Plus Ultra - Gallispania in the Long Nineteenth Century (Sequel to an EU4 AAR)

[SibCDC]

​

Hello! Welcome to this AAR. My name is SibCDC, I am the author of several AARs, most of them HOI4, but I also dabbled in some Victoria2 AARs and most recently EU4. EU4 is the reason why we are here today, since this AAR will be the continuation of ‘Two idiots discover America’. If you haven’t checked that one out yet, I highly recommend you do if you want to follow this AAR. That being said, the way I am going about this story will hopefully allow new people to follow without really knowing every detail of what has happened since 1444. The most important things are as following:

• In the 15th century, Castile inherited the throne of France, leading to a united Spain-France known as Gallispania in this timeline.
• As in our timeline, Castile, and later Spain and Gallispania, colonized the New World. However, since New Spain/Mexico was played by a human (AFAIK Tom D. is in fact human), Mexico gained independence in the mid-18th century.
• In Europe, Gallispania has basically grown into a modern reincarnation of the Western Roman Empire, since it controls Iberia, France, Italy and even Greece.
• There are some other quirks about this world, including an exiled Frisia in the New World, America being called Columbia and an Iroquois Confederacy surviving into the 19th century.

‘Two idiots discover America’ was structured along chapters that each spanned a period of 20 years and alternated between Europe and the New World. This sequel will not follow the same structure and will instead tell the (hi)story through chapters with primary and secondary sources dealing with certain topics, themes and events. For example, one chapter might deal with the abolition of slavery between 1820-1840 while the next talks about a war that occurred in that same time span. I will still try to follow a logical and chronological order and I will make sure that the table of contents will allow readers to have an easy overview of the long nineteenth century.

I debated with myself whether or not I wanted to continue the multiplayer aspect of ‘Two idiots’ and for a brief moment the working title of this AAR was ‘Three idiots scramble for Africa’, hinting at a third player joining the game. However, I believe Victoria 3 in its current state would not be the ideal setting for a multiplayer AAR that wants to pretend to be rather serious. In addition, following the perspective of three players would increase the workload (and reading material) for this AAR. I thus decided to play by myself. Not only will this allow me to keep open the option of writing dedicated chapters about certain nations from time to time, it would also allow me to explore Gallispanian society more in depth compared to the previous AAR.

Something I’m also experimenting with is the use of AI to create images for this AAR. I have used this in the later chapters of ‘Two idiots’ and I think it has quite some potential. Since I am not talented enough to create amazing artwork myself, using text-to-image based AI, such as Stable Diffusion, allows me to create fictional works of art set in this alternate 19th century version of Earth. Bear in mind that AI-generated images still have a long way to go until it becomes indistinguishable from real artwork. For example, I have noticed that AI has trouble populating landscapes or scenes with realistic looking people, often resorting to weird shapes with distorted faces. In portraits, it has trouble with hands and arms, for some reason it almost always creates an extra arm or some extra fingers. I will try my best to use those images that are the most realistic. Feel free to share your own AI-generated images based on prompts from this AAR, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

With that being said, let’s get into
Plus Ultra - Gallispania in the Long Nineteenth Century

Spoiler: The World in 1836

 

[SibCDC]

Table of Contents:​

Gallispania:
Prologue: An Introduction to Gallispania in the 19th Century
Chapter I: The British, the Slave Trade and Gallispania
Chapter II: The Elections of 1835
Chapter III: The Coronation

Europe (outside of Gallispania):

Africa:

Asia:

Columbia:

 

[SibCDC]

Excerpt from ‘The Gallispaniol Language - General Observations and Inquiry into this Peculiar Case of Hybridisation’
by Jonathan Perkins​

When we look at the study of language, it is generally accepted that today’s languages are the result of centuries of cultural exchange, hybridisation and loaning. In many cases, this was an organic process spanning hundreds of years. For example, our own language is the result of the hybridization of the Anglo-Saxons’ Germanic languages, the North Germanic languages spoken by the Scandinavian Viking invaders and the Old Norman of William the Conqueror. However, when we look at Gallispaniol, it is peculiar that this language did not evolve in the same, seemingly organic manner as our own. Instead, the evolution of Gallispaniol must be viewed within the purposeful language policy of the House of Trastamara-Avis and later that of the Gallispanian state at large.

The purposeful creation of the Gallispaniol language began in 1559 when Ferdinand V of Gallispania was presented with a new grammar overview of the Castilian tongue by the Bishop of Avila. The general view at the Spanish court at the time was that the language of the court should be the language of the realm’s laws and court life. While Ferdinand generally agreed, he also realized that there would be pushbacks from local elites in France and even in some Spanish regions such as Catalonia. As a result, Ferdinand set out to accommodate regional differences in language, and to eventually return to a unified lingua franca.

I use the term ‘return’ here since I want to remind the readers of the situation which existed during the century-long rule of the Roman Empire over these territories, when Latin was the single language that united the later territories of Gallispania. Since Rome’s downfall, this single Latin language was corrupted by various forms of Vulgar Latin, and eventually became the regional languages such as Castilian, Old French and Catalan. Now, through Ferdinand V’s language policy, and that of his successors, there was a gradual return to a lingua franca, similar but not equal to the Latin language of old.

This hybridisation took shape around Avila’s first grammar of Castilian, but quickly evolved into a rigorous project to compose a vocabulary of words that were similar enough in Castilian, Occitan, Catalan and Old French. Avila’s grammar served as the basis for Ferdinand’s decision to instate Castilian as the official language of the administration, to be used in France, Spain and his holdings in Italy. In addition, Ferdinand also patronized writers who wrote works of literature and followed Avila’s grammatical rules or used his list of shared vocabulary.

In the 17th and 18th century, this ‘Castilian of the Court, Administration and Literature’ became distinct enough from the Castilian spoken in Castile to refer to it as ‘Gallispaniol’. This was the result of the rigorous efforts to unify, purify and regulate this new lingua franca, characterized by the creation of the Academia Gallispaniola in 1634 as an official body tasked with purifying and preserving the Gallispaniol language. However, no major efforts were made yet to introduce this language outside the walls of palaces, universities and administrative centers. As such, the general population still spoke their regional dialects, be it Castilian, Catalan, Galician, Occitan, Old French etc.

The first important step to spread the use of Gallispaniol to the masses was the publication of a Bible translation in 1632. Philip II, emperor at the time, made sure to distribute this Gallispaniol translation to as many parishes as possible. His efforts were noble and naive, since Gallispania’s population at the time was mostly illiterate, but it did contribute to a growing interest in Gallispaniol among local elites who wished to mimic the culture of the aristocracy and important clergymen at the Imperial court in Madrid.

By 1750, only around 1 in 10 Gallispanians in France and Spain spoke Gallispaniol. By 1830, this number had increased to 2 in 3 Gallispanians. Two important developments contributed to this huge increase of knowledge of the language. Firstly, an 1802 law enforced the use of Gallispaniol as the only language allowed to be taught at schools in France and Spain. Secondly, the introduction of conscription in the army led to the creation of mixed army groups, where the use of Gallispaniol was the only way to remedy the language barrier that arose between farmboys from Galicia and Andalusia. And thus, through the Academia, public education and centuries of official control, Gallispaniol became the one language to unite the people of Gallispania, closely followed by Italian which experienced its own process of standardization during the 19th century, mostly as a result of Italian nationalism.

Excerpt from ‘The Making of Gallispania - The Constitution of 1800 and Early 19th Century Politics’
by David d’Armario​

Throughout the Early Modern Age and before the rise of nationalism as a political force, the idea of the Gallispanian Empire was closely connected to the monarch which ruled this vast collection of territories across Europe, Africa, the Columbias and Asia. Its existence was justified by its claim as Rome’s only remaining successor, as the Byzantines had long been conquered by the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire was no longer holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. However, for a long time there was no grand idea about what Gallispania was other than a collection of states united under the House of Trastamara-Avis, and loosely resembling the former Western Roman Empire. This changed during the 18th century as a result of the Enlightenment, culminating in the Constitution of 1800.

