Part 7: , part 2

Chapter 3, part 2



The Americans have engaged Mexican forces in El Paso. The battle is actually fairly evenly matched, with the majority of the American invading forces running amok in Arizona and California, but it looks like the US will win this fight.



Study of Ideological Thought is completed, and we begin on High & Low Pressure Steam Engines, another technology that will change little on its own but enable very valuable and useful technologies later.



The Battle of El Paso continues; meanwhile the Whig Party wins the the U.S. election, putting Henry Clay into office. Clay had been opposed to the war, and almost all involvement with Texas, from the start. He promised he would not abandon the war effort but see it through to the end. "America may still benefit from this foul war the Democrats' have got us into." (The election dates are somewhat off for the US but its ignorable)



American forces have seized San Diego and El Rosario in California, Caliente in northern Mexico, and won the Battle of El Paso. Mexico has put up a very poor defence; where are the strong Mexica forces that invaded Kansas during the Revolutionary war, and nearly pushed the Americans back into Montana?



Perhaps they are on their way. The US forces in El Paso were in sore condition after the long battle, and two Mexican divisions have routed them and are digging in.




President Clay gives in to overwhelming popular sentiment in the American populace, and pushes American claims on the Oregon Territory against the British. The British are somewhat angered but give in, and America gains the newly renamed territory of Washington and Britain's claims in Oregon. We still hold a claim in Murray; will the US pressure us into giving that to them too?



The Mexican troops at Salt Lake City could not hold the line forever, and another gate into Mexico opens, with US troops flooding through.



Though Mexico is still holding off Americans at El Paso, the Mexican lands to the west of there are all but forfeit. We rush to broker a deal for San Antonio and Corpus Christi in exchange for many technologies, the Bahamas, and a £1000 support package. Also, we give them our claim on Murray; it was listed at the bottom of the document and we do not believe the Mexican ambassador knew exactly where Murray is. We counted on this.



The Mexicans accept the offer eagerly. At this point they need all the help they can get, and ceding San Antonio and Corpus Christi means they can focus on defending the more valuable southern provinces. When the US and the rest of the world hears of this deal, they are greatly displeased (down to 18 prestige, from 48).



Seeing the revised map of the Republic is worth the world's scorn. Corpus Christi was relatively easy to obtain; will the path to the Pacific be nearly as painless? We think not.

On the lighter side



Some rabbis have immigrated to Houston. They are the first Jews in Texas, and we welcome them. Shalom aleichem, y'all.



Rotten Boroughs in Corpus Christi. The Mexicans did a poor job of law enforcement.



High & Low Pressure Steam Engines is completed, we begin researching the concept of Interchangeable Parts. The current use for machine parts is the construction of factories, but we cannot build factories of our own under laissez-faire economics, so the primary benefit will be the inventions and technologies made possible.



Not much of the southwest is left for the Americans to seize. Once northern California falls, Mexico will suffer the full force of the US Army bearing down on their interior, a situation few countries could survive. Note that the United States has claimed Idaho, after seizing a claim in Murray that the Mexicans hardly knew they had.



The corruption is dealt with in Corpus Christi, and we receive new that the capitalists in Austin have begun construction on a fertilizer factory. This is excellent news. Not only will a second factory be very beneficial to our fledgling economy (assuming we can afford and have enough people to man them both) but fertilizer, being made from sulphur, is a valuable product that we can manufacture entirely from domestically produced material.



We are sending spare diplomats when we can, trying to raise US-Texas relations up to the point they were at before the sudden shift of attitude earlier, but not much progress is made.



The United States has seized the entirety of the Southwest. Mexico has been able to recapture Roswell, but it is too little too late. Mexico is going down, and hard.