Diverge and Conquer (Look to the West Book 1)

by Tom Anderson

  [143] Joseph Ducreux was ‘First Painter to the Queen’ at the OTL Louis XVI’s court and painted the last picture of Louis alive.

  [144] Oceanic navy is the equivalent term to ‘blue-water navy’ in TTL.

  [145] A term equivalent to ‘cinematic’ in TTL.

  [146] An 18th century euphemism for spying.

  [147] Known in OTL English as Ajaccio.

  [148] In TTL the term ‘Hanoverian’ has come to mean something like ‘Anglosphere’, as all the English-speaking countries were ruled by the House of Hanover at this point. (Paradoxically, this excludes the German region of Hanover itself).

  [149] In OTL the Royal Africa Company (aka the African Company and the Royal African Company) was a chartered company that traded with West Africa, mainly in slaves, and repeatedly went bankrupt and had to be reformed. In TTL rather than several minor crashes and reforms, the Company’s stock inflated alarmingly in 1781 on rumours of a profitable reform and the resulting losses were comparable to the South Sea Bubble of sixty years before. The Marquess of Rockingham, as Prime Minister, was the effective scapegoat for the recriminations following this and was forced to resign. The Company itself was rebuilt from the groundwork up and turned over to two former BEIC directors, Arthur Filling and Thomas Space, of which more q.v.

  [150] This is William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. At this point the title Prime Minister is still unofficial and largely mocking. Portland’s official title was First Lord of the Treasury. Typically in this era those Prime Ministers with real power also held the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, effectively making them Lord High Treasurer; the fact that Portland does not is a sign that he is only the titular head of the government and Burke has the real power.

  [151] Alexander Hamilton was made First Baron Hamilton by George III in 1785 during his tenure as Governor of the then-Province of New York, and by 1795 had become Lord President of the Imperial American Privy Council, the approximate equivalent post of Prime Minister in the Empire.

  [152] Recall that the Hapsburgs managed, in TTL, to switch Bavaria for Flanders and Charles Theodore rules Flanders and the Palatinate. He is considerably more popular there than in Bavaria OTL, which he never really wanted to rule.

  [153] “But just try to imagine, my dear sir, that Wolfgang Amadeus was born...into the family of a rough military man, he would have become a mediocre officer with a love of military marches” – Azazel/The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin (published in the original Russia 1998, English translation 2003).

  [154] The singular of Inuit is Inuk, which an Englishman or Nantucketer might spell Enwick, which sounds more like the name of a place, and so the mistaken belief arose that Enwick was a chief native town in Greenland and its inhabitants were called Enwickers – which was then generalised as the names of all Greenland natives.

  [155] Note that the name Red Square has nothing to do with Communism and is far older, predating the POD of this timeline—it allegedly comes from the fact that part of the area in question was once used for public executions.

  [156] The lack of an American Revolutionary War means that there has also been no Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, which has slowed the progress of the Patriot movement in the United Netherlands and means that there was no abortive revolution in 1787—which was crushed by Prussian troops OTL. This therefore changes the character of the internal pro-democratic opposition William faces compared to OTL, but it is all the more persistent for the fact that it has not yet faced a setback in TTL.

  [157] In OTL Richard Burke failed to live up to his father’s talents, though he remained beloved and it was his early death that drove the elder Burke to his grave. In TTL genetic butterflies mean that this version of Richard Burke is more his father’s son.

  [158] Similar to the system used in the OTL People’s Republic of China, in which traditional names for units are used but they correspond to new metric lengths.

  [159] This Sadiq Khan is Abol Fath Khan’s son, named for Karim Khan’s brother, who does not become Shah in TTL. Note that at this point southern Khuzestan was generally known as Arabistan in Persia.

  [160] An alternative term for ‘black hole’ from OTL, used as the primary one in TTL.

