1874-1876 (Part 2) – Spiros: Money isn’t Everything
1874 was also important in Federal politics because it saw a grwat many changes domestically, not least the admission of a record 5 states into the Federation, including cities as far flung as Melilla and Suez, though the latter certainly caused some consternation within the Federal Electoral Commission who were unsure whether it counted as a Free City of no; the canal zone being comprised of three separate cities. The decision by the President to tour the new states, a mission that was scheduled to take three months, but was driven to nearer six by bad weather and other complications, was vilified by the Viennese press, though it was popular, in particular in the formerly Spanish city of Melilla where the sheer isolation had left many hankering after a defection to the mother country. The decision by his deputy, Francesco de Palma, to accompany the tour, rather than stand in for the absentee leader, was outright mocked. However, the most controversial applicant was the only one of the six who failed to gain entry, not because Congress voted against them, for there was considerable support for Tunisian statehood, but because no state could be admitted without a Republican style of government. A scheme was concocted by high ranking Tunisian politicians to circumvent the rule by temporarily altering the state’s constitution (before changing it back after admittance thanks to the territory’s perpetual right to its monarchy guaranteed by the Supreme Court even in the case where it became a state). For the Bey, however, this plot looked suspiciously like Treason; the conspirators were left to while away their remaining days in an African prison cell and the wave of anger, directed both at the Federation and the Bey himself, soon subsided, but the whole affair left the territory uneasy with itself and with its political position.
1. The President’s boat encounters stormy weather off the coast of Sicily, forcing a week-long delay on the passage to Melilla.
Outside of Tunisia, Danubian players in Africa were moving from strength to strength. Colonial fervour enticed investors into the Dark Continent, even paying for the erection of railway tracks deep into the Sahara desert. In the Horn of Africa, the Suez Canal Company had more or less free reign, to great success transferring Somaliland into the hands of the Ministry of the Interior before the end of the year, then establishing a mission in Nairobi to push further into the continent, aided again by the support of the Suez Guard. For the company, however, this was not the big fish, though it was the one that was easier to sell in Vienna – the really big fish was the ports offered at the mouth of the Red Sea by their colonisation efforts in Djibouti, where progress on building the necessary infrastructure for government had deliberately been slowed down to allow for the legal situation of the region to be ironed out. In short, though there was no constitutional provision for the attachment of colonies to particular states, the Company, whose ownership of the Canal gave them limitless influence in the Free City of Suez, demanded the colony be a legal department of their state – the elections, and lobbying this entailed, seemed like the perfect time to call on the political classes to grant their wish. On the Western Coast, meanwhile, three companies was quickly becoming two, as though the West African Company was successful in forging a colony in the Gambia, it came considerably after the Adriatic and African Company announced success in Mauritania more or less concurrently with the success of the Federal Trading Corporation in Guniea; encircled and seen as behind, the West African Company simply couldn’t attract the investment it needed to launch any further schemes. The Adriatic and African Company, meanwhile, agreed to a deal whereby they would expand the colony of Algeria and play up the border disputes still ongoing with their primitive neighbours in return for preferential treatment and influence. The success of the colonisation of West Morocco to further expand the Mauritanian colony in November 1875 was counterbalanced by the extension of their mission Southeast towards Bamako. The Federal Trading Corporation kept pace by establishing two new regional directorates in Southern Mali and west of the Ivory Coast. Supposedly done under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior, there was no officially backed horse in the race, though historians still debate whether this hurt the Federation’s efforts in this period or not. It also is worth noting that it became clear who the main foreign competition would be for control of the African Continent. Though the British were fighting a seemingly successful war against the Moroccans come election time, only the French could compete technologically with the Federation. With French success, this time overtly state-sponsored, in Senegal and the Niger Delta, further French missions were established as far apart as Ghana and Namibia, but mainly focussed in the Gulf of Guinea, into Southern Nigeria and Cameroon.
2. A map of West Africa, showing the zone’s of influence of the three competing companies, circa 1876.
European diplomacy also saw the Federation come into conflict with the French, who were increasingly cast as villains by the press and the public at large – indeed, some suggest that this ‘rhetoric of hate’ was going to aid the Federation in its progress, though the extremist certainly had negative effects for the nation, such as the emergence of (primarily nationalist) terrorist cells, such as the Serbian Black Hand Gang roving the streets of Illyria. The biggest sticking point was Italy, seen by both countries as strategically important for the security of their borders and for command of the Mediterranean - the competition for influence in Italy with fierce, and quite costly, with both nations investing thousands in the Italian railways despite the fact that they almost never ran on time. Indeed, reports started to emerge that taxpayer’s money was going into the hands of corrupt businessmen towards the end of 1874, after the Foreign Office had handed over more than £11,000 to Italian companies. Despite the controversy, diplomatic necessity forced further funds to be sent just to keep abreast of French efforts. To the East, events took a more violent turn, with the Greek government still claiming victory over the Bulgars after being forced to declare themselves bankrupt thanks to an anarcho-liberal revolution that installed a dictator in Vidin – the unexpected victors of the conflict being the Foreign Office, who achieved their aim of taking the Balkan state from the Russian Sphere of Influence without even lifting a finger. Reports suggested that the success of copycat rebels in the Ottoman Empire would succeed in overthrowing the Sultan to establish a dictatorship during 1876, freeing a much larger prize from British influence.
Domestically, though the invention of synthetic dyes and of the cracking process were certainly significant breakthroughs, they can’t really be said to have had a great effect on Danubian life – no reliable source of oil having been found anywhere in the world largely limited to potential manufacture of fuel while the first dye factory, established in the Bohemian foothills, had only just been commissioned at the time of the elections. The more important strand of day-to-day life was the increasing politicisation of the population, and in particular the working classes. Though 1875 saw the foundation of the Women’s Sufferage League, the leaflet campaigns they organised were a thankless task, with neither the ideological sophistication nor the political will in the population to carry through such reforms. Indeed, the movement was completely overshadowed by the other reform movements which had as much more strength in depth – roughly 3 million working age men (or roughly 20%) were signed up with one of the three most popular. Of these three - the Campaign for Old Age Security, the Universal Healthcare Movement and the Campaign for Unemployment Subsidies – it was the latter who made the biggest impact; the movement’s 1.8 million members held more or less weekly marches in Vienna and other important cities, and had established a permanent camp outside the Hofburg palace.
3. The Women’s Suffrage League marches through Vienna; members of the crowd were known to throw stones and shout abuse – of all the reform movements, Women’s Suffrage was the most callously treated by the population at large.
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Actions Required:
Nominations for the Presidency are now closed. The Appointment Act passes unopposed, but won’t come into effect yet because we don’t have a large enough population. Since no party’s primary is contested, I would like platforms ASAP from the four runners.