Oil industry]
Baku's refined oil began to flow from, well, Baku to the Black Sea at even higher speeds, thanks to the first pipeline built by the Kuvskovsky Chemical Plant (Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov as chief engineer, and Aleksandr Veniaminovich and William Veniamovich Bari as chief entrepreneurs) in association with BraNobel (Russian-Swedish company of the Nobel brothers).
This was an important milestone for the Russian oil industry, especially when now cylindrical oil deposits began to proliferate with more and more frequency.
More breakthroughs were undoubtedly coming when Tsar Alexander III met with the Bari brothers and Shukhov to discuss business.
"You see gentlemen, it is not to show off, but I am the richest man in Russia. And I am offering you an opportunity that benefits you, not only you, but also Russia as a whole, the search for new oil fields by the Empire. Russian, and possibly beyond if we get the extraction rights of course. " Emperor Alexander III explains.
In that a map of Russia is shown, from Europe to Alyáska.
"Have they done research to have discovered the possibility of such oil fields?" Shukhov asks curiously while the Bari brothers were up for business almost immediately.
"Yes, an approximate of course." Emperor Alexander III replied calmly.
With this they began surveys of the Russian territory to find the largest oil deposits, and it is not surprising that in such an immense territory, deposits were found in Siberia, Central Asia and Alyáska.
This was very important, because the Kuvskovsky Chemical Plant and associated companies for the work were tasked with developing the Russian oil industry (accompanied by new safety and state planning regulations).
This involved the start of pipelines, oil extraction plants and planning for the economic exploitation of new Russian resources. Once again Vladimir Shukhov realized that the global oil industry was still inefficient, prompting him to experiment with a possible oil cracking upgrade.
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[Oil: Alyáska]
With oil discovered in Alyáska, a massive wave of labor immigration for the extractive industry in the south of the Russian colony of America resumed.
Now this had its advantages and difficulties, in the food aspect although the introduction of quinoa or risom tundry (in addition to programs to revive the local fauna) were recent. Fortunately now the Far East and Siberia could easily and cheaply bring grain to Alyáska.
Most of these workers would not compete for land in the center of Alyáska (until oil was discovered there), which would help to urbanize the coastal sectors of Alyáska, where there was the highest population density.
Increasing the number of Russians was also very good.
The difficult thing was the geography and the climate itself, the arctic climate of Alyáska made it very difficult to transport people and goods on many occasions.
If something was not done, oil extraction would be difficult. So drawing on the resources of the Grand Meeting of April, the military government of Alyáska accepted the construction of a railway network between various of the coastal cities of southern Alyáska.
This encouraged new forms of work and migrants towards the economic development of Alyáska. For example, the first Japanese migrants in Alyáska seriously helped build the South Alyáska Railway (and the fishing industry, but that's a separate section).
Such a railway would essentially be under state control, as it had to be carefully watched to avoid the possibility of accidents and the tracks needed care from the Arctic climate.
This would also improve communications and the integration of southern Alyáska, although the railway would take a while to complete the oil industry attracted private capital so that certain vital segments for said industry will be completed sooner (those segments towards the Russian oil export ports ).
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[American Alyáska?]
It was clear that in the nineteenth century, with its industrial revolution, Russia would be a titan of the export of various primary resources, obviously including the oil industry.
Yet wealth always attracts prying eyes from outsiders.
Within some American political circles the discussions for the sale and purchase of the territory of Russian America, which now turned out to possess gold and oil, were still remembered.
Some Americans might be willing to restart such talks, or even to more extreme situations, keep in mind that the United States was just emerging from a time of great military filibustering (Americans initiating revolutions abroad in nations at peace with the United States, in some cases to unite said territories to the American Union).
Filibusterism also supported by the press with people like Moses Sperry Beach from The Sun who supported William Walker's group (filibuster with 'adventures' in Mexico and Nicaragua).
The Russian ambassador to the United States, Nikolai Pavlovich Shishkin makes it clear that Emperor Alexander III has no intention of selling Alyáska to any state or private personality.
Canadians and English seem to show no interest.
*******
[Russia and Korea]
Russian businessmen (working together or influenced by the Asian affairs secretary Nikolai de Girs, the finance minister Nikolai von Bunge and the Emperor Alexander III) after the investigation carried out in the Joseon dynasty (the Korean peninsula) proved that Korea is rich in iron and coal of remarkable quality, elements necessary for industrialization. And more importantly, they can result in financial gains for Russians.
