North America before the Spring of Nations was a volatile region, with several territorial disputes sprouting from Oregon to Texas, all of which were involved by a rising power, the United States of America. Since the War of 1812, the US government wanted to expand its lands as to avoid becoming entangled by the British Empire. Between the Napoleonic Wars and the Texan War of Independence, the USA remained aloof from Europe’s affairs, much like their Pestelist counterparts in Russia had. The only real difference was that America only had to contend with the British in the north and an expanding Mexican state in the south. Now that the United States had gotten itself into two territorial disputes, it was only a matter of time before it would face a major crisis. America’s dispute with Britain over Oregon plus its ongoing crisis with an independent Texas wouldn’t end too well for President Van Buren in Washington. To tackle the two issues at hand, Van Buren held negotiations with the Mexican government over the status of Texas while he sent William Henry Harrison to Toronto, Ontario to negotiate with the British on possible scenarios planned for the Oregon territories.
The negotiations dragged on however, as both Van Buren was voted out of office and Harrison was replaced by James Polk as the American representative in the ongoing Oregon dispute negotiations. During his inauguration as President of the United States, President Harrison was advised to wear a coat as to avoid catching a cold. Despite the old man’s stubborn resistance to the idea, he eventually gave in and swore in with his coat on. The Harrison presidency would eventually culminate in a third crisis, but it wouldn’t be a territorial issue. As with the Van Buren presidency, President Harrison continued to negotiate with the British over Oregon’s status, but by now the Texan Republic had gotten used to its own independence and was not willing to at least enter into a union with the USA yet. Moreover, Harrison wanted a friendly Mexican state from which the United States wouldn’t have to fight on two fronts in the event of a war, and by not pushing for the expansion of America’s borders into the Pacific through the southwest, he would keep one ally and just deal with the bigger threat from British Canada.
Unfortunately, the continued existence of an independent Texan state was not something Mexico was willing to abide by, as General Rafael Vasquez marched into San Antonio and retreated after US Army cavalry patrol squads deterred them from entering into the city. However, another attack on September 11, 1842 led by a French general in Mexican service led to San Antonio’s conquest. To complicate matters a bit, the Native American Comanche tribe had signed a military alliance with the Mexican government, offering assistance in crushing the fledging Texan state. The possibility of another Texan War involving Mexico worried President Harrison, whose negotiation with the British had nearly reached a breaking point. Reports of minor skirmishes along the Columbia River between British and American military units reached the colonial government in Toronto, culminating in a possible declaration of war on Britain’s part against the United States. Just three days after the infamous Dawson Massacre in Texas occurred; President Harrison proposed to demarcate the Columbia River as the new border between the USA and British New Caledonia. Under the terms of the New Caledonia treaty, signed in Fort Victoria on October 10th, 1842. With the Oregon dispute resolved, President Harrison turned his full attention to concluding the Texan conflict and sent in three US divisions under Philip Kearny to separate the two sides. Kearny’s position in Texas proved to be the final straw, as Mexico contemplated about declaring war on the United States but waited for three years until they were in a position of strength.
To help combat the deficiencies within the Mexican Army, the Mexican government led by Santa Anna offered higher wages and officer positions to any European expatriates from Catholic European countries, as well as from Ireland, Canada and Great Britain. Most of the volunteers ended up serving in the rank and file of the Mexican Army, though a few officers had been commissioned as junior officers. Mexico was not alone in its attempt to win over foreigners willing to fight for them: the United States had been courting foreign nations who didn’t have any colonies in the New World. The Ottoman Empire and Prussia were among the nations which pursued a cordial relationship with the Americans, though the Ottomans were more interested in launching military reforms in light of their humiliating defeat in the Ottoman-Egyptian Wars. In 1843, the Turkish diaspora in the United States had formed their military unit with the US Army’s help. Though recruiting restrictions exasperated their goal of having over 10,000 Turkish recruits, some of these recruits would eventually return to the Ottoman Empire where their newly acquired skills would come in handy with the Ottoman military reforms. However, the Turks in America were not the only ones who formed their own regiments prior to the Mexican-American War. Several other ethnic regiments sprang up and its soldiers were paid wages that were a bit lower than their Mexican Army counterparts but the training was far more superior.