The Constitution of 1800 was Ferdinand VI’s attempt to placate the liberal sentiment growing in Gallispania at the time. It resulted in the creation of a single parliament, ruling all of Gallispania, from Spain to Greece. In doing so, Ferdinand VI created a new political sphere, separate from the politics in his court and elevated above the local politics of the Cortes in Paris, Naples, Athens and Madrid. Very quickly after its creation, the Cortes Generales became the stage of national politics and gave rise to new movements spanning Gallispania. While the 1800 Constitution was limited in the extension of voting rights, it did signal the beginning of mass politics, a phenomenon which implies the importance of national politics, and thus the idea of a single ‘Gallispanian’ political sphere. The case for universal suffrage, for higher wages, the end of child labor, etc. were to be discussed in the Cortes Generales, on a national level, carried by organizations and parties all across Gallispania. The idea of Gallispania as a nation was born.

One of the earliest areas in which this was visible, and perhaps also the most important, was the idea of Gallispanian citizenship. In 1777, the Don de la Palma used the idea to justify an attack against the Ottoman Empire, after a Gallispanian subject living in Athens was attacked by Ottoman troops. Since then, Gallispanian citizenship was eventually given a legal definition and came with protections under the constitution and by law. As Don de la Palma put it:
As the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum; so also a Gallispanian subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of Gallispania will protect him against injustice and wrong.
The idea of citizenship is an important prerequisite for nationalism to arise in a nation since it connects the individual to the (nation-)state. By determining who does and does not get the right to citizenship, the government could essentially draw the borders of the nation. By extending Gallispanian citizenship to Italy and Greece, these two constituent states and its inhabitants were essentially turned into an integral part of what Gallispania as a nation entailed.

The introduction of the 1800 Constitution was also paired with the introduction of a national flag to represent all of Gallispania at home and abroad. As pointed out in other research on this topic, the use of national symbols is an important part of nationalist rhetoric. People need a flag to rally behind, a person to claim as a national hero, a song to sing when celebrating the nation etc. The 1800 flag was an early signal that Gallispania’s history would be mobilized to provide a national identity to the various peoples that inhabited its borders.

The Constitution of 1800 created a new political arena and cleared the path for political movements to form around ideological differences. In the early 19th century, two major factions became clearly distinguishable in the Cortes Generales; the Progresista and the Doctrinarios. The Progresista were a wide coalition of Spanish, French and Italian liberals who wished to reform the country. They were generally in favor of a more federal model of government, where each constituent state would have its own government, with a national government in charge of defense and foreign policy. Within the Progresista movement, there was a division between moderates (moderados) and radicals (radicales). The radicales want to introduce universal male suffrage, while the moderados (often petite bourgeoisie) were content with the status quo. The Doctrinarios formed the biggest conservative movement in Gallispania. Their support base consisted of the Spanish and French aristocracy, as well as the clergy. The Doctrinarios were in favor of a limited, but centralized government and were generally supportive of the Emperor. Within the Doctrinarios there was a fringe movement known as the ultrarealistas, ultra-royalists who wanted a return to absolute monarchy. These reactionaries mainly have their power base in Spain and Southern France, generally considered to be the center of the Empire at the time.

These two political movements held differing views on what Gallispania entailed and thus portrayed different kinds of nationalism. The Progresista generally associated itself with liberal nationalism, also known as civic nationalism. Their idea of Gallispania as a nation was founded on the Constitution and the belief that the nation-state was nothing more than the total sum of its citizens. Democracy, freedom and liberty were the values uniting the nation and should be expanded upon. On the other hand, the Doctrinarios held a very strong ethnic nationalist view. Their idea of Gallispania was determined by language, shared history and ethnicity. It is to no surprise that many prominent Doctrinarios shunned the idea of openly welcoming Greeks, or even Italians, among their ranks, often driving these ethnicities in the arms of the Progresista, where they were openly welcomed.

These early political movements dominated politics during the first half of the 19th century, as nationalist and liberal revolutions swept the European continent. Ferdinand VI, architect of the Constitution, had successfully balanced both movements by appointing mixed cabinets, Ferdinand VII had been careful in regards to the Progresista to avoid a revolution and even supported them against Mazzini in Italy. Very soon after her coronation in 1836, Empress Victoria would be the latest in line to confront the divisions that ran through her country to keep it from tearing itself apart.

Excerpt from ‘Industrialization and the Gallispanian Economy’
by Francisco Cortez​

During the Old Regime, the state’s interest in the economy remained relatively limited to the areas of taxation, trade policy and infrastructure. Gradually, as the state itself grew larger, its involvement in the Gallispanian economy also grew larger. No longer would the Emperor just sit back and collect taxes, he would also invest in manufactories, implement land reforms and embark on large infrastructure projects to improve the economy. Philip II (reg. 1628-1655) is the most prominent example. Under his rule, imperial manufactories were built across the country and private investors soon followed his example. Philip II is to be credited with facilitating a limited early industrialization of Gallispania in the 18th and 19th centuries.

We speak of early industrialization because we mostly associate the Industrial Revolution with the economic developments in Great Britain from 1750 onwards. It seemed Great Britain at the time had the perfect mix of circumstances to spawn such a revolutionary change as the industrialization of their economy. Access to resources, a population explosion supported by an increase in agricultural productivity, a vast colonial empire to support a growing economy etc. If one didn’t know we were talking about Great Britain, one might assume we were talking about Gallispania. While it was true the same factors were present in Gallispania, and especially in the Loire region of France, what was crucially lacking after Philip II was the political will to modernize and industrialize the economy.

What held back Gallispania’s early industrialization on a larger scale were the feudal hierarchies still in place in most of the country. In Spain, the clergy and aristocracy still held on to their privileges regarding land ownership until late into the 18th century. Most crucially, the revoking of the Mesta privileges in 1793 allowed the Spanish textile industry to boom. By 1830, a moderate textile industry had developed around Madrid and Burgos. Further land reforms in the early 1800s allowed the church and aristocracy to sell their mortmain properties in an attempt to encourage agricultural production and to prevent a debt crisis among impoverished landowners. The reforms had their intended effect as new landowners were more willing, but also had more resources to exploit their land than the former owners who had sold their properties to pay off debts.

In France, the situation was slightly different. Feudal relations didn’t hold the economy as much back as it had done in Spain, since most of the economic power lay within the cities. There, a growing class of burghers became rich by importing valuable resources to fuel the manufactories built by Philip II or other rich burghers. In particular, the textile industry of the Loire valley stands out as an area of extensive early industrialization. In addition, a large naval based economy existed in both Brittany and Provence, the latter of which also supported a small local textile industry. Brittany’s naval industries were owed to the former Duchy’s rule over these lands, since in order to support the overseas possessions in Africa and Asia, the Duke of Brittanny needed shipyards and naval supply manufactories. These industries persisted once Gallispania took over Brittany and instead provided a supply of goods to the Empire’s large trade network and its immense naval presence in the Atlantic. Similarly, the naval industries in Provence serve Gallispania’s trading network in the Mediterranean. Marsella is the main Gallispanian trading port in the Mare Nostrum, followed by Genua in Italy. In addition, it is also the home port of the Gallispanian Armada in the Western Mediterranean. As such, it has been proposed numerous times in the Cortes Generales to move the capital of the Empire to Marsella, confirming its central position in the Empire’s trade network.

The Italian economy could be seen as a combination of Spanish and French characteristics. In the countryside, it is much like Spain with large landowners running latifundia, agricultural estates often focussed on one or two products such as wine or olives. As in Spain, these latifundia are typically found in the south of the region. The north much more resembles the economy of France, with an agricultural focus on grain and small centers of textile industry around cities like Milan. Most importantly, Italian traders form the backbone of the Empire’s network in the Mediterranean. Ports like Genua, Venice and Naples serve as important stops on busy trade routes running from the Middle East to France and Spain. In the early 19th century, it would not be uncommon to spot the Italian merchant flag on Gallispanian trade vessels in the Mediterranean. The same thing could be said about the Greek merchant flag, however they differ in the waters they preferred. Greek sailors were often more adventurous and willing to embark on longer distances, whereas the Italian sailors preferred the safety of the Mare Nostrum. As a result, the Greek merchant flag flew on Gallispania’s trade vessels bound for the New World, Africa and Asia. Today, large Greek communities in Cabo de Boa Esperança are a testament to this mostly forgotten history.

