(touch of OTL politics) Let's take the worst of OTL Reconstruction and OTL Peacekeeping in Afghanistan and mix them together... This is going to make being a US Soldier in Germany 1945-1946 look like a walk in the park.
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Indeed - I expect that it's one of the reasons Root's presidency is less than successful. Not only do you see the botched demobilization on his watch, but also a bloody occupation. I expect that after four years, one of the first planks of the 1920 Democratic platform is "Bring our Boys Home." Which is going to be unfortunate for the freedmen population in the Confederacy, to say the least.
Stray bullet it was! Honestly, I can't say I'm too sorry for the outcome - had Vardaman lived, he would have been a rallying figure for the Red Scarves and their spiritual successors and it would have undermined Patton's position. Also, Vardaman is the exact sort that we in the AH cmmunity like seeing some karmatic justice delivered: I suspect that his dead is going to serve as one of the big Confederate conspiracy theories of the 20th century (personally, I suspect that either the Red Scarves of one of his bodyguards were the culprits - not out of malice but sheer incompitence).
Can't wait to see the infobox!
Just another reason why Liberals keep on winning. They care about minorities, and they wouldn't allow the freedmen in the Confederacy to wither in the vine. The fact that the democrats will allow this after the CSA did to the Black Americans in the opening weeks of the war is astounding.
Hitting the nail on the head with this comment
He was President for all of nine months, though (a few days shy in fact) and much of the power lay in ASO (which in some ways was really running the country) and with Martin
ayup
Bingo. What were shooting for here is something unfortunate, but very understandable, rather than utopian or dystopian for its own sake
My implication was definitely intended to be incompetence, so I’m glad that’s what you picked up on lol! and absolutely you’ll see plenty of CT around Vardaman catching a stray
Please. We all know he's eacaped and is living in a cave in Brazil or Chile. Planning for round 2. 😉
My God, the cheesy conspiracy movies made by Confederate cinema will be gloriously bad.
No, he's in Argentina. No one will suspect an enemy state.
Plus its climate is most similar to that of the German Alps - wait, wrong hateful dickbag.
Well you've got Leipzig in 1921... and that's basically about it as far as I know.
I agree - and keeping with the Leipzig analogy, I could see a limited effort to try some of the worst of the Confederates relating to the R@pe of Washington and Baltimore but the efforts being only mildly successful in the end. It would definitely be a bone of contention with the Confederates for years to come - that the US tried these 'valiant' Southron 'heroes' while turning a blind eye to the worst abuses of their own men in Kentucky and Tennessee. And the politics of it would be fascinating: you'd have the US government divided between those who want blood and those who are worried that such actions would make the occupation of the Confederacy more difficult. Meanwhile, you'd have Patton's government in the CSA trying to walk the tight rope of needing a good working relationship with the US authorities and also needing to be independent enough to placate the domestic scene.
Honestly, of any Confederate in this story, I kinda have a fair bit of sympahy for Patton: He's got to thread a politicla needle to thread that is, I think, almost impossible to do so successfully, and he (save likely possessing the usual amounts of Confederate racism, of course) seems to be a decent enough sort.
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Hi KingSweden! Just recently created an account on here. Having read your Cinco De Mayo Series in a week, Great Stuff!
Anyway, I wanted to ask, is there going a new confederate constitution? Since the old confederacy is already destroyed and you foreshadowed Long being inaugurated in 1933. I wonder if the peace deal involves forcing the CSA to remake their constitution. Like abolishing slavery in all cases (Like the 13th ITTL), Having equal protection and due process(Like the 14th OTL) or voting rights for blacks(Like the 15th OTL)
Also shortening presidential terms from 6 to 4 years so it matches America
I'm also thinking that Patton as the Acting President from 1916 up until the 1920 election so that presidential elections onward matches America (1920, 1924, 1928, 1932)
Anyway, I wanted to ask, is there going a new confederate constitution? Since the old confederacy is already destroyed and you foreshadowed Long being inaugurated in 1933. I wonder if the peace deal involves forcing the CSA to remake their constitution. Like abolishing slavery in all cases (Like the 13th ITTL), Having equal protection and due process(Like the 14th OTL) or voting rights for blacks(Like the 15th OTL)
Also shortening presidential terms from 6 to 4 years so it matches America
I'm also thinking that Patton as the Acting President from 1916 up until the 1920 election so that presidential elections onward matches America (1920, 1924, 1928, 1932)
Yeah, this is definitely now an avenue I'm intrigued to poke around at, to be certain...
Welcome aboard! Glad to have you here for the ride.
There will definitely be some pretty strict structural demands made by the US - term shortening, however, won't be one of them. Long is elected in 1933, rather than inaugurated
The Central European War
"...domino effect despite occurring a full two years before the outbreak of war. To whatever extent one debates that the Central European War was a war about Hungary, it cannot be denied that events in Hungary were a major part of what eventually caused the war, as uncertainty over its place within the Habsburg Empire and relationship to Vienna scrambled strategic calculations across Europe and even threatened to bring in powers such as the Ottomans and Russians in time.
