by Tom Anderson
[77] In OTL, this described Peter’s aforementioned act of withdrawing Russia from the Seven Years’ War.
[78] In OTL of course she succeeded and became Catherine the Great.
[79] In OTL the Northern and Southern Departments were eventually turned into the Department for Home Affairs and the Department for Foreign and Colonial Affairs, i.e. colonial affairs were attached to the Foreign rather than Home Ministry. In TTL the colonies are a little nearer to the government’s heart, and furthermore the change happened rather later in OTL, after the American colonies had broken away, so the remaining colonies at that point were viewed as less important and integral.
[80] Unlike OTL, Ben Franklin is not the first American to be really notable in Europe in TTL, and does not rise to prominence until after the War of the British Succession with its martial figures like Lawrence Washington. Hence he is accepted more readily by European educated society and there are no silly disputes over the best shape for a lightning conductor ‘because colonials are rustic idiots so they must be wrong’ as in OTL.
[81] OTL’s version of George III famously said “Born and raised in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.”
[82] More or less the same as OTL’s Frederick North, except that being born in 1732, in TTL he was named after the new Prince of Wales (the later William IV) and not Prince Frederick like OTL. It may be news to some OTL Americans that North was actually a fairly astute and capable politician, though one who consistently put local interests above the whole. This is still true in OTL, only this time, being Lord Deputy of the Colonies, he’s being narrow-minded and provincial on America’s side.
[83] This is largely as OTL, except in OTL the whole calendar conversion and resulting arguments happened in 1751, twenty years earlier. In TTL the War of the British Succession and the Second Glorious Revolution meant that things were a little too hectic to consider matters as prosaic as the calendar at that point.
[84] In OTL American taxes rocketed after independence, but by that point rights matched demands...the same is true here.
[85] In OTL Spain established a separate Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata in 1776. In TTL this was butterflied away by the different events of the First Platinean War compared to OTL, in which the Spanish/Portuguese dispute over the Missions was part of the wider Seven Years’ War. The lands that became the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata in OTL are therefore still part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and ruled from Lima in TTL. This has sparked some resentment considering how far away Lima is from the Plate.
[86] Las Estrellas is the city known in OTL as Los Angeles.
[87] OTL, Tupac Amaru won a similarly crushing victory, but in Sangara itself. This required burning Landa’s forces out of a fortified church, which was successfully spun by Spanish colonial propagandists into painting Tupac Amaru’s rebellion as anti-Christian, turning the majority of the people against him. In TTL this doesn’t happen.
[88] Approximately OTL modern Bolivia. Lower Peru is what we now simply call Peru.The Aymara are the main native people of Bolivia/Upper Peru, just as the Tahuantinsuya (AKA the Incas) are the largest native people of Peru/Lower Peru.
[89] Not OTL’s Louis XVI, but his father Louis-Ferdinand, known in OTL only as “Louis, Dauphin of France”, who never came to the throne as he died of consumption in 1765, predeceasing his father Louis XV who died in 1774. In TTL he lives longer and succeds his father as king. OTL’s Louis XVI is thus the Dauphin (crown prince) at this point rather than king, and will presumably succeed his father as Louis XVII. The French Bourbons’ rather limited choice of names for their princes can result in some confusion...
[90] Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau. A veteran of the Second War of Supremacy/War of the Austrian Succession, in OTL he is best known for commanding the French expeditionary force that intervened in the American Revolutionary War. In TTL, with no American Revolution, Rochambeau has instead been assigned to India and has risen to replace Dupleix as Governor-General.
[91] The term used in TTL for radio, derived from ‘photonic telegraphy’.
[92] In TTL Admiral George Anson was unable to recover his position of power after the Second Glorious Revolution as he was seen as too close to the Williamite governments he had served. A knock-on effect of this is that Anson’s voyages of discovery in the 1740s were not followed up on to the same extent as OTL. In OTL Anson had no children, but in TTL his wife Elizabeth bore a son.
[93] I.e. OTL Argentina – both Argentina and Platinea ultimately mean Land of Silver.
