Trueeeeeee
Considering the year, I wonder if that was a Spanish flu related death?
😂
He’s a weird guy
Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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He’s a weird guy
Yeah, I give my vote to Serafini - he's conservative but not too conservative, and he might be more like Pio Nono in that he disappoints the lilberal elements early in his papacy.
I’m thinking maybe Serafini until he dies in 1918, then De Lai for a decade, which can explain how De Lai rises in power to the count of being papabile.
Best I can do is not full Deus Vult
There definitely will be one; the Church may like to present itself as a family, but it's more of a clan - they may present a fairly united front to the outside world, but oh my god is there a lot of internal feuding!
Personally, I always get a little nervous when TLs start having the Church drift in a more reactionary direction as it plays into some pretty long lasting and lingering, stereotypes in the Anglophone world (Not that such tendencies in the Church didn't, or don't still, exist mind you - they certainly do. But there full picture is much more nuanced than that; and this is often lost). Our esteemed author it doing a pretty good job it, so I'm not trying to paint him with that brush, but I do hope that we see the OTHER side as well.Which does bring up an intersting point - During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, some of the intellectual currents within Catholicism to create a more engaged Church which addressed workers rights and support Democracy, actually arose out of France and the United States. With France being solidly Bonapartist, the French school may be diminished somewhat (though certainly not fully) but the American Church is another matter entirely. And the Blessed Dorothy Day is going to be entering the picture sooner than later. I would be interesting to see if the Catholic Worker's Movement ends up catching on in Europe more so than it did in OTL; especially in the decades after the CEW.
And Rerum Novarum was still released somewhat on time in the Cinqo-verse - so at least the foundations of Catholic Social teachings exist along with it's dedication to workers rights and other issues are there and being accepted. It will be interesting to see how Integrationism and it's Catholic liberal alternative is going to interpret and work with those ideas
One thing you’ll see too (under the hood here a bit) is that Integralism will have some pretty spirited internal debates reflecting the internal schisms of Catholicism; while they all agree on ur-Catholicism as the backbone of government, there’s a tremendous amount of openness to Social Teaching, etc. So you could see, for instance, something similar to OTL’s Austrofascist government passing economic policies broadly similar to what a social democratic government might do, merely draped in the white cloth of clericalismThere definitely will be one; the Church may like to present itself as a family, but it's more of a clan - they may present a fairly united front to the outside world, but oh my god is there a lot of internal feuding!
Which does bring up an intersting point - During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, some of the intellectual currents within Catholicism to create a more engaged Church which addressed workers rights and support Democracy, actually arose out of France and the United States. With France being solidly Bonapartist, the French school may be diminished somewhat (though certainly not fully) but the American Church is another matter entirely. And the Blessed Dorothy Day is going to be entering the picture sooner than later. I would be interesting to see if the Catholic Worker's Movement ends up catching on in Europe more so than it did in OTL; especially in the decades after the CEW.
And Rerum Novarum was still released somewhat on time in the Cinqo-verse - so at least the foundations of Catholic Social teachings exist along with it's dedication to workers rights and other issues are there and being accepted. It will be interesting to see how Integrationism and it's Catholic liberal alternative is going to interpret and work with those ideas
All this discussion is making me think: I wonder how you could justify the election of a socialist Pope. The only socialist Pope in any alternate history I know is the one the Socialist Republic of Italy can impose in Kaiserreich
Somebody who's played footsie with liberation theology in their day, a la the current pontiff Francis, is probably the closest you can get to that.
As for the previous conclave entry - retconned to reflect Serafini's election.
An idea I dabbled with is Pope John XXIII living longer and being able to see off the conservative reaction. This then puts the Church on a generally more leftist direction which could see a liberation theologian eventually rise to the role a few decades later
That's not a bad idea. With the discussion yesterday and some more research I now have all Popes through 1957 plotted out (I'm debating if I should use Siri there, since I have him becoming Pope in Bicentennial Man) so a turn to the left during the 1960s would be nicely ironic, since ITTL the 1960s will have the reputation the 20s, 50s and 80s IOTL have for their conservatism rather than counterculture and social revolution. We'll see. But a longer-lived John XXIII is not a bad idea.