The November Crisis had in its genesis, as so much in Hungary did, the complicated and fluid relationship between various factions of Hungarian nationalism and their intersection with Hungarian aristocratic opinion and the intellectual elite. The "48ers" had controlled the Hungarian Diet since 1904, but the death of Kossuth had left them with a great leadership vacuum at their center, and the relationship between the Prime Minister of Hungary, Albert Apponyi, and younger firebrands such as Gyula Justh or Mihaili Karolyi were rapidly fraying. In practice, this meant that the coalition colloquailly referred to as the Greens often came to rely on external support despite its majority in the Diet, either from the left (Reds) in the form of Oskar Jaszi's Civic Radical Party or the socialist MSZDP, which by late 1916 had gone fully revisionist Marxist and was toying with the abolition of monarchy and outright syndicalism, or from the right (Whites), the collection of Imperial-faction "67ers" gathered around Istvan Tisza and dominated largely by the magnates who were vehemently opposed to an end to their rights and also strongly supportive of the continued arrangement with Vienna.
Apponyi was a nationalist, conservative intellectual who had spearheaded the Magyarization of Hungarian schools, but hailed from a wealthy background and was skeptical of the more radical economic programs proposed by the Justh faction, by 1916 known as the Green Left. Nonetheless, he had supported Kossuth's compromise with the Whites to gradually move along expanded suffrage - a key plank that stitched together the heterogenous parties of the 48er coalition - and slowly grow it so that at the time of the November Crisis, 17% of Hungarians, but only men, were allowed the vote. This had allowed the Greens a broader and broader voting base without threatening universal suffrage that conservatives were confident would bring Jaszi or the MSZDP to power and end the monarchy or bring about a syndicalist revolution, while also letting the Whites preserve their power and prevent a reactionary response from the Hungarian nobility.
This vote was still done publicly, however, and powerful landlords and factory owners often punished or socially ostracized voters who crossed them; the Catholic Church often joined in, with excommunication or sanction threatened to those in towns and villages who chose the Civic Radicals or MSZDP. Proposals to further gradually increase suffrage by 1920 went nowhere; liberal and radical deputies of the Diet wanted a secret ballot, as was common almost everywhere else in Europe by that point, and a massive protest in Budapest on November 1st demanding the vote on Jaszi's secret ballot bill made clear that this was increasingly a line in the sand for the reds.
In a decision that would have enormous impact on European history, Apponyi - who, again, viewed much of his own coalition as upjumped rabble - elected to whip specifically against the secret ballot, declaring it "unmanly and undignified" but mostly concerned about his working relationship with the Whites and, more importantly, the tacit support given the Greens by the Catholic hierarchy that was otherwise robustly pro-Vienna. While elitist scorn for universal suffrage was indeed part of Apponyi's miscalculation, there was also the factor that the renewal of the Ausgleich - the 1867 Austrian-Hungarian Compromise - was due by the spring, and Apponyi wanted to cement his authority ahead of those negotiations and make clear that he was every bit Kossuth's equal and successor, especially over the restive and radical Green Leftists who were pushing for more control of his increasingly shaky coalition. As such, the Law of the Secret Ballot was defeated on November 10, 1916 - to a loud chorus of boos.
Apponyi had severely underestimated the importance of the secret ballot to the Reds, and not only the deputies of the MSZDP and Civic Radicals walked out, but so did Karolyi, with Justh having missed the vote due to poor health, and the breach between the Prime Minister and Karolyi was from then on permanent, with the latter fully rather than partially identified with the Red faction. Apponyi had also overestimated the support the Whites would give him as he had aligned with them to kill the act; Tisza said little supportive in public and openly questioned the viability of the Apponyi government. Massive protests broke out in Budapest and Kassa, and even White-friendly minority-heavy cities like Temesvar and Podzony saw unrest. The collapse of the Apponyi cabinet, and indeed the entire 48er movement, seemed imminent.
This did not go unnoticed in Vienna, where the days of protests following the vote began to raise concerns of another 1848. Franz Josef immediately called Apponyi to him, and they walked and talked outside in the Schonnbrunn Gardens; neither man fully trusted the other, with Franz Josef considering Apponyi a dangerous Kossuthite and Apponyi frustrated by Vienna's continued support for the Whites ahead of the negotiations to come, but the conversation was courteous and Franz Josef persuaded Apponyi not to tender his resignation, at least not immediately. Apponyi, relieved, returned on a train to Budapest on the evening of the 15th, only to hear upon his return to the Hungarian capital that Der Alte Herr had fallen ill after their walk in the cold and was suffering from severe pneumonia..."
