Frankie Goes to the Hofburg, or Napoléon II, Regent of Austria?
Dont they contradict each other?
Or are they different.
Your description seems to indicate that both are the same Windischgratz of 1848 infamy of otl.
thanks for catching that. Given that Windischgrätz has a "speaking" part in Chapter The Emperor is Playing the Violin it'll have to change it some other general.
so, Maxi is at Cadix (and was thinking of maybe dipping into the Spanish scene next)... was there anything "important" going on in Spain in 1848. Did they also take part in the "year of revolutions" OTL? Should they TTL?
@Ramontxo @Nuraghe @isabella @Drex @HeavyMetal
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sincerely Kellan, here I don't think I can be of much help to you, the only things I know about this period of Isabella's reign concern her moderate period which lasts from 1844 to 1854, of the small uprisings that hit the center of the country but easily sedated ( in this year ) and the breaking of diplomatic relations with Great Britain because they were accused of having supported the second Chartist war ( ah I always forgot in this period there were many governments within a few months ) I can't tell you more, sorry
Narvaez as a moderado /conservative is still likely to be PM, no? The Carlist War of 1846 and the rebellion were (in part) because there was opposition to his some of his policies weren't they?
¡Alto! ¿Quien Vive?
Hope you enjoy the Spanish eyeview @Ramontxo
Soundtrack: Miquel Carnicer i Batlle - Variaciones sobre un Tema de Bellini
*exterior* *Bern, Switzerland* *a military procession wearing the uniform of the Sonderbund forces is triumphantly entering the city* *however, on a litter at the head of the procession is the grievously injured Carlo Alberto, former King of Sardinia*
*exterior* *Madrid* *we see the Boinas Rojas accompanying the coaches with Archduke Maximilian, the Erbprinz of Kassel, the Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaïevna, their son, and Grand Duke Konstantin to La Granja*
*exterior* *La Granja* *Maximilian is walking with King Carlos and Queen Isabel*
16yo Maximilian: what will be done to the count?
Carlos: Conde Lucena[1]? He will be court martialled for his behaviour, of course.
Maximilian: and if guilty?
Isabel: your Imperial Highness, we are not savages. If he’s found to be guilty of anything, then he will be stripped of his rank and kicked from the army..
Maximilian: what of the other men implicated in his…failed rebellion?
*flashback to the Conde Lucena rabble-rousing and inciting a mutiny by a large number of troops and civilians in the streets of Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Madrid* *the royal army under Commandant Buceta[2] leading the fighting in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid*
Carlos: *half sighing as he realizes this argument is going in circles* they will be dealt with accordingly.
Maximilian: meaning they will be executed.
Carlos: and what would your Imperial Highness have us do with them? Allow them to remain in the barracks and infect the entire army? Or perhaps we are to simply-
Maximilian: grant them clemency.
Carlos: *looks at him as though he is absolutely insane for this suggestion*
Maximilian: otherwise your Majesty is exactly what everyone believes you to be.
Carlos: *clearly irritable* and what is that?
Maximilian: a bigoted tyrant who can’t see past the end of his nose.
Isabel: *looks irritable* and who believes this?
Maximilian: everyone *tone adds the “of course”* the way your Majesties rule is closer to the eighteenth than the nineteenth centuries and-
Isabel: *draws herself up* and we are to be lectured in this by an archduke who…last I checked…has been on a round the world gallivant with no knowledge of what has been going on in his state, much less to worry about how we rule in Spain.
Maximilian: it is true, your Majesty, that I have been absent. But I am not ignorant.
Isabel: your Imperial Highness will forgive my disbelief at that. You are young. You have ideas. To you…ruling is as writing on unfeeling paper. A monarch writes on human skin, which recoils from the slightest injury[3].
Maximilian: if your Majesty is so concerned with human flesh then perhaps you should not punish these men.
Isabel: and you propose what? That I reward them?