There are also industries that need mechanization or technical advances, such as the silk industry, agriculture, manufactured products, etc.
So it was time for the Russian-Korean trade to skyrocket.
The Joseon dynasty began to import mainly military material and technical equipment from the Russian Empire, a European power with much more access to these factories (either through Russian industry itself or other European states).
Better materials were introduced for agriculture (fertilizers and tools, but not tractors).
More modern factories (with Russians having important shares and interests within them) were started for the textile industry (Korean silk) and the mining industry was improved for the extraction of iron, coal and other resources.
Russia also financed a railway (and therefore owned most of it) from the earliest industrial-mining sectors to Pusan, where Russia obviously benefited from trade with Korea.
Russia did not need the resources, but they could sell them abroad and share part of the profits with the Joseon dynasty. This exchange also implied a certain degree of dependence of the Joseon dynasty on Russia, since they were still quite isolated diplomatically and economically.
Russian influence in Korean economic sectors increased, especially when Russia could be a quick springboard for Korean products to jump to the rest of the world (raw materials and silk, in addition to some curiosities).
Also with the increase of the Russian military equipment to the Joseon dynasty army, some Korean officers went to Chedzhu, where they would be trained at the naval academy of the Russian city on the island of Quelpart (one of the few thorny points between Russia and Korea of that time).
All of this came with obvious prices, as mentioned above, Russian influence in the Joseon dynasty increased almost invisibly to most foreign powers. In addition, the importance of Russian commercial interests meant a reinvestment in the Strait of Korea under Russian possession.
The Russian naval and commercial presence between Japan and Korea again increased considerably.
The infrastructure in Chedzhu (Quelpart) and Trivolny (Tsushima) was being modernized, more economic sectors began beyond fishing, agriculture and the primary sector, since from Russian Manchuria material for a growing textile industry began to be imported.
* Japanese perspective.
Japan was too busy dealing with the Satsuma rebellion to pay too much attention to Russian actions on the Korean peninsula, nor did it help that Russia was also becoming a major Japanese trading partner.
The Japanese archipelago has few natural resources compared to a transcontinental empire such as the Russian Empire, so to carry out and maintain industrialization and a capitalist model, Japan needed resources. Resources that were impossible to obtain naturally and without internal consolidation, expansion would also be difficult.
Then only trade remained, this made Japan dependent on the influx of capital and imported material from Russia, to a certain extent.
Of course Japan had other trading partners, but the Russian presence in recent years had only grown more and more, and with Russian economic growth so did its share of the Japanese market.
Simply more distant partners could not send resources and capital ran quickly like Russia, while the United States had other business to attend to, commercially speaking.
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[The Russian comic]
The European comic, although it had precedents, finds its roots (speaking of the theory of how to make a comic book, at least in its early days) in the year 1827, in the illustrator Rodolphe Töpffer, a French-speaking artist born in present-day Switzerland ( when Geneva, Léman was part of the First French Republic). And in turn Töpffer would be an inspiration for later Franco-Belgian comic books.
Regionally, comic books developed and evolved differently, for example in the United States their origin developed more in the late nineteenth century. In Japan, which had a remarkable drawing tradition, the term manga became known in Europe thanks to the artist Hokusai (Hokusai Manga, although the term manga became more common in Japan in the late 18th century) in the early 19th century. .
The Russian comic has in its predecessors the hagiographic icon, the caricature and the 'Lubok'.
The Lubok is a popular printing press that tells successive stories in images accompanied by text. The artists of
Lubok even used a "bubble", in which the replicas of the heroes fit, although due to their popular origin and Russia's historical problems regarding literacy, they were often difficult to read and had misspellings (which is why drawing and symbology were important).
Although as such the first 'modern' comic (inseparably linked text and illustrations, though not so much a perfected comic strip) from the Russian Empire emerged in 1844 from the cartoonist Andrey Petrovich Sapozhnikov (1795-1855) and the writer Vladimir Ivanovich Dal (1801-1872), with "The Adventures of Christian Christianovich Violdamur and his Arshet".
Maurycy Osipovich Wolff (1825-1883) in 1876 on the other hand started popular magazines in Saint Petersburg, some of them for children and adolescents, some being comics. Like for example, Zadushevnoye Slovo, among others.
