Uncharted Territory (Look to the West Book 2)

by Tom Anderson

  Boulanger’s advance is stopped at Mayenne by the British. The front stalemates as the armies settle into winter quarters.

  Further south, Leo Bone defeats a Republican French army at Angers, later earning him the title Viscount d’Angers from Louis XVII.

  The Danish Diet negotiates directly with the Swedish Riksdag to reach a peace settlement.

  The Austrian army of Bolognesi defeats Lascelles on the Ischl, but Lascelles saves the majority of his army and retreats into Bavaria.

  December – Henry William crowned King Henry IX of Great Britain.

  Richard Wesley’s armies finally take Belfast, last city held by the USE. The aftermath of the siege is bloody and rapine, the frustrated armies unleashed on the populace.

  Peace between Denmark and Sweden. The treaty restores a personal union between the kingdoms, with Johannes II becoming John IV of Sweden. However, aside from losing the most Danish-loyal part of Scania and her Baltic possessions, Sweden’s territorial integrity is respected. This ends the Great Baltic War, and leaves Denmark as the dominant naval power in the Baltic.

  Part 6: The Administration (1800-1809)

  1800:

  January – Charles James Fox becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain. He immediately seeks peace with France.

  General Wurmser liberates the Prince-Bishopric of Salzburg from the French splinter force under Lascelles. Due to the death of the Prince-Bishop, the future of the state is in flux.

  February – In India, the Pitt-Rochambeau Accord is negotiated in Cuddalore, in which the BEIC and FEIC form an alliance against Mysore. Thus begins the War of the Ferengi Alliance.

  March – Peace of Caen between Britain and France. This allows a rump royal France in Brittany and the Vendée, which Republican France of course does not officially recognise.

  La Pérouse hears of the rumour of peace (though not the actual treaty, of course) from a Dutch merchantman, and decides to return to France.

  Francis II, King of the Romans and claimant Holy Roman Emperor, declares the annexation of Salzburg to the Hapsburg dominions in an attempt to recoup face after losses to the Ottomans. However, this deals a death blow to the Imperial system and begins the Mediatisation of Germany.

  April – Lisieux holds his first cabinet meetings, deciding the fate of the war. Thouret's plans for Rational square départements with (theoretically) elected Modérateurs is implemented. Ney is ordered to attack northwards from Swabia, and the Spanish front is given top priority. Hoche in northern Italy refuses to recognise Lisieux's regime.

  General Bolognesi attacks Lascelles once more at Rosenheim in Bavaria. Lascelles' forces have by now acquired captured German artillery, however, and win the day. Bolognesi retreats to Reichenhall and requests orders.

  May – The Austrians decide not to pursue Lascelles further into Bavaria, as they consider the Turkish front to be more important. However, this lack of regard for the Bavarians suffering under Lascelles' reign of terror both seriously injures Vienna's image in the Germanies, and brings about a change in Michael Hiedler. When he hears of the policy, he snaps, reverts from his stunned state and declares a War to the Knife against Lascelles. He becomes Der Führer, first and greatest of the Kleinkriegers, those Partisans who fight the Little War.

  John Spencer-Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough – a former member of the anti-Rockinghamite faction in Parliament – first rises to public prominence with the publication of the Churchill Letter, a fiery broadside against the nascent Fox Ministry.

  June – Ney opens up his campaign to the north, attacking the Hesses, Nassau and Würzburg.

  Boulanger opens up his offensive against Spain.

  Lisieux orders the expansion of the Canal de Bourgogne to connect the Mediterranean to the Atlantic by a series of canals. The new work is named the Canal de l'Épurateur.

  July – Swiss Rising after Marat is killed by a falling bath. Lisieux backs down and agrees to deal with Hoche. The Treaty of Savoy divides Switzerland between France, Swabia and Italy, all of which put down the rising.

  Boulanger breaks the Spanish Siege of Toulouse.

  The British Government pays the Danes to act as protectors of Hanover in Germany in the face of the mediatisation wars, but this fails to curb the Danes' own territorial ambitions elsewhere.

  The first election is held in the Kingdom of Ireland since the USE rebellion, under new rules introduced by de facto Lord Deputy Richard Wesley, the Earl of Mornington. This produces a more reformist-minded Irish Parliament, and Wesley creates the informal office of an Irish prime minister, with Henry Grattan taking the role.