Mexican-American War:
Before conflicts arose in 1846, California was the site of a fierce competition among three nations other than Mexico: Britain, France and the United States. Due to California’s rich soil and its potential as a powerhouse colony, Britain had planned a project to colonize it but with the Little England policy in place, it was only a matter of time before California would fall into the American sphere of influence. Coupled with several border incidents, the US declared war on Mexico and began their showdown. This conflict would become one of the main origins which led to the American Civil War, with opponents of the war who favored a Northern expansion into British North America and supporters of the war who favored expanding into Mexico in order to strengthen slaveocracy. The conflict only lasted for a year and a half, in which the Spring of Nations had broken out after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War. For the Mexicans, their defeat at the hands of the Americans would also contribute to their demands for reform.
Trouble in the Balkans – Croatia’s Independence:
After Hungary declared its independence in 1850 and elected Grand Duke Mikhail Constantinovich to the Hungarian throne, a major rebellion broke out in the Croatian territory of Dalmatia. The Croatian majority were hostile to the election of an Orthodox Christian prince, for whom they regarded as a schismatic man and unworthy of the Hungarian throne. To make matters worse, Jelacic had died in 1849 from complication in his health due to his lingering wounds dating from the Battle of Budapest. Without the famous Croatian ban, it seems that Croatia was doomed to become a permanent territory of Hungary. Josip Filipovic soon rose as Jelacic’s successor in leading the Croatian state to its war of independence against Hungary. His first accomplishment was during the March 1850 Battle of Zadar, in which he had defeated a Hungarian advance guard attempting to cut off Dalmatia from the rest of Croatia-Slavonia. Hungary’s closer affiliation with Pestelist Russia was the main catalyst behind the sudden support for Croatia’s independence from Austria, France, Spain and surprisingly enough, Great Britain. Their main motive was simple: to prevent Hungary from allowing Pestelist Russia access into the warm water ports of the Adriatic, even if Russia could easily turn to Serbia for easy access. At the same time, the Bulgarians and Greeks fought a short conflict over access to Thrace and the important city of Constantinople. Even if the Balkan conflicts were resolved, there was no suitable candidate to choose as Croatia’s ruler. Filipovic was uninterested in becoming King precisely because he didn’t have any children at all.
Hungary turned to Serbia for help in April of 1850, further inflaming Croatian animosity towards their overlords, who have stepped so low as to ask their greatest enemy for help in suppressing them. Just a year and a bit after the Mexican-American War, the veterans of that war had enlisted to fight on behalf of the Croatian revolutionaries, including the famed San Patricio Battalion, which fought for the Mexican Army in the New World. Indeed, a prominent Scottish military leader named Thomas Stewart-MacKenzie took over as leader of the San Patricio Battalion and provided battle experience to a much desperate Croatian Army. Under the Earl of Seaforth’s assistance, the Croatian forces soon expanded to include their own cavalry and artillery formations. Military supplies were sent to Dalmatia from French Corsica and from British warships sent to deter the Italians from jumping across the Adriatic. The Croatian War of Independence would take almost five years to complete, with heavy losses on both sides. One of the legacies of this Adriatic conflict was the partition of Bosnia along religious lines, which did occur during the war. In August of 1851, a population exchange occurred between the Bosnian Croats and Muslims in Mostar, with the Croats going to Croatia and the Muslims assigned a territory for their own administration. Their assigned land fell under Serbia’s jurisdiction, though the Serbs promised to respect their faiths as long as they obey Serbian laws and institutions. Northern Bosnia and central Slavonia was the allocated territory assigned to the Muslims, who soon moved there after displacing the Croats who lived there for a long time. The population exchange had shifted the demographical makeup of the South Slavic lands soon became more pronounced as some Bosnian Muslims migrated into Albania. The Hungarians did manage to score some major victories of the Croatian War of Independence against the revolutionaries, with the most important being the capture and defection of Filipovic’s deputy commander, Gavrilo Rodic to the Hungarian side. Rodic was promised political asylum by Miklos/Mikhail’s regime in exchange for his service to suppressing the revolution. However, the Hungarian war effort had increasingly suffered due to the British naval blockade of the Adriatic and its subsequent naval blockade of Serbia’s ports, denying the Hungarians any chance of sustaining a long war against Croatia. Luckily, Prussia came to the Hungarian side once again and turned against the Croats. In the Second Battle of Zadar of October 23rd, 1851, the Prussians managed to score a major victory against Filipovic’s forces. However, Prussian intervention on Hungary’s side prompted the Austrians and the Spaniards to send more supplies and soldiers to bolster Croatia’s fighting strength. Polish troops participated in the Croatian War of Independence, although there were reports of pro-Hapsburg Polish troops defecting to the Croatian side with promises of amnesty and a reprieve.