Carlos: *makes an attempt to calm the waters*
Isabel: *ignoring her husband* do you know why the Conde Lucena decided to lead his mutiny, your Imperial Highness? Since you are not ignorant, you must surely know this?
Maximilian: I confess, Madame, I do not. However-
Isabel: there is no however, sir. Lucena incited others to join in his mutiny because they shared his ideas. But it is not because of his ideals that he rebelled. He behaved so in order to attempt to escape punishment for offenses far more serious.
*flashback to Lucena’s removal as governor of Cuba – and return to Spain as a prisoner – by order of their Majesties, to answer for his maltreatment of the freed slaves during his tenure[4]*
Isabel: surely your cousin, Reichstadt, would dismiss a man from his post for such behaviour?
Maximilian: *quiet*
Carlos: we also cannot ignore the murder of Field Marshal Fulgosio[5] and that Lucena or one of his party is directly responsible for this act of barbarity.
Maximilian: your Majesties will never quiet Spain if people believe that they are under attack for their beliefs.
Carlos: and that is where your Imperial Highness and I differ. Spain had the Inquisition for four hundred years, and while there were enough uprisings, none of them had to do with the Inquisition.
Maximilian: but this is a different time, sir. Different ideas-
Carlos: which I am sure that your brother, the future emperor, will be happy to listen to.
Maximilian: -he and your Majesties back a losing horse in Mexico. And here as well. The world is changing, life is changing-
Isabel: we are not backing any horse in Mexico-
Maximilian: that is not how it looks to the rest of the world. It seems as though you wish to reclaim Mexico through a proxy.
Isabel: *half amusedly* is this what everyone says?
Maximilian: *quiet*
Isabel: then I suppose we were also behind our former lands in Yucatán and Costa Rica both deciding to join with Mexico? I assure your Imperial Highness, that not a single Spanish reale less so much as a Spanish uniform button will be found in Mexico. Regardless of what the Yanquis or the Ingles say.
Maximilian: how long do you think it will be before D. Iturbide returns to Europe with his tail between his legs? When the Yanquis and the liberales send him-
Isabel: *laughs*
Carlos: *smiles indulgently* I see your Imperial Highness’ game from the corner of my eye
Maximilian: *confused* game? No game, I assure you
Carlos: not to you, no. But you are young. You are a child of summer who has never fought a war. To you…everything is black and white, right or wrong. You haven’t learned yet that it is all woven together- the commendable and the terrible- in a crazy tapestry. You believe the liberals are right-
Maximilian: that is not what I said.
Carlos: it is what you believe. To which I would put it to you that it was us who signed the edict abolishing slavery. It is D. Agustin who has abolished slavery. Neither the most recent incarnation of the French Republic nor those Yanquis you seem to admire have done so. In fact, the Yanquis sit in Mexico City and murder the locals. They loot. They rape. Just as the French did to Spain in the name of “liberty, equality and fraternity”-
Maximilian: *opens his mouth to protest*
Carlos: if the liberals are such wonderworkers, then why is it that our cousin[6] has left for Posen where the Poles are rebelling against the Prussian Republic?
Maximilian: *half-snooty* because they are Poles. Rebelling is something of a national sport for them.
Isabel: *puts out hand to be kissed* *indicating that the “lesson” is over*
*cut to a crestfallen Maxi walking away* *or, more precisely, reacting like a typical teenager when the grown-ups tell him to “go fly a kite”*
*he kicks a stone*
Infanta Luisa Fernanda: *having hurried after him* *calmly* if it makes you feel any better…they ignore me when I talk as well.
Maximilian: *looks at her*
Luisa Fernanda: sometimes I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a room screaming I’m on fire and nobody even looks up.
Maximilian: *seems to brighten considerably at this news*
*fade out with he and Luisa strolling through the gardens, arm-in-arm*
[1] Better known as Leopoldo O’Donnell. While O’Donnell was a liberal OTL, in typical Jacobite fashion, his father and brother both fought for the Carlists.