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A Bavarian Daughter in the House of Bonaparte
"...return from the Christmas and New Year holidays. The Emperor was insistent on retiring to Biarritz for the winter along with the girls; Helmtrud, for her part, was keen to get to Annecy by way of the Riviera, which was quiet this late in the year. It was at Toulon, where her sisters were attending a cousin's wedding, that Helmtrud finally gave in to her temptations and invited Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle back to her quarters at the end of the evening. De Gaulle was everything her nebbish husband was not - he was handsome, outgoing, virile, and had worldly interests other than reading the Bible and praying. Upon returning to Annecy, he was frequently with her and spent the night in her quarters more often than not, their affair becoming nearly an open secret amongst the small cadre of friends and clingers-on she had in the city.
In early February, Helmtrud became concerned about her lateness and made her way to Biarritz quickly, without de Gaulle, to spend a few nights with her husband. By March, her fears were confirmed - she was pregnant, and though her brief sojourn with Alfie on the coast hopefully created enough doubt, she was fairly certain that the life within her was not of Bonaparte blood. The Tuileries excitedly announced that the Empress was with child again, and the ailing Empress Dowager Marie-Pilar insisted that she remain in Paris for most of the pregnancy, which Helmtrud reluctantly did. 1914 dragged on and on, with a tremendous amount of fear about what would happen if the children were born and looked nothing like their father; rumors of her infidelity, though the partner was never identified, had already percolated at court for years, and though Alfie never probed or acted upon them, he and his mother - to say nothing of grandmother Eugenie - did nothing to squash them, either.
The Emperor's mother, Marie-Pilar, died on August 7th, 1914, [1] outliving her mother Isabella II of Spain by ten years and her husband Napoleon IV of France by a little less than a decade; she was only 53 years old, but always in poor health and largely closed off from the outside world in many ways since the close-together passing of the two most important people in her life. The death sent Alfie into a deep depression, and his grandmother's influence only grew, leaving Helmtrud even more reluctant to spend much if any time at an increasingly hostile, cloistered court in Paris which she described acidly as a "monastery" in a letter to her father. In early November, she went into labor, and birthed the twins Louise-Amalie and Josephine. Alfie was dismayed that once again she had not borne him sons, but thankfully for Helmtrud, the girls were nearly carbon copies of her; it was not immediately obvious who their father was, though as they grew older and displayed vigor and bravado that her older daughters did not have, she could reasonably suspect their parentage..."
- A Bavarian Daughter in the House of Bonaparte
[1] RIP another early player of the TL
In early February, Helmtrud became concerned about her lateness and made her way to Biarritz quickly, without de Gaulle, to spend a few nights with her husband. By March, her fears were confirmed - she was pregnant, and though her brief sojourn with Alfie on the coast hopefully created enough doubt, she was fairly certain that the life within her was not of Bonaparte blood. The Tuileries excitedly announced that the Empress was with child again, and the ailing Empress Dowager Marie-Pilar insisted that she remain in Paris for most of the pregnancy, which Helmtrud reluctantly did. 1914 dragged on and on, with a tremendous amount of fear about what would happen if the children were born and looked nothing like their father; rumors of her infidelity, though the partner was never identified, had already percolated at court for years, and though Alfie never probed or acted upon them, he and his mother - to say nothing of grandmother Eugenie - did nothing to squash them, either.
