1642: First English Civil War between Charles I and his Parliament begins, Royalists take Hull. Dutch invade the Spanish Netherlands. Austria and Bavaria push back against the Protestant Union. French suppress an anti-Richelieu uprising.
1643: Royalists defeat Parliament at Immingham. The 'Great German War' ends favorably for the Empire.
1644: Dutch occupy the Spanish Netherlands. Royalist Highlanders defeat Scottish Covenanter Lowlanders. Another force of Scottish Covenanters destroy a French expeditionary force. Denmark-Norway defeats Sweden.
1645: Royalists win the Battle of Naseby, First English Civil War ends in a Royalist victory. Charles takes mercy on Parliament and lets it survive but politically castrates it, then converts to Catholicism but issues an Edict of Universal Tolerance to appease his Protestant supporters. Imperial Union of Britannia declared with Papal approval. Holy League formed against the Turks.
1646: Swedish Empire destroyed. Second English Civil War begins.
1647: Dutch destroy a Spanish fleet at Santander Bay.
1648: Spain concedes defeat, leaves Dutch in total control of the Spanish Netherlands and recognizes Dutch independence. Second English Civil War ends with yet another victory for Charles. Turks defeated, forced to concede Peloponnese to Venice and Ottoman Hungary to Austria.
1649: The Great Trial of Treason is held by a much less forgiving Emperor Charles. Many MPs are executed or imprisoned, as are several important Puritan leaders. Parliament is closed down and Charles rules by decree as Britannia's absolute monarch. The Puritans, who had been some of Charles's most vocal opponents, are given two choices: to go 'to America or to hell'. The Irish finally drive out Protestant settlers with Imperial approval. Intent on punishing the Lowland Scots for their third act of defiance towards him (the first and second being the Bishops' Wars and First English Civil War, respectively), Charles institutes a policy of 'Scottish plantations', bringing in Irish and Catholic or at least High Church Anglican English settlers into Scotland en masse in an attempt to marginalize the Presbyterian Scots most heavily opposed to him. The Highlanders who consistently remained loyal to him are, of course, spared and in fact allowed to retain their autonomy under the terms of the Engagement of 1642.
1660: Charles I of Britannia dies, succeeded by his eldest son Charles.
1661: Charles II, a more reasonable man than his father, calls a second Parliament...and rigs the election to ensure the election of his close allies. This Parliament is termed the Cavalier Parliament.
1662: A son, also named Charles, is born to Emperor Charles and his wife, Empress Catherine of Braganza.
1666: Great Plague & Fire of London.
1678-1680: Titus Oates instigates a large anti-Catholic revolt in North America with allegations that Emperor Charles would take away the Puritans' colonial charter and enforce 'Popery'. Ironically, following the suppression of the Puritan uprisings, Charles actually does take away the pro-Puritan colonial charters and enforce the Edict of Universal Tolerance in a bid to encourage non-Puritan immigration, though he does not try to force Catholicism on the Puritans.
1685: Charles II dies, succeeded by his son as Emperor. Charles III, an absolutist like his grandfather and a devout Catholic like his uncle, is immediately challenged by his older half-brother James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and one of his father's many bastards. The younger Charles proves himself a capable military leader and defeats Monmouth at the Battle of Sedgemoor, then goes on to openly promote a pro-Catholic agenda.
1688: Parliament, outraged over Charles III's pro-Catholic agenda, offers the throne to his cousin, William III of the Netherlands. The plot is foiled however, and Charles not only suppresses Parliament but revokes the Edict of Universal Tolerance his grandfather issued. A Third English Civil War begins, but once again the Imperialists defeat Parliament. Like his grandfather, Emperor Charles dissolves Parliament indefinitely and rules by decree. The Holy Roman Empire is formally united under the Austrian Habsburgs.
1689-1691: The Great Puritan Rebellion breaks out in America once the authoritarian Governor Edmund Andros attempts to enforce Catholicism on the Puritan colonists, as per Emperor Charles III's orders. By the end of the year, the Puritans have expelled the British from the continent and proclaimed the Commonwealth of Columbia, with English Civil War hero Oliver Cromwell's son Richard as its first Lord Protector. Further attempts to retake the colony end in failure as Charles is more concerned with solidifying his powerbase back in the Home Isles, and the British presence in North America is reduced to Newfoundland, Rupert's Land and some Caribbean islands.