[2] Manuel Buceta del Villar
[3] Isabel paraphrasing Catherine the Great was too good an opportunity to pass up
[4] The so-called “Year of the Lash” in Cuba
[5] José Fulgosio y Villavicencio was in charge of putting down the forces but killed, not in the fighting, but by a revolutionary taking aim at him from a balcony behind the barricade. On an unrelated note (pardon the pun) Fulgosio’s wife is sister to Isabel II’s stepfather, Agustin Muñoz. Hence, regardless of how she may or may not feel about her mother/stepfather, this is essentially the murder of the queen’s uncle. Although I wonder if she and Carlos have shared the thought, when looking at their father-in-law/father that “it’s the wrong uncle who died”
[6] Prince Poniatowski, married to the duc de Cadix’s oldest daughter
@The_Most_Happy @isabella @VVD0D95 @Jan Olbracht @Zygmunt Stary @SealTheRealDeal @HortenseMancini @Anarch King of Dipsodes @Dragonboy @kaiidth @SavoyTruffle @Wendell @Fehérvári @Guatemalan Nat-Synd @Valena @maw @LordMartinax @EmmettMcFly55 @Sarthak @Nuraghe @renard_ @JustinTexas @monteirobert @Nightbrainzzz @KingRevolt @Project98 @VB.rainer @KingRevolt @King of Danes @Hafiz van Gresik @nathanael1234
Soundtrack: Miquel Carnicer i Batlle - Variaciones sobre un Tema de Bellini
*exterior* *Bern, Switzerland* *a military procession wearing the uniform of the Sonderbund forces is triumphantly entering the city* *however, on a litter at the head of the procession is the grievously injured Carlo Alberto, former King of Sardinia*
*exterior* *Madrid* *we see the Boinas Rojas accompanying the coaches with Archduke Maximilian, the Erbprinz of Kassel, the Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaïevna, their son, and Grand Duke Konstantin to La Granja*
*exterior* *La Granja* *Maximilian is walking with King Carlos and Queen Isabel*
16yo Maximilian: what will be done to the count?
Carlos: Conde Lucena[1]? He will be court martialled for his behaviour, of course.
Maximilian: and if guilty?
Isabel: your Imperial Highness, we are not savages. If he’s found to be guilty of anything, then he will be stripped of his rank and kicked from the army..
Maximilian: what of the other men implicated in his…failed rebellion?
*flashback to the Conde Lucena rabble-rousing and inciting a mutiny by a large number of troops and civilians in the streets of Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Madrid* *the royal army under Commandant Buceta[2] leading the fighting in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid*
Carlos: *half sighing as he realizes this argument is going in circles* they will be dealt with accordingly.
Maximilian: meaning they will be executed.
Carlos: and what would your Imperial Highness have us do with them? Allow them to remain in the barracks and infect the entire army? Or perhaps we are to simply-
Maximilian: grant them clemency.
Carlos: *looks at him as though he is absolutely insane for this suggestion*
Maximilian: otherwise your Majesty is exactly what everyone believes you to be.
Carlos: *clearly irritable* and what is that?
Maximilian: a bigoted tyrant who can’t see past the end of his nose.
Isabel: *looks irritable* and who believes this?
Maximilian: everyone *tone adds the “of course”* the way your Majesties rule is closer to the eighteenth than the nineteenth centuries and-
Isabel: *draws herself up* and we are to be lectured in this by an archduke who…last I checked…has been on a round the world gallivant with no knowledge of what has been going on in his state, much less to worry about how we rule in Spain.
Maximilian: it is true, your Majesty, that I have been absent. But I am not ignorant.
Isabel: your Imperial Highness will forgive my disbelief at that. You are young. You have ideas. To you…ruling is as writing on unfeeling paper. A monarch writes on human skin, which recoils from the slightest injury[3].
Maximilian: if your Majesty is so concerned with human flesh then perhaps you should not punish these men.