The Emperor's mother, Marie-Pilar, died on August 7th, 1914, [1] outliving her mother Isabella II of Spain by ten years and her husband Napoleon IV of France by a little less than a decade; she was only 53 years old, but always in poor health and largely closed off from the outside world in many ways since the close-together passing of the two most important people in her life. The death sent Alfie into a deep depression, and his grandmother's influence only grew, leaving Helmtrud even more reluctant to spend much if any time at an increasingly hostile, cloistered court in Paris which she described acidly as a "monastery" in a letter to her father. In early November, she went into labor, and birthed the twins Louise-Amalie and Josephine. Alfie was dismayed that once again she had not borne him sons, but thankfully for Helmtrud, the girls were nearly carbon copies of her; it was not immediately obvious who their father was, though as they grew older and displayed vigor and bravado that her older daughters did not have, she could reasonably suspect their parentage..."
- A Bavarian Daughter in the House of Bonaparte
[1] RIP another early player of the TL
Sure, he died of cancer, but the dude was already 81. How much longer does he have?
Very sneaky of Helmtrud, glad she got away with it. Nappy V, among his many other failings, doesn't seem like a great husband either so hopefully she finds happiness with De Gaulle.
I take a pretty dim view of adultery personally, but Helmtrud I make a big exception for thanks to the completely insane family she married into
He has, shall we say, l'Energie de la Bitte-Grande, if you know what I meanView attachment 790451
Dude is so badass he cucked the Emperor of France when he was a mere lieutenant.
Hell at Sea: The Naval Campaigns of the Great American War
"...early cases of a military operation bearing a specific codename. In this case, there were two parallel operations being planned as part of the Chile First Doctrine, and the one the Naval Department was responsible for was "Sledgehammer."
Despite Chile First largely being Admiral Mayo's idea, the vast majority of Sledgehammer's planning fell to Sims, as he was able to shuttle between his primary base at New London and Philadelphia to confer with Admiral Knight, and the operation - studied intensively to this day in nearly every naval college in the world - was his career-maker and one of the great magnum opuses of any admiral in history. Though the quiet, intellectual Sims didn't particularly care for Mayo's bluster, he agreed with the head of Pacific Command that to defeat the Bloc Sud, the United States had to gradually "tighten the noose" and that eliminating Chile's ability to threaten the Nicaragua Canal was key to this. Atlantic I Squadron was already positioned to keep the sea lanes between East Coast ports and the Caribbean open, despite harassment from Confederate torpedo vessels; control of the Caribbean basin was a prerequisite to being able to successfully blockade key Confederate ports. Several events had transpired in the opening months of the war to create favorable conditions for this, most notably that the failure by the Brazilian Navy to execute a coup de main in the River Plate had limited the room of maneuver for the Brazilian Northern Fleet (Armada do Norte) and forced them into a defensive posture in the Amazon Delta and its proximate ports, not wanting to take risks with their additional capital ships while the vessels that had fought Argentina to a draw underwent refits and repairs. This had created valuable breathing space for Axis operations and the time to strike was ripe. Betting that Brazil would not attempt to force an engagement in the eastern Atlantic, Sims formed out of Long Island Sound the Atlantic II Squadron under Admiral Joe Murdock and dispatched them, surreptitiously, to the Canaries, then on a "tour" of the western African coast, carefully only making port in countries not known to be particularly friendly to the Bloc Sud, such as the Spanish harbor in Fernando Po, or in Germany's barren colony of Sud-west Afrika. It was impossible to hide a fleet entirely - particularly as Atlantic II Squadron contained two dreadnoughts, the Connecticut (BB-15) and the Vermont (BB-17) the newest vessel in the fleet and the lead ship of its new, considerably improved class. With their considerable escorts including the pre-dreadnoughts Missouri (BB-9) and Nebraska (BB-11), itself the lead and sole member of its otherwise cancelled class that was rendered obsolete before it was put to sea in 1908, A-II was one of the most formidable task forces assembled in the war and of course impossible to hide; the Royal Navy shadowed them from near Cape Town, where they showed the flag, towards the Falklands, and British officers sympathetic to the Chileans made sure signals intelligence informing them of the approaching fleet that could only be headed in one direction made its way into the right hands.