1700-1715: War of the Spanish Succession. Breaking from his father and grandfather's generally pro-French policies, Charles III takes action to prevent complete French hegemony over Europe and sides with the Grand Alliance of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and Savoy. Britannia conquers Canada, which they planned to use a base for future military operations against Columbia. Continental gains are as OTL.
1714: Lord Protector Richard Cromwell dies and is succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Peter. Britannia purchases the Cape Colony from the Holy Roman Empire.
1722: Charles III dies, succeeded by his son James as Emperor James I of Britannia.
1745: Lord Protector Peter Cromwell dies and is succeeded by his nephew Richard.
1753-1759: Six Years' War in Europe. Russia and France ally to defeat the Holy Roman Empire and the Netherlands, which had been menacing both of them, and come out victorious at a massive human and financial cost. Britannia enters the war late, in 1755, purely to seize the French and Dutch Asian and Caribbean colonies - which they finally succeed in doing - and promptly abandon the Holy Romans to their fate. In the process, the British further solidify their hold on India with a crushing victory over the French-backed Bengalis at Plassey.
1768: James I dies heirlessly. The throne passes to his relative Charles Edward, Duke of York, a descendant of Charles II's brother James, who takes the throne as Charles IV. Charles's brother Henry is made Duke of York in his place.
1772: Lord Protector Richard II Cromwell dies and is succeeded by his son Obadiah.
1775-1781: Columbia and Britannia go to war for the first time in nearly a century. Despite receiving considerable funds from the French (who were quite willing to overlook the Columbians' fanatical Puritan beliefs for a chance to get back at Britannia) the Columbians make little headway; their invasions of Canada and the British Caribbean flounder in the face of reinforcements from the homeland, British naval supremacy, and the inspired leadership of Governor-Generals
Guy Carleton and
the Marquess Cornwallis respectively, and the British impose a total naval blockade on Columbian ports following a crushing naval victory off the coast of Acadia. Further defeats on land follow as the 'Old Guard' military brass of the Commonwealth, especially Generalissimo and Commonwealth First Secretary Horatio Gates, refuse to listen to the more able younger generation or 'New Guard' officers (including men such as George Washington and Nathaniel Greene) and insist on doing things their way. The war ends with a restoration of the status quo antebellum.
1782: A cabal of younger officers led by Nathaniel Greene, furious over the defeat in the Great American War and made even angrier by the Old Guard's attempts to use them as scapegoats for said defeat, executes a coup to remove Lord Protector Obadiah Cromwell (already aged, senile and depressed over the death of his two eldest sons in the war) from power. The Old Guard allows the coup to go ahead, figuring that Obadiah's position had become politically untenable after last year's disaster, but steps in at the last minute to proclaim Obadiah's nephew Jebediah the new Lord Protector.
1788: Charles IV dies and is succeeded by his son Edward, who takes the throne as Edward I of Britannia. The British also begin colonizing Australia in earnest.
1790-1792: The Corsicans, led by nationalist
Pasquale Paoli, launch a revolt against the French and invite Britannia to become their suzerain. Emperor Edward, seeking a Mediterranean base for the Imperial Navy, agrees and starts the Corsican War of 1790-1792. In this mostly naval conflict, the British and Corsicans emerge triumphant and proclaim an Anglo-Corsican Kingdom with
Sir Gilbert Elliot named its first Viceroy. A certain
Horatio Nelson makes his name in this conflict.
1792-1795: The British prop up the
Zand dynasty in Persia with funds, arms and later advisers.
Lotf Ali Khan Zand holds on to his throne despite the efforts of
Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar to unseat him, though the Qajars remain in control of northern Persia with clandestine (and later, quite open) support from Russia.
1793-1799: George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney goes to Japan in an attempt to secure favorable trading rights and end the Sakoku policy of isolation. When Macartney failed to show proper respect to Shogun Tokugawa Ienari and nearly got himself killed, Emperor Edward took advantage of the relative calm in Europe to invade Japan, spinning Macartney's blunders into the 'heathen barbarians of Japan' threatening to kill a 'good gentleman of the Crown' for no good reason. Brigadier-General Benedict Arnold and Major-General John André are entrusted with joint command of the expedition (a mixed force of British regulars, Indian Sepoys and mercenaries) and defeat the outgunned and obsolete Japanese army in six years, having bribed several anti-Tokugawa daimyos to speed the process. André executes Tokugawa Ienari under orders from London. Emperor Edward, however, turns out to be completely insensitive toward Japanese culture and, ignoring Arnold's and André's advice, proclaims himself the new Emperor of Japan while ordering Emperor Kōkaku and his imperial family deported to India, which leads to...