Isabel: and you propose what? That I reward them?
Carlos: *makes an attempt to calm the waters*
Isabel: *ignoring her husband* do you know why the Conde Lucena decided to lead his mutiny, your Imperial Highness? Since you are not ignorant, you must surely know this?
Maximilian: I confess, Madame, I do not. However-
Isabel: there is no however, sir. Lucena incited others to join in his mutiny because they shared his ideas. But it is not because of his ideals that he rebelled. He behaved so in order to attempt to escape punishment for offenses far more serious.
*flashback to Lucena’s removal as governor of Cuba – and return to Spain as a prisoner – by order of their Majesties, to answer for his maltreatment of the freed slaves during his tenure[4]*
Isabel: surely your cousin, Reichstadt, would dismiss a man from his post for such behaviour?
Maximilian: *quiet*
Carlos: we also cannot ignore the murder of Field Marshal Fulgosio[5] and that Lucena or one of his party is directly responsible for this act of barbarity.
Maximilian: your Majesties will never quiet Spain if people believe that they are under attack for their beliefs.
Carlos: and that is where your Imperial Highness and I differ. Spain had the Inquisition for four hundred years, and while there were enough uprisings, none of them had to do with the Inquisition.
Maximilian: but this is a different time, sir. Different ideas-
Carlos: which I am sure that your brother, the future emperor, will be happy to listen to.
Maximilian: -he and your Majesties back a losing horse in Mexico. And here as well. The world is changing, life is changing-
Isabel: we are not backing any horse in Mexico-
Maximilian: that is not how it looks to the rest of the world. It seems as though you wish to reclaim Mexico through a proxy.
Isabel: *half amusedly* is this what everyone says?
Maximilian: *quiet*
Isabel: then I suppose we were also behind our former lands in Yucatán and Costa Rica both deciding to join with Mexico? I assure your Imperial Highness, that not a single Spanish reale less so much as a Spanish uniform button will be found in Mexico. Regardless of what the Yanquis or the Ingles say.
Maximilian: how long do you think it will be before D. Iturbide returns to Europe with his tail between his legs? When the Yanquis and the liberales send him-
Isabel: *laughs*
Carlos: *smiles indulgently* I see your Imperial Highness’ game from the corner of my eye
Maximilian: *confused* game? No game, I assure you
Carlos: not to you, no. But you are young. You are a child of summer who has never fought a war. To you…everything is black and white, right or wrong. You haven’t learned yet that it is all woven together- the commendable and the terrible- in a crazy tapestry. You believe the liberals are right-
Maximilian: that is not what I said.
Carlos: it is what you believe. To which I would put it to you that it was us who signed the edict abolishing slavery. It is D. Agustin who has abolished slavery. Neither the most recent incarnation of the French Republic nor those Yanquis you seem to admire have done so. In fact, the Yanquis sit in Mexico City and murder the locals. They loot. They rape. Just as the French did to Spain in the name of “liberty, equality and fraternity”-
Maximilian: *opens his mouth to protest*
Carlos: if the liberals are such wonderworkers, then why is it that our cousin[6] has left for Posen where the Poles are rebelling against the Prussian Republic?
Maximilian: *half-snooty* because they are Poles. Rebelling is something of a national sport for them.
Isabel: *puts out hand to be kissed* *indicating that the “lesson” is over*
*cut to a crestfallen Maxi walking away* *or, more precisely, reacting like a typical teenager when the grown-ups tell him to “go fly a kite”*
*he kicks a stone*
Infanta Luisa Fernanda: *having hurried after him* *calmly* if it makes you feel any better…they ignore me when I talk as well.
Maximilian: *looks at her*
Luisa Fernanda: sometimes I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a room screaming I’m on fire and nobody even looks up.
