Why did your shipyards suddenly collapse only to boom again a few months later?
And what is luddism?
And what is luddism?
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Fulcrumvale said:
Economics, my friends, economics.
Luddism was a historical English movement in the early 19th century that saw traditional workers rebelling against new methods of manufacture that threatened to cost them jobs and employment security. Known for sabotaging machinery. Used as a byword for those who rebel against more advanced industry.
Another excellent Jape AAR. Another excellent Jape AAR that goes months between updates? Perhaps.
Part IV. ~ The Beast is Back!
Blazen of the West African Trading Company
Even the most jingoistic groups within the Chartist government eventually dropped the idea of war with China in November as economic and social crisis hit Portugal once again. The West African Trading Company, despite its declining position was still a major force in Portugal in 1839 with hold over the colonies of Angola and Guinea-Bissau, a 30% stockholder of the Faro shipyards and strong, often blood as well as financial, ties to the powerful industrial and landowning families. As such the collapse of the company due to internal corruption and falling profits came as a huge shock to the nation. The government’s finances plunged into chaos as Queen Maria, fearful of economic and colonial collapse, ordered nationalisation of the Company’s former industrial and African holdings. Despite the effort the Faro shipyards yet again suffered heavily from the crisis causing discontent amongst both industrialists and workers alike as 15% of Faro’s workshops and shipyards closed.
Both Saldanha and Wilson agreed that budget cuts had to be made in the short term in order to secure the economy with schools and the police, two areas of former Chartist investment bearing the brunt of it. These actions proved highly unpopular, with only royal intervention passing them through the House of Deputies. Realising the changing political winds, Wilson distanced himself from the government, sighting the Prime Minster and Vitorio Barbosa, head of finance as the forces behind the reforms. By January 1840, the Septembrists were calling for fresh elections, hoping to capitalise on landowner discontent as the formerly loyal Chartist group were angry over the British free trade agreement due to the exemption of Britain’s Corn Laws that virtually barred foreign wheat imports. Similarly the liberal middle-class who still maintained the majority of the electorate had suffered in the wake of the Company’s collapse. After a brief period of flirtation with the Chartists in early 1839 in light of growing radicalism, they were once again backing the moderate Septembrists under the Count of Bonfim.
Count of Bonfim
The minority government had to give in and elections were scheduled for August. In the mean time Saldanha and Barbosa, now distrusting of Wilson, attempted to rectify the economic situation themselves. Progress was made as several British and French firms were lured into investing in the Faro shipyards, alleviating the major problem by June as production and employment figures returned to normal. However in terms of publicity the government was sunk with huge protests in towns across Portugal over education cuts and trade union rights during the summer. At the same time a campaign led by the National Liberty Group began, calling for an end to state censorship and interference in the press as well as in literature and theatre, a cause that soon attracted the liberal middle-class. Saldanha hoped to gain more urban votes by relaxing restrictions on newspapers and only weeks before the elections attempted to pass the Press Liberalisation Bill. Easily seeing through the Bill proposal, the Septembrist held it up, considering it too moderate while pedantic details such as wording of passages were looked into. By the time the Bill was up for voting, the House had already dissolved for the election.
As expected the Septembrists won, taking 68 seats to the Chartist 43, however they had made only moderate headway outside of urban areas with the landowners and major farmers still backing the Chartists. Also barring radical Oporto, north of Lisbon the Septembrists hadn’t gained little, relying on Lisbon’s shopkeepers and the more progressive landowners and industrialists of the Algarve to win the House.
1840 General Election
The Septembrists government under Prime Minister Bonfim immediately began implementing reforms, increasing the state education budget, removing censorship completely from the press and granting Portugal’s fledgling trade unions greater freedom to bargain with employers and strike. Several commissions were also created to look into accurate constituency representation, army nepotism and the collapse of the African Trading Company. Behind the scenes, Wilson continued to work closely with Bonfim and helped draw up the 1840 Bank Charter Act, creating a national Bank of Portugal to help regulate and issue currency.
The reforms didn’t come without consequence however and on December 2nd a long planned invasion of Portugal took place, led by the pretender to the throne Dom Miguel at the head of 1,500 men. The force landed up the coast from Oporto and entered the town in the early morning of the 3rd. The garrison and police were taken by surprise, surrendering without a fight; word of the invasion soon spread throughout the nearby countryside, with reactionary aristocrats and peasants flocking to join Miguel as he marched on Lisbon. Although absolutist support was mostly limited to the remote north, Migeulist forces had risen to over 4,000 men as they encountered General Vidigal’s government army in the hills near Coimbra on December 15th. Vidigal had managed to raise an army of over 12,000 from his own brigade, local garrisons and the Lisbon and Coimbra town militias, and rushed into combat, sure of victory.