Sledgehammer was not particularly complicated, in the end. Mayo quickly deduced what it was Sims was trying to accomplish with Murdock's A-II and gathered forces for P-I in the Gulf of Fonseca after his December relief of Nicaragua, including several vessels of the Nicaragua Squadron now that he had confidence in the ability to defend the area with the Bloc Sud screeners sunk, and then set off south. January was the middle of the South Pacific summer, a dramatic reversal from the conditions American vessels had faced nearly thirty years earlier when they attempted to fight Chile in the dead of the region's winter. A number of lucky breaks had accumulated for the two separate task forces in addition to relieving Nicaragua - the Peruvian Army had overrun Chilean Marines at Chimbote and retaken the city, and sporadic fighting along the frontier around Arica and the River Camarones had left Chilean border companies unable to seize either city. Northern Chile's infrastructure was designed almost entirely for the extraction of infrastructure - rail lines east-west from ports like Iquique or Antofagasta to nitrate, gold and copper mines, and the only way to travel north-south was by sea. This limited the ability of the Peruvian-Bolivian armies to do much other than harass Chilean border guards, as the road and rail networks in their own hinterlands were even more poor, but it also underlined how crucial control of the sea was for Chile and how limited its options were with fleets approaching from north and south both. Nor was there much good news for the small but professional Chilean Army in its land war with Argentina - there were very few avenues for offensives across the Andes, at least not ones that made much strategic sense other than protecting the pass at Uspallata, the most direct route to Santiago from the east, where there was some limited fighting - but the Argentines had little interest in expending resources in the theater either other than whatever was sufficient to prevent a Chilean crossing. The Andean theater was thus frozen but not forgotten, and it was clear that the decisive engagement would be at sea..."
- Hell at Sea: The Naval Campaigns of the Great American War
Despite Chile First largely being Admiral Mayo's idea, the vast majority of Sledgehammer's planning fell to Sims, as he was able to shuttle between his primary base at New London and Philadelphia to confer with Admiral Knight, and the operation - studied intensively to this day in nearly every naval college in the world - was his career-maker and one of the great magnum opuses of any admiral in history. Though the quiet, intellectual Sims didn't particularly care for Mayo's bluster, he agreed with the head of Pacific Command that to defeat the Bloc Sud, the United States had to gradually "tighten the noose" and that eliminating Chile's ability to threaten the Nicaragua Canal was key to this. Atlantic I Squadron was already positioned to keep the sea lanes between East Coast ports and the Caribbean open, despite harassment from Confederate torpedo vessels; control of the Caribbean basin was a prerequisite to being able to successfully blockade key Confederate ports. Several events had transpired in the opening months of the war to create favorable conditions for this, most notably that the failure by the Brazilian Navy to execute a coup de main in the River Plate had limited the room of maneuver for the Brazilian Northern Fleet (Armada do Norte) and forced them into a defensive posture in the Amazon Delta and its proximate ports, not wanting to take risks with their additional capital ships while the vessels that had fought Argentina to a draw underwent refits and repairs. This had created valuable breathing space for Axis operations and the time to strike was ripe. Betting that Brazil would not attempt to force an engagement in the eastern Atlantic, Sims formed out of Long Island Sound the Atlantic II Squadron under Admiral Joe Murdock and dispatched them, surreptitiously, to the Canaries, then on a "tour" of the western African coast, carefully only making port in countries not known to be particularly friendly to the Bloc Sud, such as the Spanish harbor in Fernando Po, or in Germany's barren colony of Sud-west Afrika. It was impossible to hide a fleet entirely - particularly as Atlantic II Squadron contained two dreadnoughts, the Connecticut (BB-15) and the Vermont (BB-17) the newest vessel in the fleet and the lead ship of its new, considerably improved class. With their considerable escorts including the pre-dreadnoughts Missouri (BB-9) and Nebraska (BB-11), itself the lead and sole member of its otherwise cancelled class that was rendered obsolete before it was put to sea in 1908, A-II was one of the most formidable task forces assembled in the war and of course impossible to hide; the Royal Navy shadowed them from near Cape Town, where they showed the flag, towards the Falklands, and British officers sympathetic to the Chileans made sure signals intelligence informing them of the approaching fleet that could only be headed in one direction made its way into the right hands.