The Balkans however, was notoriously known for its sectarian violence among the ethnic groups with different religions, despite being under their respective masters’ control, such as the Croats under the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Serbs, Wallachians, Bulgarians and other Balkan Muslims under the weakened Ottoman Empire. Atrocities committed by both sides would occur, with the Hungarian atrocities against Croatian civilians hitting every headline around Europe. Though Great Britain led the way in condemning the Hungarian Kingdom for its war crimes, the Croats were just as guilty of atrocities as well. Rapes would frequently occur, as well as random executions which only fueled the hatred among its peoples. It was not until 1856 that the conflict had entered its final stages. Buoyed by the Vatican’s backing, the Croatian Army and its British, French, Austrian, Spanish and Scottish volunteers had laid siege to Budapest by March 13th, 1856. Mikhail didn’t write a letter, pleading for help from his brother Constantine since Pestel would not give support to the Hungarian government as a way to prevent Russia from making friends and enemies at the same time. Instead, Mikhail would enter negotiations with the Croatian revolutionaries and conclude the conflict. After just three months of fierce fighting inside the city, Filipovic and Miklos/Mikhail I Romanov met inside one of Budapest’s castles and began to negotiate for a ceasefire and a possible end of all hostilities. Although Mikhail the Romanov King of Hungary would be condemned for allowing its Croatian vassal to become independent by passionate Hungarian nationalists, he would make up for the loss of Croatia with a possible permanent union with Serbia. As Mikhail reminded the Hungarian parliament, the Hapsburgs are gone from Hungarian soil and he is their new king. Mikhail pledged to bring reforms to Hungary’s major faiths while launching a secularization drive to separate the Catholic Church from the state. The Treaty of Budapest of 1856 confirmed Croatia’s independence from the Kingdom of Hungary and forced the Hungarian government to pay its former vassal war reparations. Moreover, Hungary was forbidden from maintaining a garrison close to the new borders. Most of the Hungarian representatives would sign the treaty, resulting in a heavy backlash among the Hungarian public. Rumors of a coup began to circulate and soon became an open topic as Kossuth’s government was shaky from the beginning. Only when Mikhail started to implement Pestelist-style reforms to address the economical issue did the plans for a coup began to die down. As for Croatia, they had elected Thomas Stewart-MacKenzie as their first king, and his title soon became known as ‘King Tomislav II Seaforth of Croatia, Prince of Dalmatia and Slavonia, Earl of Seaforth’.
Croatia under King Tomislav II:
The reign of the former Thomas Stewart-MacKenzie turned King Tomislav II began just as shaky as his counterpart in Hungary, though Croatia’s demographics began to change for better as Tomislav II had consolidated the food supplies by banning its exports to neighboring states. However, Tomislav II had isolated Croatia from its beighbors precisely because it didn’t have any reliable allies as protectors. The Italian states, however small, could still lay a claim on Dalmatia and the important port of Ragusa or Dubrovnik. In 1857, Great Britain under Queen Victoria signed a military treaty with Croatia, promising protection and aid in exchange for allowing the Royal Navy to station itself in the Adriatic. The British naval presence in the Adriatic would constantly give Prussia, Austria and France a source of headaches, though it did result in neighboring Serbia to come closer to Russia for help.