[94] Approximately modern Mexico+Central America and Colombia+Venezuela+Ecuador, respectively.
[95] Often overlooked by scholars outside the English-speaking world, that is.
[96] The French term for what English speakers in TTL name the Third War of Supremacy.
[97] This ship, built in 1763, existed in OTL as well, and played a part in the Battle of Chesapeake Bay during the American Revolutionary War.
[98] The ‘Columbus Islands’ is the name used in TTL for the Galapagos Islands (a translation of the name used by Spanish-speakers in OTL, Archipiélago de Colón. In fact the name Galapagos Islands was in use at this point of history in TTL, but as historians generally do, the writer has updated it to modern terminology. Easter Island was named in 1722, before the PoD, and this name is also used in TTL.
[99] This is therefore an ‘updated’ version of the title of the book, altered by the historian: the actual original publication would have used the name Galapagos.
[100] The OTL names ‘Maori’ and ‘Aotearoa’ are spelled Mauré and Autiaraux in TTL, showing more French influence in their transliteration.
[101] Founded near the site of OTL Sydney. The settlement is originally named Nouvelle Albi, with the adjective eventually being dropped as it outstrips its prototype in size and cultural significance.
[102] ‘Povilas’ being the Lithuanian form of the name Paul (Pavel in Russian).
[103] Eighteenth-century Swedish politics was dominated by two loosely defined parties known as the Caps and the Hats. The Hats were associated with martial tricorn hats because they were a gung-ho, pro-war party that advocated alliance with France against Russia. The Caps were associated with night-caps due to accusations of timidity, being anti-war and favouring alignment with Russia against France.
[104] In OTL, Catherine the Great succeeded in her coup against Peter III in 1762 and led Russia into the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774. This led to the formerly Ottoman-allied Crimean Khanate being neutralised by the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji. Catherine then broke the treaty in 1783, taking advantage of a civil war in the Khanate to directly conquer and annex it to Russia. With Peter III still on the throne, none of this has happened in TTL.
[105] In OTL he is known mainly as Maurice Benyovszky in English, but the multitude of ethnic groups fighting over his identity mean that his name can be found spelled any number of ways. Note that in Hungarian naming format, the family name comes first. However one spells his name, Benyovszky certainly had a colourful career in OTL as well, leading Polish rebels, escaping from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp in Kamchatka and eventually becoming the first King of a united Madagascar.
[106] This is the Russian name for Hokkaido, then called Ezo(chi) in Japanese, and it is the name by which the island is commonly known to international audiences in TTL. In OTL in this period English sources often used other transliterations such as ‘Jesso’ or ‘Yesso’.
[107] In OTL this would not happen until 1803-1806 with Adam Johann von Krusenstern’s mission.
[108] Spelled ‘Ainu’ in OTL; this is a Russified form.
[109] In OTL this is an archaic term specific to Priestle’s conception of the moral qualities of fresh air and the need to provide trees and parks in cities, lest otherwise the moral character of a city be degraded by its citizens breathing stale air. In TTL it is still in general use and has eventually come to mean something like the OTL term ‘carbon cycle’.
[1
10] A burning glass is a magnifying glass used to focus sunlight into a burning beam, a commonly used scientific instrument of the time. “Calx of” is essentially eighteenth century terminology for “oxide” and in TTL this older terminology is still in use in a modified form. A calx or oxide essentially describes the remaining residue (ashes) after a substance is burnt.
[111] Now known under the scientific name sodium hydroxide, though the older name ‘caustic soda’ is still used by many non-scientists.
[112] In this respect TTL’s George III is like OTL’s; although OTL’s George III did not grow up in America, he was a fervent environmentalist. He favoured Priestley’s theories for this reason, ironically given Priestley’s own republican views.
[113] This is as OTL. The Corsican Revolution was an influence upon America’s OTL one in some respects, which is remembered in place names such as Paoli, Pennsylvania.