(on a side note, Russia occupied Hokkaido with little trouble in 1798, when it had become clear that the Japanese were a step short of utter defeat)
1801-1818: Great Japanese Rebellion. Hundreds of thousands of furious Japanese revolt against the British and, led by Matsudaira Sadanobu, quickly overrun the countryside and place the major cities of Kyoto, Kagoshima and Hiroshima (the epicenters of the British colonial administration) under siege. They are relieved by reinforcements led by
Lord Paget. Over the next seventeen years André and Paget worked together to reconquer Japan, but even after capturing Tokyo in 1809 and Matsudaira Sadanobu's execution the following year Japanese guerrillas continue to operate until Paget, having inherited the title Earl of Uxbridge and taken over as Governor-General of Japan in 1812 following André's assassination by a Japanese radical, finally stamped out the last of them in 1818.
1812: Pressured by a military faction called the
'Goshawks', composed of younger and much more aggressive officers, Lord Protector Jebediah Cromwell goes to war with Britannia despite the urging of the 'Old Guards', a faction of conservatives and senior officers opposed to more wars with the British after the disaster of 1775-1781. The war starts off badly for the Commonwealth, as
Tecumseh's Indian Confederacy works together with
Isaac Brock's combined force of British regulars and Canadian militia to overrun the Northwest Territory, while Columbian ports soon came under blockade once again following
the Viscount Nelson's crushing victory over
Rear-Admiral Chauncey off the coast of Newfoundland. In the south, Governor-General
Alexander Hamilton of the British Caribbean stormed Florida and routed the Columbians under Colonel
Aaron Burr, killing Burr in the process. When
the Viscount Wellington arrived with a large army of British regulars and invaded Maine, Lord Protector Cromwell lost his nerve and signed a humiliating peace with the British, ceding the hotly contested territory of northwest Maine and Florida and also recognizing the independence of the 'Indian Confederation' in the
Northwest Territory.
1813: The Goshawks, furious over Columbia's humiliating defeat in the War of 1812 and capitalizing on the general population's discontent with the Cromwellian establishment, launches yet another large mutiny, this time intent on taking the Cromwell family down and destroying their Old Guard rivals for good. At an engagement near
Lexington, Massachusetts,
Winfield Scott and his mutineers defeat government loyalists led by
General Henry Dearborn and move on to capture Boston - and with it, Jebediah Cromwell and his family. A governing triumvirate consisting of
Brigadier-General James Breckinridge,
Rear-Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry and
State Councillor Henry Clay was organized with Breckinridge as Lord Protector, Perry as First Secretary and Clay as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
While initially willing to let Cromwell and his family live in quiet retirement in Kentucky, the triumvirate changed their mind when
Brigadier-General William Hull raised an army of Cromwellian loyalists and marched on Boston, loudly proclaiming his intention to restore Jebediah Cromwell to power and have the Triumvirs 'swing from the trees'. Lord Protector Breckinridge confronted and defeated Hull just outside the town of
Avon, after which the Cromwells were executed at the urging of Secretary for State Security
John C. Calhoun, who pointed out that the Triumvirs' political position will always be endangered as long as a Cromwell still lives for the remnants of the Old Guard to rally around. Other members of the House of Cromwell are hunted down under Calhoun's supervision.
1814: Not about to give up the Cromwellian 'Good Old Cause' just yet,
ex-General Arthur St. Clair rescues Jebediah Cromwell's cousin Ephraim from Calhoun's agents and amasses an army in Connecticut, where Cromwellian sympathies had always run high. While St. Clair's attempted march on Boston was initially successful, defeating first the
Massachusetts Militia and later
Brigadier-General Zebulon Pike's army at
Milville, he is defeated by
Andrew Jackson at the Battle of
Ashland, captured and hung as yet another traitor to the Commonwealth; Ephraim Cromwell had already been killed in the battle, decapitated by a cannonball while leading a cavalry charge into Jackson's ranks. This last decisive defeat, combined with the death of the last viable heir to the Cromwell name, spelled the complete collapse of the Old Guard faction and allowed the Triumvirs to consolidate their hold on Commonwealth politics.