- The Central European War
(Hat tip to @Rion_marcus for his advice to me on internal Hungarian political dynamics)
The November Crisis had in its genesis, as so much in Hungary did, the complicated and fluid relationship between various factions of Hungarian nationalism and their intersection with Hungarian aristocratic opinion and the intellectual elite. The "48ers" had controlled the Hungarian Diet since 1904, but the death of Kossuth had left them with a great leadership vacuum at their center, and the relationship between the Prime Minister of Hungary, Albert Apponyi, and younger firebrands such as Gyula Justh or Mihaili Karolyi were rapidly fraying. In practice, this meant that the coalition colloquailly referred to as the Greens often came to rely on external support despite its majority in the Diet, either from the left (Reds) in the form of Oskar Jaszi's Civic Radical Party or the socialist MSZDP, which by late 1916 had gone fully revisionist Marxist and was toying with the abolition of monarchy and outright syndicalism, or from the right (Whites), the collection of Imperial-faction "67ers" gathered around Istvan Tisza and dominated largely by the magnates who were vehemently opposed to an end to their rights and also strongly supportive of the continued arrangement with Vienna.
Apponyi was a nationalist, conservative intellectual who had spearheaded the Magyarization of Hungarian schools, but hailed from a wealthy background and was skeptical of the more radical economic programs proposed by the Justh faction, by 1916 known as the Green Left. Nonetheless, he had supported Kossuth's compromise with the Whites to gradually move along expanded suffrage - a key plank that stitched together the heterogenous parties of the 48er coalition - and slowly grow it so that at the time of the November Crisis, 17% of Hungarians, but only men, were allowed the vote. This had allowed the Greens a broader and broader voting base without threatening universal suffrage that conservatives were confident would bring Jaszi or the MSZDP to power and end the monarchy or bring about a syndicalist revolution, while also letting the Whites preserve their power and prevent a reactionary response from the Hungarian nobility.
This vote was still done publicly, however, and powerful landlords and factory owners often punished or socially ostracized voters who crossed them; the Catholic Church often joined in, with excommunication or sanction threatened to those in towns and villages who chose the Civic Radicals or MSZDP. Proposals to further gradually increase suffrage by 1920 went nowhere; liberal and radical deputies of the Diet wanted a secret ballot, as was common almost everywhere else in Europe by that point, and a massive protest in Budapest on November 1st demanding the vote on Jaszi's secret ballot bill made clear that this was increasingly a line in the sand for the reds.
In a decision that would have enormous impact on European history, Apponyi - who, again, viewed much of his own coalition as upjumped rabble - elected to whip specifically against the secret ballot, declaring it "unmanly and undignified" but mostly concerned about his working relationship with the Whites and, more importantly, the tacit support given the Greens by the Catholic hierarchy that was otherwise robustly pro-Vienna. While elitist scorn for universal suffrage was indeed part of Apponyi's miscalculation, there was also the factor that the renewal of the Ausgleich - the 1867 Austrian-Hungarian Compromise - was due by the spring, and Apponyi wanted to cement his authority ahead of those negotiations and make clear that he was every bit Kossuth's equal and successor, especially over the restive and radical Green Leftists who were pushing for more control of his increasingly shaky coalition. As such, the Law of the Secret Ballot was defeated on November 10, 1916 - to a loud chorus of boos.
Apponyi had severely underestimated the importance of the secret ballot to the Reds, and not only the deputies of the MSZDP and Civic Radicals walked out, but so did Karolyi, with Justh having missed the vote due to poor health, and the breach between the Prime Minister and Karolyi was from then on permanent, with the latter fully rather than partially identified with the Red faction. Apponyi had also overestimated the support the Whites would give him as he had aligned with them to kill the act; Tisza said little supportive in public and openly questioned the viability of the Apponyi government. Massive protests broke out in Budapest and Kassa, and even White-friendly minority-heavy cities like Temesvar and Podzony saw unrest. The collapse of the Apponyi cabinet, and indeed the entire 48er movement, seemed imminent.
This did not go unnoticed in Vienna, where the days of protests following the vote began to raise concerns of another 1848. Franz Josef immediately called Apponyi to him, and they walked and talked outside in the Schonnbrunn Gardens; neither man fully trusted the other, with Franz Josef considering Apponyi a dangerous Kossuthite and Apponyi frustrated by Vienna's continued support for the Whites ahead of the negotiations to come, but the conversation was courteous and Franz Josef persuaded Apponyi not to tender his resignation, at least not immediately. Apponyi, relieved, returned on a train to Budapest on the evening of the 15th, only to hear upon his return to the Hungarian capital that Der Alte Herr had fallen ill after their walk in the cold and was suffering from severe pneumonia..."
- The Central European War
(Hat tip to @Rion_marcus for his advice to me on internal Hungarian political dynamics)
The primary problem with the Leipzig analogy is that most of the people that they Entente wanted to prosecute in WWI there had never set foot outside Germany during the war and Germany didn't particularly want to hand them over to Entente justice. OTOH, it will be years before the US Army doesn't go exactly where it wants in the CSA. To escape US Justice, they are better off fleeing to someplace like Colombia.