Gallispania’s economy between 1750 and 1830 can thus be described as a form of limited early industrialization, mostly because heavy industry was still relatively absent in the Empire. However, by 1830 there were limited regions where such a heavy industry was beginning to grow. Interest and expertise in mining and metallurgy grew mainly as a result of the Gallispanian colonization of the New World. During the conquest of Mexico and Peru, vast iron, gold and silver mines popped up like mushrooms and attracted thousands of settlers to the Columbias. However, as the Columbian colonies declared their independence in the 18th and 19th centuries, Gallispania’s unlimited access to these resources disappeared. As a result, the mining industry in Gallispania itself began to expand. Most prominently, companies began to express an interest in the largely untapped Asturian coal and Basque iron veins, as well as coal extraction along the Rhone river in France. By 1830, a small steel industry had evolved in Asturias, ready to be put to use in Gallispania’s long road to industrialization.

 

[Nikolai]

I fell off the original due to RL a long time ago, but I will try to follow this one.

 

[SibCDC]

I fell off the original due to RL a long time ago, but I will try to follow this one.

Welcome aboard!

 

[Fool Esquire]

It is great to see the sequel begin! Your writing is good as always. I look forward to reading about this phase in Gallispanian history.

Yeah the AI generators seem to have a lot of trouble with hands. And feet. And limbs. And eyes, nostrils, mouths, hair, held items... basically anything that isn't a torso. But they can make some really nice landscapes, I've found.

 

[SibCDC]

Primary and Secondary Sources on Gallispanian Policy towards Great Britain and the Slave Trade (1820-1840)

Excerpt from ‘The History of Gallispania’
by Juan Mendoza​

During the 1830s, there was a visible change in foreign policy at Gallispania’s highest levels. Multiple sources at the time indicate that the traditional Grand Catholic Alliance between Gallispania, Bohemia and the Papap States had effectively died during the Revolutionary Wars and that a new forward looking alliance was forming between Great Britain and Gallispania. Of course, the British had been a valuable Gallispanian ally during the Revolutionary War against Bohemia. Their campaigns in Burgundy and Germany proved that they were indeed capable of sending an expeditionary force to the European continent and achieving victories against another European power. Combined with their strength at sea, this basically meant that Great Britain had enough firepower to protect the newly established balance of power in Europe. This did not go unnoticed in Gallispania, which for centuries held on to the traditional French sentiment towards the British, that is one of contempt and rivalry. However after Waterloo, genuine feelings of admiration and comradery began to sway the French public towards a new public opinion on Great Britain. Similarly in Spain, politicians and industrialists alike began to look at Great Britain as the country that would indicate where the future was headed. Unsurprisingly, these feelings were mirrored in the Cortes Generales, and eventually in the Imperial government itself.

During the last years of Emperor Ferdinand VII’s reign, an extensive effort was made to improve relations with the British. Several letters of the Emperor have been preserved, indicating an intensive correspondence with the British King William V. Both were born in 1772 and had stood as allies against Radetzky. During the Congress of Versailles, Ferdinand had made sure that William and his entourage were given the best rooms and the best service in the palace and French patissiers had been ordered to create a whole new range of delicacies to conquer the British tastebutts. This had its intended effect and left an important impression on the British heir, the future King Henry. At one point, relations between the two dynasties seemed to have reached their zenith when rumors of an impending marriage between Henry Tudor and Victoria de Avis were spread by some London rag newspapers. Correspondence between Ferdinand and William at the time indicates that no such plans existed and historians widely agree that the press effort was an attempt by some to create tensions between the two countries.

Nonetheless, there was a considerable part of the public opinion which was not necessarily adverse to the idea of a royal marriage between the House of Tudor and the House of Avis. It would have severely upset the balance carefully created in the Congress of Versailles and upset nations like Scandinavia and the Commonwealth, yet some prominent diplomats saw a royal marriage as the logical precursor to an official alliance between Great Britain and Gallispania. Unsurprisingly, this particular view on diplomacy was quickly put aside as more rational minds worked on various treaties and declarations to unite the British and Gallispanian interests in Europe and elsewhere.

Both countries agreed that after the devastating conflict of the Revolutionary Wars, peace should now prevail in Europe. Britons know it as the Pax Britannica, Gallispanians know it as the Pax Gallispanica, but they’re essentially two sides of the same coin. The balance of power, the rule of law and treaties, communication and compromise, those were to be the guiding principles to keep the peace in Europe. In practice, it came down to the idea that Britain and Gallispania would both take a more active interventionist role on the world stage. However, there was one major issue dividing the British and the Gallispanians; the Atlantic slave trade.

Abolitionism in Britain was particularly strong in comparison to Gallispania, Portugal and even New Frisia. The British lacked the plantation economies of the Caribbean or South Columbia to justify a prolonged support for the institution. In addition, the Atlantic slave trade had been mostly in the hands of Portuguese, Gallispanian and Frisian slave traders. Influenced by enlightened ideas, slavery was increasingly contested in the British courts, resulting in the legal corollary that slavery did not exist under common law and should thus be prohibited. Thus, in 1807 the buying and selling of slaves was made illegal across the British Empire and owning slaves was consequently abolished in 1833. By then, abolitionism had made its way into Britain’s foreign policy as it began pressuring other countries, including Gallispania, to ban the slave trade, often leading to tensions.

Gallispania had historically played the role of second biggest participant in the Atlantic slave trade, closely following Portugal, with the Frisians taking the third place. There had been Gallispanian voices who spoke out against slavery, even causing a minor crisis in Cuba during the late 1600s, but more often than not, the economic benefits of the plantation economy sustained the institution which provided much needed labour forces to work the fields. The first signs of change coincided with Gallispania’s loss of Mexico, Peru and New Granada, as these former colonies declared their independence and in doing so abolished slavery. In addition, as Britain began pressuring the Gallispanian government, new abolitionist organizations were founded all over the Empire, often funded by British philanthropists. Most prominently, in 1824 the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, better known as the Madrid Society, was founded in an attempt to push the issue onto the agenda of the Cortes Generales.

The Madrid Society succeeded in its initial goal when the possibility of banning the slave trade was discussed in the Cortes Generales during a heated session in 1826. The measure was widely supported by the Progresista and even some Doctrinarios supported banning the slave trade. However, as newspapers reported on the matter being discussed, a two-pronged opposition was mounted against the abolition of slavery in Gallispania. First of all, Francisco Arango y Parreño, a prominent Cuban planter, challenged the proposal, arguing that the Cuban plantations were essential to Gallispania’s imperial economy, and they relied on slaves from Africa. Should Gallispania abolish the slave trade, Cuba would have no other choice but to turn to New Frisia, he argued. Second of all, the Portuguese government wrote a lengthy letter to Emperor Ferdinand VII, informing him of the importance of the slave trade to his Portuguese subjects. Should Gallispania, and by extension Portugal, ban the slave trade, then Brazil would inevitably want to extend its own influence in Africa by establishing trade posts, maybe even colonies of their own. The Portuguese thus argued that if the Emperor wished to extend his influence to West-Africa, he would need to sustain the slave trade or risk competition with Brazil.

