Wasn't this an episode of the "Wild Wild West"?
Posted on 09/06/2003 8:47:58 PM PDT by gd124
AN EXTRAORDINARY 19th- century plot by German nobility to take over Texas and turn it into a German country has been uncovered by a historian looking through old records of some of Germany’s oldest families.
Prince Hans von Sachsen-Altenburg discovered that in the 1840s, when Texas was still a republic, the nobles managed to raise a small fortune from the state of Prussia under cover of an economic club known as the Adelsverein, or Association of Nobility.
The association used the money to send almost 8,000 members to Texas on the pretext they were fleeing political persecution or poverty. But, according to the historian, many were wealthy aristocrats and military officers planning to take control of the republic.
"They used the clichéd image of impoverished immigrants flooding into the New World as cover to send thousands of their nobles, generals, and soldiers to Texas, to put their scheme into action," said Prince Sachsen-Altenburg.
He claims the man who hatched the plan to turn Texas Teutonic was Prince Carl von Solms-Braunfels, a German field marshal - and a blood relation of Queen Victoria - who had been hardened by European wars.
At the time, the bankrupt republic was protected by only a few hundred Texas rangers and had fewer than 40,000 people on its land.
As part of plans to win logistical aid from Britain, Prince Solms-Braunfels courted Victoria’s favour for a new "Germany in the West", claiming British economic interests in California and Mexico were threatened by a westward- moving United States.
According to the historian, the solution was to establish a German state of Texas.
From Europe, the Adelsverein had purchased more than three million acres of Texan land. But the group soon discovered it was unsuitable for farming and was occupied by some 10,000 warring Comanche Indians.
Under Prince Solms-Braunfels’s direction, the Germans established a series of forts such as Nassau, New Braunfels and Carlshafen - cities that still bear their German names.
To complement weaponry brought with them, correspondence sent back to Germany by Prince Solms-Braunfels in 1844 urgently called for more heavy artillery and rifles.
"Arms were sent over labelled only as ‘personal baggage’," said Prince Sachsen-Altenburg. "Hence it was not always documented at the US end."
The prince added that Britain considered sending military equipment overland from California. Messages between Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary, and the new German community were handled by William Kennedy, the British consul in Galveston.
"Unfortunately for the venture, it was this course of communication that ultimately proved their undoing and forced the US to speed up its annexation of Texas," the prince said.
"The government messenger was instructed to hand over the correspondence personally to the British consul. But instead of that, he was met by a US spy who drank him under the table and intercepted the information that was then sent to the White House."
Within weeks, James Polk, the US president, sent forces to the Texas border and Congress voted to annex the republic.
While Adelsverein diehards still aspired to establish a colony, financial and logistical support was largely withdrawn and the venture foundered several years later.
Note the heavy influence of the Germans on Mexican music. Most of the Mexican bands have an accordian player and much of that music has a "oom-pah-pah" beat.
Ach! der Lieber. Gott in Himmel! As a fourth generation German-American, I can appreciate your sentiments. The area of Illinois where I grew up is heavily Germen and Swiss-German stock. Ensconced between the Mississippi Bluffs and the Bounty Lands of the old Northwest Ordinance, controlling the prairie-land west of the Kaskaskia and its major contributary Shoal Creek it's a lively place to be during the spring, summer and fall. The county adjacent to my birthplace is of "Anglander" munchen. Wildly pilloried during my youth because of their status as a dry county.
BTW, My father (3rd Gen) was roused from his berth on a troopship loading for North Africa and sent to New Guinea due to his thick German accent, English was always a second language to him. Sadly (he never forgave the army for their treatment of him) we kids were never taught the German language. The old hometown didn't print an English language newspaper until 1935.
Yep, the Texas State Flag is just a Polish flag with the blue field and lone star added to it. The first Polish settlement in the US was in Panna Maria, which is just south of San Antonio.
Wasn't this an episode of the "Wild Wild West"?
Um, no. Nassau (now Nassau Bay) and Carlshafen (correct spelling was Karlshafen now Indianola) are both on the coast. Nassau Bay is an inlet near Galveston and Indianola is between Galveston and Corpus Chrisi.
not always documented at the US end
Well, if the author can claim the above cities are still named Nassau and Carlshafen I suppose he can claim they were US cities...
But the group soon discovered it was unsuitable for farming
Oh, reallllly???
this is NOT a new theory, but rather a re-cycled one.
free dixie,sw
remind me sometime to tell you of the FRENCH COMMUNISTS, who plotted to take over what is today northern TX & all of OK!
that's quite a story. the Comanches had OTHER ideas!
they were called the La Reunionistas.
free dixie,sw
Schnell - Someone call Harry Turtledove!
But easily observed. It's quite possible the Republic of Texas would have confiscated the cargo or the US would have become alarmed.
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