  [161] The American electoral system is based on the contemporary British one, with some refinements as it has been implemented from scratch rather than slowly developing over time. Each province or ‘shire’ within the confederations elects one or two MPs, like the counties of Great Britain (two for each English county, one for each Scottish or Welsh county). In addition to this, any city recognised as a Borough by royal charter elects one or two MPs, loosely depending on population (unlike Great Britain, which at this point infamously lacked any connexion between population and representation). So, for example, the Confederation of New England as of 1788 elects 8 MPs: one each for the provinces of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Connecticut, South Massachusetts, North Massachusetts and New Scotland, and one more for the city of Boston, which is the only one with Borough status at that time.

  [162] In OTL His Majesty’s Coast Guard was implemented under the name Preventive Water Guard in 1809, while the U.S. Coast Guard was created under the name Revenue Cutter Service in 1790. The name of this body is a hybrid of the two, particularly as the primary objective here is the prevention of smuggling and illegal transportation rather than enforcing tariff revenue as with the OTL United States version.

  [163] A term based on the policies of the first Governor-General of Canada, James Wolfe, who in TTL did not die in the hour of his triumph. Wolfe oversaw the de-francisation of Québec (generally just called Canada in TTL), a policy which met with mixed feelings in British circles, outrage in France of course and approval in the Empire. By the 1790s, Québec City had been renamed Wolfeston, while Montréal had been anglicised to Mount Royal. The remaining French colonial population was outnumbered by immigrants from New England, it having been agreed that the territory would eventually become a series of New Englander provinces. Many canadiens emigrated from Canada to Louisiana, the last French possession in continental North America, where they became the source of its ‘Canajun’ subculture.

  [164] During the OTL French Revolution, this church was converted into a ‘Temple of the Supreme Being’ (traces of the ensuing redecoration remain visible today if one visits it) and the remaining Christian believers in the area secretly decamped for a chapel which is now part of Saint-François Xavier des Missions étrangères.

  [165] A term meaning a burning sack of straw etc. used by sappers, not as in a corpse.

  [166] May sound mad but also happened in OTL, all in the name of liberty.

  [167] In TTL Adolf Frederick named his eldest surviving son Charles; he therefore takes the place of OTL’s Gustav III in the succession.

  [168] As there have been fewer Russo-Turkish and –Polish wars than OTL to distinguish himself in, Suvorov is not such a legendary figure as OTL, regarded as merely a competent general now approaching the end of his career.

  [169] A son of Abdulhamid I. Ottoman succession was based on the eldest male family member as heir, i.e. often passing from brother to brother rather than father to son; however, all Mustafa III’s sons predeceased Abdulhamid I so Abdulhamid’s own son inherited the sultanate.

  [170] Who in OTL famously played a significant role in the American Revolutionary War.

  [171] In OTL Gallatin, a Swiss-American, pursued the study of the Cherokee people after his retirement from politics.

  [172] Like the United States’ state legislatures of OTL, ‘speaker’ in ENA Confederal parliamentary procedure signifies a role similar to prime minister or premier, the leader of the largest party in the assembly, rather than the neutral oversight figure of the modern OTL Westminster system. Note that the Governors of the Confederations remain appointed offices and at this point they are growing increasingly ceremonial and less powerful than the assemblies they answer to.

  [173] Recall that Prince Frederick stopped George
Clinton becoming Governor of New York, the Covenant Chain wasn’t broken back in the 1750s like OTL, the Iroquois/Howden Confederacy didn’t fragment and all six nations remain firm allies of New York in TTL.

  [174] A term used in TTL to mean the area of OTL southern Ontario.

  [175] All of this is OTL history (before the POD in 1727).

  [176] Which is still a better fate than OTL, where the Yamasee virtually vanished from history altogether and only a few survivors joined the Seminoles and the Hitchiti.

  [177] In OTL centralisation stalled, British interest lapsed after Cuming’s mission, and the Cherokee fell out with the treaty-breaking governors of the Carolinas by the 1760s. TTL, Frederick’s American focus keeps the alliance strong and the Cherokee are more influenced by British and American ideas.

  [178] OTL eastern Tennessee.

  [179] Note that the Huron and Lenape are also called the Wyandot and Delaware, respectively – the same peoples but given different names by English and French explorers.

  [180] The easternmost of the Sioux groups. Note that there is some debate in OTL about whether the names of the Huron nations were still in meaningful use as separate entities by this point, but the assumption here is that they were.