Ferdinand VII was not easily swayed by these kinds of arguments. Cuba was a Gallispanian subject and turning to New Frisia would demand a Gallispanian military response. The Portuguese government, meanwhile, was reassured that Brazil was in no place to challenge anything beyond their own coastline. British pressure, on the other hand, had way more potential to harm Gallispanian and Portuguese interests in the region. The Emperor subtly made his position clear to his Minister of State, Carlos de Talleyrand, who proceeded to push ahead in the Cortes Generales. However, by this point the debate bogged down and as the Progresista lost their majority in 1830, de Talleyrand was replaced by the more moderate Juan Mendizábal. Mendizábal supported abolitionism, but lacked the support in the Cortes Generales to achieve it. As a result, the ball was back in Ferdinand VII’s court.​

Excerpt from the ‘Letter to His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Ferdinand VII’
by the Madrid Society[1]​

Paris, 6 June 1831​

Your Imperial Highness,

The Society of the Friends of the Blacks would believe it is failing in the sacred obligation it has contracted to defend the cause of the unfortunate Africans, if she did not testify to you, on their behalf, sincere gratitude for the tribute you made regarding their rights, and for the wishes full of humanity that you have made in their favor, in your speech delivered at the opening of the Cortes Generales. It was worthy of an Emperor who has devoted himself entirely to the happiness of the Gallispanians, to fix the eyes of this gentle and generous nation, on the dreadful fate of millions of men, who are kidnapped, who are condemned to eternal captivity, under the pretext to increase our enjoyments and our greatness.

It was worthy of your enlightenment to show that the prosperity of the colonies could be reconciled with the abolition of the slave trade, and to praise the measures taken by the English nation, to establish this truth, the demonstration of which must lead to the annihilation of this trade.

The innovations in the political system of European finances, and above all in that of England, can no longer be indifferent to Gallispania. Such is now the strength of things that govern them, that prosperity will follow constantly the principles consistent with the rights of humanity, and that the freest state in its constitution, and the most enlightened in its policy, must prevail over its rivals. If we tend towards this goal, we must therefore observe our neighbors and borrow from them all the good that is known to exist among them. Thus, we dare to hope with you, Sir, that the opinion of the Parliament of England, with regard to the slave trade, will have an effective influence on the Cortes Generales; that it will induce them to establish within themselves a committee similar to that which the House of Commons has instituted.

Moments are precious. If according to the series of proofs which have been presented to Parliament, if, according to the verification of the facts, the depositions, and the discussion of the reasonings which have been accumulated, England takes decisive action against the slave trade outside her borders, Gallispania cannot sustain its current inaction as it would be fatal to ourselves, we can not let change take place by our side, a total change of the system of the colonies, without examining what consequences could result from it for Gallispania.

Imbued with this truth, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, must incessantly seek the creation of a similar Committee[2], in order to discuss this great cause publicly, with the shipowners and the planters themselves. We dare to flatter ourselves that thus we will find, in your love for humanity and freedom, constant protection, and all the necessary aid, to obtain the information we need.

The Society should not, however, hide from you, Sir, that it glimpsed with difficulty, in the Minister of Finances’ address to Parliament, that you had in view only a diminution, and not the complete abolition of bounties which promote the slave trade, from which one would deduce, that one doesn’t contemplate on its abolition yet.

Allow us to retrace this passage of his speech for you here.
“The bounties that the Emperor grants for the encouragement of Commerce, now amount to three million eight hundred thousand pounds, and those granted on the slave trade alone form an object of one million four hundred thousand pounds.

There is reason to believe that this last expense can be reduced by almost half, by adopting a provision that humanity alone should have advised, His Imperial Highness has already made known his intentions in this regard and you will be informed more accurately in due time.”

If the Society of Friends of the Blacks is not mistaken in interpreting this article, we believe that it reads that it is proposed to allow this trade to continue, by just making a few changes, the Society believes itself obliged to position itself, in the name of the Blacks, against this project. She believes, with the Societies of London and New Amsterdam, that the slave trade is based on theft, murder, robbery; that it is neither fairness nor the dignity of an Enlightened nation, to sustain or regularize a trade, which can only ever be atrocious and criminal; a trade, moreover as disastrous as it is dishonoring for the Gallispanian nation; that it is therefore impolitic to feed and encourage the slave trade through bounties, however mediocre they may be; that it is doubly so, given that the greatest part of these bounties pass through the hands of the English, to which Gallispanian traders do not blush to lend their names, to elude the intention of the Board[3], and given that to pay these bounties, we take away from the indigent inhabitant of our countryside his bread, the fruit of his labor. Thus, one aggravates one’s misery, to make others unhappy; it is imposed to enrich Englishmen and merchants of human cargo; we burden this peasant, who does not have the sad faculty to be satisfied with bread, to encourage, by a barbaric means, the culture of sugar and coffee, which he does not consume.

This sequence of horrors will engage, without doubt, the Cortes Generales, to abolish entirely these bounties. So forgive us, Sir, to solicit from them this act of justice and policy; forgive us for protesting, in this respect, against a softening suggested by your Minister, softening, which, in fact, will make it illusory.

Elevated on a prominent level, surrounded, rightly, by universal esteem, your opinion must have a great influence on public opinion; we must therefore prevent this softening. The obligation we have entered into for the Blacks makes it our law.

But we hope that when we have submitted to your wisdom the facts and the motives which must have the slave trade banned, you will abandon the useless project of softening it by new regulations. By this you will add to the fame of your name and you will be blessed by the Blacks of our colonies, by the Gallispanians, and by humanity as a whole.​

We have the honor to be, with respect,
Your Imperial Highness,
Your most humble and very obedient servants.

Excerpt from ‘Gallispanian Anti-Slavery and Africa’
by Maria Fernandez-Tellon​

After the 1830 elections shifted the Cortes Generales back to the right, the prospect of banning the slave trade by parliamentary means melted like snow before the sun. While neither the Progresista nor the Doctrinarios held a clear majority, the moderate Prime Minister, Juan Mendizábal, had no realistic path forward that would lead to abolition. When some members of the government, including the Minister of Finance, the Frenchman José Domingo Luis, hinted at budget cuts affecting the Gallispanian slave trade, the Madrid Society, and other abolitionist organizations, started an intensive letter campaign aimed against the government, and most importantly, against the Emperor.

In reality, the proposed budget cuts were an attempt of the Mendizábal government to slowly work towards abolitionism by advocating sensible financial policies, reducing the slavery debate to one of numbers and figures. They were criticized for this by organizations such as the Madrid Society, whose anti-slavery discourse had always been one highlighting the humanitarian angle of banning the slave trade. Their criticism, in combination with British pressure, eventually had its intended effect. In 1835, the Gallispanian government signed a treaty with Great Britain, banning the slave trade to Gallispanian colonies. The treaty was followed by an Imperial decree, making the buying or selling of slaves a felony throughout the Empire, and crucially, for Gallispanian subjects worldwide, mirroring the British Slave Trade Felony Act of 1811.

The treaty and the resulting Imperial decree, while noble in their intentions, had a limited effect on the slave trade. Owning slaves was still legal and Cuban planters now simply outsourced their share in the slave trade to Filippinans from New Frisia. In addition, the Gallispanian government itself did little to nothing to enforce the treaty as the illegal slave trade spiked in the Caribbean. Instead, the ban marked the beginning of Gallispanian colonization in West Africa. In the words of Mendizábal himself: “To end the slave trade to Cuba means to take control of those ports in Africa that are used to illegally transport abducted and captured Africans.” In other words, instead of cooperating with local rulers to end the slave trade, like they had done to organize it in the first place, Mendizábal and the governments that followed him would resort to colonialism to further exploit West Africa for its resources.​

‘To Cuba’
by Juan Francisco Manzano, an escaped Cuban slave[4]

​

---

[1]: Based on a real letter by the French Society of the Friends of the Blacks to French Minister of Finances Jacques Necker.
[2]: In reference to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Slave Trade, which was responsible for gathering evidence about the slave trade in the lead-up to its abolition by the British parliament in 1807.
[3]: The British Board of Trade.
[4]: This is a real poem by Juan Francisco Manzano, translated to English by R.R. Madden and published in 1840.

 

[Nikolai]

The slavery issue is indeed a tricky one, but here is hoping the slaves one day will not only be free, but citizens.

 

[HIMDogson]

Glad to see this continued- I wonder if the mod used could be uploaded to the workshop?

 

[SibCDC]

The slavery issue is indeed a tricky one, but here is hoping the slaves one day will not only be free, but citizens.

Historically, it took quite a long time for Spain/Cuba to abolish slavery whereas the French and Haitian revolutions kinda answered the question for France, it'll be interesting to see how long it will take in this world for slavery to be completely abolished.