  August – The French Republican Army defeats the Spanish at the Battle of Pau.

  Peace between America and France. In order that future American Commissioners to Britain may have the authority to sign such treaties themselves, the office is upgraded to Lord Representative.

  Lisieux sends Admiral Villeneuve on a flag-flying mission around the world, which includes quietly distributing Revolutionary propaganda to many places, including Royal French Louisiana.

  In India, the Royal French retake Trivandrum from Mysore, while the British and Haidarabad beat the main Mysorean army under General Yaar Mohammed at Bangalore.

  Treaty of Minden signed between the Dutch Republic and the Electorate of Saxony. This hands the Saxon possessions of East Frisia and Cleves to the Dutch in exchange for Dutch recognition of Saxon influence in Westphalia.

  Lazare Hoche turns south and attacks the Italian regions occupied by Grand Duke Carlo's Tuscans.

  September – Mysoreans defeat British in the Battle of Charmapatna, but fail to achieve any lasting gains, as the French are pressing in from the west.

  Marshal Ney overruns Ansbach and Würzburger Mainz.

  The Austrians eject the Ottoman army under Damat Melek Pasha from the siege of Zagreb.

  Disgusted by the peace between Republican France and Britain and inspired by his friend Leo Bone's service with Royal France, Horatio Nelson resigns from the Royal Navy and takes up Sir John Acton's offer of service in the Neapolitan Navy.

  October – In the face of successes from Ney, the leaders of Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau and Würzburg sign the Pact of Mainz, later to become the Mittelbund, an anti-French military alliance.

  At the Battle of Carcassonne, Boulanger beats Cuesta's Spanish army.

  The Danes make territorial demands upon Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, which reject them out of hand. The Mittelbund supports both Mecklenburgs.

  November – The French take Llançà in Catalonia, the only place south of the Pyrenees they take before the campaign season ends.

  La Pérouse returns to France and is horrified by the excesses of the Revolution, though Lamarck and Laplace disagree. He is sent back by Lisieux with Surcouf, to raid Dutch ships under pirate flag from bases in La Pérouse's Land.

  Tippoo Sultan moves his capital from Mysore-city to the fortress of Seringapatam, which is besieged by the British and French.

  In response to the Dutch and Saxons dividing the region into spheres of influence, Waldeck, Wittgen and Eichsfeld join the Mittelbund.

  December – Lazare Hoche has retaken the Tuscan-occupied Italian territories of Modena, Mantua and Lucca, but has sustained considerable casualties among his French veterans in the process. He begins raising all-Italian regiments throughout the Italian Latin Republic, who fight under a green banner and are known as the Italian Patriotic Army.

  1801:

  January – Boulanger recruits the new Admiral Lepelley for his new plan against Spain.

  Storming of Seringapatam. The Tippoo's plan to blow up the British and French invaders is sabotaged by a treacherous minister, and he is killed in the battle. Mysore is carved up between Britain, France and Haidarabad, with the rump Mysore having the Hindu Wodeyar dynasty restored.

  February – Conference of Hagenow defuses the Danish-Mecklenburger crisis, although the provisions of the treaty signed there will not become publi
c for some time.

  Admiral Villeneuve's fleet calls in at Norfolk, Virginia and apologises to the Continental Parliament for the death of Thomas Jefferson in a PR exercise.

  Von Lützow's Prussian thrust into Saxony is defeated at the gates of Dresden. The Prussian efforts become dispersed thanks to Denmark-Sweden's entry into the war.

  March – Death of Rochambeau; Julien Champard succeeds him as de facto Governor-General of French India.

  Grand Duke Carlo of Tuscany appeals to King Charles VI and VIII of Naples for help as Hoche's new Italian Patriotic Army invades Tuscany. Charles hesitates and decides against intervention for fear of having his army encircled.

  In recognition of his service as de facto governor of Hanover, King Henry IX gives the dukedom of Cambridge to his illegitimate relative, William FitzGeorge.

  April – In response to Hagenow, the British governor of Hanover, William FitzGeorge, Duke of Cambridge, institutes his own defensive alliance against mediatisation. This is called the Alliance of Hildesheim and includes Hanover, Hildesheim, Brunswick, Bremen and the Schaumburgs. The Alliance is aligned with the Mittelbund but not part of it.

