, there were sharks looking for prey, and Ethiopia was rapidly growing to become an enticing target.
Emperor Negasi and the people of Ethiopia became determined to ensure that if ever again a Western power came after them, they would be able to engage them - and defeat them - alone, without needing to crawl to foreign powers for aid.
MILITARY REFORM (1866)
By July of 1866, Emperor Negasi had gathered enough support amongst the younger generals and Ras of the Empire to impress upon them the need for large-scale military reform. The Empire, he argued, needed a class of professional soldiery, and needed to appoint its generals and admirals according to ability rather than blood relation. This was met with no small amount of resistance from the old guard; however, the humiliation of the Spanish-Ethiopian War demonstrated fully that reform was badly needed.
DEATH OF EMPEROR NEGASI (1867)
On October 16, 1867, Emperor Negasi was found dead within his palace in Gonder. The cause was later said to be a heart attack, though medical knowledge in Ethiopia at the time was lacking. The timing of his death coincided with the beginning of large-scale reform to the officer corps of the Ethiopian military, the last step needed before Ethiopia could be considered to be a truly 'Western' nation. It further came only a few weeks after the discovery of diamond mines in Massawa, greatly enriching the impovrished nation. As well, he had that day been scheduled to meet with a number of foreign capitalists looking to aid Ethiopia in building true factories, bringing Ethiopia into the Industrial Revolution.
Emperor Negasi was succeeded by his son, Ahemed Negasi Esra, who became Emperor Ahemed. Ahemed, aged thirty-four, vowed to continue the policies of his father, and guide Ethiopia for the rest of the 19th and into the 20th century.
3079007
I placed 2nd, which is way better than I ever imagined myself as being able to do, and even with as good as I did against France - largely thanks to identifying the French problem early and working my ass off to ally with France's neighbors for when The War came - I'd never be able to pull the same on Britain, who started the game at #1, ended at #1, and never once left #1. They start off that far ahead of everyone else.
Given how poorly Spain starts, I would have defined "winning" as simply staying a Great Power (within the top 8), and I fully expected to end the game in 5th place or so. So getting 2nd is kind of amazing.
That's the sort of game Victoria II is. What constitutes "winning" varies depending on who you're playing as. If I was playing as Hawaii or Bali or something then "winning" would simply mean surviving the entire game intact.
3079099 Well, legit congrats on such a high finish. :)
3079002
Congrats on your impressive success.
3079099
Very nice! Looking forward to seeing where this this ends up going.
I've only ever seen Great Britain get pushed out of the #1 position by the once: a.i. China managed to fully modernize by around 1905, and turned into an unstoppable juggernaut.