Glad to see this continued- I wonder if the mod used could be uploaded to the workshop?

The mod is still not completely finished. The recent update messed up some interest group related things and there's still some minor things that need to be added. But when it's done I'll post it on the workshop.

 

[SibCDC]

Primary and Secondary Sources on the Gallispanian Elections of 1835

Excerpt from ‘Early Political Factions in Gallispania’
by Stephen Daring​

Duverger’s law teaches us that first-past-the-post electoral systems favor a two-party system. In the first half of the 19th century, the 100 seats in Gallispania’s Cortes Generales were elected every 5 years in single-member districts through first-past-the-post. As a result, two political factions grew organically to represent the various interest groups who had voting rights at that time. On the left, the Progresista had organized relatively early under the leadership of Manuel Godoy, the first modern Prime Minister of Gallispania. The Progresista united the interests of the intelligentsia and industrialists and represented the main liberal force in Gallispanian politics. They favored political and economic reform and as such they were responsible for most major reforms since 1800. Other prominent subjects on the liberal agenda included anti-slavery, anti-clericalism, laissez-faire economics and electoral reform.

Between 1800 and 1835, the Progresista had provided 3 of the 4 Gallispanian Prime Ministers. Manuel Godoy was the first of them. He had been appointed to the position by Ferdinand VI in 1800 and was charged with leading a Cabinet of both reformers and conservatives. Godoy quickly realized that without a strong united liberal faction in the Cortes Generales, it would be difficult to push through reforms. As a result, Godoy and the liberals presented a united front in the 1805 elections. By organizing internal primaries ahead of the elections, the Progresista ensured that the left wouldn’t split their votes among multiple candidates and prevented conservative candidates from winning pluralities in otherwise divided districts. The result was a landslide victory for the Progresista and 5 more years of Godoy as Prime Minister. By 1810, however, the conservatives had organized in a similar fashion and took back control of the Cortes Generales, resulting in the first conservative Prime Minister, Mariano Luis de Urquijo.
​

Manuel Godoy (left) and Mariano Luis de Urquijo (right).​

Under Urquijo, the interests of the landowners, Catholic Church and armed forces were all united in government. As a result, a series of protectionist measures were implemented. In addition, Urquijo’s time as Prime Minister marked the end of the period of relative peace that had existed under Godoy’s leadership. Two subsequent wars against Burgundy and Austria, both Protestant states, led to a costly consolidation of Gallispania’s borders along a more defensible frontier. However, as revolution broke out in Bohemia, fears began to arise that it might spread to Gallispania. Both liberals and conservatives responded to the Bohemian Revolution with disgust. The terror of Radetzky’s regime and its swift transition to authoritarianism quickly discouraged any sympathizers who might have thought of importing the Revolution to Gallispania. In response to the Bohemian revolution, the conservatives adopted the so-called Doctrine of Toledo, a set of principles outlining their vision of Gallispanian society., eventually lending its name to the Doctrinarios. Two principles were central to the Doctrine of Toledo; traditionalism and legitimism. Traditionalism was to be a counterweight to the rapid era of change which had come to define Europe. Catholicism and feudalism formed the two pillars of traditionalism. A paternalistic, stratocratic and moralist society would form the defense against the excesses of the Bohemian revolution. Legitimism, as the second guiding principle of the Doctrine of Toledo, provided an answer to the question of the constitution; how could the Constitution of 1800 be reconciled with traditionalism? The Doctrinarios’ answer was fairly simple. As long as the Constitution had the support of Gallispania’s legitimate and lawful ruler, the Emperor, it should be regarded as an extension of his will and thus as the legitimate set of rules governing the Empire. In other words, the legitimacy of the Constitution depended on the willingness of the ruling Emperor to abide by it. These two principles would define conservative politics in the early 19th century.

The liberal response to the Bohemian revolution was mainly aimed at preventing the spread of radical ideas among their own ranks. Godoy’s influence in the party had waned as a new leading figure was emerging: Carlos de Talleyrand. Talleyrand shaped Progresista doctrine around absolute acceptance of the 1800 Constitution, and thus of the monarchy, and made it clear that liberal reforms would only be successful if they were enacted by the system itself. As a result, followers of his brand of liberalism quickly became known as ‘moderados’, or moderates. In 1820, Talleyrand and the moderate Progresista came to power as the Doctrinarios were punished for the costly wars of the 1810s and the loss of Gallispania’s colonial empire in the Columbias. Between 1820 and 1830, Talleyrand proceeded to ensure that his brand of liberalism would ultimately prevail by defeating Radetzky and his radical followers during the Revolutionary War. ​

Carlos de Talleyrand.​

Nonetheless, radical groups persisted, both on the left and the right. On the left, the radicales disagreed with Talleyrand’s slow approach to reform and preached a total overhaul of the system. Many of them sympathized with the Italian Revolution in the 1830s and secretly hoped for a similar revolution to overthrow the Emperor and install a democratically elected government. Some radicales were also heavily opposed to the idea of Gallispania itself. According to them, the Empire had been the result of the feudal system and had no uniting institution other than the Emperor. Unsurprisingly, these radicales often resorted to regionalism and aimed to liberate the Spanish, French, Italian or Greek nation from the Gallispanian state.

On the right, radicalism presented itself in the rejection of the Doctrine of Toledo, more specifically in the rejection of the legitimacy of the 1800 Constitution. There were those who claimed Ferdinand VI had been pressured to accept constitutionalism by radical liberals. There were also more radical voices who claimed Ferdinand VI himself wasn’t the legitimate ruler of Gallispania at the time he signed the Constitution.[1] Although this latter group would fade out of existence upon Ferdinand VII’s ascension to the throne, its influence on the right would remain for decades to come. The one thing they had in common was the strong belief in the feudal hierarchy as it had existed for centuries and support for the institution of the monarchy. As such, they became known as the ultrarealistas, or ultra-royalists.​

Excerpt from ‘Spanish Society at the End of Ferdinand VII’s Reign’
by Carlos Marichal[2]​

THE ARISTOCRACY OR LANDED OLIGARCHY

Up until 1800, the aristocracy, very often great landowners, formally constituted the seigneurial nobility and were represented as such in the regional Cortes of Spain, France, Italy and Greece. However, the Constitution of 1800 made an end to the formal representation of the three estates in government. Additional reforms, pushed through the Cortes Generales, further curtailed the feudal practices which lended the aristocracy their strength. As a result, the aristocracy quickly splintered into political factions across different interest groups. In 1830, the aristocracy remained the dominant class in Gallispanian society. Although they had lost most of their feudal privileges, the vast majority of them were still great landowners with access to revenues from agriculture. In the army, they continued to enjoy the Emperor’s favor and thus continued to play an important role in military affairs. In addition, throughout the period 1800-1830 the aristocracy held many important positions in the governments of Ferdinand VI and Ferdinand VII.

(...)

There were regional differences between members of the aristocracy, the result of Gallispania’s sheer size and the economic activities in each region. There was a large concentration of landowners in the south of Spain and Italy, due to the predominance of the so-called ‘latifundia’, large estates often producing olive oil, wine, fruits and sometimes wheat, and worked by a class of landless rural workers. The nature of their products as cash crops turned the aristocracy of Southern Spain and Italy into a wealthy group of families with international commercial connections.

In Catalonia, Occitania and Northern Italy, the landed aristocracy continued to be the wealthiest class. However, the largest estates in those regions were often in the hands of Castilian or French nobles who resided in Madrid and Versailles respectively. In addition, Catalonian, Occitan and Northern Italian nobles were increasingly rivaled by a growing group of industrial bourgeoisie. As a result, the landed nobility in these regions often turned to the ultrarealistas, the fringe movement of reactionary conservatives associated with the Doctrinarios.

Finally, in Castile and Northern France, the landed nobility focussed primarily on local economic activities such as wheat or wool production. Once represented by the Mesta, a powerful association of sheep ranchers, their power was heavily reduced since their privileges were revoked in 1793. Due to the lack of capital investment in agriculture in these regions, the landed nobility came to embody the main advocate for protectionism in the Cortes Generales.

