Saint Petersburg Conference]
Because Tsar Alexander III started the idea, and because France and Austria-Hungary or Italy and Germany were considered biased on various points of view, it was finally decided that Russia would hold the conference for the Scramble for Africa (and the Scramble for the Pacific).
The second candidate was London, but Edward VII was a Francophile to some extent, and obviously also had weaknesses for Belgian gold and opinions against the Dutch-Germans (the Dutch because of Germany but that's another matter).
Thus, in November of 1884, the event known as Saint Petersburg Conference (Петербургскую конференцию, Peterburgskuyu konferentsiyu) would take place. Tsar Alexander III and Russia in general would receive the invited delegates.
*UK. King: Edward VII. Prime Minister: William Ewart Gladstone.
*France. Emperor: Napoleon IV. Prime Minister: Vacancy.
*Germany. Emperor: Wilhelm I. Chancellor: Otto von Bismarck.
*Italy. King: Umberto I.
* Austria-Hungary. Emperor: Rudolf I.
* Sweden-Norway. King: Oscar II.
*Denmark. King: Christian IX.
*Netherlands. 'King': William V.
*Belgium. King: Leopold II.
*Spain. King: Carlos VII.
*Portugal. King: Luis I.
*U.S. President: Winfield Scott Hancock.
*Liberia. President: Hilary Richard Wright Johnson.
* Abyssinia / Ethiopia. Emperor: Yohannes IV.
*Japan. Emperor: Meiji.
The truth is that Tsar Alexander III surprised European delegates by inviting two African representatives (and an Asian representative) to the table of negotiations of the European powers, but the Tsar was able to convince President Hancock that it was for the protection of independence. of Liberia, and with the United States of support for the decision of the Liberian presence, the rest of the pieces fell into place.
After all, Europeans weren't going to listen to anything an Ethiopian, Liberian or Japanese had to say, the Tsar used the word 'observers' mainly.
Besides the objective would be to divide Africa without a bloodbath, leaving some independent lands (the aforementioned Liberia, and as expected by Tsar Alexander III, Ethiopia) should not be a problem.
Some thought of inviting the Ottoman Empire to the discussions, but having lost Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia and no possibility of expanding to Morocco, only a few Ottoman territories remained in Africa.
Territories in which Italy certainly had an interest, in addition the Ottoman Empire had lost its African territories mainly against Europeans or rebels, and was dealing with other internal matters. The Ottoman voice just didn't matter anymore.
*[Atlas bear]
To 'celebrate' the Saint Petersburg Conference (Петербургскую конференцию, Peterburgskuyu konferentsiyu) Tsar Alexander III bought from some zoo collectors (and also paid experts to capture alive) specimens of the Moroccan Atlas Bear to represent the sharing event from Africa (the only modern bear native to Africa, and also an animal usually associated with Russia).
A species hunted and captured since Roman times, that was in increasingly constant danger of extinction due to hunting and collectors, to make matters worse most of the time the bears were separated preventing them from reproducing.
So actually Tsar Alexander III was also hoping to allow the population to survive, albeit in captivity. There were two 'populations', one in the Moscow zoo aclimated to central Russia and one in one of the zoos in the Caucasus.
The Atlas bear was on the one hand a demonstration for the conference, a bear hunted and trapped by the Romans for their games, a symbol of 'European' power over Africa, and after the conference, the Atlas bears of Russia would be the only one ' large 'population of Atlas Bears of the world.
Declared extinct in the wild in the 1890s, the last specimens in the wild were hunted between the 1870s and the 1880s-1890s.
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[Moskva-Volga Canal]
With the problems of the construction of the great White Sea-Baltic Sea canal, there is actually a canal that is being completed more quickly, the Moskva-Volga canal, which links the Moskva River with the northern sections of the Volga River.
The project being part of the construction of points to improve the navigability of western Russia, now western Russia was simply more interconnected, and would allow more commercial transport.
Russian porcelain]
The envoy was touring the coasts of the Moskva-Volga canal, recently the Chinese population (mainly construction workers) had increased, along with other Russian villages or other ethnicities of the Russian Empire.
River transport and rail transport simply continued to advance, and who knows what more projects Russia would have over time.
There the envoy began to sponsor the ideas of building a factory among the population, attracting migrants and natives populating the region, given the idea of more job opportunities now that the construction of the canal is over.
The idea was to build a product factory
The envoy was part of the Imperial Porcelain Factory (Императорский Фарфоровый Завод, Imperatorskii Farforovyi Zavod) and the newly founded "Association of M.S. Kuznetsov for the production of porcelain, earthenware and majolica products".
The association was founded by Matvey Sidorovich Kuznetsov, a member of the Kuznetsov family, Russia's largest porcelain dynasty (founded by Yakov Vasilyevich Kuznetsov), which involved members of that dynasty and other producers (in addition to the state) to further increase plus the production of ceramic products in Russia to the exterior or interior.
The joint project involved the proliferation of 'Kuznetsovsky factories'. Attracting labor to build and work in the factories themselves.
Native to Russia and migrants would start working on such projects, Russian porcelain had one of the oldest porcelain traditions in Europe.
With the growth of the Kuznetsovsky factories, there was also a growing Chinese merchant middle class dedicated to the creation of Russian porcelain. The most successful would create their own companies, associates or independents.
Not only this, but Kuznetsov's and state work set a technical standard and production increases that proliferated within Russian industry (in ceramics at least).
Prices would become more competitive with European and Asian porcelain, associated brands prevailed and maintained their styles to have sales within Russia, or abroad ('Made in Russia' with a particular style).