  Emperor Francis II orders General Alvinczi to attack Wallachia in an attempt to draw the Ottomans into a broader war with Russia. However, the Russians are already in the process of negotiating with the Ottomans, and Constantinople secures Moscow's neutrality in exchange for withdrawing their influence from parts of the Caucasus they obtained during the Russian Civil War, primarily Georgia.

  Denmark makes a descent on Danzig and takes the strategic port.

  May – Boulanger launches two new offensives against Spain, Assaut-du-Sud and Tire-Bouchon. The first sees a general attack under Eustache against the Spanish forces north of the Pyrenees. The second is launched on a windless day, after the Spanish General Ballasteros has forced French General Drouet out of Llançà and the Spanish army is strung out thinly in pursuit: the new steamships under Lepelley carry French armies to land on the Catalan coast and sweep up Ballasteros from the rear. During a battle with Spanish conventional galleys, damage to the French steam-galley Palmipède's screw produces by chance a more effective propeller design, which swiftly becomes dominant.

  Ney is halted for the first time by a joint Hessian-Würzburger army at Erbuch. The Franco-Swabian advance fails, and soon collapses.

  The First Fleet of convicts leaves Britain, bound for the new penal colony in Michigan (Susan-Mary).

  Paul François Jean Nicolas, the Vicomte de Barras, returns from French India having made his fortune serving under Rochambeau in the FEIC. He quickly ascends to a position of power in Royal France, becoming Comptroller-General to Louis XVII.

  June – General Eustache killed at the Battle of Lourdes, in which the French are defeated by the Spanish under Joaquin Blake.

  UPSA legislative election returns a Cortes dominated by the Partido Solidaridad, led by Juan José Castelli, which sympathises with the French Revolution and advocates territorial expansion at the expense of the Spanish colonies.

  July – Mittelbund forces liberate the eponymous city from Ney's Swabia.

  Admiral Villeneuve's fleet arrives in Nouvelle-Orléans and tries to demand the Governor-General, Charles-Michéle Ledoux, cleave to the Republican line. Ledoux calls Villeneuve's bluff and refuses.

  August – Fall of Barcelona to Drouet's army. Elements of the Spanish fleet in Mediterranean ports flee to Naples, including the experimental rocket ship Cacafuego under the Catalan inventor Josep Casanova i Llussà.

  Lazare Hoche's Italian Patriotic Army conquers Florence, capital of Tuscany. Tuscany is formally added to the Italian Latin Republic. However, the Tuscan army holds on in the south.

  According to his orders, Admiral Villeneuve arms Haitian rebels in an attempt to undercut the Royal French in Louisiana.

  September – Death of Philip VI of Spain; in his maddened last hours, he is heard to disinherit his eldest son Charles in favour of his second son Philip, but this is disputed. While France invades Aragon, Spain is plunged into civil war.

  The Mittelbund armies are defeated by Ney at Ansbach.

  Leo Bone a.k.a. Napoleone Bonaparte shocks public opinion in Royal France by being appointed de facto admiral of the fleet by King Louis XVII.

  October – Alexandru Morusi, Prince of Wallachia and Moldavia, has raised an army and now halts Alvinczi's Austrian offensive.

  HMS Enterprize, under the command of George North, sets off from Gosport Yard in Virginia on a mission of mapping and claiming the Oregon country for the Empire of North America.

  November – Swabia and the Mittelbund sign the Treaty of Stuttgart. Swabia is left with Ansbach and Nuremberg but no Würzburger lands. The treaty defines the first strict borders for the republic. Afterwards, the Mittelbund nations look towards closer cooperation in the face of more direct aggression from France.

  The First Fleet of convicts lands in Michigan after sailing up the St Lawrence and through the Great Lakes.

  December – With Madrid burned half to the ground, the Felipistas are victorious. The Infante Philip is crowned Philip VII, and the Principe de Asturias Charles (the claimant Charles IV) flees to the northwest with his favourite the Count of Aranda and his general Javier Castaños.

  1802:

  January – Spanish General Cuesta ignores orders to attack the French and instead pursues the Carlistas into Asturias and Galicia, leaving Spain underdefended.