Effectively, the Balkans had been carved de facto between the British in Croatia and the Russians elsewhere. However, Victoria also planned for a second naval base in Albania as a safety gap if Pestelist Russia would ever become more menacing in the Balkans, though her plans to puppetize Albania soon ended when Bulgaria had turned it into a protectorate instead. By 1858 onwards, the port of Dubrovnik would later become the center of British influence in the Balkans, as Tomislav II invited his own clan from Scotland to settle in Dalmatia and western Slavonia while other Scots-Irish settlers make up of 20% of Croatia’s foreign population, displacing the Germans and Hungarians who lived there for a long time. The Croatian population began to experience real economic prosperity as British goods soon became more popular and Croatian factories were built with British technical expertise. Croatia’s neighbors were not unaware of its potential as an industrial power; Hungary and Russia signed an economical concession treaty, allowing Russian goods to be exported into Hungary, and the Kossuth-Pestel Agreement permitted Serbia to open its ports to Russian and Hungarian merchant ships. In between 1858 and 1868, the Balkans was relatively peaceful and tranquil, but not much was said with Russia’s adventures elsewhere.
Coming Out of Isolation – Korea and Japan, Meet your Neighbor, Russia:
During the course of the Croatian War of independence, Russia was busy trying to look for new allies in Asia to spread its Pestelist (or Muravievist) ideology. Persia was a no-go, having witnessed the British resolve to defend Persia as to avoid losing India, while Afghanistan could be used as the Asian version of Switzerland. However, Pestel had his eyes on the East Asian states of China, Korea and Japan. China was a fertile ground for a Pestelist/Mravievist style revolution since it had lost a major conflict against Britain in the Opium Wars. Korea was another nation as a potential Russian ally and a great place to establish a naval presence, and Japan sorely needed to get out of the medieval times and into the modern era. There were some problems with Russia’s attempt to establish relations with these East Asian states: China was too weak and most European nations are not willing to allow Russia some leeway in China, while Korea under the Joseon Dynasty was a tributary state of China, and Japan was mired in isolationism. Clearly, Pestel and to a lesser extent, Prime Minister Kondraty Rybelev, needed a military escort in breaking Korea and Japan out of isolation. It was then that Russia had launched a punitive raid into what was then Outer Manchuria while China was in the middle of the Second Opum War and forced the Qing Emperor to sign the 1853 Treaty of Aigun, confirming Russia’s annexation of Outer Manchuria. Britain and France were busy fighting the Qing forces, but they were not opposed to Russia’s gains in the Pacific as a way for them to remain occupied long enough for China to be forced down.
Within months from 1854 onwards, the Russian Navy led by Vladimir Istomin would lead a small fleet into Golden Horn Bay and would establish a military outpost later named Vladivostok. Vladivostok would become the center of trade and influence in Northeast Asia, and the gateway into Siberia from Manchuria, Korea or Japan. From Vladivostok onwards, Istomin and General Menshikov of the Imperial Russian Army crossed their small border into Korea, where they asked the Korean delegates to take them into the palace of the Korean king. At that time, while Korea was still a Chinese tributary state, it gradually acquired some autonomy as they realized that Qing China won’t be around to help them. Menshikov’s trade mission in Korea took them into Gyeongseong, Kaesong and Pusan, where Korean King Cheoljong met up with him. Cheoljong proved to be a willing host in allowing a Russian trade mission to be set up in Korea, though Menshikov was unaware of the corruption going on under his reign. As the Russian delegation was given a tour of the Korean countryside, Menshikov later wrote in his diary of the squalid conditions the peasantry was forced to endure.
