Sunday, August 26, 2018

The War of Austrian Succession {Part 1}








The HRE, previously one of the strongest nations, if not the strongest, in Europe at the time had been struggling with a wide variety of problems disuniting the previously fairly united states in the HRE*. Most impactful being the ban on any other family besides the Habsburgs inheriting the throne. This all culminated in 1741. The Emperor, Charles IV, passed away. Charles hadn't left any male heirs, but rather, left a female heir who was supported by HRE law, the Pragmatic Sanction. This, however, hadn't been supported by many, leaving what would become a power struggle, or rather a race-to-power. 

While France publically supported the law, they had allied themselves secretly with the claimant ruling Bavaria. Prussia's King Frederick had plans to unite what he deemed to be his lands under one flag. Austria itself was divided between three potential heirs, Maria Theresa (the rightful inherent), Maria Josepha, and Maria Amalia. Self-Proclaimed King Carl Frederick of Wurttemberg-Oels saw Austrian rule as humiliating and set out to liberate his people, the Swadians, from the rule of the Eugen and Habsburg families. The British had set out to take whatever side the French were opposed to in order to counter the humiliation dealt in the American War of Independence.  The Hanoverians simply aligning themselves with the British king, George II. The Swedes were set out to take any side if the Russians decided to take a side. The Dutch Republic was split in two, with the Orangists {Royalists}, who were in power, supporting the British, and the Republicans simply anti-Orangists. Genoa was set on supporting the secretly brewing Republican revolt in the Netherlands. While Sardinia was prepared to support Maria Theresa, in word, yet not prepared to in sword.

Everyone in Europe knew what was coming, and when it finally happened that Maria Theresa was crowned to the throne of Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, war broke. France declared war following Emperor Charles VII and his wife Maria Josepha declaring war on Austria. The British declared war on France following the French declaration of war. The Russians joined sides with Austria, who had previously supported them in the Russo-Ottoman War two years prior. The Swedes declared war on Russia, and Austria following. 

The first offensive being the Prussian Campaign of Silesia in February 2nd, 1741, nearly a week after the breakout of the war, without a formal declaration by the Prussians. King Frederick was convinced that he had to move as quickly as possible, due to the concern over Maria Amalia's armies would invade Silesia to unite her Husband's Kingdoms of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania. In what could only be described as an Eighteenth Century Blitzkrieg. The Austrian armies had only numbered in around 6,000, and the Prussian force was able to capitulate all Austrians with their combined occupying forces consisting of nearly 40,000, 40% of their entire military. The last remaining Austrian foothold in Silesia was Breslau, which would continue to fight hard against Prussian sieges for nearly four months, until the Prussian forces decided to allow them to continue their occupation in hopes that the Austrian government would accept their proposal of Silesia in exchange for recognition of the Austrian government and Empress Maria Theresa. 




Maria refused, and launched the Austrian offensive of Silesia, in hopes of scaring the Prussians, who had signed a treaty of cooperation with the French a month prior on June 18th, 1741. This offensive resulted in the Battle of Mollowitz** which ended in a Prussian victory, pushing the region out of formal Austrian influence for the coming years.

Meanwhile, on August 27th, 1741, the French marched their army across the Rhine, in hopes of meeting with the Bavarian army in order to march straight for Vienna. The combined forces met on the Danube and started to make their way towards Vienna, but upon capturing Linz, the plan was averted in favor of a two-prong march towards Prague. The French would advance through the Amberg-Pilsen path towards Prague, and the Bavarians would march through Budweis, via the newly captured region of Silesia by the Prussians. This became wildly successful, the French had split in two, with one army prepared to siege Vienna, and the other continuing with the Bavarian armies and capturing Prague (November 21st, 1741), which was not able to be reinforced in time, given the placement of the Austrian forces in the Hungarian/Italian/Polish regions. Charles VII now naming himself Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor, sent for the coalition of French and Prussian troops to crush the remaining main Austrian army outside of Innsbruck. Charles moved to march on the city of Vienna.

The Combined French and Bavarian armies captured the city of Vienna after a brief siege (January 20th - 29th, 1742) and proceeded to imprison Francis Stephen, the Husband of Maria Theresa. They proclaimed the war was over and called upon the rest of the remaining Holy Roman armies to surrender themselves along with Maria Theresa.


But the true war had only just begun!




Sunday, August 19, 2018

Extra, Extra! Read all about it! {Crowning of Queen Alexandra}

[April 5th, 1756]




Following the aging of the Queen of the British family to 18, she was finally given a crowning ceremony. 