(...)

The Gallispanian landed aristocracy of 1830 remained one of the most dominant political and economic powers in the Empire. They were closely bound to both Emperors’ balancing acts between the Progresista and the Doctrinarios and to key financial and commercial institutes in the capital. Yet, the landed aristocracy was also a divided class. A considerable part of the traditional nobility was displeased with the gradual loss of feudal privileges. They opposed the rise of liberalism, embodied by the numerous Progresista governments since 1800. They feared the attacks by men like Mendizábal against the power and authority of the Catholic Church would eventually be aimed against them. This discontented group included aristocrats in all parts of the Gallispanian Empire. The majority of them would find an ally in the Doctrinarios, the conservative faction within the Cortes Generales. However, a small minority turned to the ultrarealistas, an increasingly radicalized group not afraid to use violence to enforce their demands.

THE CLERGY
For most of Gallispanian history, the clergy was a class of enormous social, economic and political importance. The clergy owned a great number of rural and urban properties, it controlled the universities and most of primary and secondary education; it exercised a singularly powerful ideological and spiritual influence over all sectors of Gallispanian society. As a social institution, the Church was superior in influence to the nobility. The clergy represented roughly 2% of the total population, or about 1 in 50 or 60 persons, (probably a higher proportion than in any other European country). Like the nobility, the clergy was a non-productive sector of society who lived off rents and feudal tribute.

The Church was divided into two branches, the secular clergy and the regular clergy. The secular clergy consisted of the parish priests and of the ecclesiastics attached to the churches and cathedrals, as well as members of the Church hierarchy. The regular clergy was made up of the members of the religious orders, the monks and nuns. By tradition the regular clergy had more extensive landed properties than the secular. Most rural convents of monks or nuns were large agricultural establishments. The religious rented their extensive properties to the local peasantry, or hired day laborers to cultivate the land and tend the flocks. Numerous religious orders in Spain had huge herds of sheep, whose wool was sold at the great wool markets of northern Castile. There were also numerous convents in the cities. The urban establishments were famous as centers of charity: many offered a daily soup to the urban poor and indigent. They also administered hospitals for the sick, aged and infirm. A great part of the social welfare of the Gallispanian population was in the hands of the Church rather than the State.

(...)

The other branch of the Church, the secular clergy, was a top-heavy bureaucratic apparatus with less landed property than the religious orders, but with almost the same amount of wealth, mainly derived from tithes. The tithes taxes were collected and administered by the Church hierarchy, the bishops and their assistants. In this way they exercised pecuniary control over all subordinate sectors of the secular clergy. The secular clergy was clearly more concentrated in urban than rural areas. This huge ecclesiastical bureaucracy obviously could serve little productive purpose, but its very size gave the Church an enormous source of patronage.

The stability of the Catholic Church seemed unquestionable until the confiscation of Church properties in the Bohemian and Italian Revolutions and the anticlericalism of Juan Mendizábal, who became Prime Minister of Gallispania in 1830. After the elections of 1830, Mendizábal entered into an unholy alliance with the landed nobility. As a member of the Progresista, Mendizábal sought to rid the State of Church influence, while the landed nobility saw an opportunity to expand both their influence at the court as well as their property holdings back home. The result was a set of decrees expanding on the 1803 land reform bill, setting in motion the expropriation and privatization of monastic properties in Gallispania. In 1833, the Inquisition was abolished, further weakening the clergy. Their anger was only tempered by Ferdinand VII’s campaign to invest in monasteries and churches across the country.

But the clergy was not satisfied. Don Jerónimo Castellón y Salas, former Inquisitor General and Bishop of Tarazona, demanded the reestablishment of the Inquisition. He declared: “I should state as Bishop and Counsellor of State that Catholicism and the integrity of Gallispania are dependent upon (the restoration of) the Inquisition”. According to historian Luis Alonso Tejada, this attitude was shared by the rest of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Tejada writes: “It can be said that in the historical circumstances of the 1830s, the Catholic Church… considered the Inquisition not as a remedy against evil doctrine and books, but, above all, as the chosen instrument to conserve the monolithic religious and political unity of all Gallispanians under the legitimate and absolute throne…”.

Unsurprisingly after 1830 religion and politics became increasingly indistinguishable. Some Progresista attributed the evils of Gallispanian society to the excesses of the Church. The clergy turned to the Doctrinarios, in some cases even the ultrarealistas, in order to eliminate liberalism and anticlericalism. The result was a rapid political polarization. The degree of politization among the Gallispanian clergy was remarkable. Documentary evidence indicates that the ecclesiastics, instigated and participated in a great number of clandestine right wing terrorist organizations between 1825 and 1835. This alliance between fanatic royalists and ecclesiastics split the Doctrinarios between a moderate wing, willing to govern Gallispania in alliance with moderate liberals, and a radical wing trying to push the balance of power to the right. The annexation of Papal territories after the (liberal and anticlerical) Italian Revolution in ‘33 further radicalized the clergy. By 1835 the majority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the regular clergy were either ultrarealistas or had sympathies for their cause. The Gallispanian Church was determined to defend the traditional order: the monarchy, feudal privileges, and religious intolerance.​

Excerpt from ‘Juan Álvarez Mendizábal, Architect of the Unholy Alliance’
by Francisco Bello​

In 1830, the Progresista lost their parliamentary majority after a strong campaign of the Doctrinarios against the excesses of liberal government. Talleyrand’s failure to secure territorial gains against the Ottomans in the Congress of Versailles, questions surrounding supposed bribes from Brandenburger diplomats in the lead-up to Versailles, a financial crisis and a scandal involving a married woman all contributed to the poor performance of liberals in 1830. As a result, Carlos de Talleyrand lost his position as leader of the Progresista to Juan Mendizábal, a significantly younger and more energetic politician who could sway allies and enemies alike in a manner which Talleyrand could no longer produce. Mendizábal was notorious for his anticlericalism, a trait which many thought would render him unable to construct a broad alliance of moderates on the left and right wing of the Cortes Generales. They were wrong. Today Juan Mendizábal is remembered as the primary architect of the Unholy Alliance.

After the 1830 elections, the Progresista doubted that Ferdinand VII would call on them to form a government. However in the lead-up to their electoral defeat, Mendizábal had secretly negotiated with Victor de Broglie, a representative of the Doctrinarios and a member of the landed nobility. De Broglie was worried about the growing influence of the radical right wing of his faction and sought to reduce the ultrarealistas’ hold on the Doctrinarios. As such, his goals were aligned with those of Mendizábal. During their secret meeting, the two men agreed on a set of policies which would be carried out by a hypothetical moderate Progresista-Doctrinarios government, the first of its kind since the early days of Godoy’s government.

During the first session of the newly elected Cortes Generales in June of 1830, Victor de Broglie was elected as its President. To the surprise of many right wing Doctrinarios, de Broglie had somehow managed to secure votes from the moderate wing of the Progresista. Unbeknownst to them, de Broglie’s election as President of the Cortes Generales was part of the deal and would set in motion the formal formation of the Unholy Alliance as the ruling government of Gallispania. In his function as President, de Broglie was invited to the Imperial Palace by Ferdinand VII to discuss the Emperor’s preferences for a new government. According to the Gallispanian Constitution of 1800, appointing ministers was the sole right of the Emperor, and elections did not necessarily have to coincide with a new government. However, Ferdinand VII had made it an informal tradition to shake up his Cabinet after every election to ensure that the Cortes Generales and the government would be on one and the same line and Prime Ministers often resigned after disastrous elections for their faction. This had proven to be especially important during the Revolutionary Wars and as such Ferdinand VII was reluctant to deviate from this new tradition.