Maximilian: *seems to brighten considerably at this news*
*fade out with he and Luisa strolling through the gardens, arm-in-arm*
[1] Better known as Leopoldo O’Donnell. While O’Donnell was a liberal OTL, in typical Jacobite fashion, his father and brother both fought for the Carlists.
[2] Manuel Buceta del Villar
[3] Isabel paraphrasing Catherine the Great was too good an opportunity to pass up
[4] The so-called “Year of the Lash” in Cuba
[5] José Fulgosio y Villavicencio was in charge of putting down the forces but killed, not in the fighting, but by a revolutionary taking aim at him from a balcony behind the barricade. On an unrelated note (pardon the pun) Fulgosio’s wife is sister to Isabel II’s stepfather, Agustin Muñoz. Hence, regardless of how she may or may not feel about her mother/stepfather, this is essentially the murder of the queen’s uncle. Although I wonder if she and Carlos have shared the thought, when looking at their father-in-law/father that “it’s the wrong uncle who died”
[6] Prince Poniatowski, married to the duc de Cadix’s oldest daughter
@The_Most_Happy @isabella @VVD0D95 @Jan Olbracht @Zygmunt Stary @SealTheRealDeal @HortenseMancini @Anarch King of Dipsodes @Dragonboy @kaiidth @SavoyTruffle @Wendell @Fehérvári @Guatemalan Nat-Synd @Valena @maw @LordMartinax @EmmettMcFly55 @Sarthak @Nuraghe @renard_ @JustinTexas @monteirobert @Nightbrainzzz @KingRevolt @Project98 @VB.rainer @KingRevolt @King of Danes @Hafiz van Gresik @nathanael1234
@Anarch King of Dipsodes would it be ASB for Clay to try "peacing out" with Mexico (if only to get his son- who's still Agustin's hostage- home) before the end of his term. And if he doesn't, who's likely to be the nominees in November 1848?
Because he was given a long leash to listen to idiots that parrot ideas without knowing anything about them.
sadly, he never seems to have outgrown that naiveté, since his whole reason for taking up the crown of Mexico was "wanting to be of some service to humanity". He couldn't do that in Austria for some reason?
Maxi isn't being stupid so much as he's being a teenager. He's trying to tell them that he knows best. While his "round the world tour" has been good in that he's learned discipline and he may be a far better sailor than OTL, he has been in a sort of "liberal hothouse" since they left Prince Bernhard behind in Batavia. That's not to say Fritz of Hesse, Adini, Kostya, or their other "stray" Prince Waldemar of Prussia are all liberals of the same stripe as Maxi- case in point that if any of them were present with him, I think they'd bring him to heel very quickly.- but they have only so much control. Adini's been dealing with a baby, Fritz is actually the one "in charge" and while Adini can bring her brother under control- like most older sisters can- Maxi sort of has free run.
As Carlos has said: "you know…when Frankie first spoke to me, I saw the world as black and white. Right and wrong. Heaven and Hell. We were on the side of the righteous, he was the Devil’s coachman"
Not only that but he lectures Carlos and Isabel about how their regime is seen. Isabel mockingly asks him "who" believes Maxi's comment about her husband (and by extension, herself) being a bigoted tyrant, he responds with a lame "everyone" and quickly moves onto the point. Fritz, Adini, Kostya and Waldemar might not share his opinion. In fact, even the liberales in Spain or Mexico might not share his opinion. Truth is, as Carlos points out to his father in Chapter Cinco de Mayo and to Isabel in Chapter Halls of Montezuma that Spain is in a much better place in 1848 TTL. In fact, her first railway was only opened in December 1848, but the fact that Carlos is already passing a law re: railways in May 1847 suggests that this has happened earlier. In Montezuma, he also mentions that England would be cutting their nose to spite their face by breaking the "trade treaty" they have with Spain (since 1838/1839) because it would lead to something they want even less than Spain being friendly with Mexico (Spain being friendly with France and leaving England out of the loop).