  The Tuscan army under Grand Duke Carlo has been forced back to the port of Follonica and is surrounded by Hoche's forces. The Tuscan fleet attempts to evacuate them but is faced by Hoche's own Genoese-derived fleet. The two clash at the Battle of Elba and the Tuscans win a Pyrrhic victory, with too few ships left to perform the evacuation.

  Admiral Villeneuve's fleet leaves the West Indies as Haiti erupts into rebellion under black leader Vincent Ogé.

  Feburary – President-General Azcuénaga of the UPSA is assassinated.

  La Pérouse and Surcouf land in Albi in La Pérouse's Land.

  The Neapolitan-Venetian fleet under Nelson sails to Follonica and evacuates the Tuscan army to Naples. Nelson wins particular renown for a daring marine action that silences Hoche's shore batteries to make the evacuation possible.

  Hoche appeals to Lisieux for French troops, despite the strained relations between the French and Italian Latin Republics, arguing that an Austrian invasion is around the corner. This is a lie, but Lisieux sees an opportunity and gives Hoche some of the Sans-Culotte Jacobin veterans he is trying to get rid of.

  Italian scientist Luigi Galvani, best known for his studies of the heart, becomes a martyr and later national hero when, having refused to swear an oath to Hoche's Italian Latin Republic, he is imprisoned and dies of pneumonia in jail.

  March – In the U.P. presidential election, Juan José Castelli defeats conservative opponent Juan Andrés to become President-General. He immediately being a programme of armament.

  La Pérouse takes a sloop and goes with some supporters on a trading mission to the Mauré. He never comes back, having renounced the Republic, and he and his men act as advisors to the Mauré – both the Tainui and, due to some disagreeing with La Pérouse's leadership, the Touaritaux-Touaux Alliance.

  Alvinczi withdraws from Wallachia.

  In one of the Fox Ministry's greatest triumphs, the Parliament of Great Britain votes to abolish the slave trade.

  Leo Bone marries Jeanette Debauvais, cementing his link with Royal France.

  April – The French open the campaign season in Spain. Still fighting the civil war on the side, the regime of Philip VII and Saavedra is unable to resist the French advance, and three battles are lost in rapid succession. Most Spanish armies are surrounded and forced to surrender, with actual losses being relatively light.

  Jean de Lisieux publishes his famous “25 Years” monograph, setting forth his vision for France's future – after the securing of all borders by the neutralisation of neighbouring states and the establishmen
t of buffers, France needs 25 years to make its republican institutions entirely 'rational', and only after this will she attempt to replicate them elsewhere. This, it is implied, will require the defeat of Flanders and Royal France, and therefore Britain and the Netherlands as well, which will in turn require large armies. Lisieux believes the Spanish situation is secure and thus continually reduces the troops there, hampering French efforts to hold Spain down.

  The Austrians, under General Pál Kray de Krajova et Topolya, successfully defend Zagreb against another offensive by the Turks' Damat Melek Pasha.

  A new Irish constitution is signed into law. This repeals much of the old anti-Catholic legislation, but discrimination against non-Anglican Protestants remains.

  General von Lützow fails to prevent the fall of Magdeburg to Saxon invaders thanks to Frederick William III's dispersal of his forces in Poland. He is upbraided and stripped of his rank and peerage by the king, and in fury at this treatment joins the “Berlin Plot” conspiracy.

  May – In Britain, the British Army quietly begins constructing Fort Rockingham at Finningley, near Doncaster. After viewing the effects of the French Guerre d’éclair on other countries, the Parliament of Great Britain is quite certain they need a fortified alternative seat of government a long way from anywhere.

  Hoche, supported by his new Jacobin troops from France, invades the Papal States. In the north, the Austrians try a cursory attack over the Alps, but are beaten back by Hoche's Italian levies.

  Death of King Hyojang of Corea. He is succeeded by his son Gwangjong, later called 'the Great'.

  August – French troops enter Madrid. Philip VII and Saavedra have abandoned the city for Cordoba.

  The Enterprize visits Hawaii and Captain North meets John Goodman, whose requests for direct Anglo-American intervention in Noochaland are rejected. Annoyed, Goodman turns to other sources instead.

  Prussian General Albrecht von Gessler's army is pounded to pieces by the Saxons when they intercept him as he tries to cross the Elbe at Wittenberge.