1819: First Secretary Perry of the Commonwealth dies of yellow fever. The other Triumvirs, Breckinridge and Clay, agree to have John C. Calhoun to replace him.
1822: Emperor Edward I dies of a stroke. He is succeeded by his eldest son Alexander. Relations between the Puritan Triumvirs begin to decline, as all three are highly ambitious men and could not share power forever, and as a result three new factions emerge from the ranks of the Goshawks - a military faction revolving around Breckinridge with the objective of solidifying the military's control on government, a reactionary faction led by Calhoun that wanted Columbia to 'rediscover its Puritan roots' and included many radical preachers, and a liberal faction led by Clay with the objective of empowering the Commonwealth Parliament at the expense of the executive.
1825: Proving himself to be a relatively liberal monarch, Emperor Alexander calls the first Parliament in nearly two centuries.
1826: Breckinridge and Calhoun join forces to oust Clay and replace him with
Richard Rush, who (unbeknownst to Breckinridge) was an ally of Calhoun's. Clay's liberal faction is purged on Calhoun's orders, with half a dozen of his chief supporters receiving death sentences on trumped-up charges of treason and the rest imprisoned or exiled, and Clay himself is kept under house arrest in all but name. In Britannia, Emperor Alexander is horrified upon seeing what actually happens on a slave ship and issues an Imperial Decree of Universal Abolition, though he does provide former slaveowners with monetary compensation.
1830: Relations between Calhoun and Breckinridge collapse completely. Both men were actively plotting to remove the other from power, but Calhoun made the first move by personally arresting Breckinridge and accusing him of a large number of charges ranging from 'Popery' to 'selling military secrets to the British enemy'. Like with Clay, Breckinridge's military faction is swiftly and often messily purged, and Breckinridge himself mysteriously died while under house arrest in the winter. General Andrew Jackson is brought in to replace him as Lord Protector.
1835: First Secretary Calhoun decides to get rid of Jackson, having found him even less cooperative than Breckinridge, and arranges for him to die by the hand of Richard Lawrence, an insane citizen convinced that he was Lord Protector Richard I Cromwell. Lawrence's aim proves to have been unaffected by his mental state, and after privately celebrating his rival's death Calhoun has General
William Henry Harrison to replace him. The elderly Harrison proves to be a pliable puppet, and with his appointment Calhoun has effectively secured absolute power over Columbia in all but name.
1835-1836: Texas War. Texan independence fighters defeat Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna with Columbian aid and proclaim a free Republic of Texas.
1839-1842: First Opium War. Britannia goes to war with China to open up trading ports and force the Chinese to keep buying opium from them, and ultimately succeeds; Hong Kong is given to Britannia, and a humiliated China is forced to continue purchasing opium to feed their citizens' addiction.
1839-1845: Taking advantage of a minor border crisis with Sardinia-Piedmont, the French invade Italy in a bid to create another ally against the Holy Roman Empire. Despite the intervention of nearly half a million Imperial soldiers, the better-led and prepared French emerge triumphant and proclaim an Italian Kingdom under
the Duc d'Orléans in 1844. Indecisive fighting continued for another year before the compromise Peace of Lodi definitively ended the war, with the Imperials recognizing Louis-Philippe's Italy but the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and a rump Papal States (consisting of Rome and its surrounding territory) surviving as Imperial dependencies.
1840: Lord Protector Harrison dies from a cold contracted while giving a speech to reassure the Columbian people that he was not a puppet of Calhoun's. The First Secretary appoints
Ex-Colonel Richard M. Johnson as his replacement.
1841: Under pressure from the Colonial Secretaries for autonomy but unwilling to completely lose control over his empire, Emperor Alexander creates a third lower house, the Grand Colonial Assembly, in an effort to create a centralized imperial federation; instead of having devolved colonial parliaments, the citizens of Imperial colonies such as Canada and Japan would send their representatives straight to London, where their issues would be dealt with under the eyes of the Emperor himself. The Canadians are the first to send their MPs to London at the urging of
Viceroy James Bruce, Earl of Elgin.