In short, Spain is at peace and she is stable (aside from minor disruptions- like Espartero, O'Donnell, being the leaders of two attempted coups, and winding up executed by firing squad- although Carlos points out in Somewhere, a Clock is Ticking that he and Isabel both tried to commute Espartero's sentence to exile but the parliament refused to go for anything less than execution). Unlike OTL, Spain - despite being "conservative" - is avoiding the revolving doors of ministries of the so-called "Liberal Decade". Her economy is, if not booming, certainly in a stronger place. Her army and navy are likely in a better place- Spain was the first navy in Europe to have iron-hulled ships (think it was March/April 1848*), which I think Maxi and co. would definitely find more interesting, no?- than OTL without the Gueras Carlistas to bleed the country white.
*granted, those were purchased from a cash-strapped Mexico in need of cash to fight the US IIRC. Not unthinkable that TTL Agustin sends a ship like that to Spain and orders "ten more just like it" (AFAIK, Mexico had no local shipbuilding industry at the time, all her ships were former Spanish or American vessels "bought in" or ordered from abroad).
Also @Ramontxo , what do you think of the TTL Boinas Rojas becoming a sort of "elite" guard unit in the Spanish army? Or the "royal guard" (which, AIUI was abolished by either the Constitution of 1812 or one of the liberal PMs of Maria Cristina's regency)?
Thank you. Think Carlos is "sympathetic" to Maxi's argument, having been there "himself" (see the above quote about black/white, angels/devils), but neither he nor Isabel particularly likes being lectured by Maxi after he calls them "bigoted tyrants"
*whistles innocently*
Ramontxo
Donor
In the first Carlist War (and for a lot of time afterwards) the Carlists used "txapelas" from any colour but most of them were white, as it is the natural colour of the wool and didn’t need to be dyed. The officers started using more expensive red "Txapelas" but very soon found that being seen carrying one was too dangerous and they too used white ones. In fact in the first Carlistada the Txapelgorris (aka as "Peseteros" for getting a peseta a day from the queen) where an battalion rised for the Queen in Gipuzkoa. The use of the Basque Beret to distinguish special troops has it origins in an group of Basque volunteers in the Convention War. So you can use it, and of course they can be red.
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That romance make me worry… Not sure who Vienna will able to stand to them… hopefully Franzi will marry a girl with the head on her shoulders (either the Romanov girl who he like or Anna of Prussia)
cool
"romance" is a bit of strong word for a 16yo boy, admittedly. Luisa is just the first person in Madrid who isn't saying "aw how adorable" to Maxi. That said, I think Madrid will be the one to nix it first. Isabel's likely not allowing her sister to marry before she is no longer the heir to the throne. IIRC, Louis Philippe violating this clause by celebratingthe marriage of Montpensier and Luisa concurrently with Isabel II's own wedding was the main issue in the Affair of the Spanish Marriages. According to my source on the Carlist Wars, this "impatience" caused far more damage to Anglo-French relations than the fact that Luisa did marry Montpensier (that she didn't marry a Coburg was more Prince Albert-King Leopold's gripe). I suspect Britain was hoping they could either "build up" an argument against a Orléans match in the interim or that if it still happened, it would be a "worthless" match (rather than a marriage between the heiress presumptive and a younger son.)
Although, in Cinco de Mayo, D. Carlos the Elder points out that "nobody will rise for her [Isabel II's] sister" which suggests that Luisa has been "downplayed as much as possible". Not saying that she's an "optional extra" but it is also pointed out elsewhere that it was the reason why the Carlists wanted D. Juan to marry as soon as possible: that if Isabel and D. Carlos were to die without issue, D. Juan would have a son "of age" to wed Luisa.
@Jan Olbracht @Zygmunt Stary @The Link does it seem plausible that the Poznan Poles rise AGAINST the Berlin Republic?
Yes, because republican Germans won't be less anti-Polish than Kingdom of Prussia was. It were not junkers but German middle class, who had the strongest anti-Polish sentiments.