The ceremony was large and tedious, in fact, the most planned ceremony since the Elizabeth I herself! The proceeds included a massive show of military force! Which in relative is puny, given the American might over the English army! Regardless, this show of force was to intimidate the 'Enemies of the British Empire' as one reporter stated, yet in actuality, it was just an attempt to quiet the newly independent Principality of Ire into giving up its God-given Sovereignty.

The first day of the ceremony concluding with an execution of the leader of the ongoing Scottish unrest! On the receiving was a massive applause for the Queen as she stood on the stand to personally fire one of the guns in the squad! While I despise the presence of our former 'Masters' across the big blue, I have got to say, this is quite the bold and commendable move!


Not all Women are able to show such a great amount of personal strength as what the new royal has shown!!!


Upon the second day arriving, loud cannon-fire had been blasted as early as Pre-Mid-Day! The Queen aired blanks throughout the streets, and kept them ringing throughout the second day until the Royal Commencement Banquet was hosted! The tables ran well into the marketplaces up to two blocks away from the palace! Almost everyone in the city got to eat at the mercy and discretion of Her Highness!


A rather detestable move, given how many providers they had stolen the food from!


On the last day, crowds were gathered on mid-day in front of the Palace of Westminster. The Queen held a rather educated and passionate speech, here's an excerpt grabbed by one of our own in the crowd:


"It is time for us to end the mistakes which are repeated by our ancestors! Invading lands, but not only invading, failing at invading! It is truly disgusting and bastardizing. We lost to, of all people, the Celts of Ire! No! I refuse! I'm going to personally end this nonsense! WE are going to personally end this nonsense! We need to RECLAIM our place in this world, and I will be in the forefront of this, whether the World appreciates it or not!"


Clearly, she seems passionate. But seeing as how two heads of the throne of those over the big blue lost to us, she wouldn't be able to force our great Union to succumb! Even if she personally landed here!




May God Continue to Bless the Union and prevent our fate from being the fate of the Tyrants over the sea!





Your weekly writer, 


- Benjamin Franklin -





Saturday, August 18, 2018

The Fulani Wars of Expansion and the Following Civil War

{Map of North/West Africa Pre-Civil War}
{See Legend at bottom of Page}


In the years encompassing the range of 1730-1734 the Fulani Caliphate had a massive series of Wars of Expansion, and with their quickly growing arsenal of modern weaponry, they would have an easy shot at many of the tribes. In fact, the whole series of wars only cost them 2,000 of their own Fulanis, while numbering in the 10,000s for the many conglomerations of tribes taken over by the Fulanis. They had assumed this rapid expansion was going to last a good while, they were intimidating the tribes within by selling some as slaves as a scare tactic, while also providing a simple and straightforward living system, where they would simply pay the Caliphate 'protection salt', basically rare minerals and gold, and they would be allowed to continue doing whatever they pleased with limited interference. 

The Caliph, Alfa Ibrahim, assumed the expansionism would only lead to good things, being someone who was studied in the successes of his northern neighbors. His expansion north had hit a halt as he could not cross ottoman territory, while his expansion west was just starting to fruition. Very slowly he had been amassing troops on the border of Grand Bassam, the only nation who he had required to call in a council in order to strategize against seeing as they had an open trade to much of the western world, with France wanting to keep them alive. In February 1735, just two months before the invasion was set to commence, an uprising among some of the Chad tribes had occurred, but Ibrahim decided onto leave one of the Caliphi {Trusted Advisor/Generals}, Abdellah Min-Al Boke, to deal with them. Which started to work out fine, until the uprising of Kanuri-Hausa, a combined group of some of the most oppressed people in the Caliphate. Tired with the frequency at which their people were being rounded up, they decided to rebel while there was a lack of Garrison. Quickly the situation escalated, Abdellah was ambushed at Muonduo on October 7th of the following year and swiftly dealt with, violently and brutally slaughtering everyone including Abdellah. Further instigating other tribes to succumb to the Kanuri-Hausa, and join the war against the Fulani.

Ibrahim had trust in his other two Caliphi, sending them to meet the majority of the Kanuri-Hausa around the river Chari, and to deal with them for good. For if one swift deadly blow was dealt against the Kanuri, all tribes following them would likely give up. 



{Battle of Lake Tchad's final movements (the Triangular piece is artillery, with each Rectangular Piece being around 3,000 men) Red; Caliphi Razak, Purple; Caliphi Amed, Yellow; Kanuri Army}


While the Battle of Lake Tchad seemed it would be easy, everyone had misrepresented the true forthcoming size of the Battle. Caliphi Razak started the action by bombarding the encampment, with his three artillery pieces, something which was rare to be able to afford/craft in Africa in general, and it demonstrated it well. In the first week, there had been massive holes implanted into the palisade erected by the Kanuri, and they had decided to charge at this weakened defense. This resulted in the first massive engagement in the area, the artillery piece had misfired and struck Razak as he was leading the charge, crippling him and the morale of the first ranks. Never-the-less the charge continued, to which they managed to breach the wall, but was met by a fierce melee encounter, to which they hadn't been prepared for since many were equipped with simply Wheellock rifles and not much else. 