[114] All this is more or less as OTL, but there are more Corsican refugees than OTL. This is because the French forces in Corsica were led by the Marquis de Contades rather than the Comte de Vaux as in OTL, and he elected to use harsher measures against members of the Corsican populace suspected of collaboration with the rebels. In OTL Contades was disgraced after leading the French forces to defeat at Minden in the Seven Years’ War: TTL’s Third War of Supremacy, with its more lukewarm British involvement in the Continental theatre of the war, had no exactly analogous battleto Minden and Contades has escaped disgrace, remaining a plausible choice of commander.
[115] In OTL Buonaparte verbally attacked the French invasion early on but later switched sides; here he stayed with the rebels, again because the French invaders were seen as more ruthless compared to OTL.
[116] This is not OTL Napoleone Buonaparte (known to history as Napoleon Bonaparte), but his elder brother, Carlo’s first child. In OTL this brother died young and ‘our’ Napoleone, born a few years later, was named for him. In TTL he survives, and is in some ways similar to ‘our’ Napoleone, but is not identical.
[117] Immigrants seeking to enter British society in this period often anglicised or even translated their names; an example of the latter is the gentleman’s club White’s, which was founded by an Italian named Francesco Bianco, AKA Francis White.
[118] In OTL Carlo Buonaparte died in his early forties, but in TTL he avoids disease, has a better quality of life from his lucrative legal job, and lives longer.
[119] Interestingly, in OTL even ‘our’ Carlo Buonaparte who stayed in Corsica wanted to enrol the (younger brother) Napoleon in the Royal Navy at one point. In OTL HMS Ardent was captured by the French in 1779 during the American Revolutionary War, which did not happen in TTL and so the ship is still in service by the Royal Navy at this point.
[120] It has been noted by some OTL historians that Nelson’s tactics at sea were ironically quite similar to those of Napoleon on land: emphasis on artillery, using concentrated, well-trained forces driven by personal charisma to overcome much larger but poorly motivated enemies, and the like.
[121] Being ‘made post’ means a promotion to the rank of (post) captain, which is particularly important both because it gives an officer a higher pay grade when not at sea, and also as it means they are entered on the Admiralty list and will inevitably be promoted to Admiral at some point if they survive long enough.
[122] In OTL, Rochambeau’s chief opponent in the American Revolutionary War, Lord Cornwallis, became Governor-General of (British) India: in TTL the situation is therefore something of a reversal.
[123] In OTL William Pitt (the Elder)’s eldest son was also called John, but TTL’s John Pitt was born a few years earlier and is therefore a different person. He has some characteristics of ‘our’ William Pitt the Younger. We now see direct changes from the Point Of Divergence: in OTL, Pitt the Elder spent many years working with Prince Frederick and so, as Frederick was in America all those years in TTL, his life is one of those most immediately changed by the POD. Therefore, his children are also different. One particularly significant change is that Pitt the Elder chose not to take a peerage in TTL, whereas in OTL he eventually accepted the earldom of Chatham—for which he was ridiculed by many who previously had respected his reputation as ‘the Great Commoner’. Note that TTL historians do not call him ‘William Pitt the Elder’ because there is no William Pitt the Younger to contrast him with.
[124] In OTL Maximilian died in 1777. This led to the brief War of the Bavarian Succession, in which Austria cut a deal with the heir Charles Theodore to acquire part of the Bavarian territory in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands, but this was disputed by a Prussian-Saxon alliance because it did not take into account the fact that Charles Theodore had no heirs and after his death the territory would pass to Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, who opposed the deal. In OTL the short and rather farcical war ended with Charles Theodore keeping all of Bavaria an the Austrians keeping the Austrian Netherlands. In TTL, with no strong Prussia to object and Charles Theodore possessing an heir (due to marrying a different wife), the plan goes through smoothly.
[125] In an example of the butterfly effect on events following the POD, Maria Theresa’s eldest surviving son is named Ferdinand rather than Joseph like OTL: an older brother Joseph died in infancy, but even had he survived he would have been rather different to OTL’s Joseph II.