1846-1853: Mexican-Columbian War. Touched off by the annexation of Texas into Columbia and some border skirmishes, the war began and ended disastrously for the Mexicans, who saw their entire country occupied by the Columbians. Mexican citizens are given two choices - convert to Puritanism or be reduced to second-class citizens and be denied political and military office - and whenever an area was deemed to have too many Catholics in it, it would be confiscated by the Columbian government and resettled with 'good Puritan families', further impoverishing the Mexicans who refused to convert.
1850: Lord Protector Johnson and First Secretary Calhoun both die in the same year, creating a power vacuum in the Lord Protector's Residence in Boston. To prevent the country from falling to pieces while still in the process of conquering Mexico, the New Model General Committee makes General
Zachary Taylor the First Secretary. Taylor never made it back to Boston - he died while still directing combat operations from Mexico City, which had been captured in 1848.
General Winfield Scott replaces him as First Secretary, and Scott would go on to make
Brigadier-General Franklin Pierce Lord Protector with the approval of the NWGC; neither man would actually return to Boston until 1853.
1852: Emperor Alexander I of Britannia dies and is succeeded by his nephew Edward, crowned Edward II of Britannia. The first Australian MPs take their seats in the Grand Colonial Assembly.
1853-1856: The Great American War is fought between Britannia and Columbia. Under Scott's leadership, the Columbians avenged the humiliation of 1812 and conquered the Indian Confederation, Florida and British Oregon, though they still failed to take Canada. Many thousands of Indians and Catholic settlers & missionaries fled the wrath of the Puritans, and those staying behind faced the choice of 'conversion or death'. Meanwhile, the Crimean War ends in a Russian victory, as the British were too distracted by the Great American War to intervene.
1857: Sepoy Rebellion in India. The disaster prompts Britannia to take direct control of the subcontinent, transforming it into the 'British Raj' and adding 'Emperor of India' to Emperor Edward I's long list of titles. The Indians are granted representation in the Grand Colonial Assembly, though no actual Indian would sit in the chamber until 1909.
1855: Having repeatedly clashed with Pierce over the issue of slavery and how best to integrate Mexico into the Commonwealth, Scott finally dismisses the Lord Protector and appoints
John C. Frémont his replacement. The first Japanese MPs arrive in the Grand Colonial Assembly in London.
1856-1860: In a bid to make up for the disaster that was the Great American War, the British join up with the Bourbon-ruled Kingdom of France and go to war with China once again, this time over the arrest of the crew of the Arrow, a Chinese ship that had been registered in Hong Kong. The war ends in a Franco-British victory and the opening of Shanghai, Xiamen, Canton (Guangzhou), Fuchow (Fuzhou) and Ningpo (Ningbo) to the world; these port cities are administered by a 'Legation Council' consisting of a British, French and Russian representative, a neutral entity independent of China and operating under the protection of the three powers. Russia also takes advantage of the conflict to take Outer Manchuria in the Treaty of Aigun. Britannia also receives Taiwan.
1857: The
Dred Scott case incurs the personal disgust of both Lord Protector Frémont and First Secretary Scott, and over the protests of his General Staff and the Council of State (and, of course, the entirety of the South) they issue a joint decree reversing it.
1858: Having proved to be a highly ambitious and impulsive Lord Protector who tried to restore some actual power to his office (little more than a ceremonial figurehead since the passing of Andrew Jackson) at the expense of the First Secretary, Frémont is replaced with
James Buchanan on First Secretary Scott's orders.
1861: Winfield Scott dies and is replaced by
General George McClellan. McClellan later replaces Lord Protector Buchanan with State Councillor
Stephen A. Douglas.
1863-1864/1881: Puritan conquest of Colombia and Venezuela. Generals
Ulysses S. Grant and
Robert E. Lee are jointly tasked with leading the invasion of the two countries. While both fall in a year, actually holding that territory and fighting off guerrillas proves to be a much tougher task, and while major guerrilla activity died down by 1881, 'border reivers' operating from Brazil and the Andes continue to plague frontier areas of the new Scott and Jackson Military Associations (Colombia and Venezuela, respectively). Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador unite into the Andean Confederation to halt any further American expansion.