Sledgehammer was not particularly complicated, in the end. Mayo quickly deduced what it was Sims was trying to accomplish with Murdock's A-II and gathered forces for P-I in the Gulf of Fonseca after his December relief of Nicaragua, including several vessels of the Nicaragua Squadron now that he had confidence in the ability to defend the area with the Bloc Sud screeners sunk, and then set off south. January was the middle of the South Pacific summer, a dramatic reversal from the conditions American vessels had faced nearly thirty years earlier when they attempted to fight Chile in the dead of the region's winter. A number of lucky breaks had accumulated for the two separate task forces in addition to relieving Nicaragua - the Peruvian Army had overrun Chilean Marines at Chimbote and retaken the city, and sporadic fighting along the frontier around Arica and the River Camarones had left Chilean border companies unable to seize either city. Northern Chile's infrastructure was designed almost entirely for the extraction of infrastructure - rail lines east-west from ports like Iquique or Antofagasta to nitrate, gold and copper mines, and the only way to travel north-south was by sea. This limited the ability of the Peruvian-Bolivian armies to do much other than harass Chilean border guards, as the road and rail networks in their own hinterlands were even more poor, but it also underlined how crucial control of the sea was for Chile and how limited its options were with fleets approaching from north and south both. Nor was there much good news for the small but professional Chilean Army in its land war with Argentina - there were very few avenues for offensives across the Andes, at least not ones that made much strategic sense other than protecting the pass at Uspallata, the most direct route to Santiago from the east, where there was some limited fighting - but the Argentines had little interest in expending resources in the theater either other than whatever was sufficient to prevent a Chilean crossing. The Andean theater was thus frozen but not forgotten, and it was clear that the decisive engagement would be at sea..."
- Hell at Sea: The Naval Campaigns of the Great American War
War in the Cone
TRIGGER WARNING
"...lest the Brazilians thought that conquering Montevideo and imposing Saravia's Presidency top-down was the end, the city remained plagued by violence for months to come. Ordinary Uruguayans deeply resented their treatment by occupying Brazilian forces and even their own countrymen; while not all Montevideans were avid Colorados, they viewed the Luso-Uruguayans who made the backbone of the Blancos as reactionary bumpkins who did not even share their language. The contempt was mutual. The infamously decentralized Blanco paramilitaries, set loose and without any semblance of a Uruguayan gendarmerie or army left, often acted as little better than common criminals, quickly forming territories for various protection rackets and smuggling operations in the war-torn and isolated city. As many as half of all Montevidean women and older girls were raped or assaulted in 1914 alone; civilian men were routinely rounded up and executed en masse when Colorado-affiliated gangs killed their occupiers, and boys as young as ten were castrated to prevent "more Colorado cockroaches," a novel and horrifying act of politicide based on suspected partisan sympathy. Rather than ending the Uruguayan civil conflict, the behavior of the victorious Blancos only deepened the hatred the majority of Uruguayans had for them, particularly in the capital.
Brazilian forces, to their credit, mostly did not participate in the debauchery and those who did were severely punished, but Hermes da Fonseca declined to use them to reprimand their allies, as they were "outside of jurisdiction" for proper behavior by occupying forces. In reality, Fonseca [1] privately cared little what the Blancos got up to and saw some value in having some distance between his own "noble" forces and local "irregulars" who could terrorize their countrymen into compliance with the occupation and coming Brazilian suzerainty..." [2]
- War in the Cone
[1] He isn't quite a Tillman or Jix figure, but you should absolutely consider Hermes da Fonseca one of the TL's "villains"
[2] Because as history shows us, this totally works without any problems
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