March 21, 1804 - Napoleon Pardons Duke of Enghien

Although considered an inconsequential minor French noble living in exile after the Revolution and retired from war, the life of Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duc d'Enghien, proved to be a crucial moment for Napoleon's relations with the crowns of Europe.

The Duke had been born a prince du sang, of the blood of the ruling House of Bourbon, in 1772, with his father as Duke of Bourbon.  Along with his family, d'Enghien fled France at the fall of the Bastille and watched the early days of the Revolution from afar.  When the Wars of the French Revolution began after the imprisonment and later execution of King Louis XVI, d'Enghien joined the war effort.  At only 20 years of age in 1792, he held a command in his grandfather's 25,000-man force of French émigrés known as the Armée de Condé.  D'Enghien distinguished himself in battle, but the royalist invasion of Revolutionary France proved ineffectual.  In 1801, the army was disbanded, and d'Enghien retired to Baden along the Rhine, where he married the niece of Cardinal de Rohan and lived peaceably.

Meanwhile, France underwent another major coup as General Napoleon Bonaparte, fresh from his expeditions in the Middle East, seized Paris.  While much of France welcomed his command, many others still felt the Bourbons were the rightful rulers.  Royalists such as Georges Cadoudal and General Jean-Charles Pichegru formed conspiracies that attempted to overthrow the tyrannical First Consul Napoleon and return the crown to the Bourbon Louis, Count of Provence.  When the two joined forces, Napoleon's network of police and personal guard, championed by Anne Jean Marie Rene Savary, caught and executed them.

Beleaguered by the constant praise of the Bourbons, Napoleon determined that "all of France [must] realise that Bourbon blood, so sacred to Royalist partisans, was no more sacred to him than the blood of any other citizen in the Republic," according to French writer Alexander Dumas.  To do so, Napoleon ordered the arrest of d'Enghien on grounds of conspiracy with Cadoudal and Pichegru.  The duke was believed to be in contact with another general-of-the-Revolution-turned-royalist, Charles Dumouriez, and dragoons sneaked into Baden, capturing d'Enghien and bringing him before a military tribunal.

While the duke was in custody, the truth came out that d'Enghien's company was a case of mistaken identity, and Napoleon hurried to rewrite the charges to something else.  As he did, however, his wife Josephine begged him to release the duke.  She noted that Napoleon may change the mind of France with the duke's blood, but it would also affect the minds of Europe, who had already formed two coalitions against France, the last war ending in 1802 with the Treaty of Amiens.  Rumors of another coalition trickled through Europe as Britain declared war on France by invading Malta in 1803, but no decisions on the Continent had been made.  Napoleon begrudgingly agreed, and on March 21, 1804, he met personally with d'Enghien to discuss peace between himself and the Bourbon blood.

The news of Napoleon's leniency toward the Bourbons spread throughout France and across Europe.  Napoleon's regime was suddenly seen as a welcome change from the bloodthirsty revolutionaries and seemed to have proven itself understanding in royal affairs.  Napoleon, while powerful, might only be an enemy to anyone who provoked him, namely Britain with its violation of the Treaty of Amiens.  Despite his great efforts, British Prime Minister William Pitt could not persuade any of the great nations of Europe except Alexander I's Russia to ally with them in yet another Coalition against France.  The era of the Revolution was seen as gone, with the new generation of nobles already establishing its own status quo.

While Europe was pacified, France was still on the brink with its royalists determined to bring back a Bourbon king.  To entrench himself, on December 2, 1804, Napoleon crowned himself "emperor", fulfilling months of planning and government maneuvers.  While many were suspicious of his taking of the crown from Pius VII rather than letting the pope place it upon Napoleon's head, many Europeans saw it as the formalization of the new France.  Rather than taking the suspicion of Napoleon as a pretender, the title actually became embraced by many other nobles in Europe.  Napoleon's fame in France, meanwhile, became solidified.

Still, war dragged on with Britain in a stalemate.  Britain's powerful navy held a blockade on France and safely guarded the English Channel, preventing Napoleon from invading despite having the largest military in Europe.  Prussia and Austria served as buffers against Russia, and the Nordic countries felt ill will toward Britain after the English invasion of Denmark to break up the neutral Second Coalition of the North.  With naval defeat at Trafalgar in October of 1805, Napoleon's enormous Grande Armee stood useless.  Napoleon decided to invest in rebuilding his fleet in the Mediterranean and then striking out southward to Tunisia, where he planned to overthrow the Bey of Tunis and end attacks by pirate corsairs upon French.  The war spread to the Kingdom of Naples, where Napoleon's troops clashed with the Anglo-Russian force stationed to protect it.  Austria balked at Napoleon's domination of Italy and joined the war, only to be quickly defeated and impressed into becoming France's ally.

