The Calm Before The Storm
Making Amends
By far the most important issue of the 1862 election had been the Parties Religious Policy. The question on whether or not to reinstitute the Catholic Dioceses had polarised the nation, with the Catholic south largely in favour and the Protestant north largely against. Although those parties against had won the election the question of the Catholic Dioceses wouldn't simply go away, and there was much talk of rumours of a repeat of the 1830 insurrection in the southern provinces, reaching as far away as the Palace in Amsterdam.
King Frederik was said to be unphased by the prospect of a second Belgian revolt, however the prospect of French Intervention in said revolt was a more pressing concern. France had stayed neutral in the war against Belgium, contrary to the wishes of many French Catholic conservatives, and stayed silent on the execution of the traitor Leopold again contrary to popular Catholic opinion. Unlike 1839 though, France now had an aggressive, interventionist leader in Napoleon III who was keen to project French power overseas to gain popular support at home, and a popular cause so close to home might be just the thing for the struggling power and it's ruler.
King Frederik was first and foremost a Protestant, but he was also a religious pluralist who had no problem in reintroducing the Catholic Dioceses so long as the Catholic Church recognised the authority of the Dutch Crown in Dutch lands. Such a move would take the wind out of the Catholic Separatists and French Conservatives (and not to mention one of the main platforms of the Liberale Opposition). On the 22nd of January King Frederik met with the Progressive Pope Pius IX in Rome with talks ending on the 27th, with the establishment of the Archdiocese of Utrecht and the reestablishment of 13 other Dioceses. King Frederik became the first Dutch Protestant Monarch to pay an official visit to Rome, he was said to be impressed by the pontiff's liberal and progressive rule.
Pope Pius IX was the most progressive and liberal Pope in history. During his long reign he ordered the modernisation of the Papal Army along French lines and built Factories and Railways, becoming the first nation east of Hanover to possess rail transportation
This move caused some unrest at home, mainly from the CZP and it's supporters but this quickly subsided, such was the popularity of the King and the respect his decrees commanded.
The Partial Union Act of 1862
The first main act of the Rochussen/van Prinster government came in 1862 with the Partial Union Act of 1862 between the United Kingdom of The Netherlands and the Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg had been in a personal union with The Netherlands since 1815; although ruled by the Dutch Monarch it had it's own military, police, currency, flag and government which controlled internal affairs. Under the Partial Union Act, Luxembourg would lose the right to a locally elected government, the Luxembourgian Franc would be replaced by the Dutch Guilder, it's military and police would be subservient to the Dutch Armed Forces and Luxembourgers would be formally considered Dutch Citizens with the right to serve in the Dutch Armed Forces and (for a very select few) the right to vote in Dutch Elections.
This was in fact, a very clever ploy by the Royalist Party. The Luxembourger Aristocrats were staunchly Conservative; by extending the vote to Luxembourg the Royalists were practically guaranteeing itself an extra seat at the next election. The Partial Union Act was opposed by the Liberales for this reason, but was approved by the King and thus passed into law on the 7th of October 1862.
The Passing of the Partial Union Act coincided with the first ever Dutch Regional Trade Fair, the first of many.
Egyptology and The Quest for the Nile
Ever since the days of Napoleon, there had been a resurgence of interest in Ancient Egypt in Europe. Nations such as France and Britain sent expeditions to Egypt, hoping to discover the treasures which remain buried under this ancient land.
The most important of these expeditions in recent times was the Dutch expedition who back in 1855 was given an exclusive permit by the Egyptian government to excavate The Valley of the Kings in Luxor. By 1867 however progress had stalled and funds were beginning to run thin, the Dutch expedition needed something to capture the state's and the people's interest.
This came when a British Explorer, John Speke, claimed to have discovered an inland sea in the middle of Africa, which he called Lake Victoria after the British Monarch. Speculation by Egyptologists across Europe as to whether this could be the source of the Nile river soon followed, and calls for an expedition soon mounted.
Conrad Leemans, one of the most eminent Dutch Egyptologists of the age called for a Dutch expedition to find the source of the Nile.
The First Dutch Expedition was lead by Vice-Admiraal Marius van der Werff, hero of the Battle of Helgoland Bight. His expedition was set to depart from Suez in June when an ominous omen occurred on the night before departure. Excavators working long into the night were said to be on to something big, the tomb of the Pharaoh Smenkhkare or maybe his son. That night a sandstorm hit the Valley suddenly at exactly Midnight, covering the excavation site in sand. The excavators who had been working that night were never seen again and mysteriously, all record of the excavation site was lost. People quickly jumped to conclusions and labeled it as a curse.
