Intermission: The World 1871-2
There will now be a short intermission.
North America
The Vallandigham regime in the United States of America lasted little more than a year before meeting with a suitably violent end. The massive industrial growth of the United States had brought with it increasing discontent among lower-class workers, spawning the first-of-its-kind National Labor Union under William Sylvis. Despite unions being officially illegal under the dictatorship, the NLU grew in strength rapidly, soon forming loose alliances with several other underground organizations. Amongst these was a group consisting primarily of anti-Vallandigham Democrats and Republicans that had taken to calling itself the ‘Sons of Liberty’, after the organization active prior to and during the American Revolution. The result was an odd coalition between laborers and workingmen, the USA’s first socialist thinkers, pro-democracy military detachments, conservative businessmen, and center-left members of the middle class; in turn, this coalition would spawn a barely-coherent army that emerged from the U.S.'s industrial centers and ultimately stormed Washington through sheer weight of numbers. This mob then executed a second coup that removed the Southern Democrats from power and elevated Sylvis to the presidency.
The restoration of the American democratic system brought with it immediate reforms bringing back the central ideals of the American constitution (such as the free press), abolishing slavery, legalizing all labor unions, and extending the voting franchise to all men above the age of 21. Also included was the first in a series of Exclusion Acts targeted at the Chinese, opposition to whom was a central tenet of the NLU platform. This was a pressing matter at the time because large numbers of Chinese were being brought in by an organization of Californian businessmen promising to build a railroad from Sacramento to Chicago, in competition with the government-sponsored (and now moribund) transcontinental line through Texas and the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. Ultimately, however, the innate ideological differences between Sylvis and his much more conservative associates saw nominally reformed Democrats replacing the socialists come the next American election, thus for all intents and purposes restoring a status quo and relegating the dictatorship to history.
Meanwhile, the British parliament passed a bill proposing to grant the Canadian Confederation the entire of Rupert’s Land. In part, this was a defensive measure; the Vallandigham regime had purchased the Russian territory of Alaska as the first step, they claimed, towards achieving the U.S.'s Manifest Destiny of controlling the entirety of the North American continent. However, the Rupert’s Land Act was also an attempt to relieve the burden of the colonies on the British government by transferring responsibility to the provincial government in Ottawa; with the war over Poland still raging at the time, this was viewed as a better allocation of resources. Canada eagerly agreed to annex these lands, and arguably now had an even greater potential to become a major player.
South America
Argentina’s astronomical rise was blocked by an alliance of Brazil and Chile, who declared a war nominally to reclaim the province of Los Rios but more practically to completely crush Argentina. Despite losing the war due to the numbers against them, Argentina proved a tougher opponent than either Chileans or the Brazilians expected, and so managed to reduce the amount of damage they suffered at the end of the war. Indeed, they quickly bounced back, as they and their ally Peru became engaged in a defensive war against an opportunistic Bolivia. Whether Argentina would opt to recover lost pride by annexing portions of Bolivia – in line with certain conservative’s stated desire of restoring the borders of the old viceroyalty of La Plata – or not remained to be seen.
Before their war on Argentina, however, Chile had lost control over their Patagonian provinces cut off by the capture of Los Rios. In a loosely-organized revolt, the sparse Chilean population in these provinces was overthrown and massacred by some of the increasingly westernized natives (covertly backed by Argentinians), who promptly declared a new kingdom of ‘Patagonia’. Despite reclaiming Los Rios, Chile had not yet taken any efforts to reannex these other territories, leading some to wonder what sort of precedent this might set for natives in other colonized lands.
Asia
In Asia, the bloody three-year Boshin War between daimyo loyal to the Emperor and those supporting the Tokugawa Shogunate ended with an Imperial victory. This was somewhat to the disappointment of several European nations, who had been hoping for increased influence or outright control over a victorious Shogunate, as well as the United States of America, who had been responsible for opening Japan up to western trade in the first place. However, now seeking to beat the so-called ‘Western Barbarians’ at their own game, the Emperor Meiji began an ambitious project to modernize Japan. Should he succeed, the world would have to contend with a new and potentially mighty power.
Africa
In Africa, the Fuuta Jallon sultanate continued to grow, conquering their way to the Atlantic Ocean. Not content with having reached that limit, however, they now sought to extend control into the interior of the continent, by attempting to annex the sultanate of Massina. If this was accomplished, West Africa would almost undoubtedly spawn an empire that might just be able to defend itself against outside European incursion, with unknown results.
Europe
Though the map of Europe remained unchanged after the end of the 1867 war, shockwaves continued to roll through the continent. Belgium in particular felt these, where the last straw for many was King Leopold II’s violation of the Treaty of Brussels and Belgium’s subsequent defeat in the war. A brief and sudden revolt in Brussels saw the King formally deposed and Belgium proclaimed a republic. However, with a divided parliament and Flemish nationalists increasingly agitating in the northern provinces, there was no guarantee whether Belgium would even hold together under its new government, let alone reclaim its former influence.
The Balkans also felt the effects of the 1867 war; more specifically, the attempt at settling the conflict via the Congress of Brussels. Inspired by their territorial benefits at the Congress, and backed by a small but growing group in the Tsar’s court, agitators in Serbia began to push for the unification of all of the Slavic peoples of the Balkans into a single pan-Slavic nation. Though the concept was in its infancy at the time, the threat posed to Austria-Hungary’s ambitions in the region (and the Empire itself) would make it substantially more relevant as time went on.