During de Broglie’s meeting with the Emperor, he subtly mentioned Mendizábal’s as a possible contender for the position of Prime Minister. De Broglie spoke about Mendizábal’s time in the military, his experience in the civil administration and his brief time as Cabinet Member under the Ministry of Finances in Talleyrand’s government. Ferdinand VII was not blind to what had happened and realized that de Broglie and Mendizábal had struck a deal with each other. Nevertheless, he recognized the value of an alliance between the moderate wings of both factions in the Cortes Generales and proceeded to appoint Mendizábal to the position of Prime Minister.​

Juan Mendizábal.​

Mendizábal’s years as Prime Minister of Gallispania were characterized by a careful balance between liberal policies and concessions to his conservative partners in government. Mendizábal’s main concern was to eliminate the debt crisis that had engulfed Gallispania in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War. As part of his recovery plan, Mendizábal confiscated monastic properties and privatized them, hoping that it would generate enough income for the state coffers to allow short-term economic measures. The Prime Minister’s conservative allies, the landowners, greatly benefitted from the ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal, further cementing the alliance between Mendizábal and De Broglie.

The 1835 elections presented itself in the form of an existential threat for the Unholy Alliance. Due to Gallispania’s voting laws, only about 0.4% of the country, or around 300 000 people[3], had the right to vote. In addition, the Cortes Generales was elected indirectly through provincial electoral colleges. This system heavily favored the Spanish provinces. Even though the Spanish electorate represented roughly 20% of Gallispania’s voting population, it elected around a third of the 100 seats in the Cortes. In comparison, the Italian electorate represented roughly 35% and elected only 20 seats. Electoral reform would be a continuous campaigning point of the Progresista, but here they encountered wide resistance from the Doctrinarios and ultrarealistas. As a result, and with the 1833 Italian Revolution in recent memory, all the signs were on the wall that the Unholy Alliance would break up after the 1835 elections.​

The Liberal Herald, June 12 1835
Cortes Generales Elections ​

The result of the elections has somewhat disappointed us. Our correspondent in Madrid has written to us that Mendizábal’s liberals have performed poorly. Our favored candidates have suffered defeats, much to our dissatisfaction and regret. The objective of the Church is obtained; a large number of conservative candidates elected are members of the Catholic Church and will represent its interests, being opposed to the anticlericalism of the Progresista. As such we expect Mendizábal to hand in his resignation as Prime Minister to the Emperor later this week and a new conservative Prime Minister to be sworn in soon after. To easily represent the new balance of power in the Cortes Generales, we have organized the results in the table below, sorted by ballot.[4]​

Ballot	Votes	Seats
Progresista	115 662	36
Doctrinarios	122 429	43
Independent Candidates	69 520	21
Total	307 611	100

Excerpt from ‘Gallispanian Conservatism, 1834-1900’
by Stanley G. Payne[5]​

The dismal start to the reign of Ferdinand VII (1811-1835) made it clear that neither Catholic neotraditionalism nor royalist despotism offered a functional alternative to the decade of liberalism which had preceded it. Unlike their counterparts in Great Britain, the royalist ultra-right in Gallispania were unable to adjust their institutions to the new conditions of the nineteenth-century. They failed to represent the new social and economic interests, could not at all accommodate themselves to nineteenth-century culture, proved inept at diplomatic, imperial and military affairs, and failed even to administer the existing system with minimal efficiency. Thus within ten years, conservative rule foundered, and in 1820 was the first modern European government to break down over the issue of unsuccessful colonial war and repression when they were voted out and replaced once again by the liberals.

(...)

Gallispanian conservatives were given a second chance to govern the country in 1830, when Mendizábal and De Broglie struck a deal to form the Unholy Alliance between moderate liberals and moderate conservatives. It was the threat from the ultra-right that first placed conservative liberalism in direct control of Gallispania’s destinies. Against the menace of the reactionary ultrarealistas a common cause was initially formed among the moderate liberals and the pragmatic conservatives, who banded together behind the tandem Mendizábal-De Broglie, putting the former up for the position of Prime Minister. However, against the backdrop of the Unholy Alliance, moderate conservatives and ultrarealistas were slowly coming to terms with each other as governing with the liberals became increasingly difficult.

It is during this time that the classic conservative position in modern Gallispanian politics began to take shape as a compromise between moderate conservatives and reactionaries, and with the traces of the Doctrine of Toledo clearly still visible within. It rested on four fundamental principles: firm emphasis on monarchy under limited constitutional restrictions; social elitism, expressed politically through extremely restricted suffrage for parliamentary elections; in economics a poorly coordinated combination of national protectionism with staunch defense of private property (a clear reaction to Mendizábal’s confiscations); and an attempt to achieve a compromise on the religious issue by maintaining the Catholic identity of the state and trying to regain the political support of the Church.

(...)

Going into the 1835 elections, Victor de Broglie made a special effort to mobilize the major conservative business and economic interests of the upper-middle and upper classes. In addition, he secured the support of the Church by promising to block any future attempt by anti-clerical liberals to push through hostile legislation aimed against weakening the Catholic Church. The result was a victory of conservative candidates, followed by Mendizábal’s resignation as Prime Minister. In the wake of Mendizábal’s resignation, the liberals appeared too weak to govern and were quickly replaced by a conservative cabinet by Emperor Ferdinand VII, who by now was weeks away from his deathbed. Victor de Broglie became Gallispania’s fifth Prime Minister, the second to be born in France, the last to server under Emperor Ferdinand VII and the first to serve under Empress Victoria. ​

Victor de Broglie.​

Outlook on Gallispanian politics around the time of Empress Victoria’s ascension to the throne in 1836.
​

---

[1]: See Chapter 27 of ‘Two idiots discover America’, Ferdinand VI was in fact illegitimate, but this was covered up to prevent a succession crisis.
[2]: This is largely based on a chapter from Carlos Marichal’s book ‘Spain 1834-1844’.
[3]: Around 65 000 Spaniards, 107 000 Italians, 130 000 French and 4 200 Greeks voted in the 1835 elections, however their votes did not count equally due to Gallispania’s electoral system.
[4]: Ever since the 1810s, it became a standard practice in Gallispanian elections to vote using a standardized ballot distributed by the political factions themselves. These ballots presented the name of the faction’s leader at the top, even if that leader did not stand in the district in question. The bottom half was usually reserved for a list of candidates standing for election in a certain district.
[5]: This is based on a real article by Stanley G. Payne titled ‘Spanish Conservatism 1834-1923’.

 

[Nikolai]

Fitting with Victoria as the name of the empress, did you mod that in, or was it a coincidence?

 

[SibCDC]

Fitting with Victoria as the name of the empress, did you mod that in, or was it a coincidence?

Since Britain won't have a Queen Victoria, I added Empress Victoria as Gallispania's ruler.

 

[SibCDC]

Primary and Secondary Sources on the Coronation of Her Majesty Empress Victoria of Gallispania

Excerpt from ‘The Memoirs of Victor Hugo’
by Victor Hugo[1]​

At Rheims, 1823-1838

(...)

Legends are so natural to this place, are in such good soil, that they immediately began to germinate upon the coronation of Victoria itself. The Duke of Northumberland, the representative of England at the coronation ceremonies, was reputed fabulously wealthy. Wealthy and English, how could he be otherwise than a la moda? The English, at that period, were very popular in Gallispaniol society, although not among the people. They were liked in certain salons because of Waterloo, which was still fairly recent, and to Anglicize the Gallispaniol language was a recommendation in ultra-fashionable society. Lord Northumberland, therefore, long before his arrival, was popular and legendary in Rheims. A coronation was a godsend to Rheims. A flood of opulent people inundated the city. It was the Nile that was passing. Landlords rubbed their hands with glee.

(...)

Rheims is a proverb in Gothic Christian art. One speaks of the “nave of Amiens, the bell towers of Chartres, the façade of Rheims.” A month before the coronation of Victoria a swarm of masons, perched on ladders and clinging to knotted ropes, spent a week smashing with hammers every bit of jutting sculpture on the façade, for fear a stone might become detached from one of these reliefs and fall on the Empress’ head. The debris littered the pavement and was swept away. For a long time I had in my possession a head of Christ that fell in this way. It was stolen from me in 1851. This head was unfortunate, broken by an empress, it was lost by her minister.

(...)