Naval warfare in the Mediterranean continued for years.  Napoleon repeatedly built up fleets only to have them destroyed by the experienced British navy.  Upon land, however, Napoleon made great advances, seizing southern Italy and capturing the north coast of Africa.  Finally, in 1812, Napoleon felt confident enough in his naval supply chain through Austria for his massive invasion of India, again passing through Egypt as he had years before.  The Ottoman Empire attempted neutrality, but it was forced onto the side of the British and Russians.  By 1815, Napoleon's army was cut off from France by a second grand naval battle in Alexandria, and Napoleon found himself marching through Persian deserts without hope of return home.  The army crumbled around him and was routinely victim to ambush by locals.  He attempted to escape back to France but was apprehended as his ship sailed around Gibraltar at night.  Imperial France collapsed, and the Bourbon Louis XVIII was restored to the throne.

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In reality, the duke was executed.  Sweden broke off relations with France over the affair, and Pitt successfully achieved an alliance in which Swedish Pomerania could be used as a base to land troops on the Continent.  Other nations followed, and the War of the Third Coalition soon began.  After four more coalitions, Napoleon would finally be defeated in 1815, and Bourbons returned to the throne of France.

March 20, 1600 - Linkoping Bloodbath includes King Sigismund

In 1587, Prince Sigismund III Vasa of Sweden became a candidate for election to the throne of the massive Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that had grown up out of the empire carved out by the Teutonic Knights centuries before.  Twenty-three-year-old Sigismund won the election, defeating his competitor Maximilian III of Austria first politically for favor of the Polish nobles, the szlachta, and then militarily on the field.  It was a great boon to Sweden, who grew in power as Austria waned.  Sigismund married Austrian archduchess Anna in 1592, healing old wounds and establishing a diplomatic sphere of influence that stretched throughout Eastern Europe.

The following year, Sigismund's father, King John III, died, and Sigismund was granted permission by the szlachta to accept the throne of Sweden, creating a powerful personal union in Northern Europe.  The Swedish nobles were nervous about Sigismund's endorsement of Catholicism and made a condition of Sigismund's return to Sweden be that he support Lutheranism.  Sigismund agreed, but as the Counter-Reformation continued to grow, he encouraged it in his new kingdom by reinstating Church authority and granting abbeys the right to take on novices.

Sigismund's uncle, Duke Charles, led a rebellion of Lutheran nobles to eject the Catholic king.  Sigismund created an army of his few supporters along with thousands of mercenaries to establish his rule, while Charles united the Swedes under him.  At the Battle of Stångebro in 1598, Charles' troops seized the high ground and eventually drove Sigismund's army into retreat with hundreds of men drowning in rivers as they attempted to escape.  Sigismund called for a truce, which was agreed upon by Charles with conditions that Sigismund turn himself and the nobles loyal to him for imprisonment.  Sigismund would be forced to attend the Swedish parliament, the Riksens stander.  While Sigismund initially agreed, he again reneged on his vow and attempted to escape.  Charles' men recaptured him and placed him under close guard, where Sigismund continually made threats to escape, raise another army, and crush who stood in his way.

Even with Sigismund captured, there were fortresses in Finland still loyal to the Polish king, which required Charles to spend a season campaigning against them.  His policies became stricter, and he began conducting public mass executions known as "bloodbaths", such as that in Abo in November of 1599, where fourteen nobles who supported Sigismund were beheaded.  The next year, Charles carried out the last major trial in Linkoping, where he himself served as prosecutor.  Sigismund scoffed at the trial as illegal and treacherous, causing ill feeling among the Swedes, and the judges suggested death for the mad king Sigismund.  Along with five of his advisors, Sigismund was beheaded on Maundy Thursday in 1600.

Charles later became King Charles IX of Sweden, while Sigismund's son Wladyslaw IV Vasa was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania at only five years old.  The szlachta enjoyed greater power as a governing body and increased the potency of the magnates, the most powerful nobles who held nearly royal status.  These magnates began to encroach on the surrounding areas, influencing Moldavia and Muscovy.  In the latter, the Time of Troubles had ground on as Russian noble boyars and the weakened tsar battled for supremacy following the death of the tyrannical Ivan the Terrible.  At the suggestion and pressure by some members of the szlachta, the ruling Seven Boyars elected Wladyslaw as tsar in 1610, creating a new personal union.  As Wladyslaw came of age, he was leader of a state rivaling Habsburgs and the Ottomans.  He proved an excellent moderate and advocated religious freedom to maintain peace in a land of Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.