Regardless, they fought fiercely, until they started receiving fire from their flanks, to which they were required to retreat back to the coast of Tchad. The Kanuri decided to hold until they allowed the Razaki army to take in the shock of the monumental encounter. Four days ahead of the charge of Razak, the Kanuri decided to advance at night with one of their armies in an effort to take out the artillery pieces which had been continuously bombarding them and securing a spot along the area so as to be able to catch the main armies off guard. They succeeded in dismantling the artillery, although much to their shock, they were met with the army of Caliphi Amed while shifting supplies, and another encounter ensued, they took fortification as well as they could and returned fire on the army of Amed, both were initially shocked to have encountered each other. The firefight lasted until morning, a long tense 9-hour encounter, only ending once the Razaki armies managed to come up onto the off-guard Kanuris and force them into a rout. 



Following this, the armies gathered themselves, and two weeks later, they launched a charge on the Kanuris, exchanging gunfire every step of the way until they were finally within the palisades, and although they managed to put the Kanuris in an awkward position and therefore push them into a final retreat, given a minor flank of the northern-most army, they lost nearly all of their men, making this a very Pyrrhic victory. A whopping 9,000 men combined, while the Kanuris had only lost a sad-in-comparison 6,000 men.

While this was appearing turning point, in the first section of what would come to make up the full Fulani Civil War, there was massive unrest rising in the main trading centers, over their children being so carelessly thrown into battles.


The true civil war had only just begun

The trading centers started encountering mass armed resistance to occupation, people demanding the Fulani change what they are doing, or they'd separate. Forcing Abdellah to re-assign his border-garrison to where the unrest was growing, in order to allow the two remaining Caliphis to deal with the massive insurrection among tribes in the north-east. In response to this increased armed presence, some of the trading cities started attacking the garrisons. War had been declared, and the leader of this group of tradesmen arose to challenge the rule of the Caliph, stating him as weak, and careless, and not fit to rule such a wide, varying, and wealthy nation. The map had become blotting. Battles would occur back and forth, the Ottomans sending troops in, the Algerians sending support for some of the northern tribes. This civil war was now Africa's first proxy war and the Western nations didn't like it. 

The Idowo-supporters, who held much of the trade, refused to trade in slaves, stating it was Anti-Islamic, and overall an insult to the people of the coast. This had caused the United States (against much of slavery, or well the term moreover, since much of their previous 'slave-labor' is now achieved by 'serfs')  to send support and spare weaponry to the people supporting Kwasi Idowo, while the Western Europeans sent weaponry to the Caliph Abdellah. 

This combination of different wars into one huge Civil-War caused a massive un-shifting stalemate in the country, not to be broken until the siege of Benin-City, which was the capital of Abdellah's regime, was decided upon the storming of the Caliph's palace in 1745. 

This left the whole of the ivory coast in shambles. Much of the deeper Niger territory was reclaimed by tribes, while the ivory coast was devastated by the decade of warfare.

The Idowo traded the first and last nine slaves that they would ever trade

As a punishment for the disastrous expansion, and the suffering of the people of what would be called the Isowo Isokan (Trade Union). Trade head -Kwasi Idowo- sold the Caliph, his main council, and his two living Caliphis to slavery. The Fulani Civil War had ended. The only real Fulani left being forced to flee to the Mauritius region of the Sahara.


{{Post Civil War}}





Sunday, August 12, 2018

Extra, Extra! Read All About It! {The American Flag Referendum}

The Provincial Stripes "The Flag of the Bloody Stars" {Colorized}


This Morning {November 16th 1755} the Government has finalized the results of the Flag Referendum, with a majority of the Provincial districts counting a whopping win for the new flag over the old Revolutionary flag the 'Stars And Stripes'.


This was decided a year after the controversial Vote to redraw provincial lines along a new set of boundaries, decided by the People, and for the People of the United Provinces of America.


{Map of the Six Provinces Post-Anglo-American War}


Many provinces giving up their previous Provincial flags, and replacing city flags with the 'Flag of the Bloody Stars'. Our destiny has truly manifested itself well! 