1867: Upset that First Secretary McClellan was not considering another invasion of Canada after the victory in the Granada War (as the invasion of Colombia & Venezuela came to be called), a faction of hawkish officers within the New Model Army ousts him in the first military coup in forty-seven years and replace him with Grant, who had become highly popular following the Granada War. However, Grant also refuses to attack Canada, and when rumors that the disgruntled officers were about to try to depose him, he orders them purged. Douglas is replaced as Lord Protector by
State Councillor Hannibal Hamlin.
1870-1871: The Holy Roman Empire and France come to blows when King
Henri V attempted to buy Luxembourg, which Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand IV had been advised by Ministerpräsident
Otto von Bismarck would be an excellent opportunity to avenge the earlier defeat of 1839-1845. The French are swiftly and messily defeated, and the King is run out of the country. The Paris Commune is declared and proves impossible for the disorganized French Royalists to stop, and soon it becomes the Commune of France as the true extent of the people's dissatisfaction with the Bourbon absolute monarchy is revealed. Unwilling to enter another conflict so soon and satisfied with avenging Imperial pride in this war, Ferdinand IV decides against intervening against the Commune.
In a bid to prevent a 'London Commune' from forming under his watch, Emperor Edward reduces property and wealth requirements for suffrage in Britannia by three-quarters, while simultaneously putting Henri in power in Algiers and leaving him King in the French colonies.
1872: Lord Protector Hamlin finally pushes through the Emancipation Act of 1872, abolishing slavery in Columbia. Several large planter revolts in the South are messily suppressed by the New Model Army, and when it went over to the side of the rebels, Charleston is besieged and bombarded for six months until it surrenders to General Sherman.
1877-1878: Russo-Turkish War. Further stretching their muscles after the victory in the Crimea, the Russians bulldoze the Ottoman army in a relatively brief war. A Greater Bulgaria and Kurdistan are created as Russian satellite states, while the Russian de-facto puppets of Greece, Serbia and Romania are also expanded at the Ottomans' expense, and Russia snatches eastern Turkey. As his son, Prince Edgar Francis of Wales, had only recently married
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, in a bid to improve Russo-British relations, Emperor Edward ends up letting the Russians get away with this.
1879: Zulu-British War. The British invade Zululand and, after sustaining several major defeats such as Isandlwana, eventually overrun the African kingdom.
1880: Suffering from a weak heart, Lord Protector Hamlin retires from his post - the first man to voluntarily give up the office instead of dying while holding it (as many Cromwells and Richard Mentor Johnson had) or being kicked out of power by his own army.
James Blaine, a brilliant orator and senior State Councillor, is called up to replace him despite First Secretary Grant's personal misgivings.
1880-1881: First Afrikaner War. Britannia attempts to conquer the Afrikaner Freistaaten beyond the
Tilly River but fails and is forced to recognize Afrikaner independence; the defeat sends shockwaves throughout the Imperial Union.
1881: Tsar Alexander II 'the Liberator' of Russia survives yet another terrorist attempt on his life and implements his planned reforms for Russian government and society, eventually crippling radical revolutionary organizations (such as the one that tried to kill him) through a mix of said reforms (which placate the populace) and a number of crackdowns. Russia is set on the course to becoming a major industrial power.
1881-1890: Mahdist War in the Sudan. Led by a charismatic religious leader who proclaimed himself the Islamic Messiah,
Muhammad Ahmad, the Muslims of the Sudan rise up and nearly push out the British and Egyptians. Eventually, after the Mahdi's death in 1885 and with the aid of
Yohannes IV of Ethiopia, the British defeat the Mahdist fanatics. Ethiopia, whose Emperor had led a massive army to victory at
Gallabat and whose efforts in general had proved crucial to the British victory, is rewarded with recognition of Somaliland and South Sudan as their territory.
1882: First Secretary Grant retires from office and is replaced by
General Joshua L. Chamberlain. Lord Protector Blaine, already marred by accusations of corruption, is replaced by
Brigadier-General Benjamin Harrison. Britannia conquers Egypt while the weakened Ottomans, already under constant menace from the Russians and their pawns in the Balkans and Kurdistan, can do little but watch from the sidelines.