Vidigal's cavalry charge the Miguelist lines
Vidigal greatly underestimated Miguel’s troops, believing them to be no more than peasants with few firearms and no artillery. In fact Dom Miguel’s original force consisted of 800 die-hard veterans of the Civil War and some 700 ‘volunteers’ from Navarre, Austria and Prussia, supported by 25 modern guns. Also the peasants and militias that had supplemented the expedition had quickly been armed from captured armouries. Using the terrain to maximum effect, the Miguelists annihilated line after line of government troops as they marched with parade precision into their fire. Getting desperate after several hours of fruitless charges, Vidigal led over 1,000 cavalry in a charge, hoping to spook the peasant auxiliaries and cause a general rout. In the broken terrain the charge quickly lost its impetus, and Vidigal called the retreat.
The news of Vidigal’s defeat caused chaos in Lisbon, with Queen Maria, Prime Minister Bonfim and Wilson boarding a British frigate to escape to Gibraltar. Thousands of others also fled the capital while King Ferdinand stayed to organise the city’s defence. Vidigal was disgraced and stripped of his rank, while Brigadier-General Guimaraes, the mastermind behind the Goa campaign, was promoted and given command of the new Army as green troops from the Algarve, Azores and Guinea-Bissau were rushed to Lisbon. At the same time as more peasants joined with Dom Miguel, swelling his force to almost 10,000 by New Year, liberal and worker militias had also been raised in Lisbon and Faro, and thanks to Miguel’s unwillingness to attack during the Nativity, Guimaraes had over 20,000 troops in time for battle.
Exoticly dressed colonial troops, similar to those shipped home to combat Miguel (photograph c.1855)
On January 4th Dom Miguel finally marched on Lisbon after another 500 Austrian grenadiers had joined his force, reaching Guimaraes position near the River Tegus. Despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, Miguel knew most of the government army’s experienced troops were either in Timor or had been killed at Coimbra and that he would be facing untried conscripts. Guimaraes only true advantage bar numbers was in artillery, which included a battery of British-made rockets. Knowing of Miguel’s intention of capturing the guns, in case a siege of Lisbon was needed, Guimaraes set up a gun line in the centre of his army with only minimal infantry support while the flanks contained the majority of the army. Despite the warnings of Dom Miguel’s Austrian officers, the pretender feared the routing of his mostly peasant force and ordered a headlong rush by his elite veterans and foreign auxiliaries to seize the cannon. As planned, after causing heavy causalities on Miguel’s troops, the gun crews and supporting infantry retreated, allowing the artillery to be taken. The rush had caused communication between Miguel and the unit commanders to become impossible, and no sooner had the Miguelists broken Guimaraes centre than the two flanks closed in, surrounding the core of the Dom’s army. Although Miguel only lost 1,200 men in the attack he was broken by the ordeal and ordered a retreat to the coast, harried the whole way by Guimaraes’ cavalry squadrons.
Blazen of the West African Trading Company
Even the most jingoistic groups within the Chartist government eventually dropped the idea of war with China in November as economic and social crisis hit Portugal once again. The West African Trading Company, despite its declining position was still a major force in Portugal in 1839 with hold over the colonies of Angola and Guinea-Bissau, a 30% stockholder of the Faro shipyards and strong, often blood as well as financial, ties to the powerful industrial and landowning families. As such the collapse of the company due to internal corruption and falling profits came as a huge shock to the nation. The government’s finances plunged into chaos as Queen Maria, fearful of economic and colonial collapse, ordered nationalisation of the Company’s former industrial and African holdings. Despite the effort the Faro shipyards yet again suffered heavily from the crisis causing discontent amongst both industrialists and workers alike as 15% of Faro’s workshops and shipyards closed.
Both Saldanha and Wilson agreed that budget cuts had to be made in the short term in order to secure the economy with schools and the police, two areas of former Chartist investment bearing the brunt of it. These actions proved highly unpopular, with only royal intervention passing them through the House of Deputies. Realising the changing political winds, Wilson distanced himself from the government, sighting the Prime Minster and Vitorio Barbosa, head of finance as the forces behind the reforms. By January 1840, the Septembrists were calling for fresh elections, hoping to capitalise on landowner discontent as the formerly loyal Chartist group were angry over the British free trade agreement due to the exemption of Britain’s Corn Laws that virtually barred foreign wheat imports. Similarly the liberal middle-class who still maintained the majority of the electorate had suffered in the wake of the Company’s collapse. After a brief period of flirtation with the Chartists in early 1839 in light of growing radicalism, they were once again backing the moderate Septembrists under the Count of Bonfim.
Count of Bonfim
The minority government had to give in and elections were scheduled for August. In the mean time Saldanha and Barbosa, now distrusting of Wilson, attempted to rectify the economic situation themselves. Progress was made as several British and French firms were lured into investing in the Faro shipyards, alleviating the major problem by June as production and employment figures returned to normal. However in terms of publicity the government was sunk with huge protests in towns across Portugal over education cuts and trade union rights during the summer. At the same time a campaign led by the National Liberty Group began, calling for an end to state censorship and interference in the press as well as in literature and theatre, a cause that soon attracted the liberal middle-class. Saldanha hoped to gain more urban votes by relaxing restrictions on newspapers and only weeks before the elections attempted to pass the Press Liberalisation Bill. Easily seeing through the Bill proposal, the Septembrist held it up, considering it too moderate while pedantic details such as wording of passages were looked into. By the time the Bill was up for voting, the House had already dissolved for the election.