[126] Of course the state also includes modern OTL Wallonia, but ‘Flanders’ was at the time often used to mean all of what we now call Belgium. Note that in OTL, the (aborted) plan was that Charles Theodore was only to cede some parts of Bavaria to Austria, but in TTL it is the entire Duchy—illustrating the stronger diplomatic and military position Austria is in due to Prussia’s decline relative to OTL.
[127] The city of Liége in Belgium is now spelled ‘Liège’, with a grave rather than acute accent, but this was a change made as late as the 20th century and does not apply in TTL, for reasons that will eventually become clear...
[128] As can be seen in the flags of OTL Argentina and Uruguay for example.
[129] This was true in OTL as well, with many people acting as though the Parlement of Paris was an equivalent institution to Britain’s Parliament, despite only representing the establishment of the city of Paris. This is indicative of the centralisation and emphasis on the capital that characterised the Bourbon Enlightenment period, and still arguably defines French political culture to some extent today.
[130] Recall that this is not ‘our’ Louis XVI, but Louis XV’s son Louis-Ferdinand (the father of OTL’s Louis XVI) who in OTL died before his father.
[131] Cugnot’s steam tractor existed in OTL as well. It accidentally ran into a wall of the Arsenal and knocked it down in 1771, ‘the world’s first car accident’, which is sometimes cited as being the reason the French Army decided the project was a failure. The reality, as is usual, is more complex—it was simply that the Army considered the trials to be an interesting experiment but that Cugnot’s prototype vehicle was not of practical military use. They were correct, of course, but if the investment and support had been provided for Cugnot to continue improving his design, things might have been different a few years down the line. And in TTL, Cugnot has just received personal backing from the new King…
[132] Both of these humorous maps were published in OTL as well.
[133] The Estates-General consisted of three estates of equal size and (theoretically) voting power, representing the aristocracy, the clergy and the common people respectively.
[134] A géneralité is an administrative subdivision of France used by the ancien régime chiefly to organise taxation, and growing in importance in the 18th century after Louis XIV’s dissolution of the Estates-General. Each géneralité was administered by an intendant appointed by the King’s Comptroller-General of Finances. At the time of the French Revolution (in both OTL and TTL) there were 36 géneralités.
[135] In OTL, Charles III’s first son Philip was born mentally handicapped and epileptic, and was thus disqualified from the
throne in favour of his younger brother Charles, who ascended to the throne as Charles IV on his father’s death in 1788. Charles had previously been effective governor of Naples and Sicily, two junior Spanish Bourbon possessions, under the title ‘Prince of Taranto’. In TTL, butterflies mean that Philip is born healthy and succeeds his father as King of Spain in 1788, while his brother Charles continues as ruler of Naples and Sicily.
[136] As can be seen by his different first name, this is not the same person as OTL’s Maximilien Robespierre, but shares his parents and upbringing and is similar in many ways.
[137] Recall that this is the person known to OTL as Louis XVI, or his ATL “brother” equivalent at least: he was born a considerable number of years after the POD, after all. Franco-Austrian geopolitics being similar in both timelines, however, he is still married to an Austrian princess and she happens to have the same name as her OTL counterpart, though she is a different person. Her brother, the Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, is Ferdinand IV.
[138] Phrygian caps were worn by early French Revolutionary troops in OTL and it remains a symbol of republicanism today.
[139] A field with many fleur-de-lys is heraldically known as France ancient, while three large fleur-de-lys is known as France modern. Both types were used on French flags in this period, and with either a blue or white background; the ancien régime did not have a single consistent national flag.
[140] More or less like OTL’s Girondist faction but they’re not so associated with the deputies of one region, hence the alternative name.
[141] This is a bit like the OTL metric system, but is combined with other initiatives such as the republican calendar—it’s more organised top-down than OTL and is seen as an all-or-nothing affair.
[142] A major difference to the OTL revolution which retained more neoclassicist admirers in positions of power. This perhaps indicates a greater sense of continuing populist input by Le Diamant’s supporters in TTL’s revolution.