  [181] Not a typo: the spelling of “Chicago” was highly variable at first (e.g. “Checagou”) and TTL happens to settle on a slightly different variation than OTL. Note that at this point Chichago is a small fort and unpopulated hinterland hardly warranting parliamentary representation, but this is effectively a subtler way of packing the Commons than traditional rotten boroughs: if you complain, you’re being unpatriotic and anti-settler for saying Chichago isn’t going to be a thriving city one day soon...

  [182] An ATL ‘brother’ of OTL’s Carl-Olof Cronstedt.

  [183] OTL Catherine the Great also did this, but Peter III’s well-recorded Germanophilia has led to an even greater scale of German immigration in TTL.

  [184] Pugachev is of course (in)famous in OTL for his revolt against Catherine the Great in which he claimed to be Peter III, allegedly merely deposed rather than murdered, and acted as a pretender to the throne.

  [185] OTL Qajar Persia was the main threat to Georgia in this era, but TTL Persia is still under the control of the Zands who have different priorities.

  [186] Ironically in OTL Kazan was largely destroyed by Pugachev during his revolt in the 1770s.

  [187] The name of the city now called Oslo in OTL.

  [188] OTL the French did not much use the rifle and Napoleon in particular was opposed to it. TTL, thanks to the Americans using rifles so much and American troops serving in British armies elsewhere in the world, the French and the rest of Europe have decided that rifles may be the way forward after all.

  [189] This actually happened in OTL. People’s Republics run by absolute monarchs were not an invention of the Soviets.

  [190] The Russian word for ‘Japanese’. While the term ‘Japanese’ exists in TTL, by the twentieth century it is considered outdated, not unlike referring to Thais as Siamese in OTL.

  [191] In TTL Frederick Christian I is succeeded by Frederick Christian II, an entirely different character to OTL’s Frederick Augustus III, and he dies notably younger, from disease, without issue.

  [192] TTL the Hohenzollerns haven’t felt confident enough about their position since the 1760s to claim the title ‘King of Prussia’, as they did OTL. Note that the fortress town of Bar, which gave its name to the earlier OTL Polish rebellion the Confederation of Bar, is now in Russia, as the Russians annexed the more Ruthenian vojvodships of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the War of the Polish Partition.

  [193] Note the absence of Theobald Wolfe Tone, who has already left Ireland by this point in TTL...

  [194] In OTL it was Hoche was sent to support a similar Irish rebellion and he died in the process, prematurely ending the career of a man who some say had the ambition and skill to match Napoleon.

  [195] The Wellesley family was called Wesley before changing it to sound more English, which hasn’t happened in TTL. In character the Richard Wesley of TTL is essentially an amalgam of OTL’s brothers Arthur and Richard Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and Earl of Mornington respectively.

  [196] In OTL all the regimental numbers moved down two places after the British disbanded the two American regiments, the 50th and 51st, after the Seven Years’ War, i.e. the 58th became the 56th. In TTL the American regiments were not disbanded and therefore the old numbers are retained.

  [197] In OTL the Royal Welch did this during the American Revolutionary War.

  [198] The Ferguson breech-loading rifle has still been invented in TTL’s 1770s. Much like OTL, the British military establishment is still dubious about it, but it has enjoyed much popularity as a hunting weapon in the Empire of North America, and New York regiments in particular have adopted it as the weapon of choice for their Rifle skirmisher companies.

  [199] John Stuart, 4th Earl of Bute, 2nd Marquess of Bute (in TTL the 3rd Earl was made Marquess as he remained in opposition and never became the unpopular Prime Minister he was in OTL).

  [200] As in OTL, although OTL he was only a Baron.

  [201] OTL Amherst was governor of Canada and then of Virginia – TTL Wolfe is governor of Canada and Virginia now gets native-born Americans appointed as governors.

  [202] OTL, before his death from tuberculosis at a young age, Lawrence Washington had four children, none of which survived beyond youth. He both lives longer himself and has surviving children in TTL, who naturally share some names with those from OTL.