Sweden was able to prey on the Commonwealth's ports in the north since the diverse szlachta was unable to agree upon funding for a navy (which, many felt, would be an expense to all to protect only some).  Wladyslaw himself witnessed the problems of military autonomy for the individual commanders of forces funded by their own magnates.  At the Battle of Chocim in 1621, Wladyslaw had to overcome his own illness and convince his fellow leaders to stay and fight, winning the battle and the title of "defender of the Christian faith" for himself.

While the Commonwealth busied itself with wars against the Ottomans, the rest of Europe descended into the Thirty Years War.  Wladyslaw learned the importance of neutrality from his friend, George William Elector of Bradenburg, but wished to join the war in his defense when Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, impressed Bradenburg onto the Protestant side.  The szlachta refused to become part of a religious war that might tear their own lands apart.  Wladyslaw found satisfaction when Adolphus was killed at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632.  Adolphus' six-year-old daughter Christina became queen, and Wladyslaw began to dote on his young cousin, with whom he felt kinship as a young ruler.  He weighed upon her the importance of leadership with examples of his own struggles with cowardly commanders and the unruly szlachta, and the brilliant girl noted that, despite her misgivings about rule and courtly manners, her intellect was needed.  When Wladyslaw fell ill in 1648, he recommended Christina be elected his successor rather than his brother John, who was happy to endorse her as well.  The recommendation proved good, and Christina became ruler of the new Greater Commonwealth of the North, including Sweden, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia.

Christina ruled effectively, increasing the wealth of the country through peaceful religious negotiation and embracing art and science.  Having never married, she carefully chose her successor, seventeen-year-old Russian noble Peter Romanov, who had excelled in her academies and found a place at her court.  By the end of Peter's reign in 1725, the Greater Commonwealth was a center of wealth, science, and industry, attracting many Huguenots and Jews as a land of religious freedom.

It came into rivalry with the British Empire, where colonies in North America and Asia began to overlap, as well as border issues with Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.  During the bitter Seven Years' War, the Commonwealth wrested rule of the Holy Roman Empire away from Austria, but at the cost of its overseas colonies.  Republicanism seized Europe after France's autocracy fell, but the Greater Commonwealth stood well into the nineteenth century, when Nationalism broke apart its sense of unity and created numerous nation-state republics where the massive federation once stood.  Trade unions in the twentieth century rebuilt much of the international connection, but the golden age of the Commonwealth had long passed.

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In reality, Duke Charles did not imprison Sigismund, only the nobles who advised him.  Charles demanded that the ousted king attend the Riksens ständer, but Sigismund instead chose to retreat to Poland-Lithiuania instead.  There, Sigismund continually raised up armies in hopes of retaking the Swedish crown in the Polish-Swedish Wars.  When Wladyslaw was elected tsar, Sigismund stepped in to usurp his son, sparking another series of wars between Poland and Muscovy.  For centuries, war after war whittled away at strength in Northern Europe.  The Commonwealth eventually was broken up by its powerful neighbors, Sweden, Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and, particularly, Russia.

March 18, 1848 – Violence Begets German National Assembly

1848 became the Year of Revolution as nation after nation rose up, questioning their feudal leaders and calling for great populist reforms. The end of the first era of the Industrial Revolution had created a huge body in the Working Class. New ideas such as Nationalism and Socialism expanded, filling the population with demands from their traditional rulers. Revolution began in France, where it toppled King Louis Philippe, and spread throughout Europe as well as Latin America, but nowhere had as dramatic of a change as in Germany.

The German peoples had been largely disunited for as long as history recorded. Romans pitted tribes against one another to maintain vague control, but the people's strength was proven as Goths and Visigoths overran Rome. Otto I carved out the Holy Roman Empire, a confederation that included the German-speaking people as well as other groups. During his conquests of Europe, Napoleon dissolved the antiquated HRE and installed a new system with the Confederation of the Rhine that laid the groundwork for a true German nation. After Napoleon's defeat, the Congress of Vienna created a looser Federal Confederation, presided over by the Austrian emperor. It held a Federal Assembly in Frankfurt, which met weekly and was used to block attempts at liberalizing.