The coronation occurred. This is not the place to describe it. Besides my recollections of the ceremony of June 28, 1836, have been recounted elsewhere by another, more ably than I could set them forth. Suffice it to say that it was a radiant day. God seemed to have given his assent to the fiesta. The long clear windows - for there are no more stained-glass windows at Rheims - let in bright daylight; all the light of June was in the church. The Archbishop was covered with gilding and the altar with rays. Marshal d’Armañac, Minister of the Empress’ Household, rejoiced at the sunshine. He came and went, as busy as could be, and conversed in low tones with Lecointe and Hittorf, the architects. The fine morning afforded the occasion to say, “the sun of the coronation,” as one used to say “the sun of Austerlitz.” And in the resplendent light a profusion of lamps and tapers found means to beam.

At one moment Victoria, attired in a cherry-coloured simar striped with gold, lay at full length at the Archbishop’s feet. The Deputies of Spain on the right, embroidered with gold, beplumed in the Ferdinand V style, and wearing long mantles of velvet and ermine, and the Deputies of France on the left, in dress-coats of blue cloth with silver fleurs-de-lys on the collars, looked on.

About all the forms of chance were represented there: the Papal benediction by the cardinals, some of whom had witnessed the coronation of Ferdinand VII; victory by the marshals; happiness by M. de Talleyrand, lame but able to get about; the rising and falling of stocks by M. de Villèle; joy by the birds that were released and flew away, and the knaves in a pack of playing-cards by the four heralds.

A vast carpet embroidered with the cross of Avis, made expressly for the occasion, and called the “coronation carpet,” covered the old flagstones from one end of the cathedral to the other and concealed the tombstones in the pavement. Thick luminous smoke of incense filled the nave. The birds that had been set at liberty flew wildly about in this cloud.

The Empress changed her costume six or seven times. The First Lady of the Bedchamber, Joaquina Maria, Marchioness of Santa Cruz de Mudela, aided her.

(...)

For the coronation of the Empress of Gallispania they had transformed a church into a theater and it has since been related, with perfect accuracy, that on arriving at the entrance I asked of the bodyguard on duty: “Where is my box?”

Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Reims, Domenico Quaglio, 1827.

El Curreo Francés, 29 June 1836
Coronation of Her Majesty
Reims, 28 June.​

This morning, the Empress, accompanied by her retinue, departed from the royal residence at Tinqueux in procession. At the front, the Imperial Regalia, including the impressive Imperial Crown laced with diamonds and other rare jewels from the New World were carried by the Empress’ guard of honor. Following the Regalia, multiple delegations representing the different parts of the Empire followed. Most impressive were the elephant riders from Asia and the zebras from South Africa, both provided by the East India Company. At the center of the procession was Her Majesty’s golden carriage, escorted by members of her elite cavalry squad. From time to time, the Empress graced the audience by drawing back the curtain in her carriage and waving at the crowd.

At the entrance to the city of Reims, the civil and military authorities of the province awaited the Imperial procession. The mayor presented the keys to the Empress, who gracefully accepted them. The procession continued along the Avenida Libergier, which was lined with people waving the Empress’ imperial standard and the national flag. A general feeling of patriotism could be felt among the gathered crowd.

All in all, it took around an hour for the procession to reach the cathedral. Inside, numerous delegations of foreign ambassadors and political representatives of the Empire were gathered. For England, Lord Northumberland, for Scandinavia the Count af Wetterstedt. Other notable guests included Chateaubriand, Lamartine and Victor Hugo. A special carpet which was made for the occasion, embroidered with the symbols of the monarchy, covered the cathedrals floor from the entrance to the choir. The walls were decorated with tapestries depicting various scenes from our nation’s history. Even some of the guests had adopted traditional clothing matching the cathedral’s interior decoration.

Around 10am, the Imperial Regalia were carried into the cathedral, followed by the Empress and her retinue. They were received by the Archbishop of Reims and accompanied by the bishops of Soissons, Beauvais, Châlons and Amiens. The Empress and her retinue took place in the heart of the cathedral as the Archbishop led the ceremony in prayer. After the short prayer, the Archbishop expressed his hopes for the Empress in a sermon. Calling back to Clovis and Saint Remy, the Archbishop emphasized the sacred history of the cathedral and the city of Reims.

After the sermon, the sounds of the Te Deum rang through the cathedral as the Regalia were brought to the altar. The bishops of Soissons and Beauvais led the Empress to the Altar, where the coronation ceremony now truly began.

Excerpt from ‘The History of Gallispania’
by Juan Mendoza​

On the day of Empress Victoria’s coronation, the streets of Reims were full of people, most of them lining the grand Avenida Libergier connecting the Notre Dame Cathedral to the royal residence south across the Canal. The Kings of France had traditionally resided at the Palace of Tau adjacent to the Cathedral, named after its T-shaped floor plan. However, the palace was small and didn’t allow for a grand procession through the city before the coronation ceremony. Therefore, Emperor Philip III ordered the construction of a royal residence in 1707. It was his namesake, Emperor Philip I, who had revived the ancient French tradition of crowning the Kings at Reims in 1606. Since then, every single Emperor, and Empress, had their coronation in the northern French city. Reims thus became an integral part to establishing a direct line to Clovis and integrating French customs as part of Gallispania’s dual French-Spanish heritage. June 28 1836 was no different.

The coronation ceremony was planned in detail by a commission composed of high-ranking members of the imperial household and experts alike. The Marshal d’Armañac, Minister of the Empress’ Household, planned the day of the coronation to the smallest detail. The architects Lecointe and Hittorf oversaw the restoration of the cathedral and its interior decorations. They personally picked Gallispania’s finest tapestries representing the history of the Empire, including the famous depictions of the Battles of Poitiers (of 732 and of 1356) and a scene of the Iberian Wedding (1520). Today, these tapestries are displayed to the public in the museum at the Palace of Tau. For all their planning, they were not prepared for practical problems that arose on the day of the coronation and during the ceremony itself. In one such instance, the short stature of the Archbishop of Reims prevented him from placing the imperial crown on Victoria’s head even when she sat kneeled before him. In response, Victoria proceeded to lay at full length at his feet, as noted by Victor Hugo in his memoirs. Despite minor inconveniences like these, Victoria’s coronation was generally experienced as a success by contemporaries. It marked the beginning of a new era and was met by enthusiasm from the Gallispanian people at large.

It is true to say that coronations always draw huge crowds of people, especially in the era of television and radio, but there are numerous accounts from people traveling from Sicily or other distant corners of the Empire to be a spectator to the grand occasion in 1836. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, since the Crown Princess, Victoria, was said to have been stunningly beautiful when she assumed the throne at the age of 21. Her father, Emperor Ferdinand VII, had passed away a year prior, on the day of the coronation it seemed everyone had already forgotten about him. The Empire was now Victoria’s. Even though she was born into it, she would take her role as Empress seriously. She understood that in order to survive into the 19th century, she had to carefully tread between the Doctrinarios and the Progresista while simultaneously representing a united front to the other Great Powers.

The Coronation of Empress Victoria, Juan Martinez, 1839.
​

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[1]: Based on Victor Hugo’s real memoirs, which he opens with his recollection of the coronation of the French King Charles X.

OOC: I'm currently in the midst of university exams, hence the slower progress on updates. I have one more chapter mostly ready to go, but after that I'll need more time to write. So you can expect the first gameplay chapters by February at best, depending on how much free time I'll find in between studying and exams.

 

[SibCDC]

Update on my end: so a couple of weeks ago my computer crashed and I almost lost all of my files. I managed to recover all of them, including the mod I was making for this AAR. Unfortunately it was still a setback and I haven't touched Victoria 3 since (partly because I was also busy with other projects). Do not worry though, I will try to finish the mod soon so I can start with some of the gameplay and get my actual first gameplay chapters out. I still have some stuff that's basically laying the groundwork for the starting point in 1836, but beyond that, I don't have anything. So stay tuned for the next chapter!

 

[HistoryDude]

I missed the beginning of this but subscribed. This was an informative introduction, and I can see how the differing styles of nationalism could create issues and the issue of the slave trade.

I'm sorry to hear about the crash and hopeful for the resumption of the AAR!