  [203] In OTL Shrapnel worked alone and his weapon was known as case shot (though today it is often referred to eponymously as a Shrapnel shell).

  [204] In OTL he fought in the American Revolutionary War, usually referred to as ‘Armand’ in American sources.

  [205] This may sound parodically redundant but some actual French Loyalist forces in OTL had similar names.

  [206] Ironically, as in OTL it was Nelson who popularised a (yellow and black) chequer pattern on Royal Navy ships.

  [207] NB in TTL he is not remembered as Frederick the Great, because Prussia lost the war badly in the end, despite his early victories.

  [208] This is before it was exploded the Chouannerie, which begins in October 1798.

  [209] Russified transliteration of Sun Tzu. To avoid confusion, there has not been a consistent attempt to use the Russian-influenced form of Chinese transliteration most commonly used in TTL, but occasionally names of prominent figures whose names are often left in older transliterations in OTL, e.g. Confucius, have been depicted in this way.

  [210] Who in OTL died without issue, but in TTL married within Hanover.

  [211] In OTL the Daily Universal Register soon renamed itself The Times, which is what it remains to this day. In TTL it’s just been shortened to The Register.

  [212] The name given to his engagement with Admiral Duncan, the Isle of Wight being the nearest point of land.

  [213] “Onward, children of the Fatherland! May their impure blood turn the Channel a Republican red!” Of course, this evokes the Marseillaise, which was written in a modified form in TTL but has remained only a popular marching song, not an official anthem.

  [214] Named for Prince Frederick’s victory over the French in 1759. Not the most politic name when escorting a fleet of allied French, of course...

  [215] This is the ATL equivalent of HMS Victory, laid down in 1760. Both were named after 1759, the Annus Mirabilis, the Wonderful Year of Victories.

  [216] As has doubtless already become clear, this Villeneuve is a wee bit different in character to his allohistorical “brother” from OTL who commanded the French fleet at Trafalgar...

  [217] A Forlorn Hope, from the Dutch verloren hoop, is the name given to a group of soldiers spearheading a very dangerous attack (such as through a newly breached fortress wall) on the assumption that they are likely to lose their lives—but if they do not, they receive immediate unconditional pr
omotions and other kudos.

  [218] “Three heroes, three saviours, three martyrs.” Count Niklas Salm and Johan Sobieski (King John III of Poland) were the most prominent commanders in the repulsions of the Turks from Vienna in 1529 and 1683 respectively.

  [219] OTL’s version of Bauer is famous for his botanical drawings of Australian plant life as part of Matthew Flinders’ expeditions. While he was born long after the Point Of Divergence of this timeline, he was the son of an artist and followed his father in his craft, so it seems likely his allohistorical ‘brother’ would in TTL as well.

  [220] The grandson of Kováts Mihály (Michael de Kovats), who in OTL founded the United States Cavalry during the ARW. In TTL he remained loyal to the Hapsburgs all his life and his son and grandson (not born OTL) have followed him into the cavalry. Note that in Hungarian the family name comes first.

  [221] Recall that the assassination of William IV by Frederick’s Americans sparked a new interest in the rifle as a weapon of war in Europe, and it is much more common in armies of the period in TTL than it was in OTL.

  [222] The German name; České Budějovice in the modern OTL Czech Republic.

  [223] The ‘Danubian Principalities’ is a common contemporary name for the Romanian states of Wallachia and Moldavia.

  [224] An ATL ‘brother’ of Gregorio García de Cuesta.

  [225] ‘Pragmatisme’ is a term used in TTL equivalent to OTL’s Realpolitick.

  [226] The phrase ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ dates from a Hans Christian Andersen story published in 1837, long after the POD so therefore does not exist in TTL. The phrase ‘the shadow of the tiger’, meaning the same thing, comes from an animal story by Georges Gallet, a sort of French analogue of Rudyard Kipling who lived in Kérala. In this story a crafty civet-cat intimidated a nest of snakes by simulating the shadow of a tiger, before one of the snakes saw through the illusion and ate him.

  [227] Boulanger is using tu rather than vous in the original French when he says ‘you’, reflecting his increasingly close political relationship with Lisieux over the past few years.