The Marian Expedition as it was called, departed the day after once the sandstorm had subsided, the last time it was seen was a few hours after it left port. Investigators have speculated that the conditions caused by the night sandstorm may have had something to with the expedition's subsequent disappearance, however the curse theory was far more popular with the (technically illegal) Gutter Press.
The rumour spread like wildfire throughout The Netherlands. To those who believed in it, it was no shock when Marius' Expedition vanished without a trace, never to be seen again...
David Tasman, Great Great Grandson of the explorer Abel Tasman and Commander in Chief of the Dutch Colonial Army in the East Indies had long aspired to emulating his illustrious ancestor. However he had pursued a career in the army rather than the navy, and while waging wars with Aceh, China, Johor, Portugal, Denmark, Brunei and Bali there was little time for exploration. David had however been getting on in years and after close to forty years service with the Dutch Colonial army he wondered if there was anything left for him to give. When Conrad Leemans called for a second expedition to the Nile in 1871, David Tasman resigned his post and embarked a ship from Batavia to the Port of Suez.
Although he had no prior sailing experience, his reputation for leadership was well known and he was picked to lead the Second Dutch Expedition to find the source of the Nile (Tasman Expedition). The expedition departed on the 26th of August 1870 and returned with success almost a year later.
David Tasman followed the source of the Nile from Alexandria in Egypt to the Sudan (White Nile) and Ethiopia (Blue Nile) and meticulously mapped and recorded every inch. David Tasman showed that at the end of the White Nile was a large lake, which he circumnavigated by sea and did further surveys by land. He concurred that this lake was the Lake Victoria described by Speke.
Tasman's discoveries were one of the most important scientific and geographical of the century. David Tasman wrote about his experiences in a bestselling book and retired to a peaceful life in The Netherlands.
La Gloriosa: Anarchist Revolution in Spain
For the last forty years, Spain had been in a state in war and rebellion. The Carlist Wars which were fought to establish the authoritarian Carlos V and VI on the Spainish throne were put down by the Liberals, who supported the young Isabella II. By the 1860's Isabella was in her thirties approaching her forties and grew more and more authoritarian, much to the chagrin of her liberal backers. In 1868, a coalition of Anarchists, Republicans and Liberals (but mainly Anarchists) raised the red and black flag of revolt in Madrid. With the support of the Liberal army, the rebels faced little opposition, and quickly took over the country. Colony after colony defected to the new regime, the Queen was persuaded to leave the country and live in exile in France, but the tidal wave of anarchism was fast and strong and the queen was captured and executed in Madrid before she could make her escape. The rest of the Royal family living in Spain was rounded up and executed by the radical new regime with only the pretender Carlos VII being spared (as the Carlist line had lived in exile in Amsterdam since the days of Carlos V).
Spain's revolution was unlike anything that had been seen before, unlike the French Revolution which proceeded it this would not be a Republic, but a Radical Dictatorship
The Anarchists who had led the revolution formed the revolutionary vanguard party, Partido Radical and were known as the Radicals across Europe. As their name suggested, many of the policies espoused by the new regime were radical: Religion was banned outright, it's practice made illegal punishable by death. Stories of Catholics being gunned down as they attended mass, Priests and Nuns executed in cold blood and Churches razed to the ground shocked and horrified the Christian establishment.
The Radicals weren't just opposed to Catholicism, in 1871 the Radicals invaded the kingdom of Hedjaz and razed the Holy City of Mecca and burned many other sacred Muslim sites. As soon as word reached the Muslim world there were calls for Jihad from Casablanca to Kuala Lumpur, Batavia to Bengal, Timbuktu to Tripoli, Constantinople to Cairo. The Protests were loudest in the British and Dutch Empires, where subjects felt their sovereigns were in the best position to act.
As the Spanish Radical Army besieged Medina, Muslim aristocrats petitioned in Amsterdam. The Flemish and Walloons cried for vengeance in the name of their Catholic brothers. The Dutch Upper Class was appalled by what they saw as a repeat of the French revolution. With all rival claimants to the Spanish throne wiped out, Infante Carlos VII saw the chance to reestablish himself as the rightful King of Spain. For the first time in a long time, all the citizens of the Dutch Empire regardless of their Religion, Ethnicity or Political Ideology were united in their belief that Spain must be Stopped. Even King Frederik agreed, the time for National Glory was at hand...