As expected the Septembrists won, taking 68 seats to the Chartist 43, however they had made only moderate headway outside of urban areas with the landowners and major farmers still backing the Chartists. Also barring radical Oporto, north of Lisbon the Septembrists hadn’t gained little, relying on Lisbon’s shopkeepers and the more progressive landowners and industrialists of the Algarve to win the House.
1840 General Election
The Septembrists government under Prime Minister Bonfim immediately began implementing reforms, increasing the state education budget, removing censorship completely from the press and granting Portugal’s fledgling trade unions greater freedom to bargain with employers and strike. Several commissions were also created to look into accurate constituency representation, army nepotism and the collapse of the African Trading Company. Behind the scenes, Wilson continued to work closely with Bonfim and helped draw up the 1840 Bank Charter Act, creating a national Bank of Portugal to help regulate and issue currency.
The reforms didn’t come without consequence however and on December 2nd a long planned invasion of Portugal took place, led by the pretender to the throne Dom Miguel at the head of 1,500 men. The force landed up the coast from Oporto and entered the town in the early morning of the 3rd. The garrison and police were taken by surprise, surrendering without a fight; word of the invasion soon spread throughout the nearby countryside, with reactionary aristocrats and peasants flocking to join Miguel as he marched on Lisbon. Although absolutist support was mostly limited to the remote north, Migeulist forces had risen to over 4,000 men as they encountered General Vidigal’s government army in the hills near Coimbra on December 15th. Vidigal had managed to raise an army of over 12,000 from his own brigade, local garrisons and the Lisbon and Coimbra town militias, and rushed into combat, sure of victory.
Vidigal's cavalry charge the Miguelist lines
Vidigal greatly underestimated Miguel’s troops, believing them to be no more than peasants with few firearms and no artillery. In fact Dom Miguel’s original force consisted of 800 die-hard veterans of the Civil War and some 700 ‘volunteers’ from Navarre, Austria and Prussia, supported by 25 modern guns. Also the peasants and militias that had supplemented the expedition had quickly been armed from captured armouries. Using the terrain to maximum effect, the Miguelists annihilated line after line of government troops as they marched with parade precision into their fire. Getting desperate after several hours of fruitless charges, Vidigal led over 1,000 cavalry in a charge, hoping to spook the peasant auxiliaries and cause a general rout. In the broken terrain the charge quickly lost its impetus, and Vidigal called the retreat.
The news of Vidigal’s defeat caused chaos in Lisbon, with Queen Maria, Prime Minister Bonfim and Wilson boarding a British frigate to escape to Gibraltar. Thousands of others also fled the capital while King Ferdinand stayed to organise the city’s defence. Vidigal was disgraced and stripped of his rank, while Brigadier-General Guimaraes, the mastermind behind the Goa campaign, was promoted and given command of the new Army as green troops from the Algarve, Azores and Guinea-Bissau were rushed to Lisbon. At the same time as more peasants joined with Dom Miguel, swelling his force to almost 10,000 by New Year, liberal and worker militias had also been raised in Lisbon and Faro, and thanks to Miguel’s unwillingness to attack during the Nativity, Guimaraes had over 20,000 troops in time for battle.
Exoticly dressed colonial troops, similar to those shipped home to combat Miguel (photograph c.1855)
On January 4th Dom Miguel finally marched on Lisbon after another 500 Austrian grenadiers had joined his force, reaching Guimaraes position near the River Tegus. Despite being outnumbered 2 to 1, Miguel knew most of the government army’s experienced troops were either in Timor or had been killed at Coimbra and that he would be facing untried conscripts. Guimaraes only true advantage bar numbers was in artillery, which included a battery of British-made rockets. Knowing of Miguel’s intention of capturing the guns, in case a siege of Lisbon was needed, Guimaraes set up a gun line in the centre of his army with only minimal infantry support while the flanks contained the majority of the army. Despite the warnings of Dom Miguel’s Austrian officers, the pretender feared the routing of his mostly peasant force and ordered a headlong rush by his elite veterans and foreign auxiliaries to seize the cannon. As planned, after causing heavy causalities on Miguel’s troops, the gun crews and supporting infantry retreated, allowing the artillery to be taken. The rush had caused communication between Miguel and the unit commanders to become impossible, and no sooner had the Miguelists broken Guimaraes centre than the two flanks closed in, surrounding the core of the Dom’s army. Although Miguel only lost 1,200 men in the attack he was broken by the ordeal and ordered a retreat to the coast, harried the whole way by Guimaraes’ cavalry squadrons.
Fulcrumvale said:
luddism is the religion which combines lutheranism with buddhism.You pray to Jesus,Buda and Spongebob at the same time
I don't like this Miguel guy. I think he needs to be shipped off to wherever he came from
Good luck!
Good luck!