The flag stands for the current Six Provinces--Comptonia*, Carolina, Erie**, Three Lakes,  New England, and New Amsterdam***--under one American people. Hence, the Seven Stars. The Red stripes representing the blood of our brothers and fathers from all of our Provinces! The Navy stripe standing for the Democracy, our Democracy, the one and only! The White being our nation surrounded by innocence and our purity in the eyes of God!


Long live, and God Bless, the United Provinces of America!







*Georgia being renamed into Comptonia after the contributions of Spencer Compton
**Erie, formally known as the Province of Jersey, although it was taken down, following a wave of Anglo-Phobia that hit in 1748
***^Following the wave of Anglo-Phobia, they changed the name of New York to New Amsterdam


Saturday, August 11, 2018

The First Celtic Revolt

"The Triskelion" As it's known by the people of the Revolution



Throughout the years after the Second English Civil War, Anglo-Celtic relations had been quite sour, only worsening after George I had died in 1742. George II was on a rampage against the Celtics and used the Celtic nations as a scape-goat as to why they had lost seeing as 60% of the British military had been of Celtic regional origins. This took the form of George II acting more and more strictly on the regions by implementing harsher taxes and removing freedoms.

As a result of the start of the Anglo-American War of 1748 England decided it was to tax not only its colonies at a higher rate but the lower kingdoms of Ire, Scotland, and Wales as well. George II with his hatred the Celts, believed that this was the perfect opportunity to purge himself of the Celts and he did this by comprising 90% of the British military as Celts, sending them off on suicide missions to try and defeat the Americans. Surprisingly, this succeeded, and although the Celts themselves had made some successes on the battlefield, they were not trained to fight the American army with its unique tactics and many casualties were had. Regardless of whether George II thought he would win or not, they lost the war. Giving George II the ultimate reason and scape-goat to unite the people of England; the Celtic Incompetencies.


Upon the end of the war, George II charged a fair amount of returning soldiers with treason and started getting trigger happy with his new group of 'Georgian Reformers' basically a police force dedicated to finding the most minor of infractions performed by anyone of Celtic origin and putting them to the noose. 


The Principality of Ire officially declared independence on May 17th, 1752, under the lead of James Grattan. This came as a surprise to many in the English lands, for they had not heard of even James Grattan, who pre-Revolt was a MP in Ireland. The 'Princes' of Ire (somewhat equivalent to the Founding Fathers) prepared their whole revolt in secret, coordinating with those Irish still in the military, as well as the townspeople from Ulster to Connacht, to make sure nothing was heard of this to-be insurrection. Making sure that those trying to escape with this information would be silenced, and letters abroad would be checked just in case they were to be reporting the upcoming insurrection.


On May 20th in 1752, the formalizing of the Civilian militias was complete. Ire was ready for defense. On June 2nd of the same year, George II personally disembarked with an army of 30,000 off of the coast of Wexford. Expecting the fight to be simple and swift. They were welcomed into Wexford with open arms, and it became the point from which they'd launch their campaign. They marched north to Dublin, beating back the Prince of Connacht and the Prince of Leinster in the Battle of Arklow, which devastatingly lost the Militias of both Princes around 2,000 each to being captured by the British. George II maintained around 29,000 after the battle. It seemed as though the Militias couldn't lay a hand on the British army.


George's advisors settled on going in an unconventional zig-zag formation of a route would be ideal in order to confuse any future attackers as to their destination. Not more than a week later, while the British army was camped just south of Greenan, they were bombarded by relatively light artillery. While this didn't do much damage, the attackers fleed north before George could organize his army. The army marched up north to Glendalough, where a small Irish militia headed by the Prince of Ulster, James Grattan, fired potshots then headed into the mountain range. Although his advisors warned him against it, George decided to take a detachment of the only Englishmen in the Army, about 7,000 men's worth and head through the mountain ranges to capture the leader of the resistance. There they found themselves ambushed at Glendalough Pass, where all of the Irish Princes had gathered and had been waiting for this moment. 


As George tried to flee, the Ambush at Glendalough Pass had lost him 6,174 of his men. He managed to flee, and went back to the camp he had left from, yet no one was there, and no equipment was left. He tried to flee back south, but without any sort of directional assistance, they started heading towards South-Central Ireland, following the Rossard River, down. This led him into a forest, where he and the rest of his army decided it was safe to camp.  On the 28th of June, the rest of his army, showed up, with all their equipment. To George's loss, they had shown up to present their true Celtic colors. They killed every last soldier and left George to die in the forest.


News of the official defeat of the King's Army, and the King himself started getting around. The King's regency was now called, George II's only child had been a Daughter with a Prostitute, and they were required by law of George I to crown her Queen. The age of Queen Alexandra has begun.