In 1848, Germans charged by nationalism cried for unity. Taxes and censorship spurred the people forward, and cities began to see demonstrations. Nobles, fearful that they might lose everything as Louis Philippe had, quickly bowed to liberal demands, such as freedom of the press, elections, and the right of arms for the people. Most anticipated the liberalism to be temporary and simply wished to ride out the storm.

One of the largest uprisings took place in Berlin, the capital of Prussia, Germany's most powerful nation. The army had initially been used in an attempt to scare the people from the streets. However, the people continued to return to protest, even facing oncoming fire from the army that killed hundreds. Rather than fleeing, the people became more aggressive, fighting back and establishing barricades. King Frederick Wilhelm IV was shocked that his people acted out and immediately agreed to all of their demands, calling for a new National Assembly to be elected through universal male suffrage.

Among those elected was Professor Jacob Grimm. He and his brother, Wilhelm, had become famous after compiling their collection of German folktales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (“Children's and Household Tales”). The two became professors at the University of Göttingen in 1830 but were forced to leave when they refused to give loyalty oaths to King Ernest Augustus after he had eliminated Hanover's constitution in 1837. Their fame preceded them, however, and the brothers were invited by Frederick Wilhelm to professorships at the University of Berlin. They were also awarded scholarships from the Academy of Science to continue their studies, Wilhelm in mythology and Jacob in philology, together working to create the first German dictionary.

As Jacob left for the Assembly, Wilhelm sent along with him a special annotated edition of their fairy tales. Each story was given a description of its relation to the important work of unifying Germany. Jacob appreciated the gift, and its significance showed how cohesive and effective story is to the human spirit. As he came into the Assembly, Jacob made speeches referencing the stories, often reading them in entirety and showing their perspective on the situation. He made himself into a sort of “whip” for the Assembly, refusing to allow factional ideals to halt any progress.

Jacob's main point to force unification was the Schleswig War. On the southern end of Jutland, a great many Germans lived under the rule of the Danish king. In March of 1848, like the rest of Europe, the Germans began demonstrations to achieve a German government. The Danish king sent 7,000 troops to quell the uprising, and the Prussians reacted by sending troops of their own. Jacob did not rest at having Prussia take up so much responsibility alone and drafted a bill calling for soldiers from every corner of Germany. The Assembly had no clear legal authority to do so, but the positive response from the people forced the nobility to comply. A navy followed on June 14, which would end Danish blockades of German harbors. By the end of June, a massive German force fully garrisoned Schleswig. International pressure called for an end to the war, which was signed at the Treaty of Berlin with the National Assembly approving the annexation of Schleswig into a unified German state with Frederick Wilhelm as Kaiser.

The Assembly's next action was to appease the “Großdeutsche” (Greater German faction), which wished to include Austria. At times, they refused to cooperate with “Kleindeutsche” (Lesser Germany), but Jacob Grimm was able to convince them to be patient and work in steps, as in “The Tailor in Heaven,” who is cast out of paradise because he is not yet ready. In Austria, similar protests had caused the Emperor Ferdinand to abdicate, giving the throne to his nephew Franz Joseph, who immediately proclaimed Austria was indivisible. Jacob contributed to continuing the German revolution there until the rest of Europe became distracted by the Crimean War. In the Austro-German War, the Empire shattered into numerous ethnic states, destabilizing the Balkans but establishing Germany as the great new Central European power.

Through the nineteenth century, Germany would join the new balance of power in Europe and participate in colonial wars in Africa and the Pacific. In the twentieth century, governments worked to suppress uprisings at home and overseas in the next great political movement: socialism.

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In reality, the German National Assembly failed to follow through on the revolution. Grimm, despite his fervent nationalism, did not make much of a show at the Assembly, which disintegrated into factional infighting. After the failure of the First Schleswig War and Frederick Wilhelm refusing the crown (later saying he did not want to receive it “from the gutter”), the movement had clearly fallen out of favor. Germany would not be unified until military successes in the Austro-Prussian War and Franco-Prussian War two decades later.

March 17, 180 – Pompeianus Succeeds Marcus Aurelius as Co-Ruler

After having ruled for 19 years, Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus died while campaigning against the Germans.  Marcus Aurelius had completed a stellar career, succeeding at nearly everything he attempted since his induction into the equestrian order at age six.  The Emperor Hadrian seemed impressed by Aurelius’ abilities and groomed him to rule: waiving requirements for entry into the priesthood and recommending that the Senate make exemption for him for the post of quaestor even though he was not 24.  He was first made consul at the age of 18, and regained the position many times afterward.  Upon the death of Emperor Antonius Pius in 161, Marcus Aurelius became co-ruler alongside his adopted brother Lucius Verus.