Obviously with the increasing literacy in the Russian Empire, the growing middle class and immigration from various parts of the world, urban centers became a place for the exchange of ideas and cultures.
In Saint Petersburg, the artist community of Francophone origins began to publish comic books supporting the creation of an industry around this (since Russian comics were written in Russian but their main sales abroad were to France, so they were translated more into French than English, Spanish or German).
In Vladivostok, on the other hand, the Japanese immigrants became more integrated, they did not do the European style comic, but more did the Lubok, to which they integrated some characteristics of Japanese manga (such as sequential images) and kamishibai (street theater that also began to be held in Vladivostok in the main Japanese neighborhoods in the absence of more familiar stories for the first generation of migrants in the Russian theater).
So, so to speak, there were three 'streams' of the Russian comic, the traditional popular comic (the Lubok, which was undergoing changes due to Russian capitalist growth), the 'westernized' comic of French immigrants, and the 'orientalized' comic in regions with more contact with Japan.
However, a 'Russian style' had not yet been completed or matured in the 1870s, which can be identified with the russkoy dushoy (Russian soul, русской душой) or the Russkiy mir (Русский мир, Russian World, Russian Order, Russian Community, Pax Russica).
It should be said that there was an exhibition of the Russian comic at the World Exhibition in Saint Petersburg.
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[International]
* French perspective.
On January 1, 1878, the Rearmament, Reconstruction and Reinsurance Treaty was signed between the Austro-Hungarian Empires and the Second French Empire.
Thus guaranteeing a military alliance and diplomatic-economic support between both nations, with the intentions of modernization and growth after each had its problems (Austria-Hungary: Great Depression. France: Civil War).
With the end of the French civil war between Napoleon IV and Henry V (Legitimist-Orleanist claimant), the Second French Empire was devastated in many ways.
The war claimed approximately 820,000 individuals during its course, including not only the military conflict, but also famines, small bags of disease, among other causes directly associated with the war. In the period between the end of the war and the next three years there were also some more casualties, but it is estimated that (directly) it did not reach more than 1 million maximum casualties.
This was devastating for France on a moral and political level, demographically speaking after the war the country ended up with 38 million inhabitants, dangerously close to descending to 37 million inhabitants. The French population in 1850 was 36 million to give an example.
The army was dangerously underdeveloped compared to the Prussian and Russian army, the navy rotted considerably (despite being the second largest navy in the world ...) and some ships were even sold to Russia (the French usually refused to sell them to Germans ...).
Both the rural environment and the urban environment were in terrible condition. In the rural environment, the conflicts and the mobilization of young people for both armies caused a neglect of certain areas of harvest and livestock. In cities, sieges and conflicts caused destruction of infrastructure, famine and demographic decline.
And obviously France was not in the best diplomatic situation because her only ally was Austria-Hungary.
There was also a considerable flight of capital and population (manpower, educated people, etc.), most of these left for Russia, since it was promised to accept French 'refugees' up to three years after the end of the conflict. Offer that was obviously accepted due to the chaos left at home.
In Austria-Hungary on the other hand economic growth had come to a sharp halt, tensions with Italy and Germany were obvious, non-German or Hungarian ethnic minorities were causing problems in the government system, etc.
In particular it was the revanchists and chauvinists who pushed Emperor Franz Joseph towards the alliance with France due to the thirst for revenge against Germany, allied with Italy (another enemy). So only France was left as an option, as Austria-Hungary had little chance of allying with Russia or the Ottoman Empire ...
*******
The Treaty on Rearmament, Reconstruction and Reinsurance (French: Traité de réarmement, de reconstruction et de réassurance. German: Vertrag über Wiederbewaffnung, Wiederaufbau und Rückversicherung. Hungarian: Szerződés az újrafegyverzésről, újjáézontésről, újjáézontrl formation was not only the purpose of the formation of this Franco-Austrian alliance, but also precisely that both countries were prepared for a war against the Germans and Italians.
So the treaty needed: The economic reactivation of both powers, economic growth, the creation of a joint or semi-joint foreign policy to protect the interests of both, the modernization of the armies and navies, etc.
In short, an ambitious plan and very difficult to achieve.
After the pseudo-purges (more or less 'natural' due to the opposition of radicals and their participation in the conflict) the main supporters of Napoleon IV were the army, conservative politicians of the right (varying their extremism) and republican-liberals VERY moderate.