1885-1886: Great South American War. Columbia attacks Brazil and Britannia, secures northeast Brazil and British Guyana before a front stabilizes. Two failed attempts to invade Canada, one through the heavily fortified Niagara Falls and the other an attempted amphibious landing in Nova Scotia, convince First Secretary Chamberlain to cut his losses and settle for all that he had gained by that point. Royalist France, an ally of Britannia, also loses French Guiana, but makes up for the loss later in 1885 by conquering Indochina.
1890-1900: Nicaragua Canal constructed for exclusive Columbian use.
1895-1896: The Second Afrikaner War. Opened up by
a botched and unauthorized raid into the Trans-Tilly region, which nevertheless managed to kick off a small 'Uitlander' (British worker) uprising and gave the British all the excuse to intervene. A 500,000-strong modern army, drawn from every corner of the Imperial Union and placed under the supreme command of
Lord Kitchener, was deployed by the British in an attempt to avoid the catastrophe of 1880-81, and destroys the Trans-Tilly Afrikaner Freistaaten with violent overkill in a lightning campaign. Guerrilla resistance continues into 1905, however.
Not long after, the former territory of the Afrikaner Freistaaten,
Bechuanaland and the
two 'Lesser Rhodesias' are absorbed into the Cape Colony, which is then renamed Greater Rhodesia to
feed the ego of properly honor
Cecil Rhodes, Viceroy of the colony and architect of Britannia's expansion in the 'Darkest Continent'.
1896: Under heavy popular pressure for the past four years, First Secretary Chamberlain dismisses Lord Protector Harrison and names popular revolutionary
William J. Bryan his successor. However, Bryan's reformist agenda is too much for the Puritan military leadership to stomach, and he is conveniently killed via runaway carriage within six months, after which Harrison was restored to power. Several populist revolts break out following the assassination, but all are put down and their leaders executed.
1898: Spanish-Columbian War. The Columbians deprive the Spanish of their last major colonies, and Cuban revolutionaries who were initially elated to see the Spanish go are soon more than a little displeased when an order from Boston to 'convert or die' arrives at their front door.
1899-1901: The Boxer Rebellion erupts as a violent backlash to perceived foreign domination of Chinese affairs. In retaliation, Britannia, the Holy Romans, Russia, Royalist France and Columbia unite as the Five-Nation Alliance to forcibly restore order and enforce pro-Western policies in China. In the end, the Boxers are defeated, the HRE and Columbia get seats on the Legation Council, Russia 'indefinitely' occupies Manchuria, and the Qing dynasty is utterly humiliated.
1899-1902/1913: Philippine Revolution. The largely Catholic and Muslim Filipinos do their utmost to kick out the Columbians, who had been trying to shove Puritanism down their throats, but ultimately fail. The Philippines are methodically 'cleared out' for Puritan resettlement as a result.
1900: First Secretary Chamberlain retires, replaced by
General Elwell Otis.
1901: Lord Protector Harrison dies in office, the first to do so peacefully since Richard Mentor Johnson in 1850. Otis names
Major-General Theodore Roosevelt, a veteran of the Spanish-Columbian War, his successor, hoping that the ambitious Roosevelt would be satisfied with his shiny new (and, by this point, completely ceremonial) office.
1901-1907: Undaunted by the purely ceremonial nature of his office, Roosevelt actively worked to restore some actual power to the Lord Protectorate and tried to purge political corruption, especially in the form of state-supported trusts (which provided many Columbian officials in all levels of government with millions of dollars in kickbacks). He also worked to elevate a younger generation of officers, some of whom served with him, to replace the aging generation of senior military officers - including extremely powerful veteran commanders such as Otis himself,
General Arthur MacArthur and
General Adna Chaffee, none of whom were amused by (at least what they perceived as) his efforts to build an independent powerbase.
1902: In July, only a week after celebrating his Golden Jubilee, Emperor Edward II of Britannia is killed in an anarchist assault on his procession from
Windsor Castle to London, which opened with a number of bombs being hurled at the Imperial carriage and was followed up by a 'mop-up' crew of gunmen. Several other members of the Imperial family are killed in the attack before the last of the assassins were slaughtered or apprehended by the Imperial Guard and local police. The other notable casualties were:
-Edgar Francis, Prince of Wales. Killed instantly in the bombing with his wife,
Princess Mary of Wales. Was first in line to the throne of Britannia.