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[Alyáska]
During this period the southern Alyáska railway was completed, effectively connecting back and forth various of the most populated ports and cities on the southern coast of Alyáska.
This project allows greater commercial land transportation within Russian America, whose population is excited by the production of the Bering telegraph.
Demographically speaking the population has been growing, but now the first small communities of Asian origin were formed within Alyáska.
Mainly Korean and Japanese. Able and hardworking workers, they integrate relatively easily (in the aspects of language and certain cultural phases) and together with other ethnic groups of the Russian Alyáska they help to keep at bay any possible Anglo-Saxon / American majority that tries something dangerous in Alyáska.
With the railway completed and the telegraph in process, we can only wait and see how Alyáska will continue to develop.
Some American investors in the 1890s would curiously propose a bridge between Alyáska and Russia, but the project would be considered technologically very complicated and expensive.
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[International]
On July 1 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the first International Forestry Exhibition takes place.
On July 5, German soldiers kidnap various Africans, forcing various tribes of 'Togoland' to sign a treaty that effectively turns them into a German protectorate.
July 7, Russian investment in Japan for the construction of ships for the Russian navy leads to the creation of Nagasaki Shipyard, predecessor of Nagasaki Heavy Industries.
July 14, German ships enter the coasts of Tanzania for the study of possible colonial possessions in the region.
August 5, Austrian Borneo builds more coastal commercial infrastructure for the colony to continue to grow, partly at the expense of the natives and with work from Austro-Hungarian settlers (some are prisoners taken to the Austrian Borneo penal colony).
On August 22, the Sino-German (-Dutch) war for the sovereignty of Tokin begins, where the Dutch East Indies and the German Colonial Empire fight against the Qing dynasty for Vietnam.
The British Empire led by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone is concerned with aggressive German expansion into Indochina, even with the St. Petersburg conference so close.
This is why the British are secretly trying to pass weapons on to Vietnamese rebels and Chinese soldiers, but they are now competing with the 'dominance' of the Dutch and German (or simply German, because the Dutch navy is now de-facto dominated by them). Germans) who are among the main forces that allow victories over the Sino-Vietnamese forces.
A combined fleet that the Qing or the Vietnamese cannot effectively compete with, even with the transport of some English weapons.
September 15, the first demonstration of local anesthesia by Karl Koller is made in Germany.
(OOC: Don't worry, I have plans for the medical industry in Russia, but it will arrive around the 1890s XD).
Between September 23 and 24, the Tierra del Fuego gold rush begins when gold is discovered in Cape Virgenes, in Argentina.
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*[The Dutch succession?]
It is at the beginning of July when dramatic changes are made, once again, in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, King William V suffers from Typhus, a disease obviously without cure or antibiotic medicine at that time.
The infection had considerably weakened the body (and what to say the mind) of King William V, but one fact remained ... difficult.
The succession, and whether a (much more) German king would be allowed by the other powers in the Netherlands.
On one side was Karl August, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, son of Princess Sophie of the Netherlands or his son William Ernest of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, cousin of King William V and grandson of Princess Sophie of the Netherlands. The question was whether the duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Luxembourg and the Netherlands should inherit at the same time or Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach should be abandoned in exchange for Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
After this there was Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, granddaughter of Sophie of the Netherlands and wife of Prince Heinrich VII Reuss of Köstritz, both already having children from whom to choose possible successors.
* Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz.
* Prince Heinrich XXXIII Reuss of Köstritz.
Marie Alexandrine herself was a few years older than William V, but not by much.
In her weakened state (and as later declassified documents would show, almost forced upon) King William V signed a will and chose his successor at the behest of the Regency Council.
Since William V had no wife or children, and typhus would probably prevent him from being intimate enough (or cost him his life), the king chose as his successor his cousin Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz, just 6 years old (born on March 4, 1878).
King William V would die on September 5, so 'Heinrich I' was installed on the throne under a council of regency preceded by Princess Marie Alexandrine of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Heinrich VII, Prince Reuss of Köstritz, a diplomat born , raised and educated by Germany (in essence).
This obviously raised concerns within the international community, German control over the Netherlands simply took hold, since obviously the young Heinrich I would also be another puppet of German interests and not the king of the Netherlands.
This time the international protest did not go very far, the treaties made in Vienna did not prevent this situation but Germany said that the Netherlands still had debts to pay, that Heinrich I was now the Grand Duke of Luxembourg so he could have a German military regiment in the Netherlands, etc.
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* [French problems]
On July 16, something that prevents the Second French Empire and Austria-Hungary from reacting properly to the Dutch succession, is that the French Minister of War Jean Baptiste Marie Edouard Campenon suffers a terrorist attack (with an exact origin at the time) which obviously shakes the French government.
Given this, the Emperor Napoleon IV appoints Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger, director of infantry, as Minister of War, important to carry out the reforms of the French army.
General Boulanger is an interesting figure, a monarchist and nationalist, a 'hero of Tunisia' and a proclaimer of vengeance against the German Empire and Italy. With followers among the conservative rural population, industrialists and some French trade unionists, even urban popular masses (who are often more leftist than the rural inhabitants).
French national politics have undergone some recent changes, but Napoleon IV hopes that Boulanger can better direct pro-Bonapartist nationalism and was doing something good for the government.
Liberals and conservative nationalists believe in colonial expansion to fuel the French economy for revenge, French leftists now believe that expansion into Africa is unnecessary and that we must focus on the economy of France itself and recover Alsace-Lorraine before go for colonies.