For the economic reactivation interventionist and protectionist measures of the government in the economy were accepted (similar to how Alexander III did in Le Russe due to the crash of the Vienna market), but it was clear, to the French mind of the 19th century. That something more was needed: own colonial markets.
Partly not only to obtain more resources, but also to reestablish the lost pride in the defeat against Prussia-Germany.
Some of the remaining colonies could be used, but the French wanted more to be ready for 'Revanche' (Vengeance).
*******
* Austro-Hungarian perspective.
The Vertrag über Wiederbewaffnung, Wiederaufbau und Rückversicherung caused an interest of Austria-Hungary in the same interests of France. A military and economic modernization was necessary, with the intention of stabilizing the Austro-Hungarian Empire (mainly its minorities).
That is partly why Kaiser Franz Joseph planned his 1882 visit to the city of Trieste (which was declared the urbs fidelissima or "most faithful city", for not having rebelled in 1848 ... when in fact for 1882 it was a center of Italian irredentism, but that's another matter).
And there was a very particular Austro-Hungarian diplomat, with Spain at war, the Sultanate of Sulu remained, at least in northern Borneo.
The diplomat Gustav Freiherr von Overbeck, Austro-Hungarian consul general in Hong Kong, had purchased the concession rights to the northern Borneo territories from the American Trading Co in 1876.
Receiving for December 1877 grants in the Sultanate of Brunei for the Dent & Overbeck Company or Overbeck & CO (which Overbeck founded with Alfred and Edward Dent). And with these the titles of Datu Bendahara, Maharaja of Sabah and Raja of Gaya and Sandakan.
With Spain unable to carry out its war against the Sulu Sultanate in full power, Overbeck moved to Europe to consolidate support for his idea of an Austro-Hungarian colonial empire.
*******
On January 9, the King of Italy dies and naturally a new King of Italy rises, in this case King Umberto I rises (it would be Umberto IV of Savoy, but he took the title of I of Italy).
King Umberto I faced with the situation between France and Austria-Hungary with the 'Treaty of Rearmament, Reconstruction and Reinsurance', made his first trip to Berlin with great interest. There he was given the 'honor' (in his opinion) of commanding a regiment of the Prussian-German army.
King Umberto I did not take long to show his interest in reshaping the Italian army on the German model, since Italy had ambitions and Umberto I was a militarist.
Although Italy had obvious problems (the mafia, the enormous socio-economic difference between the north and south of the Italian peninsula, etc).
January 17, the final battle of the Satsuma rebellion, where an amphibious attack by the Japanese navy defeats the Samurai rebellion. This obviously pushes the political actors in the navy to a slight supremacy over the imperial Japanese army.
Vera Ivanovna Zasulich tries to shoot the governor of Saint Petersburg, of course she fails and under Alexander III's judicial system she is found guilty and sent to prison in the governorate of Saint Petersburg.
She there she set out to learn to read and write.
It should be said that Russian society is less and less interested in terror campaigns, the control of the police, the Okhrana and the army has guaranteed a safe society, the judicial system is less sympathetic to radical criminals (life imprisonment and death are usual punishments for high-level assassination attempts), and in general economic stability does not encourage radicalism due to the new economic mobility.
But obviously there are still people against the system who are willing to go to extremes ...
February 2, the Greek public makes an anti-Ottoman demonstration (and some members are anti-English ...) in the public square of Athens, in their opinions regarding the Greek land 'still occupied' by the Ottomans (or other foreigners ).
In the UK between February 2 and February 8 the decline in popularity of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli becomes clear, as former Prime Minister Gladstone and liberals become more popular.
In the United States, the Lincoln County war begins, in the territory of New Mexico.
Thomas Edison patented the phonograph on February 19.
Pope Pius IX dies, Pope Leo XIII succeeds him.
February 24, serious demonstrations against King William III of the Netherlands take place in Amsterdam by the Liberals and their growing popular support.
The king of course ordered too drastic measures against the protests, but the government refused, obviously causing more friction between William III because of his personality and that of his own government.
Something that liberals do not hesitate to exploit.
March 27, the final stages of the Spanish civil war are entered as the Kingdom of Spain of Carlos VII conquers the south of the Valencian Community and Castilla-La Mancha.
Reducing the Kingdom of Spain from Alfonso XII to Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.
The situation in Spain means for the Spanish colonial empire (or well, the remnants of it) that there is still a struggle between the Spanish and the colonial subjects, especially Cubans and Filipinos.