The two emperors were an odd couple.  Marcus focused on the necessities of administration and carried more authority despite their political equality.  Lucius, on the other hand, enjoyed the games and chariot racing.  Both, however, carried an informality that endeared them to the people.  They handled firsthand crises in Rome such as the flooding of the Tiber, and Lucius was dispatched to the east to battle the Parthians, who had begun an invasion.  Lucius was at first accused of luxury and gambling, but he proved an able commander, and the Parthians were defeated by 167.  Plague flowed through the empire after, wiping out thousands.  Lucius died in 169, possibly as a casualty of the plague.

From 169 to 177, Marcus ruled alone.  He spent his years away from Rome, campaigning against Germanic incursions across the imperial border.  At age 52, he thought of the coming generation and elevated his surviving son Commodus, only sixteen years old, to co-ruler.  Commodus had been born “in the purple” months after Marcus became emperor, never knowing a life outside of near-absolute authority.  Commodus would be the first non-adopted son to succeed his father as emperor in generations.  From the days of Vespasian, no male heirs had been born, creating a system of adoption.  It arguably became a system of meritocracy, but Marcus felt that Commodus, despite his youth, would make an able ruler.  Still on campaign in 180, Marcus died in Vindobona (modern day Vienna) on the Danube.

While he carried out his civic duties well, Marcus Aurelius considered himself a philosopher at heart.  He had been very close with his teachers, especially Marcus Cornelius Fronto.  Fronto, a Numidian-Lybian, had become famous in Rome for his oratory, believed to be next to that of the great Cicero, which spurred Antonius Pius to hire him as the tutor for Marcus and Lucius.  Poor health troubled Fronto most of his adult life, ending chances at a career in politics, but instead giving him more time to write.  Lucius did not appreciate the education on the level that Marcus did, who even imitated Fronto and carried out single-sided conversations with himself about the necessity of discipline.  Fronto often played devil’s advocate and tried to steer Marcus away from philosophy with the old saying, “Better never to have touched the teaching of philosophy...than to have tasted it superficially, with the edge of the lips.”  Another teacher, Quintus Junius Rusticus, would introduce Marcus Aurelius to Stoicism, in which he found his true calling.

In his last years of campaigning, Aurelius wrote his Meditations.  While Fronto had taught him to speak, he thanked Rusticus for teaching him to think clearly.  He took upon himself to be the philosopher-king, fulfilling his requirements of office while still having time to write reflections on philosophy, life, and the world.  Like many Stoics, he focused on discipline and self direction, writing “If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now” (VIII. 47) and “Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good” (IV. 17).

None of Aurelius’ reflections seemed to settle on his son Commodus, who acted a great deal like Lucius.  They made an effective pair as rulers, however, with Aurelius’ administrative mind while Commodus, like Lucius, held a sense of public mood.  This thought settled on Aurelius, who summoned Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, one of his best generals and the second husband of Lucius’ widow, Lucilla.  He had apparently offered Caesarship to Pompeianus to continue the tradition of co-rule, but Pompeianus had declined.  Now Aurelius pleaded with Pompeianus to take the position should anything ever happen to Aurelius.  After a great deal of convincing and a Stoic discussion of duty, Pompeianus accepted the order and the will was changed just before Aurelius’ death.

Returning to Rome, Commodus seemed upset by the invasion of his rule, but Pompeianus maintained a tight grip on the young emperor.  Though they bickered, the rule proved for the good: Pompeianus handling administration while Commodus won the support of the people with games and victories in the field.  Pompeianus died in 195, giving rule over to Publius Helvius Pertinax, who in turn passed his title to the great general Septimius Severus. A new tradition of separation of powers continued for centuries until 406, when pressure from Hun invaders tempted German allies to revolt and flee rather than serving as the buffer Rome intended them to be.  The stable empire persuaded the Germans to stay and even push back against the Huns.

Four hundred years later, another wave of invasion by Maygars and Vikings proved too much for Rome, which toppled as was carved into Viking kingdoms at sea an a Maygar empire in eastern Europe.  With vast wealth behind them, the Vikings continued to explore and plunder, reaching as far as southern African, Native American, and Mayan lands.

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In reality, Commodus succeeded his father as sole emperor.  In his short reign, he proved at times wildly popular by devaluing the currency as using the extra money for spectacles and games for the people as well as paying exorbitant salaries to the Praetorian Guard.  Commodus seemed to have little interest in administration, instead handling public relations while the government weakened.  He descended into megalomania and was assassinated in 192, leading to civil war in the Year of the Five Emperors.