“The peasants in Koreya lived a life far worse than even our own peasants during the times of Catherine the Great. Corruption was everywhere; you could see guards being bribed with money. Koreya is in need of serious reforms and the current king is the obstacle to the desired reforms. Either we must educate the Koreans or some deadly adversary would educate them by force.”
In 1854, Menshikov worked together with anti-Cheoljong factions within the Korean Army and organized a coup. However, he needed to train the Korean Army in modern warfare and brought in seven hundred Russian officers to help train them. Cossack atamans from the Trans-Baikal and Amur hosts were also brought in to help form a Korean cavalry formation, later dubbed as the ‘Korean Cossack Brigade’. The Korean Cossack Brigade would become the symbol of Russia’s influence in Korea, though these ‘Cossacks’ primarily were recruited from the countryside. Menshikov himself became the honorary leader of the Korean Cossack Brigade while Yevfimy Putyatin became the official head of the Russian trade delegation, replacing Menshikov in the process. Mikhail Bestuzhev was chosen to lead the Russian trained Korean infantry force in the planned coup, a decision proved to be correct by Muraviev as he and Pestel thought that a Decembrist would inspire the Koreans to become more independent from China. They waited until it was the right time to launch a coup, and it did arrive.
A food riot occurred in the town of Daegu on the spring of 1855 as Cheoljong’s royal army arrived to suppress it. However, ten of the royal army had protested at their treatment at the hands of their superiors, causing Cheoljong to give orders for the mutineers’ execution. The real catalyst for the coup was Daewongun’s denouncement of Cheoljong’s reign as the main source of the endemic corruption and natural disasters following a couple of peasant rebellions. Daewongun sent a reliable messenger to rebel factions to mount a coup and to kill the unpopular Cheoljong in the process. By the afternoon of April 21st, 1855, the Korean Cossack Brigade along with the Russian-trained Korean infantry division had stormed the palace in Gyeongseong and seized it, with the current king’s royal family members paraded outside. Though the coup was virtually complete, Menshikov asked for Daewongun to take the throne. However, Daewongun refused to comply with Menshikov’s request, asking to place his son in the throne instead, but he would rule as a regent. The Russian delegation granted Daewongun’s request and recognized the new regime of the young King Gojong. However, the young king was still a minor so Bestuzhev recommended for Gojong to be educated in Russia instead while he waited until his eventual turn to reign as a mature king. This request couldn’t be denied by Daewongun, who also requested for the establishment of the Korean delegation to be educated in Russian schools alongside Gojong. Both Bestuzhev and Menshikov granted his request for the last time as the selected boys from among the Korean population and would be sent to Russia. By this time, Commodore Matthew Perry had brutally taken Japan out of its isolation and created a panic among the rotting Tokugawa Shogunate’s inner circle. In St. Petersburg, Ryleyev recommended to Bestuzhev and Putyatin to sail into Japan and extend its ‘assistance’ to the Japanese government as well.
Putyatin’s expedition into Japan soon resulted in a diplomatic see-saw with the stubborn Tokugawa government rejecting Russian proposals to protect them from the Americans should they ever come back. While Putyatin was busy negotiating with Abe Masahiro, the temporary leader of the Bakufu, Bestuzhev scoured the countryside and soon came up with a plan to recruit disgruntled Japanese citizens who would be educated in Russia, alongside their Korean counterparts. Unfortunately, only a hundred Japanese intellectuals chose to go despite the ban on all Japanese citizens’ departure from Japan, compared to six hundred Korean intellectuals who were now on their way into Kazan to study under prominent Decembrist teachers. Bestuzhev contemplated on creating a similar Japanese infantry corps, trained by Russian officers and pulling off a coup d’etat against the Shogunate but decided against it. Upon consultation with the rest of the Russian delegation, Bestuzhev was advised to allow the Japanese to remain isolated until they changed their minds. At the same time, Putyatin would still open a trade mission in Japan and would link up northern Honshu Island with a new Russian protectorate in Hokkaido Island.