-Richard, Duke of Clarence and only son of the Prince of Wales, grandson of Emperor Robert. Killed trying to shield his wife
Duchess Mathilda from the blast with his body; fails anyway, as the Princess was mortally wounded by shrapnel and was found dead in his also-lifeless arms. Second in line to the British throne.
-Walter, Duke of Monmouth, second son of Emperor Robert I. Sustained only light injuries in the initial bombing, but was fatally wounded in the later shootout with the anarchist 'mop-up crew' - though not before putting a bullet in his assailant's eye. Third in line to the throne.
-James, Duke of York, head of the Yorkist Stuarts descended from
Emperor Charles IV's brother Henry and cousin of the Emperor. Killed instantly in the bombing. Sixth in line to the throne.
-Thomas Preston, Earl of Leinster and cousin to the Emperor. Wounded in the bombing, finished off by an anarchist gunman but managed to alert the Imperial Guards to his - and said anarchist's - position. Ninth in line to the throne.
The throne passes to Walter's son Robert, only a day ago the fourth in line to the throne, who was crowned Emperor Alexander II in the most somber coronation ceremony in British history. Permanently scarred (physically and mentally) from the attack, he promptly orders a brutal crackdown on the anarchist movement and, upon being told that the old punishment of hanging, drawing and quartering was impossible to carry out for 'violating public decency', ordered the surviving anarchist bombers and gunmen killed in that manner in a 'private' ceremony that he personally oversaw.
1905: The last Afrikaner guerrillas, weakened by British counterinsurgency operations and demoralized after seeing their families and friends packed off to concentration camps, turn in their arms. Peace is restored to the Trans-Tilly region at a severe humanitarian cost.
1906: First Secretary Otis resigns in ailing health, replaced by
Lieutenant-General Frederick Funston.
1907: Frustrated by Roosevelt's constant power plays and attempts at Progressive reforms (which threatened his bank account), First Secretary Funston orders the Roosevelts arrested. Finding himself politically isolated, Roosevelt decides to flee to Canada with his family and fight another day, eluding hundreds of State Security agents and convincing a border guard (whose wife was an ardent supporter of his) to let him through. Popular evangelist
William A. Sunday was chosen to replace him.
1908: Roosevelt secures tacit British approval to retake Columbia and promptly bankrolls a small army of exiled supporters, adventurers and mercenaries for a cross-border invasion of Columbia from Ontario. The 'Bull Moose', as he was called by both admirers and enemies, defeats both the New York Militia and New Model Army regulars in several engagements (most famously the Battle of
Auburn, where with a mere 3,000 soldiers he and his second-in-command
Leonard Wood routed an entire New Model division (10,000 men) led by
General Jacob Smith) and occupies Albany, New York in August, his army swollen to nearly 40,000 as supporters came out of the woodwork to assist him. However, First Secretary Funston amasses and personally leads 60,000 men up north to put him 'in the soil' once and for all, first defeating Wood at
Cortland and cutting Roosevelt's supply lines, and then laying siege to Albany. The city fell in November to an all-out attack, where nearly twenty thousand civilians lost their lives in the government's merciless bombardments and final assault, and Roosevelt's army was shattered - 8,000 of his men lay dead and nearly 30,000 captured; Roosevelt himself was taken prisoner.
Unfortunately for Funston (who had been looking forward to his execution), the 'Bull Moose' broke out of prison in late December and, once again eluding government agents and redoubled military patrols, escaped to Canada by land, sea and for the home stretch (and due to the heavy presence of New Model troops on the border), by air with
Orville Wright, touching down in Huronia in early 1909. In one of the most infamous events of his career as First Secretary to date, Funston lost his temper in public upon being informed of Roosevelt's escape and throttled the messenger, a young Second Lieutenant
George C. Marshall.
1909: The first native Indian MP, moderate reformist
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, takes his seat in the Grand Colonial Assembly.
1910: Russia formally annexes Manchuria and invades Korea, capturing Seoul in months and reducing King
Gojong to a puppet in the Treaty of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. War with Britannia is averted at the last second by the Treaty of Port Arthur, which granted the British
Jeju Island and an extra seat on the Legation Council.
Rule Britannia - the 1911 Alternate History IH
).
And i assume our Afrikaners are actually German?