March 16, 1889 – German-American War Begins in Pacific

As imperialism spread through the Pacific in the nineteenth century, three Western powers settled on the Samoan Islands. Although it was first sighted by the Dutch, the British, Germans, and Americans competed among the local tribes for control of the strategic island chain. Germans established numerous plantations while Britain created a consulship and Americans began trading extensively from posts around Pago Pago harbor. All three nations claimed the entirety of the island group and sold weapons to the locals, sparking a civil war in 1886.

As the war continued among the tribes, the diplomats of Germany, Britain, and America met in attempt to sort out the issue in Washington in 1887. They were unable to come to any agreement, however, and left with no progress made. Instead, more warships sailed for Samoa. In 1889, German foreign minister Count Herbert von Bismarck called for a meeting in Berlin that April for a new try to calm international tensions.

In March, however, a literal storm was brewing. A tropical cyclone of massive proportions rolled toward Apia, and natives warned the fleets anchored in its harbor with tales of a storm that had struck three years before. The captains could clearly see the signs of storms and the telltale plummet in barometric pressure. Sailing out into open sea would give the ships a chance of bracing themselves through the storm. However, each nation looked at each other to move first, and a game of chicken began.

A sudden south-westerly wind came up, pushing the cyclone farther to the north and giving the ships a chance to escape. The large British HMS Calliope managed to push its way to safety, but the smaller Germans and Americans were slower to follow. As they came to the entrance to the harbor on the north side, their engines bolstered by the wind, the two fleets became tangled up. Tempers rose to match the fury of the storm, and ships were fired upon to sabotage engines. Disabled ships were pushed back by the storm tide and smashed against the reef to the south. Hundreds ended up dead on both sides, and each blamed the other. The scuffle became a full battle, and the Americans became overwhelmed by the Germans who were able to call up reinforcements from their plantations.

Americans became infuriated. While former President Grover Cleveland had been anti-imperialist, Benjamin Harrison's term had begun eleven days before, and he took this as his first great act. After leading Congress to declare war, Harrison called the American Navy to action, assembling a fleet in San Francisco to retake Samoa once and for all.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, thirty-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm II had been on the throne less than a year. He had already begun to chafe with his ministers, particularly Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck suggested patience and to continue the planned meeting, but Wilhelm saw this war as a chance to prove German military prowess and strength in colonizing. He called for the resignation of both Bismarcks and assembled his own military advisers.

Both nations hurried to modernize their fleets, stalling the expansion of the war for months. Harrison's fleet succeeded in chasing off the Germans in Samoa, but the Kaiser was ready to dispatch a new wave of his own, and the Kaiserliche Marine was twice the size of the US Navy. Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson had moved to Samoa on an extended tour of the Pacific only months before and wrote a detailed account of the battles at sea as well as the chaos among native factions. Newspapers picked up the violent tales and contributed to the failing popularity of the war. Nearly one-third of American farmers had German backgrounds, and anti-German sentiment spread the violence to the United States as well. German immigration had halted, as had a good deal of business in trade. Harrison's “first great act” turned into a political nightmare from which he could not back down.

Finally, in 1892, Grover Cleveland was swept back into the White House, vowing to end the war. Britain hosted peace talks, saving face for both nations. While the war ended, German-American relations did not heal rapidly. Decades' worth of immigrants bent on coming to America were refused, instead heading to Germany's many colonies in Africa and the Pacific, where Samoa had been split into east-west spheres of influence. Wilhelm claimed victory in the war and successfully pursued his ideals of colonies and navy, which made a stunning show at the Fleet Review in his grandmother Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

The United States, meanwhile, struggled in an economic depression. The nation yearned for hope, and they found it in McKinley's renewed imperialism. The Spanish-American War reaffirmed America's reputation and brought Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Cuba into the fold. When the World War broke out in Europe, however, war-weariness from Americans already facing quagmire in Cuba and the Philippines refused to participate. It finally ended in 1919 as a general draw, and Wilhelm II seemed to have his fill of war, instead focusing on empire-building in Germany's many colonies.

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In reality, the Apia cyclone hit the island directly, and the German and American ships had no hope of escaping. Over 200 sailors perished as ships were tossed onto the shore, slammed against one another, and torn apart by wind and waves. The disaster eased the tension, which later returned and was finally solved in 1899 with the Tripartite Convention dividing the islands.