Part 24: Something Ain't Right

Despite it being my birthday today and Christmas tomorrow, I have a large Christmas post for you guys. Merry Christmas, y'all!

Chapter 14: Something Ain't Right



France decides to call the war with Italy off. The Italians had been making progress in driving the French off the peninsula, and France needs to deal with Prussia and the North Germans.



We've researched enough army, navy and cultural subjects to please our academic establishment, so we return to industrial matters. Work begins on researching Organic Chemistry.



We weren't aware of the high price of canned goods and small arms last time we mobilized and our standing orders to keep no less than 40 units of each in stock put us into debt. Nothing major, we will just raise tariffs and taxes for all but the middle class. At that rate the debt should be paid for within a year.



Immigrants continue to pour into the Republic; currently the primary source is Ireland.



The Nationalists have predictably won the election. The candidate replacing Charles Goodnight, who accomplished rather little in his term, is James "Old Leathercoat" Throckmorton. Throckmorton was a friend of Sam Houston and was the chairman of the Congressional Convention that convened four years ago when the Radicals gave up power, having been a representative to our Congress before that.



The lumber mill in Hawaii is completed, and as soon as we have some spare cash we'll educate some Hawaiians and put that factory to work.



We send a diplomat to the United States to increase our relations but it does not succeed. Relations between us are still rather good (+124) but we still secretly fear it may be a facade.



The Franco-Prussian War is beginning to take its toll on France.



Even though it appears as if little is occuring between the warring nations. Perhaps neither side is able to mount a successful offense.



We've paid up all our debt already and put in an order for some steamers. Next time we go to war with someone we want more transports.



While we are buying the steamers (steamer orders take a while to fill before the late game) we receive the latest census reports. The most prominent and exciting item is that our total population has exceeded 3 million. The 3,000,000th Texan was probably a poor Irish or French immigrant to Arizona or California.



We are now also the 20th greatest nation in the world. The United States is 6th, and Mexico is 26th.



We take a sampling of immigrants arriving in Arizona and find they come from Ireland, France, the Ottoman Empire (immigrants are cultural Greeks), and Italy. News of our grand Republic has spread throughout Europe.



Some immigrants have also moved all the way to Santa Cruz, where there are now small Italian and Serb communities.



The order for two more transport divisions is put in. Basing them in Corpus Christi will give us two transports in the Pacific and two in the Atlantic.



Organic Chemistry is finished, and next is Semi-Automatization which puts us on a path toward great technologies that with further the Republic's industry and increase production in its factories.



We've decided we would like the Bahamas back in our possession and have offered the Mexicans a deal for the islands. They nearly didn't accept, but President Throckmorton was able to convince the Mexicans of their inability to defense the islands and the worth of our industrial science methods.



Re-acquiring the Bahamas opens us to the possiblity of African colonization. First we will need a bigger naval base there, but we are currently low on funds and supplies so it will have to wait.



The capitalists in Austin announce that construction on an ammunition factory has begun in Texas. We are happy to see the continued industrialization of Texas, but we wish the state of Texas would receive as many immigrants as the more western provinces are. Its not clear we'll be able to spare enough pops for education to fill our current factories, much less another.



On November 1, 1871 the Austin Stock Exchange experiences its first crash, but it is minor (stock crash event is just -10% to rich taxes). Four days later the United States, unsuccessful in their assault attempts on Mexico City, settle for peace with Mexico, getting away from the war with only a white peace.



Our transports are soon completed and deployed to Corpus Christi.



France settles for white peace with the Free City of Bremen. It is questionable how much of a part Bremen had in the war and why France bothered.



We are able to get around to educating workers for the lumber factory in Hawaii.



The United States, despite all but ignoring our recent diplomatic visits, has guaranteed the independence of the Republic. It seems the US is committed to friendship between our nations regardless of differences between our governments. They haven't moved all those troops on our border yet though.



Our capitalists are doing well considering the recent stock crash. Southern railroad expansion is continuing. The railroad is Santa Cruz is progressing too.



This is great. Steamers are the most expensive item currently for trade after machine parts. This will be another use for Hawaiian lumber too. We applaud the Yankee capitalists for this; it will be a great boon to our economy and industry.



France now settles for white peace with the North Germans. While we imagine there could be many battles taking place but no land exchanged, it is more likely that there is a stalemate on the border and neither side is able to break it.



Mexico has resumed sending us diplomats following the end of the 4th American-Mexican War.




The Franco-Prussian War has been fairly boring, and the two sides settle for the status quo.



The end of August and beginning of September is eventful. Prussia has claimed that it was the victor in the Franco-Prussian War and declared itself the German Empire and has invited the three other German nations (NGF, SGF and Bremen) to join it, but they have yet to respond. France is on the warpath in Indochina again, and the 2nd French Republic, which overthrew Napoleon III over some scandal after the war, rooted out the Paris Commune, which had been attempting govern the city in spite of the Republic's government.

Our stock market crashed again, and semi-automatization was developed.



We are breaking from industrial research shortly to study Impressionism, which has likely already taken hold in Europe, but we are willing to sacrifice culture for industry and economy.



Two weeks after Prussia declared itself Germany, the three other nations responded. SGF was surprisingly the first to accept the offer of annexation into the German Empire (not shown), then Bremen and the North Germans accepted the offer, as was expected.



The new map of Europe. German unification consolidates a lot of power in central Europe now; it will be interesting to see who the top players in Europe turn out to be.



Germany seizes the seat of second greatest country in the world immediately upon its formation. Its industry is second to none and is also very presitgious and keeps a large and technologically fit military.



We've decided that we are tired of repeated American attempts at taking Mexican California only to come out of their wars empty-handed. We are going to get California for ourselves. First, we must move our troops out of Buena Vista.



Mexico values the provinces we took from them in our last war very highly. So much so that we are able to trade Buena Vista back to them for the price of £10000 and their last three Californian provinces.



New map of the Southwest. We are very pleased with the nice border between the Republic and the United States.



Our rank recently went up to 18th too.

While we are reviewing the new maps and national comparison documents, a messenger runs in.



War! Mexico has decided to forcefully retrieve the rest of their taken provinces. If the United States doesn't honor their guarantee of independence, they could regain that and more. At least we still have the £10000 they just gave us.